Learn more about Empowered Surgeons Group here.

Get Boyd Varty's book, The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life, access his courses, or retreat with him here.

What if losing your way isn’t a detour, but the only way forward?

In surgery—and in life—we’re taught to crave certainty. A clear path. A guaranteed outcome. But what if that very craving is what keeps us stuck?

In this episode of Surgeons with Purpose, Dr. Mel Thacker invites you into a conversation about uncertainty, purpose, and the courage to follow your inner tracker. Mel explores how self-trust can become a portal to transformation—especially for those of us navigating burnout, career crossroads, or the deep sense that something in our lives isn’t quite aligned.

You’ll hear reflections like:

✨ “Too much uncertainty is chaos, but too little is death.” - Boyd Varty

🐾 “As paradoxical as it sounds, going down a path and not finding a track is part of finding the track.” - Boyd Varty

💡 “If you can see your whole life’s path laid out, then it’s not your life's path.” -Joseph Campbell

We’ll unpack why following your bliss may lead you into spaces where others don’t understand or respect you, and why that might be the most vital, alive place you can stand.

This episode is for you if:

✅ You’re a surgeon (or any high-achiever) standing at a career crossroads.

✅ You feel restless or disconnected from your original purpose.

✅ You’re tired of “playing it safe” and longing for a life that’s fully your own.

Because on the trail—as in life—there’s not one right way. The only mistake is refusing to choose at all.

Learn more about Empowered Surgeons group here.

Plastic surgery isn’t just about appearance—it’s about reinvention. For Dr. Blair Peters, that theme runs through every part of his story.

After coming out before medical school and finding his place within the queer and trans community, Dr. Peters saw firsthand the inequities in gender-affirming care. Patients traveling across continents for surgery, often with no idea who their surgeon was or how they’d get post-op care—it felt wrong. That’s when his mission became clear.

Today, gender-affirming surgeries like phalloplasty, vulvoplasty, vaginoplasty make up the majority of his practice. But that’s not where the innovation stops. His expertise in peripheral nerve surgery is now transforming care for cisgender patients too—addressing chronic pelvic pain, loss of orgasm, and other conditions that have long lived in the "black box" of genital health.

We discuss:

• The massive, all-consuming nature of gender-affirming surgery as a field
• The unique multi-disciplinary approach required
• His work creating a national fellowship registry for plastics training in gender-affirming care

Dr. Peters also opens up about the resistance he faced in becoming a pioneer:

• The stereotype that trans patients would be too high maintenance
• The internal debate about making an entire career out of being queer
• The real fear of becoming a public target in a national political firestorm

We cover the grim reality many gender-affirming surgeons now face:

• Death threats, doxxing, and needing police escorts
• Being secretly recorded at conferences, with videos landing on right-wing media
• The political machinery driving today’s anti-trans healthcare movement—how it started with trans athletes, moved to youth care, and now threatens adult care nationwide

Dr. Peters explains how state-level policies, executive orders, and forthcoming legislation have created chaos at institutions like his—leaving surgeons to navigate legal, ethical, and personal safety decisions on the fly, often unpaid and unprotected.

Yet through all of it, he continues to operate—literally and figuratively—at full capacity:

• Fielding political crisis calls from 6 am to 10 pm
• Taking urgent meetings between cases
• Consulting with institutional leadership and legal teams
• Wondering daily: Are we still safe to provide care?

We also dive into the joy and creativity that sustain him:

• Designing nerve reconstruction surgeries with sticky notes and sharpies
• Innovating individualized procedures for patients both trans and cisgender
• Finding peace in the OR, surrounded by blue gowns and bright lights
• Reinventing his practice to stay engaged and energized

Dr. Peters shares powerful reflections on visibility and authenticity in academic medicine:

• The exhaustion of assimilation
• The freedom of showing up as himself
• The real question: Is it professionalism… or forced conformity?

We close with a conversation about sustainability, boundaries, and the 30-year plan:

• Guardrails around time and energy
• The wide, interdepartmental future of peripheral nerve surgery
• The healing power of storytelling—both his own and his patients’
• His plans to one day write a book that blends memoir with patient narratives to build empathy in a time when it’s urgently needed

This is a conversation about surgery, identity, advocacy, and resilience. About holding space for others while fighting for your own right to belong.

Because at the end of the day, we’re all just humans trying our best to live our lives in a...

Tyler Beauchamp is a pediatrician and children’s/YA author from Georgia whose earliest experiences with medicine came not as a student, but as a patient. As a child, Tyler spent years in and out of research clinics searching for answers. He began writing in waiting rooms as a way to cope, and eventually fell in love with both storytelling and medicine.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina, Tyler pursued both writing and medicine with the quiet hope that someday, he could bring those two worlds together.

In this episode, Tyler shares how being a long-time patient shaped his perspective on medical training and culture, including the deep stigma around being labeled a “pain patient.” We explore what it really means to be a physician or surgeon: Is our job simply to diagnose and treat? Or is there something more intangible—bearing witness, holding space, and being present with patients?

We also talk about why doctors are wired to hate uncertainty, and how that can get in the way of both healing and growth. Tyler reveals the counterintuitive secret that helped him expand his capacity during medical school. The best part is that it’s something you can access too.

Learn more about Tyler and his best-selling book, Freeze Frame, here.

Follow him on instagram here.

Check out Hippocratic Collective here.

Learn more about Empowered Surgeons Group here.