Liz Sonntag, MD

A board-certified pulmonary and critical care physician, a medical ethicist, and a physician coach.

About

Liz Sonntag is a board-certified pulmonary and critical care physician, a medical ethicist, and a physician coach. She is the founder of Say More Coaching.

She recently pivoted out of clinical medicine to focus on coaching medical students and physicians. Her professional background spans critical care, palliative care, and clinical ethics, and her scholarship reflects that range: ethics and social medicine education under political pressure, advance care planning in cystic fibrosis, access to medically necessary reproductive care for patients with pulmonary hypertension, and the ethics of mechanical circulatory support and surgical decision-making. Her work has appeared in JAMA, CHEST, and the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics.

She writes on Substack and shares updates on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Latest articles

Physician voices

Leaving academic medicine was not falling out of love

Liz Sonntag, MD

July 29, 2026Jul 29, 2026

Although becoming a doctor is a rigorous endeavor, the journey is somewhat prescribed. I made a decision to become a doctor at seventeen; I boarded that train and rode it through college, medical school, residency, and fellowships. All the while so focused on the destination that I never got off to explore, rarely looked out the windows, and never reconsidered where I was headed.

Now, almost forty, I look around at …