Meet Dr. Mark Shrime
A Decision-Making Coach for High-Achieving Professionals
Surgeon | Global Health Leader | Author | Speaker
The hardest decisions in life rarely come with a clear right answer.
Should you stay in the career you've built or make a change? Is success still worth the cost? What happens when the path that looked right on paper no longer feels right? And how do you make a meaningful change without throwing away everything you've worked for?
These are the kinds of questions I help people navigate.
I’m a surgeon, researcher, author, speaker, and decision-making coach. Throughout my career, I’ve made high-stakes decisions where the consequences mattered, from the operating room to global health leadership to academic research. I eventually realized that the same science that helps us make better decisions in medicine can also help us make better decisions about our careers and our lives.
That realization became the foundation for my Decision-Making Framework: a practical, science-backed approach to making difficult decisions with greater clarity, confidence, and purpose.
Why High-Achieving Professionals Work With Me
I’m not a coach because I left medicine.
I’m a coach because I spent a career studying how people make life's hardest decisions—and built a framework to help them make better ones.
My coaching brings together four perspectives that rarely exist in one place:
Clinical experience: Decades of making consequential decisions as a head and neck surgical oncologist and microvascular reconstructive surgeon.
Decision science: A PhD in Health Policy focused on the science of decision-making, along with years of academic research.
Leadership experience: Leadership roles spanning global health, medicine, academia, and international organizations.
Lived experience: My own journey of questioning conventional definitions of success, purpose, and career fulfillment.
The result isn't a one-size-fits-all coaching philosophy or advice based on intuition alone. It is a structured way to think through difficult choices while accounting for what matters most to you.
The goal isn't for me to tell you what to do.
It's to help you make a decision you can understand, defend, and ultimately live with.
My Decision-Making Framework
When you're successful on paper but uncertain about what comes next, more information isn't always the answer.
Sometimes you need a better way to think.
My Decision-Making Framework combines insights from decision theory, behavioral science, psychology, and decades of experience making high-consequence decisions. It helps clients step back from the noise, understand what is actually driving a decision, evaluate their options more clearly, and move forward deliberately.
The framework can be applied to questions about
Career transitions and reinvention
Burnout and professional dissatisfaction
Purpose and meaning
Leadership challenges
Major professional decisions
Questions about whether to stay, leave, or change direction
Building a life that feels successful on your own terms
This approach is especially valuable when there is no obvious answer—and when the stakes are too high to rely on instinct alone.
The Journey That Led Me Here
My coaching work grew out of a career that took me far beyond the traditional path of medicine.
I trained in otolaryngology, head and neck surgery, and microvascular reconstructive surgery. I later earned a Master of Public Health focused on global health and a PhD in Health Policy focused on decision-making.
That combination of clinical medicine, global health, and decision science shaped the way I think about difficult problems.
Medicine and Surgery
Clinically, I am a head and neck surgical oncologist and microvascular reconstructive surgeon. I have maintained an active surgical practice with Mercy Ships, where I focus on complex head and neck tumors and work alongside surgeons and trainees.
Medicine taught me early that good decisions require more than expertise. They require understanding uncertainty, weighing competing priorities, communicating clearly, and knowing what matters when there is no perfect option.
Global Health and Leadership
My work in global surgery took me well beyond the operating room.
I am currently the editor-in-chief I previously served as International Chief Medical Officer at Mercy Ships, founding O’Brien Chair of Global Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, founder and Director of the Center for Global Surgery Evaluation at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, and Research Director for the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change at Harvard Medical School, where I held the rank of Assistant Professor.
I've worked and taught in countries including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Benin, Togo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, Zambia, and Madagascar.
These experiences exposed me to decisions where resources were limited, uncertainty was high, and the consequences were real. They also reinforced something I've carried into my coaching: the best decision isn't always the most obvious one.
Research and Decision Science
My academic work has focused on questions at the intersection of health, decision-making, inequity, and global development.
