The Doctor's Art (Henry Bair and Tyler Johnson)

The practice of medicine – filled with moments of joy, suffering, grace, sorrow, and hope – offers a window into the human condition. Though serving as guides and companions to patients’ illness experiences is profoundly meaningful work, the busy nature of modern medicine can blind its own practitioners to the reasons they entered it in the first place. Join oncologist Tyler Johnson and medical trainee Henry Bair as they meet with doctors, patients, leaders, educators, and others in healthcare, to explore stories on finding and nourishing meaning in medicine. This podcast is for anyone striving for a deeper connection with their medical journey.

Please subscribe for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com. Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com for more information.

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Medicine is a challenging and complex, yet ultimately fulfilling vocation that has seen much upheaval in recent years, from technological disruptions to the COVID-19 pandemic. For medical student Henry Bair and oncologist Tyler Johnson, both at Stanford University, this moment calls for a mindful investigation of the factors driving those who work in health care, whether as clinicians, educators, or executives. Probing the humanistic dimensions of patient care, they explore the philosophies and realities underpinning the healthcare profession.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• What first drew co-hosts Henry and Tyler to the medical profession - 03:26
• The moments that epitomized why they pursued healthcare as their life’s calling - 10:08
• The growing pattern of burnout and alienation among medical workers - 21:40
• Previews of subjects that will be covered in future episodes of this podcast - 25:03

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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One aspect of the medical profession that doesn’t often garner a great deal of public attention is that of caring for patients who are dying. For Mimi Dunne, MD, the relief of suffering has been her life’s calling — specifically the mission of relieving mental and social suffering in the lives of terminal patients, and helping them and their families find solace and meaning as they face mortality. This week, we ask Dr. Dunne to share insights and lessons from her experience in palliative care.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• What palliative care entails and what kinds of physicians specialize in it- 02:06
• Dr. Dunne’s path from emergency care to palliative medicine - 3:36
• Common misconceptions about palliative care - 7:43
• Stories of a pivotal patient case that illuminates Dr. Dunne’s career - 11:33
• What it is like to accompany patients at their end of life - 15:59
• A discussion of Narrative Medicine and storytelling - 23:44
• A discussion of the Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware - 29:29

Works, Organizations, and Individuals Discussed:

The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine

The Center to Advance Palliative Care

Dr. Diane Meier, professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine

Bill Moyer’s PBS docu-series Healing in the Mind

Dr. Laura Carstensen of the Stanford Center on Longevity

Dr. Ira Byock’s work on Developmental Tasks of the End of Life

Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness by Dr. Rita Charon

Professor Dan McAdams’ work on Narrative Identity

The Top Five Regrets of the Dyingby Bronnie Ware

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Chaplain Bruce Feldstein, MD is the director of the Jewish Chaplaincy Service at Stanford University, as well as an adjunct clinical professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. After 19 years practicing as an emergency medicine physician, an injury led Bruce on a path of finding a deeper sense of his life’s work as a Chaplain. He now teaches an award-winning curriculum on spirituality and well-being for medical students and faculty at Stanford. 

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• Chaplain Feldstein’s unexpected journey from emergency physician to chaplain - 3:35
• The unforgettable moment when Chaplain Feldstein first prayed with a patient - 5:00
• How to connect with patients in a spiritual way – even if they’re not religious - 18:04
• Five key relationships to foster in your life to counter compassion fatigue - 30:57
• The core teaching within Chaplain Feldstein’s class, ‘The Healer’s Art’ - 37:40

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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The practice of medicine has a rich legacy, sharing common themes yet manifesting in myriad forms around the world. For Cesar Padilla, MD, an obstetric anesthesiologist and clinical assistant professor at Stanford, this historical and cultural thread is vivid and alive, informing care and connection with his patients and students. In this episode, we ask Dr. Padilla to reflect on his personal history and that of the wider medical field to gain insights on best practices for care across cultures.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• Dr. Padilla’s childhood summers residing in a Catholic hospital in Mexico and how that ignited his passion for medicine - 3:45
• Why Dr. Padilla believes the "art" of medicine resides in human connection - 6:18
• The educational inequities & challenges Dr. Padilla faced as a first generation immigrant - 10:12 
• How Dr. Padilla draws on the history of medicine to provide quality care - 16:24
• How clinicians can better connect with patients when differing cultural backgrounds are involved - 26:06
• The one piece of advice Dr. Padilla wants all medical trainees to remember - 35:19

Dr. Padilla writes extensively about the history of medicine. Here are articles mentioned in the episode: 

The Best Argument for Medicare for All - Our Nation’s First Hospital, Co-founded by Benjamin Franklin, Provided Free Care for the Poor

From an ICU Doctor - What We Really Think About Death and Dying 

A partial list of Dr. Padilla’s other writings: https://medium.com/@cesarraudelpadilla

Connect with Dr. Padilla on Twitter @TheMillennialMD

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Few people have a more well-rounded understanding of our healthcare system than Lloyd Minor, MD, Dean of Stanford Medical School. With diverse experiences in research, surgery, healthcare education, clinical care, and institutional leadership, Dean Minor has cultivated a unique bird’s-eye view of the obstacles that face our increasingly complex medical system. In this episode, we ask him to share insights on how to create robust support systems for both patients and medical staff alike, in order to address difficult institutional challenges such as burnout, work-life balance for healthcare staff, and racial inequities in care. 

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• How Dean Minor’s early interests in math and science shaped his career as a physician scientist - 2:13
• Dean Minor’s belief that earning trust and respect as a leader is paramount to making a shared vision come to life - 8:57
• His challenges with work/life balance during his years of training - 10:23
• Stanford’s commitment to precision health initiatives - 13:23
• Racial disparities in our healthcare system, and what we can do to create better outcomes - 27:18 
• The importance of teaching leadership skills to medical trainees - 32:26

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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As a college student, Samuel Brown, MD never believed he would work in medicine. Yet today, he is not only an accomplished intensivist at Intermountain Healthcare and a professor of medicine at the University of Utah, but also an acclaimed writer, theologian, and religious historian. For Dr. Brown, this career is truly a spiritual calling. In this heartfelt and frequently humorous episode, we meet with him to discuss his unusual journey to medicine and to understand how his personal philosophy helps him connect with the sick and dying.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• Dr. Brown’s personal history of religiosity and his initial resistance to a career in medicine – 2:43
• How Dr. Brown’s belief in the divinity of each human informs his work as a physician – 11:16
• The changing social, cultural, and medical contexts of death and dying in America, and the development of the modern ICU, as explored in his book Through the Valley of Shadows - 15:09
• The depersonalization of patients in the ICU and how spirituality helps foster the doctor-patient relationship – 21:36
• Finding meaning in tragedy, especially one as massive and widespread as the COVID-19 pandemic – 28:33
• Dr. Brown’s advice for all students and new medical professionals on maintaining a healthy outlook in an often-harrowing world – 33:29

Dr. Brown’s most recent book is Through the Valley of Shadows: Living Wills, Intensive Care, and Making Medicine Human.

Connect with Dr. Brown on Twitter @DrSamuelBrown.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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A crisis of burnout is rippling through the medical community; physicians are experiencing ever-increasing mental, physical, and social strain while the healthcare system offers little assistance with that burden. For leadership coach Rebecca Merrill, this crisis is a calling. For years, she has been coaching senior leaders in healthcare to help them reconnect with what brought them to medicine in the first place. In this episode, we speak with Merrill about how she helps clinicians lead a purposeful life and how healthcare institutions can better safeguard against workforce attrition.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• What coaching is, how it compares to therapy, and how it can help doctors -  2:20
• What makes physicians unique when it comes to coaching them - 10:40
• How Merrill responds to skepticism of coaching - 14:44
• The primary causes causes of physician burnout - 16:32
• How healthcare administrators can balance patient satisfaction with physician well-being - 24:32 
• Merrill’s advice to medical professionals around self-care 38:06
• Merrill’s advice to healthcare leaders and administrators who want to better support and protect their staff from burnout - 40:28

Merrill's website can be found at MerrillLeadership.com.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Adjoa Boateng, MD has always felt drawn to helping those at the margins of society. An intensivist and physician-writer at Stanford, Dr. Boateng has found language to be a crucial part of not only her clinical work, but of her art as well. In a medical specialty that can often be mired in technical jargon and dehumanizing shorthand, she champions an even greater importance on the choice of words physicians use as a critical aspect of care.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• Dr. Boateng’s career in helping individuals from marginalized populations - 1:51
• How she maintains a connection to the spiritual dimensions of medicine despite working in what can often be the most impersonal of medical settings, the ICU - 4:45
• Her reflection on a particularly transcendent moment with a patient approaching death - 7:21
• Making space for the sacred, even in the antiseptic rooms of a hospital - 9:57
• How she discovered her passion for narrative medicine and writing poetry - 15:40
• The importance of humanizing language, especially when talking to patients - 17:37
• The concept of “miracles” in medicine - 22:26
• The difficulties Dr. Boateng experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic as a new attending and new mother - 26:17
• The intense scrutiny she has experienced as a black woman working in medicine - 30:39
• A poem Dr. Boateng has been writing for her son about his birth - 35:23

Connect with Dr. Boateng on Twitter @BoatengMD.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Ira Byock, MD is a leading figure in hospice and palliative medicine, having developed many practices and tools that now define the specialty. For him, this profession is a continual pursuit of balancing the scientific and human aspects of medical care, to address patient well-being in a way that transcends conventional concepts of disease and illness. In this episode, Dr. Byock joins us to discuss how palliative medicine developed into what it is today, how viewing death as a normal part of human living can allow patients to create meaning at the end of life, and what all clinicians can learn from palliative care about good doctoring.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• Dr. Byock’s early work in family and rural medicine and the moral crisis that awakened him to the need for palliative medicine - 1:51
• Dr. Byock’s experiences in pioneering the nascent field of palliative medicine - 7:53
• Combating the prevailing notion that medicine is only about treating injuries and curing illnesses - 11:16
• A story about a dying patient and the extra mile Dr. Byock went for her, which solidified his belief in the power of palliative care - 17:05
• Reimagining our relationship to death, both from the clinician’s and patient’s perspectives - 24:10
• The Four Things that Matter Most - 31:19
• Lessons learned from patients experiencing the end of their lives - 35:52
• Dr. Byock’s advice to young medical professionals and students - 39:31

Connect with Dr. Byock on Twitter @IraByock.

Dr. Byock is the author of several books: 

Dying Well 

The Four Things that Matter Most

The Best Care Possible

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Dean Winslow, MD has led an extraordinarily multifaceted career as an infectious disease specialist and former US Air Force colonel. In his pioneering work at the front lines of the AIDS epidemic, he headed one of the first HIV clinics in the country and created HIV treatments and diagnostics still used today. During his multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq as a flight surgeon, he commanded field hospitals that treated military personnel and local civilians alike. As a long-time professor of medicine at Stanford, he has been a popular mentor to hundreds of medical professionals. In this episode, with his trademark cheerful and humble demeanor, Dr. Winslow shares the colorful, poignant, and amusing stories he has collected over his decades of service.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• Dr. Winslow’s personal path that led him to medicine and his initial work during the early days of the AIDS epidemic - 2:51
• How Dr. Winslow manages the emotional burden that comes with treating seriously ill patients with HIV - 20:24
• Dr. Winslow’s experiences in military medicine and how they have shaped his medical career - 25:31
• A humorous story on solving a tough infectious disease case through medical detective work - 32:09
• Dr. Winslow’s advice to medical trainees who may be struggling with burnout, and what improvements should be made to the healthcare system to take pressure off medical professionals - 36:51

A narrative essay by Dr. Winslow about his military medical career: Treating the Enemy.

Follow Dr. Winslow’s work at StanfordHealthcare.org

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Abraham Verghese, MD is a prolific writer and revered physician who has deeply contemplated the philosophical underpinnings of the practice of medicine. He is renowned as an advocate for the importance of bedside examination and physical diagnosis, and his best-selling books probe the intricacies of human connection in the context of healthcare. In this episode, Dr. Verghese discusses how maintaining a literary life has impacted his approach to doctoring, why the human touch still matters for healing in our increasingly digital age, and his vision of the future of medicine.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• How Dr. Verghese’s love of literature influenced his decision to enter medicine  - 2:39
• Reflections on the challenges of contemporary medicine - 7:51
• How physical exams can be seen as a ritual for “reading the body like a book” - 10:07
• Dr. Verghese’s perspective on the future of doctor-patient relationships given the rise of telemedicine and other technologies - 20:36
• Balancing the need to connect with each patient for their treatment, while being responsible for so many at once - 26:23
• How the craft of writing relates to medicine for Dr. Verghese - 31:50
• The counterintuitive diagnostic efficiency of taking the time and care to meet patients where they are at - 35:45

Dr. Verghese is the author of three books:

My Own Country (1994) - traces the story of young Dr. Verghese in the mid-1980s in Johnson City, Tennessee, who began to treat patients with a then unknown disease, HIV.

The Tennis Partner (1999) - Dr. Verghese writes of his experience moving to El Paso in the midst of an unraveling marriage. There, he meets and becomes a mentor to David Smith, a medical resident at the hospital and a brilliant tennis player recovering from drug addiction.

Cutting for Stone (2009) - a novel about twin brothers, orphaned by their mother's death in childbirth and forsaken by their father.

The book that Dr. Verghese credits as having inspired him to pursue medicine is Of Human Bondage (1915), by William Somerset Maugham - Available for free 

Follow Dr. Verghese on Twitter @cuttingforstone and visit his website AbrahamVerghese.org.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

A former dean of Stanford Medical School and past leader at the National Cancer Institute, Phil Pizzo, MD is as renowned for his groundbreaking research on childhood cancers and immunodeficiency as he is for his promotion of medical education. He is also a tireless scholar who continues pursuing knowledge and purpose deep into what many would consider the retirement years. In this episode, Dr. Pizzo shares what caring for children with some of the most harrowing diseases has taught him about courage, and how his creation of Stanford’s Distinguished Careers Institute epitomizes his vision for longevity and philosophy of lifelong learning.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• How Dr. Pizzo’s love of learning and objection to the Vietnam War led him to a career in medicine - 2:00
• Teddy, a “boy in the bubble” whom Dr. Pizzo cared for and who profoundly shaped Dr. Pizzo’s career and life philosophy - 5:54
• Leaning into the work of treating severe diseases, despite the realities of the deep suffering involved - 14:46
• The guiding principles behind Dr. Pizzo’s time in leadership at the National Institutes of Health, Harvard Medical School, and Stanford Medical School - 20:01
• How Dr. Pizzo manages to maintain tranquility of mind and buoyancy of spirit over his long career, and why he created the Distinguished Careers Institute - 22:51
• The surprising next step in Dr. Pizzo’s scholarly journey - 30:42
• Dr. Pizzo’s advice to young people about the value of a habit of lifelong learning - 34:40

Read more about Teddy DeVita, the “boy in the bubble” whom Dr. Pizzo cared for, in this Washington Post article.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Pamela Kunz, MD is the Director of the Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers at Yale Medicine. For 19 years, she was at Stanford University, most recently serving as Director of the Stanford Neuroendocrine Tumor Program. But in 2020, Dr. Kunz announced her departure, citing years of gender discrimination, microaggressions, and harassment. In this episode, Dr. Kunz opens up about the challenges she faced, how she overcame them, and how she now taps into a clear-eyed awareness of her values to lead health care settings that empower underrepresented individuals and to advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic medicine.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• How Dr. Kunz’s science-filled childhood led her to a career in medicine, and why she took on the daunting task of treating cancer patients - 2:21
• What it is like to build relationships with patients who have life-limiting cancer diagnoses - 7:25
• Dr. Kunz’s past struggles working in a toxic environment due to constant disrespect and denigration based on her gender - 12:18
• How leadership coach Rebecca Merrill (our guest on Episode 7) helped Dr. Kunz realize why she was so unhappy in her work and what she could do about it - 16:15
• The development of Dr. Kunz as an advocate of diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic medicine - 18:48
• Dr. Kunz’s advice for women and other underrepresented individuals going into medicine on preparing against potential hostility in their chosen careers, and how to create a “tapestry” of mentors - 22:01
• How Dr. Kunz addresses her own burnout, and how seeing oneself as an advocate can be a tool to self-empowerment - 32:25 
• The advice Dr. Kunz would give to her past self if she could go back in time - 41:02

Dr. Kunz mentions the book “Dare to Lead” by Brené Brown as being especially transformational in her journey to overcome challenges in the workplace.

