He Hates Networking. It Built His Entire Career.

Mike Asbach is the first physician associate on this show, and he set the bar high. He's the Associate Director of Interventional Psychiatry at DENT Neurologic Institute in Buffalo, where he leads a team of 17 prescribers delivering TMS, ketamine, and Spravato. He's also the AAPA's liaison to the American Psychiatric Association, a professor, a medical writer, a podcast host, and a captain in the Army Reserve.

Here's what surprised me: he hates networking. A perfect night for Mike is a good book and a quiet porch. Nearly everything on that resume exists because he overrode that preference, introduced himself to conference speakers, sat through the mixers, and kept showing up. It's how we met, at a schizophrenia ad board in Arizona. A two-minute conversation with him on his way to the airport put biotech consulting on my radar, and I've since done it.

He never planned on psychiatry. Male PA students went into surgery or ortho, so that was his plan too, right up until he pictured himself at 35 getting called in for a hip fracture on Christmas Eve. He applied to one psychiatry job on a whim. Mid-interview, the medical director walked him down the hall, put a TMS magnet over his palm, and made his hand jump. That was it. Fifteen years later he's still there, four doors down from the same boss.

We get into career design: how to move toward 0.7 FTE clinical without taking a pay cut, and why teaching scales in a way one-on-one patient care never will. We talk about money, a subject providers are trained to avoid, and where the line sits between a social media presence that builds trust and one that costs it. He's honest about the weight of this work too. Our patients come to us on the worst day of their lives, and for us it's a Tuesday.

Then he tells the story behind his industry work. His sister-in-law has cystic fibrosis, and when she married his brother they hoped she might reach 35. A drug approved in 2019 changed her expected lifespan to nearly normal, and Mike now has two nephews who wouldn't exist without it. He's clear-eyed about profit motives, and just as clear about what that innovation gave his family.

If you're a psych NP or PA wondering whether this career comes in a version with more range and less grind, Mike is proof that it does.

CONNECT WITH MIKE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-asbach/

Associate Director of Interventional Psychiatry, DENT Neurologic Institute (Buffalo, NY) 🎙️ Co-host, White Coats of the Round Table - https://www.masterclinicians.net/podcast-whitecoats

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