November 15 to 17, 2026 · Valley Center, California

You spent years waiting for someone to tell you that you were ready.

Nobody is coming to sign off on this one. Three days in a private estate with a small, hand selected circle of physicians building practices that look like them, not like somebody else's.

DatesNovember 15 to 17, 2026
LocationParadise Hills, Valley Center
CohortNo more than 20 physicians
AdmissionBy application only
Four friends standing together outdoors at sunset, with arms around each other's shoulders, overlooking a scenic landscape.
Abstract geometric design with a large arch shape, a circular black opening, brown and gray curved elements, a small white oval, and a teal-colored path on the bottom left.

Three things nobody says out loud at a conference.

They come up in the hallway, at dinner, in the car on the way to the airport. They rarely come up from a stage. They are the reason this retreat exists.

Fear

That you cannot say a number without apologizing for it.

That the first meet and greet will go badly and confirm what you already suspect. That your spouse needs a guarantee you do not have. That you will build the thing and nobody will come.

Shame

That you burned out doing a job people would kill for.

That someone will call your practice concierge medicine. That leaving looks like you were not good enough to stay. That wanting a life that fits reads as wanting less.

Guilt

That leaving the system means abandoning the patients in it.

That you are making the access problem worse. That you are one more body gone from a shortage everyone is writing about. That a panel in the hundreds is somehow a smaller act of service than a panel in the thousands.

We are going to say all of it in the room, in daylight, with other physicians who have carried the same three weights and can tell you exactly what happened when they set them down.

You have your hand on the door.

You have had your hand on the door for years.

First it was after boards. Then after the baby. Then after one more year of savings, one more certification, one more quarter of watching how it goes for everybody else. The gate moves every time you reach it.

You are not indecisive. You are not lazy. You have made harder decisions than this one under worse conditions with less sleep. So the question worth asking is not what is left on the checklist. The question is why the checklist grows a new line every time you get close to the end of it.

That is not a business problem. That is what fear does when it has learned to sound reasonable.

You are already qualified for this. That was never what was stopping you.

The part that makes this different

Every seat is decided by application.

Not first come. Not first paid. Not whoever saw the email fastest.

We read every application because the application is how the retreat gets built. You tell us where your practice actually hurts and which beliefs are keeping your hand on the door, and we shape the three days around what this specific group of physicians walks in carrying. A retreat designed for the room is a completely different experience than a retreat designed in advance and delivered to whoever shows up.

It also means we can build a circle that works. Stage, specialty, temperament, and the particular knot each physician is trying to untie all factor into who sits at that table together. We cap every cohort at no more than twenty physicians, because a room of twenty chosen on purpose does something a room of two hundred cannot.

If it is not the right fit, we will tell you honestly and point you somewhere better. Nobody is admitted to fill a seat.

You are not buying a ticket. You are being invited into a room.

Built for physicians designing something original.

Not replicating a practice you heard about on a podcast. Not running somebody else's playbook and wondering why it fits badly. Yours should be designed around you, and redesigned every time your life changes.

Considering it
You have been reading, listening, and running numbers for months. The information is not the thing standing in your way and you know it.
Preparing to open
You have a date, or you have had four dates. Every time you get close, one more thing needs to be handled first.
In the first year
The doors are open, the calendar is not full, and you are learning that building a practice and running one require different parts of you.
Thriving and reaching
The practice works. You are seeing the patients you wanted to see the way you wanted to see them. Now you are asking what the next version looks like, and whether you built in enough room for yourself.

The mix is deliberate. A physician in year four hears their own early fear in the voice of someone who has not opened yet, and answers it out loud for the first time. The physician who has not opened yet gets to see, up close, that the person on the other side is a human being and not a category.

Not a list of answers. A different relationship with the questions.

This is not a panel where experts answer questions from a queue. The work runs underneath the questions, because the fears producing them are shared even when the dreams are not.