Follow Dr. Kunz on Twitter @PamelaKunzMD

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Victoria Sweet, MD is a prize-winning author, medical historian, and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of two bestselling books: “God's Hotel,” which details her time as a doctor in the last almshouse in the United States, and “Slow Medicine,” a memoir that outlines her approach to medicine as both a craft and art. In this episode, Dr. Sweet discusses why she reframes the doctor-patient relationship from one of a mechanic repairing a machine, to one of a gardener tending to her plants. Through vivid stories of her remarkable experiences, she illustrates how combining insights of premodern medicine with advances of modern health care can lead to better healing.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• How the writings of Carl Jung drew Dr. Sweet to medicine - 2:18
• The story of how a resourceful nurse and a stubborn patient taught Dr. Sweet what it meant to be “a real doctor” - 9:36
• The origin of the Slow Medicine movement and how it shapes Dr. Sweet’s approach to patient care - 16:19
• The Philosophy of the Minimum and why examining side effects and placebo groups is critical to delivering the best patient care - 22:03
• Dr. Sweet’s time at Laguna Honda Hospital, the “last almshouse in the United States”, and what she learned about healing from the slower pace of that hospital - 27:07
• How studying medieval figures like Hildegard of Bingen influenced Dr. Sweet’s appreciation for premodern medicine and how she pairs it with modern medicine - 33:58
• Dr. Sweet’s advice for clinicians facing the mounting challenges of the modern corporate medical landscape - 40:02

Dr. Sweet is the author of God’s Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine and Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing.

Dr. Sweet discusses the influence of Carl Jung’s memoir Memories, Dreams, and Reflections

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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As the founding medical director of Palliative Care Services at Stanford Hospital, Stephanie Harman, MD is no stranger to death and grief. In this episode, she shares the story of how she discovered palliative care through the death of someone close and what it looks like to transform what are often the moments of greatest patient suffering into moments of profound meaning and humanism. In addition to her palliative care work, Dr. Harman is a clinical associate professor of medicine, a co-chair of the Stanford Health Care Ethics Committee, and Associate Chair for the Women in Medicine initiative in Stanford’s Department of Medicine.

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• How PBS, zebrafish, and comparative literature influenced Dr. Harman’s decision to enter medicine - 3:08
• How the death of someone close propelled Dr. Harman into palliative care and informs her philosophical focus on honoring a patient’s values and wishes - 8:09
• Why Dr. Harman felt drawn to a medical specialty that so often deals with the most painful part of medicine: witnessing patients dying - 15:53
• How Dr. Harman had to advocate for the legitimacy and dignity of palliative medicine, despite being told it was “a waste of her career” - 19:18
• How Dr. Harman processes the emotional weight of her chosen field with preventive and supportive measures - 22:20
• A discussion of how the COVID-19 pandemic has forced public and personal conversations about grief to the forefront - 27:24
• Dr. Harman’s vision for the future of medicine, and specifically the broader adoption of palliative care services - 33:33
• Dr. Harman’s advice to new medical professionals and students - 38:49

You can follow Dr. Harman on Twitter @Steph_HarmanMD

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Essayist Emily Maloney offers a wholly unique vantage point when it comes to American healthcare. At 19 years old, a suicide attempt landed Emily in the hospital for an extended stay, which then saddled her with a massive 5-figure load of unexpected medical bills. In an attempt to pay off her debt, Emily became an emergency room technician and began working in the very same system that was crippling her financial life. In today’s episode, Emily discusses her experiences as both patient and caregiver, and shares her insights on the true cost – financial and personal – that the flawed US medical system exerts on everyone involved, from patients to physicians.  

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Emily’s motivation for writing her recently published book of essays, “Cost of Living”  - 2:33
• How finding herself in suffocating medical debt changed Emily’s life  - 10:24
• Why the true costs of medical interventions are impossible to know under the current system -  18:20
• What drew Emily into the medical profession despite her negative experiences as a patient - 24:43
• Emily’s ideas on how healthcare in the US should be reformed - 37:28

Emily is the author of the essay collection “Cost of Living”

Follow Emily on Twitter @emilyfmaloney

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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When actress and playwright Ellen Dunphy — then a robustly-healthy 33-year old — first met co-host Dr. Tyler Johnson in early 2020, they were filming an educational video teaching doctors how to discuss terminal illnesses with patients. Six months later, in a twist of fate, upon receiving a terminal diagnosis of gastric cancer, Ellen learned that Dr. Johnson would be her oncologist — for real this time. In this poignant episode, Ellen candidly shares her experiences from the moment she received her diagnosis to how she has subsequently grappled with grief, and discusses how this has fueled the creation of a play about her cancer journey. This is a rare occasion of conversation and reflection between a dying patient and her doctor on what matters most in medicine.

We note with sadness that Ellen passed away peacefully on July 4, 2022, surrounded by people who loved her.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• The circumstances that first brought Ellen and Dr. Johnson together - 1:38
• Ellen and Tyler’s second meeting, under drastically different yet parallel circumstances - 5:03
• What it was like for both Ellen and Dr. Johnson at the moment her diagnosis was delivered - 7:24
• What was surprising to Ellen about going through cancer treatment - 13:24
• Ellen’s advice to medical professionals in light of her own treatment journey - 16:40
• Ellen’s reflections on the process of writing her play about receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis - 21:12
• The meaning of medicine, as seen by Ellen - 27:45
• Ellen’s advice to all patients on the importance of advocating for oneself - 29:00

Ellen’s one-woman play “Imaginary Endings” about facing her cancer diagnosis can be viewed on YouTube.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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As the real-life inspiration for and medical consultant to the popular TV show "House, M.D.," journalist-turned-physician Lisa Sanders, MD has played quite the role in elevating the prestige and drama of medical diagnosis. For the past 20 years, Dr. Sanders has written a column in the New York Times titled "Diagnosis," in which she discusses bizarre and fascinating medical cases. In 2019, this column was turned into a Netflix documentary series of the same name. She has garnered much acclaim for presenting the process of diagnosis as a detective story, rather than the rote recall of a set of facts and figures. Dr. Sanders joins us in this episode to speak about her remarkable career path, her work, and how storytelling contributes to patient healing.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Dr. Sanders’ career prior to medicine as a TV journalist and how it influenced her path as a physician - 1:59
• Dr. Sanders’ revelation about diagnosis as detective work and how she developed her passion for it - 4:59
• Being part of the handful of “weirdos” that Yale Medical School admits every year, and combating imposter syndrome - 7:14
• Dr. Sanders’ reflections on the how money-making impacts physician burnout and how the burden of choice in medical career paths may lead to a sense of disconnect - 12:39
• Medical diagnosis itself as a kind of healing, allowing patients to contextualize their circumstances within their personal narratives - 18:05
• Dr. Sanders’ best-practices on communicating with patients - 29:03
• The methodology of solving and describing medical mysteries - 32:10
• Challenges and opportunities in eliciting and listening to patient stories - 42:16
• Dr. Sanders’ hope that the human dimension of medicine does not get displaced by the technical dimension, and why storytelling is integral to patient healing - 46:41

Dr. Lisa Sanders is the author of several books, including 

Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis (2009), and

Diagnosis: Solving the Most Baffling Medical Mysteries (2019)

She writes a column for the New York Times called Diagnosis, which can be found archived here

Follow Dr. Sanders on Twitter @LisaSandersmd

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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As former CEO of the Permanente Medical Group, Robert Pearl, MD was responsible for the work of 50,000 healthcare workers and the medical care of 5 million Americans through Kaiser Permanente hospitals across the country. A leading expert on healthcare management and strategy, Dr. Pearl is the author of two bestselling books, “Mistreated: Why We Think We’re Getting Good Healthcare–And Why We’re Usually Wrong” and “Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors and Patients,” a regular contributor to Forbes, and the host of several popular medical podcasts. He is a board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon, clinical professor at Stanford Medicine, and lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In this episode, Dr. Pearl shares his thoughts on why American healthcare is failing not only patients but also physicians, and what we can do to address inherent problems in the culture of medicine.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Dr. Pearl’s journey to a career in plastic surgery - 2:13
• Grappling with complications that arise during surgery - 9:40
• Dr. Pearl’s transition from surgeon to CEO of the Permanente Medical Group - 12:49
• The mission that Dr. Pearl brought to his role as CEO and how he implemented that mission - 17:21
• How Dr. Pearl paved a path for increasing both the quality of care and physician satisfaction, while keeping costs low, and why so often these goals seem at odds with each other - 20:32
• The toxic culture of denial in medicine and why it is killing doctors and patients - 27:45
• How status and compensation disparity contributes to physician burnout, and what to do about it - 35:47
• Dr. Pearl’s administrative strategy that led Kaiser Permanente to much success during his tenure as CEO - 43:08
• Dr. Pearl’s advice to physicians on how to stay connected and empowered in their careers - 46:38

Dr. Robert Pearl is:

• Author of two books: Mistreated: Why We Think We’re Getting Good Healthcare - And Why We’re Usually Wrong; and Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors & Patients, with all proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders
• A frequent contributor to Forbes Magazine 
• The host of two podcasts: Fixing Healthcare and Coronavirus: The Truth

Find more information at RobertPearlMD.com or follow Dr. Pearl on Twitter @RobertPearlMD

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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What happens when miscommunication between a doctor and patient leads to intractable conflict? What happens when a patient requests an intervention a doctor does not feel ethically comfortable with? In the toughest of situations, doctors turn to the clinical ethicist for help. David Magnus, PhD, an internationally regarded leader in clinical ethics, is the director of the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Bioethics, and former president of the Association of Bioethics Program Directors. In this episode, Dr. Magnus shares lessons learned from the most ethically ambiguous scenarios he has managed, the importance of ethical thinking skills for all clinicians, and the difficulties inherent in clinician-patient communication.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• What it’s like to be a clinical ethicist, handling the tough ethical questions doctors call on them to resolve - 5:05
• How an ethicist determines what is “right” in a given circumstance - 9:10
• How Dr. Magnus’ deals with patients who refuse to accept his recommendations for care - 11:33
• Dr. Magnus’s journey from professor of philosophy to leading thinker on medical ethics - 14:00
• How the intense specialization of modern medicine may be contributing to clinician burnout - 23:31
• How misinterpretation of language can be a major barrier to good health care - 32:25
• Why clinicians use “hedge language” and “shield attributions” and how they can dramatically alter a patient’s understanding of their situation - 40:46
• Dr. Magnus’s advice to new clinicians on cultivating skills in ethical thinking and responsible patient communication - 50:45

Learn more about the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities here.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Our modern world grants us unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli—not just drugs, but also food, news, shopping, sex, gaming, social media, gambling, and more. But psychiatrist Anna Lembke, MD argues that this society-wide overindulgence in pleasure threatens to lead us to deeper pain. Dr. Lembke is the director of the Addiction Medicine Service at Stanford Medicine and is the author of two bestselling books, Dopamine Nation and Drug Dealer, MD. As one of the first doctors to sound the alarm on the opioid epidemic in America, she's an expert on the issue and has advised policymakers at the highest levels of government. In this episode, Dr. Lembke describes her work treating all kinds of addiction, discusses her deep concern with the overconsumption of pleasure in our culture, and shares what we can all do to renew meaning and connectedness in our lives through balancing pain and pleasure.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• What first drew Dr. Lembke to a medical career and how she initially discovered psychiatry - 2:13
• Why Dr. Lembke dedicates herself to addiction medicine, and how her philosophy can help others find meaningful work - 9:16
• The historical shift, with the advent of the opioid epidemic, to understanding addiction as a medical condition instead of a moral or personal failing - 12:53
• Reframing addiction as a medical diagnosis and approaching patients facing addictive disorders with compassion - 17:58
• How flaws in contemporary medical practice and misaligned incentives for doctors contributed to the opioid crisis - 24:15
• A discussion of Dr. Lemke’s book Dopamine Nation, including how easy access to pleasure causes addictagenic responses in nearly every aspect of our lives - 29:32
• How humans can reconnect with meaning despite living in a culture that often substitutes meaning with cheap pleasure - 34:15
• Dr. Lembke’s advice to all clinicians for how to better connect with patients - 45:20

Tyler refers to the essay “I Used to be a Human Being” by Andrew Sullivan.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Born with hemophilia in a time before effective therapies existed and having experienced treatment complications including hepatitis C and HIV, Eric Winer, MD spent much of his childhood and young adulthood in and out of the hospital. Today, he is the Director of Yale Cancer Center and President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the largest organization of clinicians caring for cancer patients. An internationally renowned expert in breast cancer, his research has immensely impacted how breast cancer is now treated. In this episode, Dr. Winer shares his path to oncology and his insights from being a lifelong patient on stigma, compassion, and empathy.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How growing up with hemophilia led Dr. Winer to the field of medicine - 1:50
• The patient that cemented Dr. Winer’s dedication to oncology as his life’s work - 7:55
• Dr. Winer’s reflections on how his experiences as a patient shape his work as a doctor - 12:52
• Facing the reality of caring for patients with terminal illness - 18:21
• How Dr. Winer grounds the care he provides in the humanism of each patient - 23:49
• Dr. Winer’s mission and vision as president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology - 25:49
• How leading by example is critical to cultivating a strong, respectful, and collaborative institutional culture - 31:02
• Dr. Winer’s advice to medical students and new clinicians on maintaining a connection to meaningful work - 33:12

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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What is it like to comfort patients in the moments before they surrender consciousness to undergo surgery? What can the humanities teach us about being present for a patient when they are at their most vulnerable? As an anesthesiologist and founding director of Medicine and the Muse, Stanford Medicine’s health humanities program, Audrey Shafer, MD has spent her career pondering and addressing these questions. In this episode, Dr. Shafer discusses how her exploits in the humanities have shaped her career in medicine, gives us an intimate and vivid picture of the vital work anesthesiologists do, and shares what her recent personal experiences with cancer have taught her about what it means to truly care for patients.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How growing up in an artistic household initially pushed Dr. Shafer away from the arts and toward a medical career - 1:51
• Why Dr. Shafer chose to become an anesthesiologist - 5:51
• Dr. Shafer’s discovery of the medical humanities and how she would later create the first program of its type at Stanford Medicine - 8:57
• A discussion of what the medical humanities are and a defense of its value - 12:00
• Reflections on the profound privilege of being an anesthesiologist and a medical educator - 17:45
• A behind-the-scenes look at an anesthesiologist’s work - 25:02
• Dr. Shafer’s recent cancer diagnosis and her treatment journey - 34:29
• Advice for clinicians and medical students about seeing patients’ illnesses within the greater context of their lives - 41:15

Follow Dr. Shafer on Twitter @AudreyShafer.

