Zev Felix, DOOutside the Hospital
When people hear “doctor,” they often imagine someone who spends all day thinking about medicine. I like medicine. I spend plenty of time thinking about it. But I don’t think a good life can be built from a single interest.
Out here, what matters gets very clear.
Yosemite Valley
Making things
Outside the hospital, you’ll usually find me making something. Sometimes it’s a loaf of bread. Sometimes it’s fresh pasta. Sometimes it’s a woodworking project that takes three times longer than expected because I convinced myself I could build it without reading the instructions.
I love understanding how things work. Furniture. Gardens. Knitting patterns. Human bodies. They’re all systems with their own logic and constraints.
Climbing
I also spend as much time as possible outside. Rock climbing has shaped how I think in ways I didn’t expect when I first walked into a climbing gym in Oakland more than a decade ago.
Climbing rewards preparation, patience, communication, trust, and humility. Yosemite remains one of my favorite places in the world because it strips away distractions and makes your priorities very clear.
Pay attention.
Trust your partner.
Stay present.
Take the next step.
Maisy
My rescue dog Maisy helps reinforce similar lessons. She spent the first years of her life as a street dog in Taiwan and arrived with understandable concerns about trusting humans.
Earning that trust required patience, consistency, and letting progress happen on her timeline rather than mine.
Medicine turns out to work much the same way.
Health is rarely built in dramatic moments. More often it’s built through small, repeated actions practiced over time. The same is true for friendships. Relationships. Communities. And most worthwhile things in life.
Wilderness
Learning what matters when resources don’t exist
At 2 a.m. in the mountains of Colorado, our team received coordinates for a simulated plane crash. We had radios, headlamps, basic medical equipment, and whatever we could carry on our backs.
No CT scanner.
No trauma bay.
No consultant down the hall.
No convenient backup plan.
Just terrain, weather, teamwork, and judgment.
Wilderness medicine fascinated me because it removes the illusion that more equipment automatically creates better decisions. In austere environments, preparation matters. Communication matters. Adaptability matters. Leadership matters.
The principles aren’t all that different from everyday life. Things rarely go according to plan. Resources are limited. Uncertainty is unavoidable. People still need help.
Those experiences reinforced something I value deeply: expertise matters, but resourcefulness matters too. The ability to stay calm, think clearly, adapt, and work with what’s available often determines success far more than perfect conditions ever will.