  • Talking about money without flinchingNaming your rate, holding it, and explaining it without a paragraph of apology attached. What a boundary sounds like when it is spoken kindly and not moved.
  • The meet and greetWhat you are actually doing in that conversation is helping your ideal patient choose you. It is not a game of perfection and it is not an audition. You, the doctor, are what the patient values.
  • Your elevator pitchWhat you say when you have ninety seconds, built on your core values rather than a description of a payment model. The version that works for a prospective patient, a skeptical colleague, a family member, or a friend who keeps asking what it is you do now, carrying the identity of your practice because it could only have come from you.
  • The story you tell about leavingYour version of why you left, said in your own words, until it stops sounding like a confession. This is where the guilt gets handled.
  • Designing around your actual lifeWhat the practice needs to protect. What it is allowed to cost you. What has to change when your life changes, because it will.
  • The person behind the practiceWho you were before the training, what they wanted, and what they still know how to do that you have not used in fifteen years.
Every dream in the room will be different. Every one of them needs the same two things: a mindset that can grow, and permission to matter in your own life.

A private house, a long table, and people who are on your side.

The mentors here are friends first. Nobody is performing expertise at you from a riser. There is no badge, no exhibit hall, no track to choose between, no CME to sit through with your laptop open.

Meals happen together. Conversations run long and then keep running. The schedule has real space in it on purpose, because the thing you needed to say usually arrives forty minutes after the session that was supposed to produce it.

What gets said in that house stays in that house. That is the condition that makes the rest of it possible, and it is not negotiable.

Your hosts for the three days

Deepti Mundkur, MD and Maryal Concepcion, MD

Two women smiling, hugging each other outdoors on a sunny day with blurred green trees in the background.

The practical part.

Dates
November 15 to 17, 2026. Arrive Sunday afternoon, depart Tuesday.
Where
A private estate in Paradise Hills, Valley Center, California. Roughly an hour from San Diego International.
Cohort size
No more than twenty physicians. Small enough that everyone is known by name by the end of the first evening.
Included
The full program, all materials, and every meal during the retreat.
Not included
Lodging and travel to and from the venue. Each physician arranges and pays for their own.
Admission
By application, reviewed on a rolling basis. Seats are confirmed on payment and are not transferable, because admission is based on the application rather than the purchase.
If your plans change
We do not issue refunds. What we do instead is hold what you paid as a credit toward a future DPC Mindset retreat, so nothing you invested is lost. Life happens to physicians more than most, and we would rather see you at the next one than take your money and wish you well.

So you know exactly what you are applying to.

Not therapy

We are two physicians, not your therapists. We open nothing we cannot close, and the work stays oriented toward what you are building.

Not a business bootcamp

You can find the EMR comparison and the fee schedule anywhere. The reason you have not acted on them is what we are here for.

Not a conference

No stage, no tracks, no badge, no CME, no exhibit hall, no lanyard.

Not a template

You will not leave with a copy of anyone else's practice. You will leave with a clearer picture of yours.

Tell us where it hurts. We will build the room around it.

The application takes about fifteen minutes. It asks real questions and it expects real answers, because those answers are what we design from.

Apply for a seat

Applications are reviewed as they arrive. You will hear from us either way, and if this is not your year we will say so plainly.

Medicine should feel this good.

A tropical backyard resort with a large winding swimming pool surrounded by palm trees, lounge chairs, and lush greenery, under a partly cloudy sky with the sun setting on the left.
Modern kitchen with a long island counter and ten wooden barstools, pendant lights, white brick wall, green plants, and open doors in the background.
Living room with wooden ceiling, fireplace, mounted TV, hanging wicker chair, tan leather sofa, coffee table, gray armchair, textured wall art, green potted plant, dining table with chairs, large windows, and chandelier.
A backyard scene with a pool, a wooden sauna with a large circular glass door, two lounge chairs, and green bushes with a bright blue sky and white clouds in the background.
An outdoor backyard patio during sunset with a central fire pit surrounded by four chairs, string lights overhead, palm trees, lush landscaping, a hammock, a semi-circular seating area, and vintage-style street lamps.
Beachside area with wooden chairs arranged around a fire pit on sandy ground, overlooking a swimming pool, with trees, rocks, a house, palm trees, and a blue sky with clouds in the background.