You can peruse the Literature Arts & Medicine magazine here.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Imagine showing up for work every day for a year, knowing full well that each day you risk contracting a potentially devastating disease with unknown long-term consequences. That's exactly what Thomas Fisher, MD went through, as he documents vividly in his recent book, The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago E.R., which delves into what it was like fighting COVID-19 on the frontlines in 2020. Dr. Fisher, an emergency physician at the University of Chicago Medical Center, former healthcare executive, and former White House Fellow, has dedicated his life to caring for his community, the black population of Chicago's South Side. In this episode, he recounts harrowing stories from the emergency room, gives an impassioned critique of a health care system with too little space for doctors to provide the care their patients need, and shares a renewed vision of healthcare as a foundation of social justice.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• What motivated Dr. Fisher to write his book, The Emergency, a riveting first-hand account of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic - 2:09
• The uncertainty and terror physicians faced at very beginning of the pandemic - 5:29
• An intimate picture of how emergency physicians approached the first COVID-19 patients - 9:45
• How an upbringing in Chicago’s South Side propelled Dr. Fisher into a career in healthcare, and how the reality of inequitable systems has shaped his medical practice - 13:10
• A discussion of the concept of “heroism” in the context of frontline healthcare workers - 20:35
• How Dr. Fisher used letters addressed to patients as a narrative device in his book to explore social injustices that affect individual health - 30:50
• Dr. Fisher’s reflections on maintaining a connection to the meaning of his work despite the seemingly insurmountable systemic challenges that he recognizes - 35:57
• Practical advice for clinicians on making space for patient care within a rushed healthcare environment - 42:28

Dr. Fisher is the author of The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago E.R.

Follow Dr. Fisher on Twitter @TFisherMD.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Rana Awdish, MD was on the last day of her critical care medicine training when her life changed forever. Seven months pregnant at the time, Dr. Awdish abruptly found herself in a life threatening crisis when a previously undiagnosed liver tumor suddenly ruptured. She was rushed to the ICU of her own hospital, where she came unimaginably close to death multiple times. Despite this tragic event, she survived thanks to the incredible work of her medical team. Today, Dr. Awdish is the author of the acclaimed memoir In Shock, which recounts her time as an ICU patient. She is also the Medical Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Program at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, and Medical Director of Care Experience for the Henry Ford Health System. In this episode, she shares what she has learned from her experiences about compassion, hope, and improving empathetic communication in health care. 

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How a family ailment inspired Dr. Awdish to pursue a medical career - 2:10
• An riveting personal account of the catastrophic medical event that befell Dr. Awdish - 4:17
• A discussion of the learning curve in medicine and the need to create safe spaces for physicians to admit ignorance - 12:13
• The fascinating and unsettling experience of being a highly-trained physician and a critically-ill patient at the same time, and how this experience showed her the way our current medical culture disempowers patients - 15:17
• Dr. Awdish’s reflections on the antagonistic environment of her prolonged hospital stay - 20:19
• A discussion of hope, concept often misunderstood by physicians as running counter to realistic expectations - 27:37
• The intense and unexpected role of spirituality in Dr. Awdish’s critical care experience - 32:14
• Navigating the medical profession while confronting suffering and not burning out - 34:37
• A discussion of Dr. Awdish’s profound essay The Shape of the Shore about the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Detroit - 37:36
• Dr. Awdish’s advice to new physicians and students to help them stay connected to their work and to see the humanity in their patients - 44:33

Dr. Rana Awdish is the author of:

In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope, a memoir about the harrowing events discussed in this episode and the revelations she attained by going through them.

The Shape of the Shore, an essay about working in the ICU during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Johnson mentions the essay The Learning Curve by Dr. Atul Gawande.

Follow Dr. Awdish on Twitter @RanaAwdish.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Technological advancements have enabled us to accomplish medical miracles through novel medical devices, algorithms, and digital tools. At the same time, the exponential entanglement of tech with healthcare has led many clinicians to feel disconnected from the human element of medicine. Here to discuss this conundrum is Bryant Lin, MD, MEng, the director of Medicine and the Muse, the medical humanities program at Stanford Medical School, and a mechanical engineer by training who focuses on medical device development. Dr. Lin also conducts research in Asian population health and is the cofounder of Stanford’s Consultative Medicine Clinic, which evaluates patients with medical mysteries. In today’s episode, Dr. Lin shares his unique perspective at the crossroads of technology and the humanities, and discusses how storytelling can be a powerful instrument to keep physicians grounded in what truly matters for their patients.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How an early interest in engineering led Dr. Lin to medicine - 1:42
• A poignant letter Dr. Lin received from one of his long-term aging patients that reaffirms why his medical career is meaningful - 4:10
• A discussion of how medical bureaucratization has stolen away much of the human connection that underpins fulfilling medical work - 7:39
• How Medicine and the Muse, the medical humanities program at Stanford, helps clinicians connect with the meaning in medicine - 12:40
• What Dr. Lin hopes to achieve through teaching medical humanities to future clinicians - 25:45
• How storytelling helps healthcare providers better connect with their patients - 27:28
• How Dr. Lin integrates storytelling into medical device design, and why it is imperative to not allow technology to distance physicians from their patients - 31:24

Dr. Lin manages the forthcoming digital medical humanities newsletter Panacea Health. 

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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On New Year's Eve of 2020, at the age of 29, Katie Coleman was diagnosed with metastatic renal oncocytoma, a type of kidney cancer so rare that she is the only known case in the United States and one of only a handful around the world. The sheer uniqueness of her situation resulted in a prolonged course of prognostic and therapeutic uncertainty. Thanks to the work of oncologists at the National Cancer Institute and MD Anderson Cancer Center, Katie is now in remission. Today, she is a patient advocate who passionately supports other patients through their cancer journeys. In this episode, Katie joins us to share her incredible story, her experiences with grief, uncertainty, and hope, and her lessons learned on finding joy and meaning in life.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Katie’s backstory and the events leading up to her diagnosis - 1:50
• The experience of being diagnosed with one of the rarest cancers in the world - 3:58
• How Katie’s oncologists discussed this unusual diagnosis with her - 10:42
• The experience of receiving treatment with the goal of prolonging life, rather than curing the disease - 13:06
• How co-host Dr. Tyler Johnson communicates issues of serious illness with his patients - 15:38
• How the uncertainty around a terminal cancer prognosis impacts the way patients approach living their lives - 22:21
• How Katie’s changing prognoses have altered her life plans - 28:53
• The wisdom on living well one gains from facing a life-limiting illness - 34:32
• Lessons on hope in the face of uncertainty - 39:55
• The various ways clinicians can open up and connect with their patients on a human level - 44:14

Katie’s story has been profiled by the National Cancer Institute, NBC News, and the Today Show.

You can follow Katie on Twitter @KayDAustin

Katie is also an active content creator and patient advocate on Youtube, TikTok, and Instagram.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Pediatric neurosurgeons manage some of the most complex diseases in children, operating on the delicate and precious organ that makes us essentially human. Jay Wellons, MD is Chief of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the author of All That Moves Us, a memoir that offers an intimate and gripping account of the triumphs, terrors, joys, and pathos he encounters on a daily basis. In this episode, Dr. Wellons joins us to discuss his path to neurosurgery by way of English literature and family medicine, his faith as an anchor amidst his challenging work, and reflections on what the human dramas involving the most vulnerable children he has cared for has taught him about resilience, courage, and grace under pressure.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• A discussion of the range of procedures pediatric neurosurgeons perform - 1:58
• How a fascination with neuroanatomy drew Dr. Wellons into neurosurgery, and how his literary studies have impacted his patient care - 3:58
• The origin of Dr. Wellons’ book All That Moves Us and his experiences with a personal health crisis - 8:59
• What it is like to operate on one of the most intricate and delicate parts of the human body - 18:00
• How Dr. Wellons deals with the weight of unsuccessful procedures, and how he carries on - 27:51
• Forming relationships with the families of very young and often very ill patients - 31:12
• A discussion of spiritual faith and its place in the life of a surgeon who sees so much tragedy - 35:27
• Dr. Wellons’ advice to students, trainees, and clinicians on how to stay connected and hopeful in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges - 40:52

Dr. Wellons is the author of a book All That Moves Us: A Pediatric Neurosurgeon, His Young Patients, and Their Stories of Grace and Resilience, as well as the article “How the Summer Camp Doctor Earned His Stripes ” for Garden & Gun magazine.

You can follow Dr. Jay Wellons on Twitter @JayWellons5

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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With around 63 million beneficiaries, Medicare is the single largest provider of health insurance in the United States, serving Americans aged 65 or older, as well as some younger patients who have certain disabilities. Directing this massive program is Meena Seshamani, MD, PhD, an otolaryngologist and former Vice President of Clinical Care Transformation at MedStar Health, a large health care organization primarily operating in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. There, she led initiatives in palliative care, geriatrics, and community health. She has also served as Director of the Office of Health Reform at the US Department of Health and Human Services. In this episode, Dr. Seshamani discusses her path from surgeon to health policy leader, what draws her to caring for older adults, and her vision for a better, more sustainable health care of the future.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Dr. Seshamani’s enthusiasm for medicine at a young age and the diverse career trajectory that followed - 2:08
• A discussion of Dr. Seshamani’s past leadership roles, including those at the Office of Health Reform under the Obama administration and at MedStar Health - 6:27
• Balancing the need for clinicians to work collaboratively and the inclination of physicians to value autonomy - 10:20
• An explanation of Medicare’s role in the US healthcare ecosystem - 14:51
• What draws Dr. Seshamani to focus on the care of older adults - 17:39
• The crisis of burnout in the medical profession and Dr. Seshamani’s vision for how this can be addressed - 21:00
• The fee-for-service mechanism of healthcare reimbursement, accountable care relationships, and the value of preventative care - 25:33
• The pay disparity between specialists and primary care physicians, and the role Medicare can play - 30:40
• How the growing population of aging Americans impacts the future sustainability of the Medicare program - 38:41
• How Medicare is reforming its allocation of resources to promote health equity - 42:02
• Dr. Seshamani’s advice to students and clinicians on engaging in meaningful work as they advance in their careers - 48:24

In this episode, we discuss the speech “Cowboys and Pit Crews” by Atul Gawande, published in the New Yorker.

You can follow Dr. Seshamani on Twitter @DrMeenaSesh

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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The Human Genome Project was a 13 year long international effort to map and sequence all of the genes in the human genome. Leading this ambitious endeavor was Francis Collins, MD, PhD, who was also Director of the National Institutes of Health from 2009 to 2021. His work has had a far-reaching impact on our understanding of diseases and the development of new therapies. In addition to being one of the foremost physician scientists of our time, Dr. Collins is also well known for his bold defense of his Christian faith and for his steadfast promotion of dialogue between science and religion. His book, The Language of God, was an international bestseller. In this episode, Dr. Collins joins us to share his remarkable path in medicine, the origins and evolution of his faith, and his perspectives on the moral mission of medicine.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• A close personal look at Dr. Collins’ career, leading to his directorship of the Human Genome Project - 1:56
• The mission and implications of the Human Genome Project - 10:02
• The cultural upheaval that has occurred during Dr. Collins’ lifetime and the way popular culture tends to pit science and faith against each other - 15:25
• The origin of BioLogos and its mission to foster a community that strives to harmonize science and Christian faith - 24:47
• A brief discussion of Intelligent Design, a movement that aims to prove the existence of God through science, and how it differs from BioLogos - 28:26
• Dr. Collins’ reflections on the reconciliation between his faith in God and the human suffering he has witnessed throughout his career - 32:42
• Advice on finding meaning and fulfillment in both life and work, and how community can help combat burnout - 40:38

Dr. Francis Collins is the author of The Language of God  and the founder Biologos.org.

Dr. Collins references The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewisas being particularly enlightening to his personal worldview

Dr. Collins was recently interviewed by Science.org about his time leading the National Institutes of Health

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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What should we do about the fact that a person's health is affected in large part by social factors beyond the confines of the hospital? For a long time, traditional health care institutions have been inadequate in answering this question. Joining us in this episode is Toyin Ajayi, MD, MPhil, co-founder and chief executive officer of Cityblock Health, a tech-driven health care provider for communities with complex health and social needs. With a focus on Medicaid and lower income Medicare beneficiaries, Cityblock Health has been widely recognized as an exemplar of a sustainable model of care delivery for marginalized populations. We are pleased to be joined by Dr. Ajayi to discuss Cityblock Health as well as her clinical work, which centers on patients with chronic complex and end-of-life needs.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Dr. Ajayi’s personal journey from growing up in Kenya to leading Cityblock Health - 1:57
• Why Dr. Ajayi chose to focus her career on patients with complex and chronic health needs - 4:11
• The social determinants of health and its impact on a patient’s ability to seek appropriate medical care - 5:21
• Dr. Ajayi’s story of a chronically-ill patient who appeared ‘difficult’ but in truth was suffering from social inequities that limited his access to health care - 10:35
• A discussion of Cityblock Health, the value-based healthcare provider that Dr. Ajayi co-founded to provide care to the Medicaid patient population - 18:07
• The stigmas around Medicaid patients and why Dr. Ajayi sees opportunities instead of barriers  - 22:02
• An in-depth exploration of the services Cityblock Health provides - 27:00
• The challenges of the fee-for-service model of American healthcare, and how Cityblock seeks to address them - 32:36
• Dr. Ajayi’s advice to medical practitioners on how to build trust and rapport with their patients - 37:50
• The future of Cityblock Health and the health equity movement - 40:05

Follow Dr. Toyin Ajayi on Twitter @ToyinAjayiDoc and Cityblock Health @CityblockHealth

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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On June 28, 2022, we released an episode featuring Ellen Dunphy, a 35-year old patient with a terminal diagnosis of gastric cancer who had been under the care of co-host Dr. Tyler Johnson. Ellen passed away a week later. Accompanying every step on her cancer journey was her husband, Andy Clinnin. In this episode, Andy joins us to share his experiences as Ellen’s caregiver and primary source of emotional support. Over the course of our conversation, we explore Andy and Ellen’s relationship from its beginnings all the way to her final days and after. Andy’s reflections on these challenging moments, perhaps paradoxically, has much to teach us about what it looks like to courageously make the most of life, however much of it remains. 

In this episode, you will hear about:

• A synopsis of how Ellen came to be in Dr. Johnson’s care - 1:03
• How Andy and Ellen met, and their relationship leading up to her diagnosis - 6:44
• Andy’s perspective on Ellen’s diagnosis - 10:15
• What it was like for Andy to learn about Ellen’s diagnosis and how he adjusted to being her caregiver - 16:26
• Andy’s reflections on the experience of having Dr. Johnson as Ellen’s oncologist - 21:39
• How Andy helped Ellen think through her priorities at the end-of-life - 27:15
• How being with his partner until the end has changed the way Andy sees life - 35:46
• How California’s End of Life Treatment Act allowed Ellen to control how her life story ended - 43:14
• Andy’s advice for other caregivers on how to best take care of themselves so they may best provide care to their loved ones - 51:33 

Ellen Dunphy’s one-woman play “Imaginary Endings” about facing her cancer diagnosis can be viewed on YouTube.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Advances in modern medicine mean a greater proportion of people today than ever before will live well into old age. Despite the seemingly encouraging trend, geriatrician Louise Aronson, MD, MFA argues that we have made old age into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, denigrated, neglected, and denied. Dr. Aronson has made it her life's work to help us reimagine the rich possibilities of human longevity and of later life. Her bestselling book, Elderhood, was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. In this episode, Dr. Aronson explains what makes geriatrics a meaningful career for her, discusses the faults in our society’s conception of elderhood, and shares her humane and hopeful vision for the future of aging.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• An overview of what geriatrics entails - 1:47
• The need to recognize elderhood as distinct a life stage - 4:42
• Dr. Aronson’s reflections on what drew her into caring for older patients - 6:15
• The ways goals of care change in elderhood - 8:24
• Dr. Aronson’s approach to caring for her patients holistically - 13:27
• How physicians can change the “losers and winners” paradigm in healthcare - 17:34
• A discussion of structural and cultural ageism and the insidious ways it harms our society - 23:03
• How American culture and medicine elevates patient autonomy and how this can sometimes be harmful to older patients - 30:59
• A discussion of Dr. Aronson’s writing and what motivated her to become an author - 38:49
• How Dr. Aronson experienced and overcame burnout - 42:57
• Advice to new clinicians on how to connect with patients and create a more meaningful career path - 46:08

Dr. Aronson is the author of the nonfiction book Elderhood and the short story collection A History of the Present Illness, as well as several essays and articles on ageism and aging and a blog.

