Neuro Spicy on the Front Line: Dr Pamela Buchanan

Today’s episode of Out of Patients welcomes Dr Pamela Buchanan, an emergency room physician with over 20 years inside American medicine who refuses to sugarcoat what the job demands and what it destroys. She worked straight through COVID as protocols changed by the day and deaths arrived faster than anyone could process. She logged 80 to 100 hour weeks. She isolated from her family to avoid bringing the virus home. Over time, survival began to feel negotiable. Dr Buchanan speaks openly about burnout as emotional flatline and about physician suicide as a predictable outcome that leadership prefers to ignore. She describes the ER as the catch all for a broken system and explains why chronic care collapses there by design. She shares the reality of trying to access mental health care while still practicing medicine, calling dozens of therapists, getting nowhere, and spending $10,000 to $15,000 out of pocket just to stay alive and functional. Listeners will hear how neurodivergence shaped her career in emergency medicine, how race and trust intersect inside hospital walls, and why doctors are leaving in waves. This conversation carries clarity, anger, humor, and hard earned truth from someone who stayed long enough to name the damage. RELATED LINKS Dr Pamela Buchanan Strong Medicine Dr Pamela Buchanan on LinkedIn Dr Pamela Buchanan on Instagram Emotional Flatline article KevinMD essay by Dr Pamela Buchanan FEEDBACK Like this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.com See Privacy Policy at and California Privacy Notice at .

You can listen to Neuro Spicy on the Front Line: Dr Pamela Buchanan online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Neuro Spicy on the Front Line: Dr Pamela Buchanan is an episode from Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary by Matthew Zachary.

This episode is 00:40:23 long.

This episode was published on Mar 10, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.