I’ve authored seminal papers on the global burden of surgical disease, the financial burden facing surgical patients, and the number of people who cannot access safe surgery worldwide. I also had the privilege of serving as a co-author on the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery. My academic pursuits focus on decision-making and surgical delivery in low- and middle-income countries, where I have a specific interest in the intersection of health, impoverishment, inequity, and global development. My work aims to determine optimal policies and platforms for surgical delivery that maximize health benefits while simultaneously minimizing the risk of financial catastrophe faced by patients.
But beneath those research questions was a broader fascination:
How do people make decisions when the information is incomplete, the stakes are high, and there is no perfect answer?
That question eventually became central to my own work.
I’ve spent my career making high-stakes decisions where lives, careers, and futures were on the line. But the hardest decisions weren't always in the operating room. They were the deeply personal ones: how to build a meaningful career, how to avoid burnout, and how to choose a life aligned with purpose instead of expectations.
Today, I helps physicians, executives, and other high-achieving professionals navigate those same questions using a decision-making framework grounded in science, psychology, and lived experience.
A colleague in Zambia before our first case of the day
From Questioning Success to Helping Others
A career can look successful from the outside and still leave you wondering whether you've built the right life.
I know that tension personally.
My own journey forced me to question some of the assumptions I had made about success, achievement, medicine, and purpose. Instead of simply asking, "What should I do next?" I became increasingly interested in a deeper question:
How do we make better decisions about the lives we want to build?
That question led me deeper into the science of decision-making and ultimately to coaching.
Today, I work with physicians, healthcare leaders, executives, and other high-achieving professionals who are asking some version of that same question.
The circumstances are different for every client. The underlying challenge is often the same: knowing what you want to change is one thing. Knowing how to make the decision is another.
Coaching Physicians, Healthcare Leaders, and Executives
My coaching is particularly well suited to high-achieving professionals who have spent years building successful careers and are now confronting a difficult question about what comes next.
That might mean navigating burnout, considering a career transition, reevaluating professional success, finding greater purpose, or making a decision that feels impossible to get right.
I don't approach these conversations with a predetermined answer.
Instead, I help clients create enough clarity to see their options differently, understand the tradeoffs, and make decisions aligned with the life they actually want.
Beyond Coaching
My work also extends into speaking, writing, and research.
I am the Editor in Chief of BMJ Global Health and an internationally recognized speaker on purpose, burnout, decision-making, global health, and professional fulfillment.
My book, Solving for Why, explores my own journey through medicine and global health and the transformative role that purpose can play in our lives. It has sold over 10,000 copies.
I've also competed on Seasons 8, 9, and 11 of American Ninja Warrior. Outside of work, I'm a photographer, rock climber, and, of course, cat dad.
A Different Way to Think About Your Next Decision
You don't need another person telling you what they would do.
You need a way to understand what you should do—and why.
That's what my work is ultimately about.
If you're at a point where the path forward isn't obvious, that's exactly where better decision-making can make a difference.
FAQs
Why did Dr. Mark Shrime become a decision-making coach?
1
I became a decision-making coach after years of making high-stakes decisions in medicine, global health, research, and leadership—and studying the science of how people make decisions. My own experience questioning conventional definitions of career success and purpose ultimately led me to develop a framework for helping others navigate difficult choices.
What makes Mark Shrime's coaching different?
2
My coaching combines decision science, behavioral science, psychology, clinical experience, leadership experience, and lived experience. Rather than relying primarily on intuition or advice, I use a structured framework to help clients understand their options, evaluate tradeoffs, and make decisions aligned with their values and goals.
How does decision science influence the coaching?
3
Decision science provides practical tools for thinking clearly when choices are complex, uncertain, or high-stakes. I use principles from decision theory and behavioral science to help clients identify what matters, understand tradeoffs, recognize potential biases, and make more deliberate decisions.
Who is decision-making coaching best suited for?
4
Decision-making coaching is particularly useful for physicians, healthcare leaders, executives, and other high-achieving professionals facing significant career or life decisions. It can be especially valuable during periods of burnout, career transition, professional dissatisfaction, or uncertainty about what comes next.
Is Dr. Mark's coaching only for physicians?
5
No. Although my background is deeply rooted in medicine and healthcare, the decision-making challenges I work on extend well beyond medicine. I coach executives and other high-achieving professionals who want to make clearer, more deliberate decisions about their careers and lives.