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Health & Fitness

UNHINGED with Dr. Michael Meneghini

Dr. Michael Meneghini

The ground is shifting, but not everyone is saying it out loud. 

Healthcare is changing. Orthopedics is evolving.

Leadership is getting harder. Trust matters more than ever.

Yet, most industry conversations still feel polished, filtered, and safe.

UNHINGED was built to create the conversations people are actually having behind the scenes — the ones that don't happen on stage.

Here, we have real conversations in healthcare and MedTech, said out loud.

This is a podcast where experienced operators speak honestly about healthcare, business, and leadership in a setting that feels human. This is NOT chaos for the sake of chaos “unhinged.” It’s controlled honesty from credible people.

Check out new episodes every month.
Follow UNHINGED with Dr. Michael Meneghini on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

LinkedIn: /dr-michael-meneghini-5904854 
Substack: substack.com/@michaelmeneghini
TikTok: tiktok.com/@drmichaelmeneghini

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  • 6 episodes
  • monthly
  • Avg 59 min
  • English

Episodes 6

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  • S1 · E6
    Yesterday · 59 min

    UNHINGED Episode 6, Hospitals Are Investing in AI but Forgetting Their People, Dr. Bryan Springer

    A bottom-15% high school graduate becomes Chair of Orthopedics at Mayo Clinic Florida and he’ll be the first to tell you it wasn’t a straight line. We’re joined by Dr. Bryan Springer, past president of the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons, to talk about the moments that actually shape leaders: rejection, discomfort, and the people who push you through the one door that finally opens. Bryan shares what it was like growing up as one of nine kids, including five adopted sisters from Korea and Vietnam, and how that early crash course in resilience and acceptance quietly built the foundation for his leadership style. We also talk about how he and his wife later adopted two daughters from China, and why family culture and organizational culture have more in common than most leaders want to admit. From getting cut from a college basketball tryout to applying to 26 medical schools and receiving only one interview, his story is a masterclass in mentorship, networking, and earning advocacy when you don’t come from a “pedigree” pipeline. Then we get into the hard mid-career questions: COVID-era pressure in private practice, protecting research when productivity takes over, and the late-night text message that ended a 19-year chapter and launched a new mission at Mayo. We finish with leadership principles like servant leadership and imposter syndrome, a candid reveal about Bryan’s own hip replacement, and a clear-eyed take on AI in healthcare: it can make us better clinicians, but it will never replace empathy. If you care about leadership development, orthopedic surgery, career transitions, and building culture that lasts, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

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  • S1 · E5
    October 12 · 45 min

    UNHINGED Episode 5, How A Mayo Clinic Surgeon Built Mentors And Breakthroughs, Dr. Arlen Hanssen

    Legacy gets thrown around like it’s a plaque, a building name, or a career highlight reel. We don’t buy that. Dr. Arlen Hansen, legendary Mayo Clinic hip and knee surgeon and mentor to a generation of orthopedic leaders, lays out a sharper definition: your real legacy is the people you lift up and the patients they’ll treat long after you’re gone. We talk through his unlikely early story, the discipline that clicked when he committed to medicine, and the mentors who shaped his standards at Mayo. Then we get into the work that made his reputation in revision knee surgery and prosthetic joint infection: turning “failure” cases into a science with objective outcomes, building true multidisciplinary collaboration with infectious disease and lab experts, and using high-volume clinical practice to ask better research questions. We also pull back the curtain on orthopedic implant design and industry collaboration, including what made cementless knee replacement take off when materials and timing finally aligned. One of the biggest surprises: the real acceleration often comes from strong relationships with engineers, not chasing executive attention. We close with an honest look at retirement planning for surgeons, why the best mentors step aside, and the personal tradeoffs that even the most successful careers can’t avoid. If you care about orthopedic innovation, medical leadership, mentorship, and building a career that actually lasts, hit subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review. What do you think makes a mentor truly exceptional?

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  • S1 · E4
    September 21 · 54 min

    UNHINGED Episode 4, From Surgeon To CEO: Growing A Scalable Orthopedic Platform, Dr. David Jacofsky

    A surgeon reads his father’s CT scan, spots a massive liver tumor, and has to deliver the worst possible news himself. That moment helped shape Dr. David Jackowski’s lifelong drive, but it didn’t lead where most people would expect. It eventually helped turn an orthopedic surgeon into a founder and CEO who thinks as much about incentives, systems, and outcomes as he does about the operating room. We walk through David’s early life in New York, where a teacher-mom demanded academic precision and a business-owner dad taught him to “buy” stocks from the newspaper, track performance, and learn taxes the hard way. From there, he moves at full speed through medicine, crosses paths with Mayo Clinic training, and explains why he switched from general surgery toward orthopedics, drawn by variety, complexity, and a different kind of problem solving. Then the conversation turns into the real work: leaving a world-class institution, writing a business plan for value-based care, and moving to Phoenix to build what became the Core Institute and later Hopco. We get specific about standardization, evidence-based practice, service line management, payer negotiations, and why trust matters more than pitch decks. We also unpack private equity in healthcare from an operator’s perspective: growth capital versus control, why some physician models fail, and what it takes to scale across states without losing the culture. Finally, we dig into digital health, AI, data warehousing, and the hard truth that tools do not create ROI, workflows do. If you care about orthopedic practice sustainability, value-based care, private practice, healthcare innovation, or physician leadership, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with the biggest idea you’re taking into your week.

