On Becoming a Healer Podcast, Sept. 15, 2026
What happens when a health care system organized around profit repeatedly gets in the way of doing what is right for patients? Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) calls one consequence moral injury: the distress physicians experience when the system prevents them from providing the care they believe patients need.
PNHP president Diljeet Singh, MD, DrPH joins hosts Saul Weiner, MD and Stefan Kertesz, MD to discuss the organizationās recent report on moral injury and the financialization of American medicine.
What follows is a candid and provocative exchange that begins with substantial agreement about what is wrong with American health care and the need for universal coverage, but moves into harder questions about moral distress, physician complicity, professional responsibilityāand how much courage we should expect from doctors when doing the right thing comes at a personal cost.
