From Medicare Fraud to Military Leadership: Dr. Josh McConkey’s Hard-Won Wisdom on Mistakes and Courage

In Episode #332 of My Favorite Mistake, Mark Graban talks with Dr. Josh McConkey — emergency physician, Air Force Reserve Commander, combat-deployed medevac leader, and Pulitzer Prize–nominated author. Known as the “MacGyver Doc,” Josh has spent his career solving problems in high-pressure environments where you rarely get a second chance.

Episode page with links, video, transcript, and more

Josh shares the most painful mistake of his professional life: entering a business partnership without doing the proper due diligence. What followed was a cascade of red flags — Medicare violations, skimming, financial misconduct, and even a $3.4 million bribe offer he refused. The ordeal ultimately cost him nearly $5 million and forced him to rebuild his career and life with integrity front and center.

In our discussion, Josh explains how this experience reshaped his understanding of leadership, accountability, and courage — especially in systems where incentives can push good people toward dangerous choices. He also reflects on two decades in emergency medicine, including the structural failures that helped fuel the opioid crisis and the pressures physicians faced to prescribe narcotics.

Josh shares why he wrote Be the Weight Behind the Spear and his new children’s leadership book The Heart of a Leader, and why he believes character development must start far earlier than most of us realize. We close with his decision to run for Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina in 2028 — a move grounded in service, accountability, and a desire to strengthen public leadership.

This episode explores integrity, systemic failure, resilience, and the lessons we carry forward after a mistake that changes everything.