Lisa Alemi met her now-husband in San Francisco during year two of his seven-year general surgery training, when his research schedule made residency look almost easy. The honeymoon ended when he rotated back into clinic, and from there came the moves — Seattle for fellowship, Kansas City for his first attending job, and finally Los Angeles, where they have been for the last eight years. Along the way she learned every hard lesson the textbooks don't cover: don't pull up to a San Francisco curb at 5 PM with a 26-foot truck, never hand a mover your passports, and a binding estimate is worth its weight in TVs. After her first cross-country move with a six-month-old and full mom brain, Lisa built the planner she had been searching for online and couldn't find — and Move Mama Move was born. In this episode, she shares the systems, scripts, and unglamorous details that turn a chaotic move into something a physician family can actually survive intact.
Lisa Alemi is a physician spouse, mother of three, and the creator of Move Mama Move — a relocation planning system born out of one too many moves done the hard way. Married to a general surgeon she met in San Francisco, Lisa has lived through the full physician-family relocation arc: a research-year honeymoon period, the brutal pivot back into clinical training, fellowship in Seattle, four years in Kansas City, and a cross-country move to Los Angeles with a six-month-old in tow. That last move, executed on no sleep and full mom brain, was the one that broke her — and built the planner.
Now based in LA, Lisa walks host Zoe Taylor through the mechanics most physician families never get briefed on: how to vet a moving company with the right 30-plus questions, why a binding estimate matters more than people realize, what to put in the "do not move" box, how to color-code a household so movers don't need to ask where anything goes, and why mail forwarding will quietly fail you on the documents that matter most. They cover the nervous, expensive, emotionally taxing parts of relocation — and the simple systems that take the guesswork out.
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Lisa Alemi is the founder of Move Mama Move and a physician spouse who has relocated across San Francisco, Seattle, Kansas City, and Los Angeles over the course of her husband’s general surgery training and attending career. Now done with training and settled in LA, Lisa knows firsthand how long it can take to find community after each move — and how much of that depends on creating a home that actually works for the family living in it. After cross-country moving with a six-month-old and finding nothing online comprehensive enough to actually use, she built the planner she had been searching for. Today, Move Mama Move offers three versions of the planner — a Relocation Planner, a Home Search & Relocation Planner, and a premium gift edition — all designed to take the guesswork, anxiety, and emotional cost out of physician-family moves so families can show up to their next home feeling grounded instead of frayed.
🛠 Brand: Move Mama Move
🛒 Shop: shop.movemamamove.com
📸 Instagram: @move_mama_move
✉️ Email: lisa@movemamamove.com
The Moving Medicine Podcast is a space for physicians and physician spouses navigating relocation — not as a transaction, but as a life transition. Hosted by Zoe Taylor, founder of Moving Medicine Partners, the show centers the human side of medical moves and offers clarity, grounding, and shared understanding for families at every stage of the journey.
🌐 Website: movingmedicinepartners.com
📸 Instagram: @movingmedicinepartners
📘 Facebook: Moving Medicine Partners
💼 LinkedIn: Moving Medicine Partners
✉️ Email: hello@movingmedicinepartners.com
Zoe Taylor is the founder of Moving Medicine Partners and a real estate agent based in St. Louis who has sat at that kitchen table herself. Through her work supporting medical families across the country, Zoe has seen the unseen labor of relocation up close — and built this podcast to make sure no one has to navigate it feeling invisible, rushed, or alone.