Follow Dr. Louise Arondson on Twitter @LouiseAronson, Instagram @LouiseAronsonSF, and LinkedIn.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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In 1969, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified the five stages of dying in her book On Death and Dying. Her work has radically transformed the way we think and talk about grief and loss, giving us a shared vocabulary and understanding of a previously murky, yet universal, human experience. Towards the end of her life, Kübler-Ross worked closely with David Kessler, with whom she co-authored several books and formally adapted the stages of dying into the stages of grief. Today, David is the world’s foremost expert on grief and has taught health care workers, counselors, and first responders on facing death and loss. His writings and his website Grief.com have reached millions of people. In this episode, David joins us to share his personal experiences with loss and what his decades of helping those on the edge of death have taught him about finding meaning amid suffering, and happiness after tragedy.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Thanatology — the study of death and dying — and what drew David to this field - 2:10
• Kessler’s friendship with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the psychiatrist best known for developing the five stages of dying - 6:06
• How physicians are often ill-equipped to face death and how hey might better engage with dying patients - 11:22
• David’s advice to physicians on finding meaning amid loss and tragedy - 19:05
• A review of the five stages of dying/grief - 28:58
• On Meaning, the sixth stage of grief that David developed - 33:38
• How the pandemic saw a renewed interest in grief management, and how his interview with the Harvard Business Review entitled “The Discomfort You Are Feeling is Grief” went viral - 38:04
• How David manages the overwhelming sadness he sometimes experiences in his line of work - 43:54
• David’s advice to physicians on comforting grieving patients - 48:31

David Kessler is the author of several books, including The Needs of the Dyingand Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, as well as Life Lessons and On Grief and Grieving with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who is herself the noted author of On Death and Dying.

Follow David Kessler on Twitter @IamDavidKessler.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you know anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

As one of the most prolific and acclaimed physician writers today, Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD is the author of seven books on the intricacies of modern medical practice and the doctor-patient relationship. Her other writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, in addition to various leading medical journals. She is also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review, a literary journal that publishes works focusing on the human body, illness, and health. In her writings, Dr. Ofri uses vivid narratives to shed light on the highs and lows of being a doctor. In this episode, she joins us to share her path to medicine, how doctors can mitigate the moral injury they experience in their work, and how storytelling can comfort us in times of suffering.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Ofri was initially drawn to internal medicine through the patient stories she encountered - 1:54
• A discussion of the tension between the business and art of medicine - 6:07
• Dr. Ofri’s advice on how clinicians can combat the moral corrosion that broken medical systems can induce - 11:29
• How Dr. Ofri’s medical residency during the AIDS epidemic led to her passion for writing - 16:33
• Dr. Ofri’s writing process - 23:30
• A discussion of the moral philosophy of medicine and why doctors do what they do - 27:09
• Dr. Ofri reflections on how her writing has impacted her clinical practice - 31:47
• The wisdom that physicians who encounter suffering every day can share with a world experiencing collective grief from the COVID-19 pandemic - 34:38
• A discussion of the emotional toll on clinicians of delivering bad news and confronting grief, and an exploration of guilt and shame - 42:25
• Dr. Ofri’s advice to clinicians on how to stay connected to meaning in medicine - 48:44

Dr. Danielle Ofri is the author of the following books on being a doctor:
Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue

What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine

When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error

What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear

Medicine in Translation

Intensive Care: A Doctor’s Journey

Incidental Findings

Follow Dr. Ofri on Twitter @DanielleOfri.

This episode included an excerpt from Jacqueline du Pré and Daniel Barenboim’s performance of the Cello Sonata No. 2 in F major, Op. 99 by Johannes Brahms, recorded live in West Berlin in 1968.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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While digital technologies now permeate nearly every aspect of our lives, their application to improve medicine remains limited. Still, recent advances in artificial intelligence, telecommunications, and other technologies hold enormous potential to transform how healthcare is delivered. At the forefront of exploring this potential is Justin Norden, MD, MBA, a physician and investor at the venture capital firm GSR Ventures, where he focuses on investments in digital health companies. With a background in computer science, Dr. Norden previously worked on the healthcare team at Apple and helped launch the Center for Digital Health at Stanford University. He joins us in conversation to discuss how he discovered investing and entrepreneurship as a way to tackle problems in medicine, clarify misconceptions about digital health and venture capital, and explore how technologies are shaping the future of medicine.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• A brief introduction to venture capital - 1:48
• How Dr. Norden’s experiences during medical training led him explore entrepreneurship and healthcare investing - 3:22
• How Dr. Norden’s passion for computer science influenced his medical education - 7:30
• What it was like to leave a clinical career - 10:18
• The past and current state of technological advancement in medicine - 20:28
• Co-host Dr. Johnson’s concerns over the ways technology has, at times, impeded the delivery of health care - 28:38
• Dr. Norden’s vision for the ideal balance between humanism and technology in medicine - 34:31
• How Dr. Norden considers the reconciliation between the profit motive of companies and the preservation of what makes medicine meaningful - 38:28
• How Dr. Norden decides which digital health companies to invest in - 44:57
• Advice to young clinicians who are curious about healthcare innovation - 50:09

Follow Dr. Norden on Twitter @JustinNordenMD.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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When it comes to medical humanitarianism, there is no bigger name than Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known in English as Doctors Without Borders. MSF is renowned for its work in regions affected by armed conflict, endemic diseases, and natural disasters. In this episode, we are joined by Cristos Christou, MD, a Greek surgeon who has served as the international president of MSF since 2019. As a field doctor, he has worked in South Sudan, Iraq, Cameroon, and various other conflict zones. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Christou takes us into the trenches of his medical work in caring for some of the most vulnerable people in the world, shares how he finds meaning and hope amid the depths of human suffering, and discusses the challenges to global health today.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How the values of his self-described “rustic” childhood led Dr. Christou into medicine - 2:28
• How Dr. Christou’s time in university shaped his life philosophy - 3:27
• The history and mission of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders - 5:59
• What it is like to practice medicine in regions affected by armed conflict and natural disasters - 8:13
• Dr. Christou’s journey in MSF, from when he first heard of it to how he became its leader - 10:42
• Lessons learned on finding meaning in medicine in some of the most resource-limited settings - 13:41
• Dr. Christou’s stories of inspiring hope in patients even during incredibly challenging times - 16:19
• A discussion of the dangers faced by clinicians who work with MSF - 19:54
• The significance of bearing witness to suffering in giving a voice to vulnerable patients - 23:11
• A discussion of the major threats to global health today: climate change, epidemics, and war - 26:25
• Advice for new clinicians who wish to tackle issues in global health - 30:00

Follow Dr. Christos on Twitter @DrChristou.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Few would dispute that vision is just about our most important sense. From a neurophysiological perspective, more than half of the human brain is dedicated to processing vision. But beyond that, it also enables us to meaningfully interact with the world and the people around us, and allows us to engage in many of the activities that bring us joy in life. Joining us in this episode is Michael Marmor, MD, Professor Emeritus and former chair of ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine. In addition to his significant contributions to our understanding of diseases of the retina, Dr. Marmor is a patron of the arts who has published several books on vision and visual art. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss the fascinating inner workings of eyesight, how art appreciation can help create better doctors, and how Dr. Marmor accompanies patients facing vision loss.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How a desire to “wear multiple hats” — researcher, surgeon, educator — led Dr. Marmor to ophthalmology - 2:04
• A brief exploration of the sense of sight - 4:01
• Dr. Marmor’s research on the retina and why he believes a thorough understanding of how diseases work is critical for physicians caring for patients - 8:07
• Why helping a patient understand their condition provides comfort, even with serious illnesses - 11:53
• Dr. Marmor’s passion for the fine arts and how his expertise in vision complemented this passion - 18:23
• What art appreciation can do for physicians and how it gives us new ways of thinking and seeing - 23:52
• How medical curricula can be improved to integrate the arts and humanities, and the importance of an emphasis on breadth in addition to technical depth - 33:06
• Why an appreciation for all kinds of art keeps us in touch with culture -  46:29

Dr. Marmor is the author of several books on art, including The Eye of the Artist (1996), Degas Through His Own Eyes: Visual Disability and the Late Style of Degas (2006), and The Artist’s Eyes (2009).

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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For all the crucial work physicians do in the hospital, no one spends more time with hospitalized patients than nurses. This is especially true in the intensive care unit, where nurses serve as patients’ conduits with their medical team and perhaps even with the outside world. Joining us in this episode is Christin Thankachan, an ICU nurse at Stanford Health Care who cares for the most seriously ill cancer patients in the hospital. Over the course of our stirring conversation, we ask her to reflect on how she guides patients and their families, with a comforting and compassionate hand, through life’s darkest moments. In addition, Christin shares the unique challenges she has faced as a frontline worker during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how she has maintained hope and meaning through these trying times.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Hurricane Sandy pushed Christin towards a career in nursing - 2:06
• The differences between a nurse’s responsibilities in an intensive care unit and a medical/surgical unit - 5:13
• What a typical day is like for an ICU nurse - 7:26
• How Christin finds the physical, emotional, and psychological stamina to care for some of the sickest patients in the hospital - 10:22
• The kinds of relationships Christin forms with her patients and how she strives to elevate the human connection - 13:49
• The importance Christin places on recognizing the fullness of the humanity within each patient - 21:16
• The power of hope for patients facing serious illnesses - 31:50
• What it was like to serve as a frontline worker in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic - 36:38
• Advice on how to stay connected to the most meaningful aspects of a healthcare profession, even in the darkest times - 40:47

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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A pivotal development in the history of cancer research was the discovery that cancers can arise from mutations in genes already present in normal, healthy cells. Joining us in this episode is Harold Varmus, MD, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1989 with his colleague, J. Michael Bishop, for this discovery. Their work has enabled scientists to explore why certain cancers develop in the human body and how we can develop better cancer treatments that target these genetic mutations. In addition to his pioneering research, Dr. Varmus has served as Director of the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Scientific Advisor to the US Government, World Health Organization, and various other foundations and academic institutions. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Varmus describes his groundbreaking research, approach to institutional leadership, and his advocacy for the democratization of scientific knowledge through his role in the founding of PubMed Central and the Public Library of Science.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Varmus' broad educational interests led him to pursue a medical career - 2:56
• How working at the National Institutes of Health drove Dr. Varmus’s passion for research and the trailblazing path his career took - 8:48
• A summary of Dr. Varmus’s research on retroviral oncogenes, which led to major advancements in cancer diagnoses and treatments - 16:35
• How Dr. Varmus became involved in the politics of science after receiving a Nobel Prize -  27:13
• Dr. Varmus’ mission while he was Director of the National Institutes of Health and his perspectives on the elements of effective healthcare institutional leadership - 30:28
• A discussion of open access publishing, a mechanism of distributing the results of scientific research online for free - 32:37

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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The ICU can be a traumatizing place for patients, who are frequently heavily sedated, rendered unable to speak by breathing tubes, isolated by family visit limitations, and sometimes even physically restrained. In fact, a significant proportion of patients discharged from the ICU later develop persistent cognitive impairments and physical disabilities. Over the past two decades, Wes Ely, MD has worked to improve the care of patients in the ICU, leading landmark studies resulting in the development of delirium prevention protocols that are now adopted in ICUs everywhere. Today, Dr. Ely co-directs the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship (CIBS) Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. In this episode, Dr. Ely joins us to share his career-long fight to reform ICU medicine and to recount poignant stories that illuminate and elevate the humanity of patients amid the chaos of the ICU — and in the process discusses themes that seldom appear in contemporary medical discourse, such as love, beauty, and mercy.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Ely discovered medicine as a calling while growing up in rural Louisiana - 2:33
• How a fascination with cardiopulmonary physiology, combined with an interest in patient relationships, led Dr. Ely to critical care medicine - 4:27
• A discussion of how patients in ICUs can often be “de-humanized” - 6:31
• A story from early in Dr. Ely’s career that illustrates “malignant normality” — when treatment norms led to patient harm - 10:40
• A discussion of physician burnout and how the dehumanization of patients contributes to it - 13:27
• What Dr. Ely and his colleagues have learned through years of research about the harmful standard practices of ICU care - 18:53
• An explanation of the ABCDEF treatment bundle designed by Dr. Ely and his collaborators to improve outcomes of patients in the ICU patients - 24:04
• How Dr. Ely processes the guilt and shame he feels from the harm he inadvertently caused to patients early in his career - 29:37
• Reflections on how eye contact, physical touch, and openness of the heart are essential to good medicine - 36:03
• A discussion on how Dr. Ely’s spirituality has influenced his approach to patient care - 44:51
• What it means to provide healing when patients are facing serious illness, even at the end of life - 50:45

Dr. Wes Ely is the author of Every Deep-Drawn Breath, a chronicle of his experiences caring for ICU patients.

You can find out more about his work at ICUDelirium.org

Follow Dr. Ely on Twitter @WesElyMD

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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"Death is not waiting for us at the end of a long road. Death is always with us, in the marrow of every passing moment. She is the secret teacher hiding in plain sight, helping us to discover what matters most."   
So writes Frank Ostaseski, an internationally respected Buddhist teacher and pioneer in end-of-life care. Frank is the founder of the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, the first Buddhist hospice in America. Over the course of his career, Frank has accompanied over 1000 people through the dying process; these experiences have taught him lessons on how maintaining an ever-present consciousness of death can bring us closer to our most authentic selves. He describes these lessons in his bestselling 2017 book, The Five Invitations. In this episode, Frank joins us to share hard-earned wisdom from his unique life journey. Over the course of our deeply reflective and even meditative conversation, we discuss matters ranging from Japanese death poems, to Buddhist mindfulness practices, to what courage looks like in the face of death.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How the AIDS crisis led to the founding of the Zen Hospice Project - 2:16
• What Frank’s work looks like on a daily basis - 3:52
• Frank’s role as an ‘interpreter’ between patients and doctors - 5:57
• How clinicians can develop their own rituals in the process of healing patients - 9:09
• How Frank makes sense of the grief and suffering he witnesses and, despite it all, keep his spirit balanced - 13:40
• How the tenets of Buddhism influenced care at the Zen Hospice Project - 25:58
• How progresses in modern medicine sometimes hinders us in our acceptance of the impermanence and inevitability of death - 33:56
• Lessons on love, mindfulness, and finding meaning from Frank’s stories of patients at the end of life - 38:20
• The Five Invitations and what they look like in practice - 45:20

Frank Ostaseski is the author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Too often, modern medicine focuses on life-extending interventions for those nearing the end of life at the expense of quality of life. Our guest today, Shoshana Ungerleider, MD, argues we urgently need to rethink the emphasis of end-of-life care. She's the founder of the End Well Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks to improve how doctors and patients approach issues of mortality, as well as an executive producer of the 2018 film End Game and a major funder of the 2016 film Extremis, two Academy Award-nominated short documentaries on end-of-life care. As a health communicator. Dr. Ungerleider is the host of the TED Health Podcast and has been featured as a medical expert on CNN, CBS, PBS, Fox News, and other news networks. In this episode, she discusses her journey in health care and shares her mission to transform the end of life experience of patients everywhere and make dying well a part of living well.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Ungerleider found her way to a career in health care and how she pushed through imposter syndrome while in medical school - 2:23
• Dr. Ungerleider’s formative experiences working with elderly patients in the ICU, leading her question the practices of modern medicine when dealing with seriously ill patients - 10:18
• How the Covid-19 pandemic has shifted public consciousness around death and dying - 15:30
• The origins of End Well, the conference and organization founded by Dr. Ungerleider and her colleagues in 2017 - 23:51
• What it would look like for there to be a shift in the cultural conversation around death and dying - 30:31
• A reflection on the risks of romanticizing the dying process - 36:54
• The recent cancer diagnosis in Dr. Ungerleider’s family and how this has propelled her to proactively manage her own risks - 43:49
• Advice for new clinicians on dealing with patient deaths - 48:49

Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider is the author of “My Dad’s Terminal Cancer Diagnosis May Have Saved My Life” for Newsweek.