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  • S1 · E3
    August 31 · 54 min

    UNHINGED Episode 3, Grit Over Circumstance | Ivan Tornos of Zimmer Biomet

    A kid in Spain watches his family’s world collapse, loses his father to cancer at age five, then loses the uncle who adopted him nine months later. Years later, that same kid becomes an immigrant in rural North Carolina, cleans tanning beds to pay his way forward, builds a business, and eventually leads Zimmer Biomet, the world’s largest orthopedic company in the world. We talk with Ivan Tornos about the turning points that shaped him and the mindset that kept him moving: refusing victimhood, practicing grit, and choosing problem solving when life gets brutal. We get tactical about leadership and career growth in healthcare and medtech. Ivan breaks down why an MBA can help with skills like strategy and finance but won’t magically teach leadership, and why failure is often the real training. He also shares one of the clearest frameworks for advancement: mentors show you the way, sponsors clear the way. If you’ve ever wondered how people land “too big, too soon” roles and survive them, this conversation explains the difference. Then we zoom into Zimmer Biomet’s reality: post-merger complexity, FDA warning letters, compliance pressure, culture friction, and what it takes to regain trust while catching up on innovation. Ivan lays out a customer-first approach across patients, physicians, providers, and payers, plus how robotics, ambulatory surgery centers, efficiency, and AI-driven data could reduce waste in musculoskeletal care without pushing surgeons out of the operating room. If you care about orthopedic surgery, medical device innovation, healthcare costs, or modern leadership under pressure, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review with the biggest idea you’re taking from the conversation.

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  • S1 · E2
    August 7 · 1 hr 18 min

    UNHINGED Episode 2, Work Life Balance Is A Myth | Dr. Richard A. Berger

    Same-day hip replacement used to sound like a bad idea someone would regret out loud. Then Dr. Richard Berger did it anyway and backed it up with results. Sitting with him in Chicago, we walk through the real story behind outpatient joint replacement: how an engineer’s obsession with motion became a surgeon’s obsession with systems, and why the biggest breakthroughs weren’t flashy gadgets but hard, unglamorous protocol changes that made patients feel better faster. We talk minimally invasive hip surgery, the early four-hour cases, and the moment patients started asking the uncomfortable question: “Why am I still in the hospital?” From there, Berger breaks down what had to change to make same-day discharge safe and repeatable, including anesthesia choices, medication strategy, physical therapy alignment, admissions messaging, and the grind of personally shepherding patients until the entire machine caught up. We also get into the backlash, the threats, and what it actually costs to challenge medical convention when incentives and egos are on the line. Then we shift into the business of medicine: building a word-of-mouth practice, adopting a concierge-style model, and the pivotal decision to drop Medicare after running the numbers. Berger shares how he builds a high-touch team using hospitality standards, why he resists replacing humans with automation, and how leadership, grace, and “extreme ownership” create loyalty in the OR and the office. If you care about hip replacement, knee replacement, outpatient surgery, practice building, or redefining work-life balance for physicians, hit subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave us a review with your biggest takeaway.

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  • S1 · E1
    July 13 · 1 hr 6 min

    UNHINGED Episode 1, The Silent Killer | Chris Hughes & Eric Stookey of OsteoRemedies

    Infection after joint replacement is one of the few problems in orthopedics where the stakes can go from “recover and rehab” to “fight for your life” in a matter of weeks. We sit down with Chris Hughes and Eric Stookey, two longtime orthopedics operators who built OsteoRemedies by doing what most companies would not: going all-in on joint infection (PJI) and infection management while everyone else treated it like a side project. We talk candidly about the entrepreneurship leap in healthcare and medical devices, including the lonely early days of shipping product, assembling conference booths, and learning that a napkin plan only survives through execution. Chris and Eric break down how they protect culture as they scale, why they “check titles at the door,” and how “micro leadership” means removing obstacles so teams can move fast without getting micromanaged. We also get into the messy truth of innovation: FDA and 510(k) hurdles, changing goalposts, multi-year gaps in launches, and why acquisitions can restore the cadence of innovation when organic pathways slow down. Then we go straight at the market forces shaping orthopedic infection care right now: antibiotic spacers, local antibiotic delivery beads, debridement tools, wash solutions, and the rising debate over one-stage vs two-stage revision. Their core argument is simple: if the standard of care shifts, a patient-first company cannot cling to a single product category. It has to build an infection management portfolio that follows the clinical need. If you care about PJI, orthopedic infection prevention, medical device startups, or leadership that holds up under pressure, subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review. What part of the infection story do you think the industry still avoids talking about?

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Showing 1–6 of 6 episodes