Lily Johnston, MD, MPH
Disconnected: A Surgeon’s Search for Healing in a Broken System
Vascular Surgeon and Founder of Vascular Health Institute
San Diego, CA
BOOK COVER
BOOK DETAILS
Book Details
Pub Date: November 10, 2026
Genre: Medical, Education & Training
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Page Count: 264 pages
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 979-8-89138-924-3
Price: $28.00
ABOUT THE BOOK
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PEOPLE SAVING YOUR LIFE ARE DYING INSIDE?
After seventeen years of training to become a vascular surgeon, Dr. Lily Johnston had everything she worked for: prestigious degrees, a respected title, the dream job. There was just one little problem.
She was miserable.
In Disconnected: A Surgeon’s Search for Healing in a Broken System, Johnston speaks from the eye of the storm. From Ivy League labs to the operating room, she charts her journey through a profession that demanded everything—and gave back exhaustion, isolation, and a gnawing sense of dread. Her personal crisis unveiled a deeper truth: Medicine rewards efficiency, punishes vulnerability, and measures success in billing codes instead of lives truly healed.
The fallout is catastrophic. Burnout and suicide rates among doctors are alarmingly high. Patients are unhappy and unwell. And the culture of silence keeps everyone pretending as if it’s normal.
Johnston refuses to pretend any longer. With wit, irreverence, and a dose of necessary bite, Disconnected is a raw, incisive autopsy of a broken system. But this book is not a eulogy; it’s a rebellion. Johnston brings us full circle with a powerful rally cry for reconnection—to ourselves, to each other, and to the healing purpose at the heart of medicine.
If you’re a clinician who has swallowed your frustration in silence, this book gives you a voice. If you’re a patient who has felt rushed or unheard, this explains why, and how it can be different. If you’re a leader in the system, this is your wake-up call.
Fierce, funny, and unflinchingly honest, Disconnected is an urgent diagnosis of a culture on the brink, and a bold prescription for how to pull ourselves back.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Lily Johnston is a vascular surgeon, cardiometabolic health specialist, and recovering people-pleaser who has spent over a decade practicing medicine from the inside out. She restores blood flow, resolves metabolic chaos, and refuses to forget that medicine was meant to heal the human, not just the disease.
When she’s not with patients, you’ll find her coaxing orchids into bloom, testing her limits under a barbell, or making unapologetically imperfect art. She believes in mitochondria, magic, and the radical act of speaking the truth.
Dr. Johnston earned her BA from Princeton, her MD from UC San Diego, and her MPH from Johns Hopkins, and completed residency at the University of Virginia and her fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. She is board-certified in both general and vascular surgery, has published over twenty-five peer-reviewed articles, and serves on national committees shaping the future of her field. She lives in San Diego with two mischievous cats and the conviction that connection is the cure we’ve been missing all along.
Learn more at https://www.vascularhealthinstitute.org/
TALKING POINTS
- Diagnosing Disconnection: Burnout in Professionals: Self-diagnosis is difficult, especially for ambitious people who have become skilled at ignoring their own warning signs. In medicine, this challenge is compounded by a deeper cultural issue: a culture that glorifies self-sacrifice and equates vulnerability with weakness.
- Diagnosing the Broader Medical System: Explores the historical shift away from preventative medicine. While quick fixes like surgery can look like clean solutions, most patients arrive with problems — diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis — that have been building for decades.
- The Rise of Mass Medicine: Modern medicine increasingly resembles a factory floor, optimized for throughput rather than outcomes. The doctor-patient relationship has been reduced to a transaction, with billing codes replacing the art of healing, and why this is problematic.
- Fragmentation of the Doctor-Patient Relationship: As nurse practitioners and physician assistants play a more centralized role, they can act as a “middleman” between doctor and patient. This added layer can leave both physicians and patients feeling disconnected.
- The Culture of “Evidence-Based” Medicine: Sometimes cynically called “eminence-based medicine,” this culture trains physicians to defer to the most-published authorities rather than think critically for themselves.