You can follow Dr. Ungerleider on Twitter @ShoshUMD

In this episode, we discussed The Good Place, an award-winning sitcom series about philosophy and the afterlife.

We discussed several articles and studies about whether physicians are more likely to choose to die at home than the general public. These articles include “How Doctors Die” by Ken Murray, “Association of Occupation as a Physician With Likelihood of Dying in a Hospital” by Blecker, Johnson, Altekruse, et al. and “Patients, and Doctors, Aren’t Dying at Home” by Dr. Danielle Ofri (our guest on episode 35).

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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What if we could scientifically prove that compassion improves our well-being, our cognitive function, our longevity, and societal welfare? Here to explore these questions is our guest on this episode, James Doty, MD, a neurosurgeon, inventor, entrepreneur and writer. As the founding director of Stanford's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, his academic focus is the neurobiological effects of meditation, compassion, and altruistic behavior. His bestselling 2017 memoir, Into the Magic Shop, details his path from a troubled childhood to becoming an internationally-renowned surgeon and philanthropist. He has served on the board of a number of nonprofit organizations, including as former Chairman of the Dalai Lama Foundation, and is on the International Advisory Board of the Council of the Parliament of the World's Religions. In this episode, we discuss his unlikely journey to medicine and the incredible insights on compassion he has collected over the years.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Dr. Doty’s difficult childhood experiences and how the kindness of strangers pulled him to medicine - 2:10
• How Dr. Doty dealt with the fish-out-of-water experiences in medical school - 11:00
• A discussion of negative self-talk and how to overcome it - 17:30
• How Dr. Doty went from developing a neuroscience center in impoverished Mississippi to establishing an altruism research lab at Stanford University - 20:19
• A discussion of the eponymous incident of Dr. Doty’s book Into the Magic Shop and how it profoundly shifted his view on compassion - 26:06
• A review of some of the exciting findings of Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education - 32:36
• Reflections on how Dr. Doty practices compassion in his daily life - 38:29
• A brief discussion of the power of belief and how it shapes our reality - 44:00
• A discussion of how the dehumanizing bureaucracy and profiteering of the medical field is failing physicians - 49:55

Dr. James Doty is the author of the best-selling memoir Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart.

He is the senior editor of the Handbook of Compassion Science published by Oxford University.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Storytelling, pain, rage, and cultural competency are just some of the themes we will explore in this episode. Our guest, Haider Warraich, MD, grew up and went to medical school in Pakistan before completing residency at Harvard Medical School and fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at Duke University Medical Center. Today, he is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the associate director of the Heart Failure Program at the VA Boston Health Care System. A prolific writer, he contributes regularly to the New York Times, Washington Post, and others. He is the author of three books on medicine for the general audience, most recently 2022’s The Song of Our Scars: The Untold Story of Pain, which examines the nature of pain not only as a physical, but also a historical and cultural experience. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Warraich compares his medical experiences in Pakistan and in the US, discusses why he strives to incorporate palliative care into his cardiology work, and offers an impassioned critique of how modern medicine fails to address patients' suffering.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Warraich went from thinking of his medical training as an “arranged marriage” to loving the career - 2:10
• How Dr. Warraich stays connected to his patients and his work despite the intense pressure and responsibility he experiences on a daily basis - 7:03
• What drew Dr. Warraich to cardiology and end-of-life care - 13:22
• Dr. Warraich’s reflections on the gaps in the care of patients with heart disease and how he now strives to reform the practice of cardiology - 17:33
• A discussion of how the medical culture of Pakistan differs from the United States and how they can be shockingly similar - 22:06
• How Tom Brady, the football quarterback, inspires Dr. Warraich to stay connected to the emotional core of his practice - 28:49
• Why it’s important to stay in a field if you care about it, especially if you hope to change and improve it - 35:37
• Dr. Warraich’s reflections on the nature of pain and how he hopes to change our cultural conversation around it - 41:38
• How acute pain and chronic pain are very different processes and how we can address suffering as a subject and deeply personal experience - 45:17

You can follow Dr. Warraich on Twitter @haiderwarraich.

Dr. Haider Warraich is the author of several books, including The Song of Our Scars: The Untold Story of Pain, Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life, and State of the Heart: Exploring the History, Science, and Future of Cardiac Disease.

In this episode, we discuss the article “At the Edge of the Inside” by David Brooks, for the New York Times, and the book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, and feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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What does it take to lead a health department with a budget of more than $50 billion, overseeing the health of nearly 20 million Americans? Here to tell us about that is Nirav R. Shah, MD, MPH, who was the 15th New York State Commissioner of Health from 2011 to 2014. Today, Dr. Shah is a nationally recognized advocate of patient safety, health care innovation, and high-quality, low-cost care. He has variously served as Chief Operating Officer of Kaiser Permanente in Southern California, Advisor to the CDC Director, Senior Fellow of the Institute of Health Improvement, and Senior Scholar at Stanford University's Clinical Excellence Research Center. In this episode, Dr. Shah joins us to share his philosophy of healthcare leadership and how meaningful relationships anchor his work.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Shah’s upbringing and the influence of Jainism steered him away from a lucrative career in finance and into medicine - 1:53
• Two patient stories in which seemingly simple mistakes led to moments of awakening for Dr. Shah in recognizing his purpose in medicine - 6:21
• A brief overview of Dr. Shah’s career path - 13:47
• Lessons on empathetic leadership that Dr. Shah picked up along the way - 19:21
• How forging strong relationships helped Dr. Shah find solutions on big issues during his time as New York State’s Health Commissioner - 21:57
• Dr. Shah’s current pursuits, including those focused on making a business case for supporting the unpaid caregivers of patients - 31:23
• Why transparency and bureaucratic structure are critical components of healthcare reform in the United States - 37:46
• Advice to clinicians on what makes effective leaders and collaborators, and how to find passion for meaningful projects - 41:43

Dr. Shah is a trustee of the John A. Hartford Foundation, a board member of STERIS, and an advisor to GSR Ventures.

You can follow Dr. Nirav R. Shah on Twitter @NiravRShah or on LinkedIn.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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One of medicine's thorniest ethical questions concerns the lengths to which a physician should go to ameliorate suffering, including the use of medical means to hasten death. Yet, particularly for those who care for patients with, or for those who live with, serious illness, this question is all but inevitable. In this episode, Stefanie Green, MD, the current president of the Canadian Association of Medical Assistance in Dying Assessors and Providers, shares her experiences helping patients die and how she views this branch of medicine. Dr. Green has been at the forefront of the change in legal regulation and clinical practice around medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in Canada. In her 2022 book, This is Assisted Dying, she shares the delicate, challenging, and humane moments she has witnessed while navigating this unique work.

Disclaimer: This episode does not advocate for or against medical assistance in dying. Rather, it seeks to understand why a clinician may choose to perform this work. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or a crisis, please call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Green transitioned from a career in maternity care to medical assistance in dying (MAiD) - 5:14
• A brief legal history of MAiD in Canada, beginning with Rodriguez v British Columbiaand including the sea change that came with Carter v. Canada - 6:39
• An overview of how MAiD works today in Canada - 12:14
• How MAiD works in the United States, specifically in California, and the role of prognosis in a patient’s eligibility for MAiD - 15:43
• Dr. Green’s reflections on how two decades working in maternity prepared her for MAiD - 20:45
• The specific process by which Dr. Green helps her patients die - 24:13
• The first patient encounter in which Dr. Green provided MAiD - 27:53
• Reflections on the frame of mind Dr. Green must adopt in order to perform this work - 35:04
• How Dr. Green processes the difficult emotions arising from her work - 43:22
• Dr. Green’s reflections on her role as a patient advocate when handling family conflicts at end of life - 47:50
• Advice for clinicians about connecting with patients through empathetic presence - 51:35

Dr. Stefanie Green is the author of This is Assisted Dying.

You can follow Dr. Stefanie Green on Twitter @DocSGreen.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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In 2015, New York Times journalist John Leland set out to follow the lives of six people over the age of 85. What John learned shattered his preconceived notions about aging, loneliness, and loss. The resulting 2018 book, Happiness is a Choice You Make, became an international bestseller and delved into how these older individuals found wisdom and joy in the later stages of life. In this episode, John joins us to discuss the transformational exploration he undertook and lessons on living well he has discovered from this journey. 

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How a college music reviewer came to write for The New York Times - 1:41
• How John’s exploration of aging began when he was initially—reluctantly—assigned to write a series of articles on old age and retirement - 5:04
• Reflections on how John’s expectations of aging — including loss, sadness, loneliness — were transformed over the course of this writing project - 9:01
• How John discovers his interview subjects - 11:38 
• A discussion of John’s book, Happiness is a Choice You Make, and the lessons he learned from his subjects -14:44
• Advice to young clinicians on finding moments of happiness in their careers - 26:19
• John’s surprising realization that elders are not “depressed all the time” - 33:53
• A discussion of John’s recent article, in which he was documents the last days of Shatzi Weisberger, a nurse and prominent death educator - 36:53
• Reflections on how John’s relationships with older adults have changed his perception of death - 40:07
• Advice to clinicians on how they can better help older patients connect with what makes their lives meaningful - 45:03

John Leland is the author of the book Happiness is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old.

He is also a staff writer at the New York Times. In this episode we discussed his articles How Loneliness is Damaging Our Health, and She Preached About Death Without Fear. Could She Practice it?

You can follow John Leland on Twitter @JohnLeland.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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In the first half of 2020, New York City quickly became the American epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, with over 200,000 cases reported in the first few months. The city came to a standstill as thousands of people died alone in hospitals and bodies piled up in freezer trucks that could not transport them away fast enough. In August 2020, amid this cataclysm, Dave Chokshi, MD assumed position as New York City's Health Commissioner and began the arduous task of repairing a broken city and restoring public trust among its residents. Prior to this work, Dr. Chokshi led the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation and was a White House Fellow at the US Department of Veterans Affairs. In this episode, Dr. Chokshi joins us to share the core values that drive his public health work and how he navigated the challenges of leading New York City through COVID-19.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Chokshi, early in his life, came to understand the association between health and opportunity - 3:52
• A discussion of how privilege impacts the opportunities available to individuals and how this recognition affects Dr. Chokshi’s medical work - 7:40
• How Hurricane Katrina revealed to Dr. Chokshi the flaws in our existing health systems - 15:48
• Dr. Chokshi’s involvement with Universities Allied for Essential Medicine - 19:34
• An account of Dr. Chokshi’s tenure as New York City Health Commissioner during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic - 24:31
• Dr. Chokshi’s principles of effective leadership - 32:31
• Reflections on the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and how indebted society is to nurses and hospital house staff - 37:15
• Dr. Chokshi’s personal philosophy on maintaining a balanced sense of humility - 53:48
• Five lessons for medical trainees and clinicians on staying connected to what makes medicine meaningful - 57:38

Dr. Chokshi briefly discussed his early work with the Committed Communities Development Trust in Mumbai, India.

You can follow Dr. Dave Chokshi on Twitter @DaveChokshi.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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While this podcast has largely featured clinicians sharing the joy they have found in medicine, in this episode—breaking with tradition—we speak with a physician left disenchanted by her experiences working in medicine. Our guest is Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD, a minimally-invasive and bariatric surgeon who conducts research on gender equity and implicit bias in medicine. At Stanford Hospital, she advises initiatives to promote physician well-being and diversity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her frontline experiences were featured in Newsweek, NBC, CBS, and other press outlets. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Salles shares fiercely honest accounts about the difficulties she has faced as an immigrant, minority, and woman in medicine. Her stories are by turns saddening, shocking, and amusing, but ultimately invoke us to reflect on the part we can all play to create a more just and inclusive path for current and future physicians.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Dr. Salles’  path to medicine and her regrets along the way - 2:11
• The social pressures within medicine to overlook the downsides and hardships of a medical career - 7:11
• Why Dr. Salles chose surgery as a specialty - 11:02
• How, upon accepting her first academic position , Dr. Salles found herself in an environment that did not adequately support her surgical practice and her research - 14:12
• The systemic and cultural factors that led to the lack of support Dr. Salles faced - 23:03
• Dr. Salles’ research on gender equity in medicine - 29:57
• A discussion of the challenges of life as an academic physician - 32:13
• How Dr. Salles made the decision to put herself over her career and leave her academic position - 36:47
• Why it can sometimes seem that hospitals are exploiting physicians - 41:12
• Advice on how institutions can better promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in their culture - 47:32

Learn more about Dr. Salles’ work on her website and follow her on Twitter @Arghavan_Salles.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) is an independent organization that provides expert evidence-based guidance on issues of health, biomedical science, and health policy. Election to the NAM is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine, recognizing individuals who have shown exceptional professional achievement and commitment to service. In this episode, we are joined by Victor Dzau, MD, who has been president of the NAM since 2014. He previously served as President of the Duke University Health System, Chairman of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital of Harvard Medical School, and Chairman of Medicine at Stanford Health Care. As a leading scholar in cardiovascular medicine, his pioneering research laid the foundation for the development of blood pressure medications widely used today. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Dzau discusses his challenging upbringing as a refugee of the Chinese Civil War, describes his dedication to health equity and global health; explores the work of the NAM, and passionately shares why clinicians should be more involved in public discourse.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How growing up as a refugee of the Chinese Civil War shaped Dr. Dzau’s path and practice as a physician - 2:27
• How Dr. Dzau’s became a physician-scientist - 7:06
• The circumstances that led Dr. Dzau to take on issues of global health - 11:03
• Reflections on how Dr. Dzau stays in touch with the deeper meaning of medicine - 13:05
• A discussion of the values Dr. Dzau holds in his various roles - 17:41
• The difficulties Dr. Dzau faced during his education and career and how he recovered from burnout - 20:04
• A description of the purpose and mission of the National Academy of Medicine - 28:36
• How new members are elected to the NAM - 32:26
• A survey of the current issues the NAM focuses on and how Dr. Dzau thinks about the political dimensions of his work - 36:25
• The need for medical professionals to better communicate scientific facts with the broader public - 41:25
• Advice to early-career clinicians on leadership - 45:32

Dr. Dzau delivered the Boston University Class of 2020 Commencement Speech, in which he discussed his own experience of burnout.

You can follow Dr. Dzau on Twitter @VictorDzau.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Matters of faith and spirituality are seldom openly discussed in medicine. But for our guest in this episode, pediatric palliative care doctor Elisha Waldman, MD, these issues are a daily fixture of his work. Dr. Waldman is former associate chief of the Division of Pediatric Palliative Care at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and former medical director of pediatric palliative care at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. He is the author of the memoir This Narrow Space, in which he describes his seven years working as a pediatric oncologist at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, Israel, while grappling with the ethical and political complexities that came with treating his Muslim, Jewish, and Christian patients. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Waldman discusses his formative religious upbringing, delves deep into what it means to be present with patients in moments of suffering and existential anguish, and examines what his experiences have taught him about the enigmas of life, death, faith, and identity.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Waldman’s early interest in religious studies influenced his pursuit of a career caring for children with cancer - 2:12
• Dr. Waldman’s religious upbringing as the son of a conservative Jewish rabbi - 7:00
• A discussion of spiritual care in medicine and what it means to be a “spiritual generalist” versus a “spiritual specialist” - 13:49
• Reflections on what brought Dr. Waldman to Jerusalem and what it was like to practice medicine in such a diverse and politically complex city - 23:01
• How Dr. Waldman finds the emotional fortitude to continue giving care and comfort to children who are seriously ill - 26:11
• A discussion of powerful and beautiful moments in accompanying patients through suffering - 33:40
• How pain differs from suffering and what physicians can do once they recognize that difference - 48:13
• Dr. Waldman’s advice to young clinicians on being present and curious with patients - 57:25

Dr. Elisha Waldman is the author of This Narrow Space: A Pediatric Oncologist, His Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Patients, and a Hospital in Jerusalem.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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The American Medical Association (AMA) is the largest professional association of physicians in the United States, comprising more than 270,000 clinicians across all medical specialties. It is involved in all aspects of American medicine, from establishing standards of care, to reforming medical education, to lobbying for health care policies. Our guest in this episode is Jack Resneck Jr., MD, chair of the department of dermatology at the University of California San Francisco and President of the AMA from 2022 – 2023. In this conversation, we explore Dr. Resneck's personal journey in medicine, how the AMA is addressing physician burnout, how the AMA is coming to terms with its own history with race relations, how digital health is transforming medicine, how health care reimbursement rates are determined, and how doctors can play a more active role in advocating for their own work.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Dr. Resneck’s early years as a self-described ‘policy nerd’ and growing up in a physician family - 2:10
• How Dr. Resneck first became involved with the AMA - 6:01
• A brief review of the history and mission of the AMA - 8:23
• A discussion of the epidemic of burnout and how the AMA is addressing it - 12:45
• A survey of the AMA’s current policy priorities - 23:42
• A conversation around the incentive discrepancies around primary care medicine and how the AMA’s Relative Value Update Committee (RUC) is addressing this - 29:26
• How artificial intelligence and other new technologies are shaping the future of medicine, and why physicians must take an active role in their development - 36:25
• Reflections on the history of the AMA’s race relations and what the modern medical establishment must do to remedy health discrepancies, including The AMA’s Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity - 47:15
• Dr. Resneck’s optimistic view of the future of the profession - 55:08

In this episode we discussed several reports and articles, including:

The Flexner Report, a 1910 survey of the medical profession that was used to standardize medical education.

How Being a Doctor Became the Most Miserable Profession by Daniela Drake.

The Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act, a recently-passed legislation aimed at helping physicians.

Follow Dr. Resneck on Twitter @JackResneckMD.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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For all the deeply rewarding moments medicine offers, it is also a profession often intensely challenging on both systemic and personal levels. Our guest in this episode is Caroline Elton, PhD, an occupational psychologist who has devoted her career to counseling doctors and medical trainees in the National Health Service and various medical schools in the UK. She is the author of Also Human: The Inner Lives of Doctors, which discusses the physical, mental, and emotional toll of medical training and practice. Among other issues, she writes about how doctors deal with guilt and shame, gender and racial discrimination in health care training, the erosion of the clinician-patient relationship in modern medicine, and how clinicians can build emotional resilience. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Elton shares what led her to this work, exposes the many shortcomings in how doctors are trained today, and explores how we can create a more humane path forward.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• What led Dr. Elton to her unique work in counseling physicians - 2:04
• Reflections on both the compassion and the callousness Dr. Elton witnessed as she observed physicians (her patients) in their working environments - 10:01
• A review of medical training in the UK versus the US - 15:16
• A discussion of Also Human: The Inner Lives of Doctors and the concept of moral injury - 19:51
• The kinds of patients Dr. Elton sees in her present work - 25:00
• How institutional cultures can come to valorize toxic, brutal expectations placed on physicians - 27:03
• How Dr. Elton’s managed her first patient, a doctor who was planning on quitting medicine just weeks after beginning her postgraduate training - 32:49
• A discussion of how sexism and other forms of bigotry factors into burnout - 38:20
• Why the screening process for selecting future doctors should be improved - 43:37
• How a trainee can prepare themselves for the psychological demands of a medical career - 48:00
• Advice to administrators and executives of how best to serve the psychological demands of their medical workforce - 50:34

Dr. Caroline Elton is the author of Also Human: The Inner Lives of Doctors.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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From Tanzania to India, from Tibet to Antarctica, Jonathan Reisman, MD, our guest in this episode, has practiced medicine in truly diverse regions of the world. Dr. Reisman's talents and passions are unparalleled in their variety; he is, among many things, an emergency physician, naturalist, food writer, travel writer, and wilderness survival expert. He is the author of The Unseen Body, an exploration of the human anatomy through all of its miraculous, mundane, bizarre, and surprising parts, presented through the eyes of a lifelong adventurer. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Reisman shares his experiences traveling through the most remote areas of the world, what his voyages have taught him about health and illness, the impact of emerging digital technologies on the doctor-patient relationship, and much more.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How a love of the natural world led young Dr. Reisman to travel abroad and ultimately to the medical profession - 2:04
• Dr. Reisman’s early adventures studying sociology in the Russian Far East - 5:30
• The parallels between exploring the natural world and the human body - 9:26
• The puzzle-solving aspects of medicine and the impact of emerging technologies and artificial intelligence - 12:18
• Dr. Reisman’s reflects on his time practicing medicine in India, Tanzania, Nepal, and Antarctica, and the importance of the physical exam in these settings - 21:15
• The strengths and limitations of the physical exam, especially as they relate to the clinician-patient relationship - 31:53
• How artificial intelligence will complement human physicians in the future - 36:38
• What Dr. Reisman believes is critical to the future of medical education - 46:12
• Dr. Reisman’s advice to young clinicians on how to keep their curiosity alive - 55:10

Dr. Jonathan Reisman is the author of The Unseen Body: A Doctor’s Journey Through the Hidden Wonders of the Human Anatomy.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Approximately 1 in 700 babies in the United States are born with Down Syndrome. Yet, despite how common this condition is for people, we don’t often have the chance to hear their stories. In this episode, we are joined by Dashiell Meier, a young aspiring filmmaker and disability advocate who has Down Syndrome. Over the course of our conversation, we have the wonderful opportunity to explore how Dashiell sees the world as he reflects upon the stereotypes that society holds against people with disabilities, discusses what makes his favorite doctors stand out, shares his passion for storytelling, and offers advice to clinicians on how to better connect with patients who have disabilities.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dashiell currently helps Stanford medical students learn to communicate with patients with disabilities - 1:47
• Dashiell’s academic interests and career aspirations in the entertainment world - 3:22
• Dashiell’s interactions with doctors and what makes his favorites stand out - 5:22
• A discussion of the stereotypes that people with Down Syndrome face - 7:42
• What Dashiell wishes people knew about Down Syndrome - 11:00
• The movement for people with disabilities that Dashiell is spearheading, and what he hopes to achieve through it - 19:10
• Advice on building good relationships with people who have disabilities - 27:00
• The projects Dashiell intends to create as a filmmaker - 32:04
• How to develop greater empathy for people with disabilities - 34:46
• Advice to new clinicians and trainees on how best to interact with patients with disabilities - 37:10

You can follow Dashiell’s film and video projects on his YouTube channel. You can also follow him on Twitter @DashiellMeier.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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The wellness industry saturates our cultural consciousness, with juice cleanses, organic skincare, and spa retreats flooding our social media feeds. But what does this plethora of dazzling — and often-expensive — lifestyle products all amount to? Not much, argues Pooja Lakshmin, MD, a psychiatrist who specializes in women's mental health and clinical assistant professor at George Washington University School of Medicine. As she writes, "our understanding of self-care and wellness is incomplete at best and manipulative at worst. We cannot meditate our way out of a 40 hour workweek without childcare. These wellness products keep us looking outward, comparing ourselves with others or striving for perfection." She details her ideas for achieving true wellness in her recently released book, Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness. In this episode, Dr. Lakshmin joins us to discuss how she overcame her own struggles working in medicine and details practical strategies for real self-care, which, in her words, "isn't a thing to do or buy, but a way to be." 

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Lakshmin’s rocky initial foray into medicine led her a career in psychiatry - 2:15
• Dr. Lakshmin’s disillusionment with medicine, her two years away from the profession, and what she learned from immersing herself in the wellness industry - 5:34
• Reflections on the state of the wellness industry - 10:42
• An overview of Dr. Lakshmin’s book Real Self-Care and what real self-care looks like - 15:52
• A deeper dive into the first principle of real self-care: boundary setting - 18:47
• A discussion of how the American healthcare system often exploits doctors and nurses - 24:25
• The second principle of real self-care: self-compassion - 32:08
• The third principle of real self-care: knowing your values - 38:44
• The fourth principle of real self-care: empower oneself to create change - 45:09
• Dr. Lakshmin’s advice on getting control of your self-care journey - 50:43

In this episode, we discussed the essay The Business of Healthcare Depends on Exploiting Doctors and Nurses by Dr. Danielle Ofri, published in the New York Times.

We also discussed Dr. Lakshmin’s article How Society Turned its Back on Mothers, published in the New York Times.

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin is the founder and CEO of GEMMA, a women’s mental healthcare education community focused on impact and equity.

You can follow Dr. Pooja Lakshmin on Twitter @PoojaLakshmin.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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We are joined in this episode by Eric Reinhart, MD, an anthropologist, psychoanalyst, and psychiatry resident at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. While Dr. Reinhart is the first resident-in-training we've had on this program, his path has been far from straightforward. Prior to residency, Dr. Reinhart conducted ethnographic work in Chicago's South Side, India, South Africa, and migrant communities in Southern Europe. Through this research, he addresses the multifaceted effects of poverty and social inequities on community health. In this conversation, we discuss how he applies his anthropology training to create culturally sensitive systemic changes and how healthcare providers can play a more active role in engaging with their communities.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How having a deaf brother led Dr. Reinhart to medicine - 1:54
• Dr. Reinhart’s observations of the disconnect between the ideals he heard in medical school and the reality of how profit-driven hospitals operate - 5:59
• Why Dr. Reinhart pursued a study in anthropology to learn how to address contemporary social ills - 12:46
• How a case study of drug-resistant tuberculosis in Russian prisons informed Dr. Reinhart’s evaluation of pandemics - 19:37
• What drew Dr. Reinhart to psychoanalysis and psychiatry, and how he applies them to his field studies - 26:41
• A discussion of the power structures inherent to medico-social field work and how to properly determine what a community needs - 32:04
• Advice on how doctors and medical trainees can become empowered to help change the systems they work in - 41:21
• How Dr. Reinhart hopes to apply his experiences to improve community-based care - 48:42

You can follow Dr. Eric Reinhart on Twitter @_Eric_Reinhart.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Sabbath is a day of rest during the week. Our guest in this episode, Judith Shulevitz, is a journalist and literary critic who has thought deeply about what the secular world can learn about meaningful rest from the practice of the Sabbath. In her book The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time, she explores how, despite our culture of workaholism, we can still discover the restorative joy of rest, reflection, and family. Shulevitz is also a regular contributor to the New York Times and the Atlantic, and is the chief science writer of the New Republic. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss the origins of the Sabbath, the ideals this tradition can bring back for the individual and community, and how clinicians can create space for purposeful rest amid their busy lives.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• What drew Shulevitz towards re-engaging with her Jewish faith as an adult - 2:50
• What observing the Sabbath looks like in a traditional Jewish household - 5:20
• An exploration of the idea of a “secular Sabbath” and what it could mean for the modern world - 10:33
• The relentless culture of medical residency training and the factors contributing to it - 13:00
• How medical training affects physicians’ sense of community - 36:37
• Shulevitz’ advice to those with very busy schedules on how to make space for purposeful rest in their lives - 38:52
• Reflections on the need for physicians to process the extremes of emotion and suffering they encounter - 47:36
• Why it is critical to be present in the real world during times of rest - 50:45

Judith Shulevitz is the author of The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time.

You can follow Judith Shulevitz on Twitter @JudithShulevitz.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

When we hear about people with cancer, the stories often end when the treatments end—either the battle has been won and the cancer cured, or in more tragic circumstances, the cancer takes the patient's life. But for patients who survive, that's not where the story ends. Cancer has fundamentally transformed their lives. How are they to make sense of the existentially threatening experience they have gone through? That's where cancer survivorship comes in. Joining us in this episode is Tara Sanft, MD, director of the survivorship clinic at Yale Cancer Center, where she helps patients thrive after cancer. Dr. Sanft is also a breast oncologist and the Chief Patient Experience Officer at Smilow Cancer Hospital. In this episode, we discuss the importance of cancer survivorship, how Dr. Sanft navigates the emotional challenges of her work, and what all clinicians can do to better support patients through difficult times.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How the death of a family member influenced Dr. Sanft’s decision to go into medicine - 2:04
• Why Dr. Sanft’s decided to focus on palliative care - 6:02
• Reflections on how communication and building relationships are key to palliative care - 14:20
• A discussion of cultivating sacred moments in medicine - 19:53
• The purpose of a cancer survivorship clinic - 26:02
• A discussion of the most challenging aspects of Dr. Sanft’s practice - 33:35
• How Dr. Sanft shoulders the emotional toll of her work - 36:30
• Dr. Sanft’s duties as the Chief Patient Experience Officer at her hospital - 40:25
• How to create culture change in medicine - 43:17
• Dr. Sanft’s advice to clinicians on how to better foster self-compassion and create effective healthcare teams - 48:18

You can follow Tara Sanft on Twitter @TaraSanftMD.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Since 1938, the Harvard Study of Adult Development has followed the lives of hundreds, and eventually thousands, of American adults, with the goal of discovering what enables people to live healthier, more meaningful lives. Joining us in this episode is Robert Waldinger, MD, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the current director of the study. He is the author of the book The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. Over the course of our conversation, we explore the origins and evolution of the study, what adult development actually means, whether happiness is a choice, how social media shapes our relationships, Dr. Waldinger's interests in Zen Buddhism, and the key to leading a fulfilling life.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• What drew Dr. Waldinger to the field of psychiatry - 1:53
• Dr. Waldinger’s reflections on the work and daily practice of a psychiatrist - 3:31
• An overview of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest running scientific study on happiness - 6:54
• The medical and psychosocial concepts of “adult development” - 9:49
• The most important and surprising findings of the Study of Adult Development - 16:20
• Why relationships are critical to health and happiness - 23:07
• How social media distorts reality and why it can be quite harmful to mental health - 29:37
• Whether happiness is a choice - 34:48
• The impact of Zen Buddhism on Dr. Waldinger’s life and work - 43:55
• Dr. Waldinger’s advice to clinicians on leading fulfilling careers - 50:02

In this episode, we discuss the book Wherever You Go, There You Are, by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Dr. Robert Waldinger is the author of The Good Life.

You can view Dr. Waldinger’s acclaimed TED Talk What Makes a Good Life.

You can follow Dr. Waldinger on Twitter @RobertWaldinger.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Navigating the unforgiving hours and ethical challenges of medical training while holding onto humanism; the medical and cultural history of the human heart; the moving journey of a doctor as he wrestles with his duties as a son and caregiver for a father with dementia. These are just some of the diverse subject matters our guest in this episode, Sandeep Jauhar, MD, has written about. Dr. Jauhar is the director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and a multiple-time bestselling author whose writings have also appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other publications. In the first half of our conversation, Dr. Jauhar shares his journey in medicine and struggles with burnout; while in the second half, we discuss his poignant experiences caring for his father, the subject of his most recent book, My Father's Brain: Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer's. 

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Jauhar’s immigrant parents influenced his choice to pursue a career in medicine - 2:02
• Dr. Jauhar’s reflections on the role of indecisiveness in shaping his path to cardiology - 4:49
• A discussion of a doctor’s struggle against a corporate medical system that inflicts moral injury on physicians - 12:51
• Dr. Jauhar’s advice to physicians on ameliorating moral injury - 18:54
• Reflections on how Alzheimer’s disease affects the patient’s family, and an overview of Dr. Jauhar’s recent book My Father’s Brain - 25:10
• A discussion of therapeutic deception, also known as validation therapy, in which caregivers and loved ones are encouraged to “play along” with the distorted reality of a patient with dementia - 36:43
• The conflicts between Dr. Jauhar and his siblings concerning end-of-life care for his father - 43:18
• How the medical system needs to changed so that more support is given to dementia patients and their families - 49:05

Dr. Sandeep Jauhar is the author of several best-selling nonfiction books: Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation, Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Doctor, Heart, A History, and My Father's Brain: Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer's

Dr. Jauhar also responds to medical students and residents on his blog Advice on Your First Year.

You can follow Dr. Jauhar on Twitter @SJauhar.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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When COVID-19 rapidly emerged, the World Health Organization (WHO) was thrust into an unprecedented challenge. The global pandemic response was in disarray; health care resources were limited and inequitably distributed; and misinformation burgeoned. At the center of this maelstrom was Soumya Swaminathan, MD, who served as the WHO’s first Chief Scientist, from 2019 until 2022. Dr. Swaminathan not only spearheaded efforts to disseminate the latest scientific findings about the coronavirus and vaccine development, but also became one of the major public faces of the WHO. In this episode, we discuss Dr. Swaminathan's formative years becoming a pediatrician in India, specializing in treating children with tuberculosis and HIV, as well as the challenges she faced as a leader at the WHO in a time of eroding public trust.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Dr. Swaminathan’s experiences training to become a doctor in India - 2:05
• How Dr. Swaminathan discovered the balance between her interests in clinical medicine and research - 6:00
• Dr. Swaminathan’s reflections on the challenges of caring for children with tuberculosis and HIV - 9:38
• A discussion of global research funding disparity - 14:08
• How Dr. Swaminathan joined the WHO and eventually came to fill such a critical leadership role there - 19:04
• Dr. Swaminathan’s recollections of the arrival of COVID-19 from her perspective as the WHO’s first Chief Scientist - 21:28
• Lessons learned in health communication from the pandemic - 27:46
• The experience of being a lightning rod for online harassment and misinformation - 35:07
• Dr. Swaminathan’s advice to new clinicians who are considering pursuing a career in global health - 39:25

You can follow Dr. Swaminathan on Twitter @DoctorSoumya.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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First used in the context of Vietnam war veterans, the term "moral injury" refers to the psychosocial, behavioral, and spiritual distress that comes from perpetuating or witnessing events that contradict deeply held moral beliefs. In recent years, moral injury has increasingly been used to describe one of the main challenges clinicians face in modern medicine — the challenge of knowing what care patients need but being unable to provide it due to constraints beyond the clinicians control, such as limited time or misaligned financial structures. Even more than emotional exhaustion and detachment, moral injury leads to profound shame and guilt. One of the leading voices addressing moral injury among health care workers is Wendy Dean, MD, a psychiatrist who has written widely on the issue, most recently in her book, If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury in Medicine and Why it's So Hard for Clinicians to Put Patients First. In this episode, Dr. Dean shares her own winding journey from orthopedic surgery to general surgery and finally to psychiatry, discusses where moral injury comes from and what it looks like, and explores what clinicians can do to address it.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Dr. Dean’s early explorations in medicine - 2:35
• How Dr. Dean’s desire to become a surgeon was deterred by gender discrimination - 5:12
• What led Dr. Dean to psychiatry, and then eventually out of clinical medicine entirely - 13:22
• A discussion of what moral injury is and why Dr. Dean began to study it - 18:03
• Examples of how moral injuries occur in the day-to-day of medical practice - 24:19
• How physicians and hospital administrators can address moral injury, citing as an example the court case of Raymond Brovont M.D. vs EmCare Holdings Inc - 38:57
• Dr. Dean’s advice for how navigate and push back against seemingly insurmountable bureaucracy - 42:22
• Moral Injury in Healthcare, the non-profit Dr. Dean founded - 47:39
• What setting personal and professional boundaries looks like in medicine - 53:04
• Dr. Dean’s advice to students and clinicians about fighting burnout - 57:37

In this episode, we discuss Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character by Jonathan Shay, MD, PhD, and The Business of Health Care is Built on the Exploitation of Doctors and Nurses by Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD.

Dr. Wendy Dean is the cohost of the Moral Matters podcast.

You can follow Dr. Dean on Twitter @WDeanMD.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Awe is a feeling we've all experienced but often struggle to articulate. Whether it's the sheer scale of a skyscraper, the infinite expanse of a starry night sky, or the miracle of childbirth, moments of awe can strike us at unexpected times, leaving us speechless, inspired, and even profoundly transformed. In this episode, we speak with Dacher Keltner, PhD, a psychologist at UC Berkeley, where he is the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center and the host of The Science of Happiness podcast. Keltner is a leading researcher on human emotion whose work focuses on the socio-biological origins and effects of compassion, beauty, power, morality, love, and social class. His most recent book is AWE: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. In this episode, we discuss the eight sources of wonder in life, how we can nurture an openness to experiencing awe, and how this openness can help us navigate grief, uncertainty, loneliness, and mortality, ultimately allowing us to lead more meaningful lives.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How growing up in a family of artists and humanists led Dr. Keltner to psychology - 2:26
• What the scientific study of emotions looks like - 4:54
• How scientists grapple with the difficulty of defining and studying emotions and feelings - 8:20
• A discussion of Jonathan Haidt’s revolutionary study of morality, The Righteous Mind - 11:57
• How Dr. Keltner defines and studies awe and wonder - 14:39
• The Eight Wonders of Life - 27:31
• Awe, beauty, and the sublime - 36:16
• Reflections on how digital technologies have negatively impacted our ability to experience awe - 38:35
• Advice for how we can practice the experience of awe - 44:26
• How awe can help with human suffering and physician burnout - 46:39

Dr. Dacher Keltner is the author of many books, including AWE: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence, and Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life.

In this episode, we discuss Bertrand Russel’s Power: A New Social Analysis, Paul Ekman’s work on emotions and facial expressions, William James’ What is an Emotion?, Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind, Richard Lazarus’ “core relational themes,” Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, Anna Lembke’s Dopamine Nation, and Jean Twenge’s work on social media and self-focus.

If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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For over 50 years, the National Eye Institute (NEI) has been a driving force for cutting-edge vision research, education, and public health guidance. In this episode, we speak with Michael F. Chiang, MD, Director of the NEI. A pediatric ophthalmologist by training, Dr. Chiang's work focuses on the application of biomedical informatics to ophthalmology, in areas ranging from telehealth to artificial intelligence to health data management. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Chiang describes the elegant intricacies of the human eye, shares what excites him most about digital health, discusses the urgent need for reformation in medical education, and shares his mission as the leader of the nation's foremost agency for promoting eye health.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Dr. Chiang’s upbringing in a family of engineers and eventual path found to ophthalmology - 2:22
• How the practice of ophthalmology is changing and the role of informatics in this change - 6:43
• What pediatric ophthalmology entails, and why this work inspires Dr. Chiang to this day - 10:39
• The mechanical intricacies of the human eye - 14:20
• Dr. Chiang’s reflections on how his education in engineering shapes the way he practices medicine - 18:03
• The importance of patient stories and how modern clinical practice leaves little time for them -  22:55
• How artificial intelligence is changing medicine and what that means for the future role of doctors - 25:55
• What excites Dr. Chiang most about the future of medicine, and what concerns him the most - 33:40
• Dr. Chiang’s vision for the National Eye Institute - 44:10
• Advice to young clinicians on lifelong curiosity and adaptiveness - 46:04

In this episode, we discuss Marshall McLuhan’s aphorism “the medium is the message” and the subsequent work of Neil Postman on “medium as metaphor.”

You can follow Dr. Chiang on Twitter @NEIDirector.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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We live in a culture that vilifies stress. Stress, we are told, is unhealthy both physiologically and emotionally, and something to be avoided at all costs. But Stanford University health psychologist Kelly McGonigal, PhD believes that by suppressing or ignoring it, we're missing out on the benefits of effective stress management. Kelly is also a bestselling author whose work focuses on the mind-body connection and the psychology of compassion and mindfulness. In this episode, Kelly shares the personal experiences that led her to this work, the myths and misconceptions surrounding stress, the role of physical movement in promoting our wellbeing, and how even busy physicians can find space for self-compassion.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• The early life experiences that led Kelly into a career in psychology - 1:55
• What health psychology is - 3:50
• How physical health impacts mental and emotional wellbeing - 6:13
• Why many physicians find it difficult to maintain physical health - 11:58
• The behaviors that can make a big difference in one’s physical and mental wellbeing - 15:06
• How Kelly helps physicians provide care to their patients while holding space for the exhaustion and frustration that can come with this work - 25:50
• Common misconceptions about stress - 38:39
• The importance of self-compassion for those working in high-stakes fields like medicine - 43:00
• Advice to clinicians on better supporting patients going through stressful times - 55:48

Dr. McGonigal is the author of several books, including The Willpower Instinct (2012), The Upside of Stress (2015), and The Joy of Movement (2019).

Watch Dr. McGonigal’s popular TED talk on stress management.

You can follow Dr. McGonigal on Twitter @KellyMcGonigal.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Though often invisible in our society, studies have shown that more than seven out of ten people experience trauma at some point in their lives, whether it's physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or a life-threatening accident or illness. In this episode, we speak with Bessel van der Kolk, MD, a psychiatrist and pioneering researcher on post-traumatic stress. His 2014 book, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, spent 27 weeks at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. He is the past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss why Dr. van der Kolk began studying trauma, the role of non-pharmaceutical methods in treating post-traumatic stress, how health care providers can overcome the psychological and emotional burden of encountering stressful situations in their practice, and how we can get back in touch with the irreducible human dimensions of love, belonging, and meaning through creativity, fellowship, self-expression, and imagination.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Why Dr. van der Kolk finds trauma a fascinating area of study - 2:16
• How Dr. van der Kolk views the emotional burden he carries from helping patients - 3:47
• A discussion of empathy and sympathy, and how they impact physicians dealing with patient suffering on a daily basis - 7:53
• Self-compassion: what does it look like and how do you cultivate it? - 14:10
• A discussion of trauma how it manifests physically and mentally - 19:22
• The difference between the “top-down” and “bottom-up” paradigms of coping with trauma and stress - 29:31
• How the complexities of trauma have been oversimplified repeatedly throughout history - 32:06
• Advice on cultivating a compassionate and sympathetic mindset for new physicians - 41:36
• How medical practitioners can safely process the trauma of medical training - 47:38

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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It’s no longer a surprise that the race and ethnicity of a patient influence their health outcomes. But back in the 1990s, when Lisa Cooper, MD first documented and published findings that supported the role of patient race on the quality of physician-patient interactions, these were groundbreaking, even radical ideas. Today, Dr. Cooper, a physician and social epidemiologist, is the Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity and a Bloomberg Distinguished professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She has designed innovative approaches to improve physician communication skills and the ability of healthcare organizations to address health disparities. She is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. In this conversation, we discuss her international upbringing, implicit bias in medicine, what good physician-patient relationships look like, and how we can more effectively prepare doctors to create a more equitable future.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Dr. Cooper’s international upbringing and how an early understanding of privilege shaped her career path - 2:21
• How privilege can change based on community and culture, and how Dr. Cooper experienced this shift - 7:25
• The observations Dr. Cooper made early in her career that led her to study how race and class impacts health outcomes in America - 12:58
• Facing stereotypes in a culture that is not your culture of origin - 18:44
• How Dr. Cooper began her research on racial inequities in health and the findings from those initial studies - 26:48
• The unrecognized assumptions that doctors are taught to make when it comes to patient care - 32:56
• How physicians can learn to take better care of patients from all backgrounds - 38:36
• The current state of medical education around implicit bias training and racial disparities - 46:40
• Dr. Cooper’s advice to her younger self - 52:53

Dr. Cooper is the author of several highly-regarded medical research papers; in this episode we discussed Race, Gender, and Partnership in the Patient-Physician Relationship (1999), published by Journal of the American Medical Association.

You can follow Dr. Lisa Cooper on Twitter @LisaCooperMD.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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A lung transplant—taking some or all of one person's lungs and putting them into someone else, giving the recipient years of additional life—sounds nothing short of miraculous. Today, over 2500 lung transplants are performed every year in the US. Still, it's among the most medically and ethically complex areas of medicine. Joining us in this episode is David Weill, MD, former director of the Lung and Heart-Lung Transplant Center at Stanford Health Care. He is also the author of Exhale: Hope, Healing, and a Life in Transplant. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss the challenges of transplantation, including how we find suitable organs, transport them, and decide who gets them. Dr. Weill also shares the high-stakes human drama that accompanies each triumph and failure, why he eventually decided to leave the practice, and the importance of staying connected in the midst of suffering. 

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Weill’s early experienced inspired him to pursue a career as a transplant pulmonologist - 2:14
• What a lung transplant entails - 5:51
• The risks of lung transplantation - 8:31
• Stories of successful and unsuccessful transplantations - 11:50
• Challenges of navigating difficult conversations with patients awaiting transplant - 15:53
• A discussion of the organ transplant selection process - 25:24
• Dr. Weill’s reflections on his transition out of medical practice and what it was like to face burnout - 38:46
• Advice on staying balanced and connected with patients, colleagues, and loved whens when dealing with suffering - 45:20

Dr. Weill is the author of Exhale: Hope, Healing, and a Life in Transplant (2021).

You can follow Dr. David Weill on Twitter @DavidWeillMD.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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"All dying is a spiritual process," says our guest on this episode, hospice chaplain Kerry Egan. By this, she means that each person's death is more than just a biological event; it's an opportunity to reflect on the culmination of our human experiences, the lessons we’ve learned, and the impact we've had on others. The recognition of our impermanence prompts us to grapple with questions of legacy and purpose, infusing our mortal existence with depth and significance. Over the course of our conversation, Kerry describes how she became a chaplain, how she supports patients and other clinicians through difficult times, and the process of reconciling the strength of the human spirit with the limitations of the body.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• An overview of hospice care and the role of the chaplain - 1:53
• The difference between hospital chaplaincy and hospice chaplaincy, and what led Kerry to this work - 7:15
• A discussion of the distinction between the person’s physical body and their intangible soul, consciousness, or spirit - 26:00
• How a chaplain offers spiritual counseling to clinicians in addition to patients - 32:51
• How years of being a chaplain has taught Kerry to love her own body - 34:20
• Why viewing the body as a machine and the physician as a mechanic leads to harm - 39:01
• Kerry’s advice to doctors for keeping compassion alive - 49:08

Kerry Egan is the author of On Living, a memoir about her experiences as a hospice chaplain.

You can follow Kerry Egan on Instagram @KerryEganWriter.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

According to our guest on this episode, Gail Gazelle, MD, there has never been a more difficult time to be a doctor. Whether or not you agree with this statement, it's true that clinicians today are expected to see more patients in less time than ever before, spend hours on the electronic medical record, and manage countless administrative and organizational pressures. Dr. Gazelle is a physician coach who specializes in helping doctors build resilience and confidence in order to overcome burnout and rediscover joy in medicine. She is the author of the book Mindful MD: Six Ways Mindfulness Restores Your Autonomy and Cures Healthcare Burnout. Over the course of our conversation, we discussed the psychological and organizational factors that contribute to burnout and what we can do to overcome them.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• What drew Dr. Gazelle into medicine and what eventually led her away from clinical practice - 1:58
• The differences and similarities between coaching and therapy - 7:22
• How much of coaching is about helping people change the narratives of their lives - 9:45
• The kinds of people who seek Dr. Gazelle’s help - 14:18
• The increasing acceptance of coaching in the healthcare profession - 15:51
• The extent to which an individual clinician can address burnout - 24:49
• Reflections on how perfectionism creates overstressed physicians and how to change that - 34:04
• A discussion of Dr. Gizelle’s book Mindful MD and the six ways mindfulness can help physicians - 40:25

In this episode, we discussed the Atul Gawande's 2011 Harvard Medical School commencement address, titled Cowboys and Pit Crews,  later published in the New Yorker. We also discuss the article Does Medicine Overemphasize IQ? by Ezekiel J. Emanuel & Emily Gudbranson, originally published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Gail Gazelle is the author of the book Mindful MD: Six Ways Mindfulness Restores your Autonomy and Cures Healthcare Burnout; you can download a free chapter at GailGazelle.com. She also authored the article The Slow Code: Should Anyone Rush to Its Defense? published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which we discussed in this episode.

You can follow Dr. Gazelle on Twitter @GailGazelleMD.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

As a medical student, former college quarterback David Fajgenbaum, MD was at the peak of his health and physique when he suddenly came down with a mysterious disease that, within weeks, led to multiple organ system failure. Dr. Fajgenbaum found himself on the brink of death over and over again in the intensive care unit, at one point receiving his last rites, with all of his doctors baffled about the cause of his illness. When the culprit was eventually found to be Castleman Disease, a rare disease entity that to this day defies categorization, he took matters into his own hands, researching and testing treatments on himself before finally discovering his own cure. Today, Dr. Fajgenbaum is not only the co-founder of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network, but is leading efforts to discover therapies for other rare diseases. He is the author of the 2019 memoir Chasing My Cure. In this riveting conversation, Dr. Fajgenbaum shares his incredible, inspiring story to turn hope into action.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How the loss of his mother to cancer led Dr. Fajgenbaum to pursue a career in medicine - 2:13
• The rapid deterioration from peak physical health to multiple organ system failure that struck Dr. Fajgenbaum - 6:04
• Dr. Fajgenbaum reflects on the terror of his unknown affliction and how he maintained resilience - 12:59
• How a brief remission gave Dr. Fajgenbaum an opportunity to turn passive hope into action - 21:47
• How a relapse led to a series of experimental treatments and a realization that his cure might already exist - 24:47
• How deep research and self-experimentation led to a breakthrough - 36:42
• Dr. Fajgenbaum’s nonprofit Every Cure and its mission to discover new uses of existing drugs - 42:02
• How Dr. Fajgenbaum feels when he cares for patients in similar plights to his own prior - 47:03
• What clinicians can do to comfort patients even when treatment options are limited - 51:37
• Advice to clinicians and students who are interested in medical research - 53:25
• Lessons on presence and compassion that Dr. Fajgenbaum has learned from having been both physician and patient - 56:32

You can follow Dr. Fajgenbaum on Twitter @DavidFajgenbaum.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

Despite the optimism of modern healthcare promising ever more miraculous cures, there are inevitably moments in medicine that compel us to face the fact that not all problems can be fixed. Recognizing the limits of medicine and navigating the space between what can be done and what should be done for a patient requires a fundamental shift in mindset, one imbued with an understanding that sometimes acceptance is the most compassionate response. Our guest on this episode, palliative care physician Sunita Puri, MD, has dedicated her life to probing this delicate space, uncovering wisdom along the way on what it means to live and die with purpose and dignity. She is the author of the 2019 memoir That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour, and her writings have often appeared in The New York Times. In this conversation, we explore how she discovered palliative medicine, the importance of language in medicine's most difficult moments, and how impermanence and grief help us make meaning out of a world that often seems chaotic and senseless.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• How Dr. Puri’s relationship with her parents drew her into medicine - 2:46
• The inspirational way that Dr. Puri’s physician mother connected with patients - 4:49
• Dr. Puri’s experiences entering the field of palliative care - 10:56
• Reflections on what Dr. Puri needed to “unlearn” over the course of her career as a physician - 15:36
• The recognition that not all diseases can be cured and not all problems can be fixed - 21:37
• Advice on how to engage patients and families when further curative medical interventions are futile - 32:29
• Dr. Puri’s experiences on helping other doctors through difficult moments - 38:56
• Why Dr. Puri writes and how she came to write her book That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour - 43:43
• Grief, empathy, and the sacred mission of medicine - 49:24

In addition to her memoir That Good Night, we also discussed her New York Times article "We Must Learn to Look at Grief Even When We Want to Run Away."

You can follow Dr. Sunita Puri on Twitter @SunitaPuriMD.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

When professor of English literature Theresa Brown, PhD, BSN, RN decided to become an oncology nurse, she suddenly found herself juggling seemingly-impossible patient expectations. And when she later was diagnosed with breast cancer herself, she was forced to confront the paradoxes of a healthcare system that demands so much of its practitioners yet provides insufficient support for them. She recounts these revelations in her recent book, Healing: When a Nurse Becomes a Patient. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, Theresa is also the author of several bestselling books detailing her experiences helping patients through some of the most devastating moments in their lives. Over the course of our conversation, Theresa shares her unusual journey to nursing, the daily struggles she encounters caring for the sickest patients in the hospital, and what her experiences as a cancer patient have taught her about finding solace in the midst of our imperfect healthcare system.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Theresa’s path from English professor to oncology nurse - 2:07
• What “whole person care” means to Theresa - 5:54
• A day in the life of an oncology nurse - 11:26
• How Theresa managed the emotional stress of working with seriously ill patients in such a prolonged and often intimate way - 18:47
• The high risk of moral injury in the nursing profession - 34:34
• Theresa’s experiences when the tables were turned and she became a cancer patient herself - 38:53
• Theresa’s practical advice for leading with kindness with patients - 44:43

Theresa Brown is the author of several books about her experiences in nursing, including: 

The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives (2016) and Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between(2011).

You can follow Theresa Brown, RN on Twitter @TheresaBrown.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

Storytelling is the oldest medical technology — so claims our guests on this episode, Laurel Braitman, PhD, an acclaimed author and Writer-in-Residence at Stanford School of Medicine. Laurel offers a uniquely qualified perspective on the matter, having grown up in a medical family and now mentoring clinicians everywhere to help them fulfill their writing goals. She received her doctorate in History and Anthropology of Science from MIT, and her most recent work is a 2023 memoir titled What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love. Over the course of our conversation, we explore the challenges Laurel has faced on her journey as an author, how creative writing can lead to better doctoring, and how we can find the courage to discover our own identities in the face of expectations others have of us.

In this episode, you will hear about:

• What it means to be Writer-in-Residence at Stanford Medical School - 2:06
• Why physicians write and how storytelling can help clinicians - 6:42
• How Laurel’s writing career began and her advice for how to break into the writing world - 14:43
• What it's like to be in the medical field as an “embedded outsider” - 23:15
• Laurel’s most recent book What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love, which details her experience of growing up with parents with high expectations and struggling through the grief of her father’s death - 28:15
• The importance of carving out time to reflect on your journey and your ‘why’ in the medical profession - 36:54
• Laurel’s advice for healthcare professionals who want to take the first step towards writing - 44:55

All are welcome to join Laurel’s Writing Medicine workshops, a pay-what-you-can public resource for healthcare professionals. Visit www.LaurelBraitman.com or www.WritingMedicine.org for more details.

Laurel Braitman is the author of several books, articles, and essays. You can find more at her website www.LaurelBraitman.com

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

According to emergency physician Leana Wen, MD, MS, "public health saved your life today, you just don't know it." Having been appointed the Baltimore City Health Commissioner at the age of 31, she certainly has the credentials and stories to illustrate this assertion. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, public health played a frequently misunderstood and under-appreciated role in our society, ranging from sanitation and immunization to mental health support and pollution control. In addition to her public health work, Dr. Wen is the author of the 2021 memoir Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health. She is a regular contributor to The Washington Post, a medical analyst for CNN, professor of health policy and management at George Washington University, former president of Planned Parenthood, and in 2019 was named one of TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People. In this episode, Dr. Wen not only unpacks what public health is, but also shares her challenging upbringing as a child of immigrants, how she became the health commissioner of a city she had not previously worked or lived in, lessons on decision making in a crisis, the importance of finding good mentors, and more. 

In this episode, you will hear about:

• 2:08 - Dr. Wen’s childhood as an immigrant to the US and her early experiences as a patient
• 6:34 - Why Dr. Wen decided to train as an emergency medicine physician and how she got into public health
• 9:27 - The ways in which emergency medicine training prepared Dr. Wen for a career in public heath
• 13:34 - Dr. Wen’s objectives as she entered the role of Baltimore City Health Commissioner
• 17:05 - Balancing priorities when confronted with the complexities of public health
• 21:50 - Navigating public health policy within our challenging political climate 
• 26:16 - The importance of telling success stories in public health to spread awareness of its importance
• 28:24 - Dr. Wen’s advice on what to look for in a good mentor
• 32:15 - What ties together the many experiences Dr. Wen has had throughout her career 

Dr. Leana Wen is also the co-author of When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnosis and Unnecessary Tests(2014).

Follow Dr. Wen on Twitter @DrLeanaWen.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

Multiple sclerosis is the most common disabling neurological disease among young adults. It's a disease in which the body's immune system begins attacking the protective covering around nerve cells, leading to a wide variety of symptoms, ranging from vision problems to difficulty walking fatigue to dizziness to speech problems. Our guest on this episode, neurologist Stephen Hauser, MD, has led research that has been key to developing our understanding of this disease, and his work has resulted in treatments that have helped hundreds of thousands of people. Dr. Hauser is a director of the Weill Institute for Neurosciences at the University of California, San Francisco, and the author of the memoir The Face Laughs While the Brain Cries: the Education of a Doctor. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss not only his groundbreaking scientific work, but also reflect on how clinicians can help patients heal even when there are no medical therapies available, as well as how neurological disorders affect our sense of personhood and meaning in life.

In this episode, we discuss:

2:07 - The childhood experiences that drew Dr. Hauser to a career in medicine, and specifically to neurology 

8:15 - The ways in which practicing medicine was “simpler” 50 years ago

9:53 - Why Dr. Hauser chose to focus his career on multiple sclerosis 

13:58 - Advancements in multiple sclerosis treatment over the course of Dr. Hauser’s career

15:37 - The importance of developing deep relationships with patients, even when curative treatments don’t yet exist

19:45 - The unique challenge that arises when neurological diseases affect a person’s central identity 

25:49 - The enduring power of love that transcends the loss of a patient’s cognitive identity 

31:50 - The biggest lessons that Dr. Hauser have learned from his courageous patients

35:10 - Dr. Hauser’s perspective on “failure” when treating patients 

39:30 - Dr. Hauser’s hopes for the next generation of doctor scientists 

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

When we gaze at the stars and wonder at our place amid the expanse of the universe, or when we witness the birth of a child and marvel at the miracle of existence itself, or when we listen to music that seems to touch our soul — there are moments in life when we feel a transcendent connection to things larger than ourselves. But how are we to make sense of these experiences in the age of science? In perhaps our most meditative episode yet, we speak with Alan Lightman, PhD, a theoretical physicist and humanist who holds a unique vantage point on topics fundamental to our existence: time, space, matter, and human consciousness. Dr. Lightman is Professor of the Practice of the Humanities at MIT, the author of numerous novels and books on science and philosophy, and the creator and subject of the 2023 PBS documentary series Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss where our sense of awe comes from, the role of spirituality in a materialist world, whether or not human consciousness will ever be understood on a physical basis, the interplay of faith and reason in modern scientific practice, and more.

In this episode, we discuss:

3:58 - How Dr. Lightman found himself at the intersection of physics and creative writing 

5:46 - The ways in which physics is the most “philosophical” science 

9:13 - The definitions of ‘materialists’ and ‘vitalists’

11:56 - How Dr. Lightman conceptualizes his position as a ‘Spiritual Materialist’ 

16:07 - Contending with materialism despite awe-inspiring, transcendental experiences 

22:30 - Whether or not Dr. Lightman considers himself a ‘reductionist’ 

25:28 - Where our sense of awe and appreciation of beauty come from

32:17 - The role of faith in scientific pursuits

34:20 - Finding meaning in a materialist world

In this episode, we discuss Bertrand Russel’s Free Man’s Worship.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

In many ways, emergency rooms are the frontlines of health care, serving as the initial point of contact for people experiencing sudden and severe health problems or accidents. In other ways, emergency rooms are the last line of defense, serving as a critical catch-all for vulnerable populations who have nowhere else to go. How can doctors reconcile the tension between the desire to help others with the frustrating inability to address the many systemic causes of health problems encountered in the ER—homelessness, mental illness, domestic violence, substance use disorder, and more? Here to explore this question is Michele Harper, MD, an emergency room physician and New York Times bestselling author of the memoir The Beauty in Breaking, in which she shares her journey from an abusive childhood home to working in busy ERs. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Harper discusses the unique challenges she faces as a black female doctor, how healing from her own trauma was key to connecting with her patients, and how the issues she encounters in the ER are a reflection of broader societal ills. 

As a content warning, this episode contains discussions of domestic violence and sexual assault, which may be uncomfortable for those who have experienced trauma or are otherwise sensitive to these topics.

In this episode, we discuss:

2:42 - How Dr. Harper’s experiences growing up in an abusive household drew her to a career in emergency medicine

12:40 - The limitations ER doctors face in managing the underlying causes of the health problems they encounter

17:38 - The importance of fighting for health equity and what that entails

27:41 - What the individual clinician can do to advance health equity in the US

31:44 - Contending with the reality of race- and gender-based discrimination within hospital systems

38:58 - Connecting with your “calling” when making career decisions 

44:23 - The importance of healing yourself in order to better show up for your patients

In this episode, we discussed Thich Nhat Hanh’s Living Buddha, Living Christ.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

Despite advances in medicine, issues in women's health are still often mired in stigma, shame, misinformation, and disparities in access and societal standards. In this episode, we are joined by Jen Gunter, MD, who is perhaps the most well-known and outspoken gynecologist in the world. She has made it her life's work to dispel potentially dangerous myths about women's health and, more broadly, the wellness industry. Dr. Gunter is the author of The Preemie Primer, The Vagina Bible, Menopause Manifesto, and the upcoming book Blood: The Science, Medicine, and Mythology of Menstruation. She is also a columnist on women's health at the New York Times and the host of the podcast Body Stuff. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss her work as an early pioneer in chronic pain medicine and vulvovaginal disorders, how experiencing a challenging childbirth led her to write her first book, the various spars she's had with celebrities over medical misinformation, the importance of discussing uncomfortable topics such as sex with patients candidly, and how she builds trust with her patients.

In this episode, we discuss:

2:20 - An early accident that led Dr. Gunter to pursue a career in medicine 

5:02 - Dr. Gunter’s experience as a woman in medicine

8:13 - What led Dr. Gunter to specialize in the intersection of pain medicine and women’s health 

11:37 - How Dr. Gunter validates her patient’s experiences

16:19 - The unique ways in which OB/GYNs are “fluent” in both medical and surgical management

21:24 - The very challenging childbirth experience that led Dr. Gunter to write her first book, The Preemie Primer

26:38 - The ways in which doctors need to strive to do a better job communicating medical information with patients

31:07 - The growth of Dr. Gunter’s media presence since she began sharing her writing publicly in the early days of Twitter

36:34 - How coming of age as a doctor during the early years of the HIV epidemic made Dr. Gunter committed to normalizing conversations about sex with patients

41:18 - Dr. Gunter’s advice for dealing with misinformation on a daily basis

Follow Dr. Gunter on Twitter/X @DrJenGunter.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

What is the intersection between psychotherapy and Buddhism? For decades, Mark Epstein, MD, a practicing Buddhist and psychiatrist, has deeply explored how Buddhist philosophy can be integrated into therapy to help patients heal from trauma. His key insight is that Buddhism grants us the wisdom to reshape our relationships with our personal stories, through which we conceptualize and contextualize our emotions and identities. Dr. