There are moments in medicine when a single phrase carries the weight of a lifetime. "Open heart" is one of those phrases. For many, it calls up the image of open heart surgery, the intensity of coronary artery bypass grafting, chest opened, a surgical team leaning into precision and trust. Chapters00:00:00 - Introduction and Guest Introduction00:01:20 - Dr. Mel Thacker's Personal Journey00:01:59 - Dr. Mel Thacker's Background00:05:44 - Overcoming Personal Struggles00:11:41 - The Impact of Medical Training00:12:30 - The Importance of Self-Care in Medicine00:15:13 - The Detrimental Effects of Sleep Deprivation in Medicine00:17:04 - Challenging the Norms and Overcoming the Fear of Being Judged00:17:31 - The Role of Gender in Medicine00:20:37 - Understanding and Trusting Clinical Intuition00:26:05 - Creating a Safe and Inclusive Environment in Medicine00:28:15 - The Joy and Satisfaction of Teamwork in Medicine00:30:46 - Detachment from Professional Identity and Diversifying Interests00:38:26 - Final Thoughts and Messages00:39:49 - Closing RemarksIn this conversation, Priya Rao, an interventional cardiologist and heart doctor, sits with Dr. Mel Thacker, a female surgeon who has walked through the fire of medical training and come out with a deeper understanding of what authentic healing requires. Together they explore the lived experience of women in medicine, the layers of pressure placed on a female physician, and the way those pressures can shape identity, intuition, and self worth. Nothing here is abstract. These stories are rooted in real hallways, real operating rooms, and the quiet exhaustion that so often hides behind the title of surgeon or doctor.Dr. Thacker opens her world with honesty, revealing the emotional cost of modern training, the long calls, the normalization of sleep deprivation, and the subtle culture that pushes clinicians to ignore their own bodies. Her voice echoes a reality many clinicians know well, the creeping weight of physician burnout and hospital burnout that affects even the strongest among us. These reflections touch on the wider mental health crisis within medicine, including the unspoken fear many carry when the topic of physician suicide is quietly mentioned in staff rooms and whispered among colleagues. Without dramatizing or sensationalizing, this conversation recognizes the landscape as it truly is, while also naming the possibility for something more human.Priya and Mel explore what it means to step outside the rigid expectations placed on surgeons, especially women in surgery who often feel watched, evaluated, or pressured to hold everything together without ever breaking. They discuss the fear of being judged, the courage required to challenge norms, and the liberation that comes from allowing oneself to be seen beyond a professional identity. Detaching from that single identity and returning to the full self becomes part of conscious medicine and heart centered leadership, not separate from it.They also speak to the importance of creating genuinely inclusive and safe environments, places where clinicians can voice burnout, grief, or uncertainty without fear. Teamwork becomes another form of healing, a reminder that none of us are meant to carry this work alone and that joy in medicine often returns through community, not productivity.If this resonates with you, stay close. Allow your own experiences to be part of the field we are building here. Connect with Dr. Mel ThackerInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_surgeon_coach?igsh=dTNkNWpwZzhteWp5&utm_source=qrTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_surgeon_coach?_r=1&_t=ZT-91On6ZbCMsIFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1BbLHQ1qXR/?mibextid=wwXIfrWebsite: https://www.melthackercoaching.com/Watch the podcast on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@openheartthepod© 2025 Priya Rao Media LLC. All rights reserved.

In this solo episode, Priya shares the real story behind Open Heart. Open Heart is a movement where science meets soul, bringing together thought leaders, healers, innovators, and storytellers from around the world. Through raw, unfiltered conversations, we explore the deeper layers of healing, weaving together modern medicine, ancient wisdom, creativity, and human connection. It is an invitation to reimagine what it means to live, lead, and heal with authenticity and heart. Learn more at https://openheartpodcast.com/00:00:00 - Introduction00:01:32 - The Journey Begins00:04:35 - The Birth of OpenHeart00:08:44 - Exploring Energy Medicine00:15:14 - Vision for OpenHeart00:16:09 - The Power of Openness and Curiosity00:17:14 - The Meaning Behind OpenHeart00:18:47 - Embracing Authenticity00:24:45 - The Role of Intuition in Medicine00:25:49 - The Journey of Self-Discovery and Alignment00:31:47 - Exploring Different Cultures and Traditions00:34:58 - Living with an Open HeartPriya is an interventional cardiologist and the founder of Open Heart, a podcast and creative platform where science meets soul. Her journey spans from her family’s roots in rural India to the precision of modern medicine, embodying both rigor and intuition. In the catheterization lab, amid high stakes procedures, she experienced moments of profound stillness where intuitive insights reshaped her understanding of healing. These experiences, equal parts technical mastery and meditative presence, opened the path to exploring new paradigms of healing.Today, Priya approaches evidence based medicine and ancient traditions with equal curiosity. She fosters dialogue with doctors, healers, and wisdom keepers across the globe. She shows up fully as a physician, yoga teacher, model, and host of Open Heart, inviting listeners into courageous conversations and the rediscovery that true health embraces all of our dimensions, the physical and beyond.This episode traces how Open Heart began. Priya speaks to leaving the perfectly planned, linear path and choosing alignment. She reflects on what modern medicine offers and where curiosity asks us to look further. Energy, intuition, presence, and the spaces we create for one another are part of the same conversation as data and devices. In the cath lab, teamwork can feel like a beautiful dance and intuition often arrives before language. Learning about the electromagnetic field of the heart gave words to what many clinicians call gut feeling. None of this rejects science. It expands it.We also explore what healing means now. It is not one size fits all. It is a practice of coherence, mind, heart, spirit, and body in honest relationship. Open Heart as a title carries a clinical weight and a human invitation. It honors the gravity of care while calling us to show up with authenticity. PThe roots of Open Heart are personal. Priya’s father, also an interventional cardiologist, modeled openness to the unexplainable. Patients who sensed things before they happened. The art inside the science. His example shaped how she listens and how she practices. It also shaped her conviction that safe spaces and unfiltered stories can change lives, because stories make people feel. When we feel, we move.If you are new here, expect conversations that move between procedure rooms and living rooms, journals and yoga mats, hospital corridors and creative studios. Expect candor. Expect curiosity. Take what resonates and leave the rest. Bring your own perspective. Share it in a safe, welcoming space. Together we can learn, grow, and remember our shared humanity.If this episode resonates, share it with someone who will meet it with an open mind and an open heart.

Then visit the home base for more: https://openheartpodcast.com/

When a heart doctor meets a psychic intuitive, the conversation does not stay on the surface. It opens a doorway between science and soul.

In this exchange, Dr. Priya Rao, interventional cardiologist and founder of Open Heart, sits down with Stephanie Yonan (@full_circle2024), a former corporate executive turned psychic intuitive who reads energy and channels messages from the higher self. Together they explore what it means to live, heal, and serve from alignment.

✨ Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction and Personal Transformation

00:01:56 Understanding Psychic Intuition

00:03:44 Connecting with Inner Knowing

00:07:10 Stephanie's Journey to Becoming a Psychic Intuitive

00:10:46 Fill Your Own Cup: Self-Care for Healers

00:12:35 The Struggles of the Medical System

00:16:17 Tips for Energy Regulation and Protection

00:26:10 The Importance of Self-Care for Healers

00:30:36 Exploring Multidimensionality and Personal Interests

00:39:21 Closing Thoughts and Reflections

This is not a story about medicine versus mysticism. It is about what happens when the two finally begin to listen to each other. What begins as curiosity becomes revelation. The unseen intelligence guiding the heartbeat may be the same force guiding intuition itself.

Through their dialogue, Priya and Stephanie trace the heart and mind connection, the hidden costs of burnout, and the quiet wisdom that appears when we finally slow down enough to hear it. They explore how doctors, healers, and caregivers can restore their own energy through laughter, stillness, boundaries, and self trust, and why so many of us forget to fill our own cup while trying to save others.

Stephanie shares how she discovered her intuitive abilities as a child, why she once hid them, and how reclaiming them changed her life. Priya opens up about the moral injury and exhaustion that pushed her to question modern medicine’s definition of healing. Together they reimagine what integrative healing could look like when humanity, consciousness, and authentic presence become part of the treatment plan.

You will hear stories that bridge holistic cardiology and spirituality.

You will learn how intuition shows up in the catheterization lab, why a peaceful mind is a strong mind, and how energy regulation and alignment are as vital as any prescription. Both women remind us that healing the body without tending to the soul is only half the work, and that every act of authenticity creates ripples far beyond what we can measure.

Throughout this conversation, Priya’s perspective as a heart doctor keeps the dialogue grounded in physiology and presence, while Stephanie’s intuitive clarity lifts it into the unseen layers of consciousness. It becomes a meeting place for skeptics and believers alike, a reminder that medicine can be both evidence based and heart based, that data and intuition are not opposites but different frequencies of truth.

This dialogue invites anyone, whether doctor, healer, patient, or seeker, to remember that true healing begins in coherence, when the heart and mind speak the same language. It is for those standing at the intersection of burnout and breakthrough, logic and knowing, wondering if there might be another way.

Access a custom short breathwork and meditation practice for all listeners:

www.openheartpodcast.com

Stephanie's Details:

Website: https://fullcircleintuitivecoaching.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/full_circle2024/?hl=en

Listen to the Podcast

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1J5SdNU03lYNesL2ItsHEb?si=QkVlb6juSMa-gFnWQyqFgA

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-heart-podcast/id1847489871

Arrive with an open mind and an open heart. Take what resonates. Share it forward.

Together we are redefining what it means to heal, through story, science, and soul.

© 2025 Priya Rao Media LLC. All rights reserved.