- Physicians and Mental Health: Speaking the truth about struggle is often met with swift punishment, reinforcing why vulnerability is seen as a weakness rather than strength. Physicians die by suicide at twice the rate of the general population, while one in five abuse alcohol and seven in ten have misused prescription drugs.
- How to Fix the System: Dr. Johnston outlines several solutions: releasing physicians from the debt trap, eliminating third-party payers, and directly addressing burnout.
SAMPLE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
- What questions should someone ask themselves to diagnose disconnection in their own life?
- How do you know when the thing you always wanted to do and trained for is no longer what you want?
- Can you talk about the Flexner Report of 1910 and Dr. Halsted, and how they shifted medicine away from prevention?
- How did a culture that glorifies self-sacrifice and shame vulnerability show up in your own life?
- How has your view of surgery as a “fix” — and of practicing medicine more broadly — changed over time?
- How do you distinguish between learning and knowing, and why does conflating the two create problems in medicine?
- What are the three lies at the heart of every informed consent conversation?
- In what ways is practicing medicine similar to belonging to a cult?
- What happened in the moment with Carla that broke your idea of your career as you knew it?
- How do you personally reconnect to the things and people you love, and how can others do the same?
PRAISE
“Johnston makes a convincing case that people can’t fully heal while working inside systems that require disconnection for survival. Her book is both provocative and heartfelt, an effective combination that will appeal to those both inside and outside the medical profession. A stirring argument for institutional change.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A persuasive memoir and healthcare treatise, Disconnected argues that the medical field should progress beyond the broken status quo and place more focus on the humanity of patients and medical practitioners.”
—Foreword Clarion Reviews
“Disconnected is a courageous and necessary book about what happens when excellence comes at the cost of self. With honesty and clarity, vascular surgeon Dr. Johnston exposes the culture of medicine that quietly rewards disconnection from our bodies, our relationships, and our deeper sense of purpose. This is not simply a story of burnout; it is a story of identity, of what we sacrifice to belong, and of the quiet reckoning that follows achievement. Every surgeon and high performer will recognize themselves in these pages. This book is not an indictment of medicine. It is an invitation to remember why we entered it—and how to come home again.”
—DR. PAUL W. M. FEDAK, professor of cardiac surgery and director of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute at the University of Calgary
“In Disconnected, Dr. Lily Johnston gives voice to something many physicians feel but rarely articulate. With courage and clarity, she exposes how modern medical training and healthcare culture normalize disconnection from ourselves, from our patients, and from the deeper purpose that drew us to medicine in the first place. This book is both a personal journey and a systems-level critique, written with insight that will resonate with current clinicians and the next generation of physicians. It’s an essential read for anyone who cares about the future of medicine, not just as a profession, but as a human calling.”
—DR. DOMINIC P. D’AGOSTINO, associate professor, Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology, USF Morsani College of Medicine
“Disconnected is a fearless and necessary look inside a system that is failing both doctors and patients. Dr. Johnston tells the truth many clinicians are afraid to say out loud—and in doing so, she opens the door to the kind of healing medicine desperately needs.”
—BRENDA SNOW, author of Diagnosed: The Essential Guide to Navigating the Patient Journey and founder/ CEO of Snow Companies
“Dr. Lily Johnston’s story resonates deeply—a physician who stepped away from the intensity of surgery to embrace true healing at its roots. Her book beautifully captures the power of food, movement, and mindset in restoring health and joy. It’s heartfelt, wise, and a reminder to all of us that medicine is at its best when it helps people thrive, not just survive.”
—DR. MARK CUCUZZELLA, FAAFP, MHP, and author of Run for Your Life
“In clear-eyed, urgent prose culled from years of working inside the medical profession as a surgeon, Dr. Lily Johnston shares flaws in our health systems with an astounding level of empathy. Sounding the alarm without descending into despair, Disconnected implores us to resist apathy and outlines how we can enact joy and build true connection, even in the darkest of moments.”
—ADAM DORSAY, PsyD, psychologist, and author of Super Psyched
BOOK DETAILS
Pub Date: May 17, 2022
Genre: Memoir / Christian Inspirational
Publisher: She Writes Press
Page Count: 304
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1647429003
Price: $15.99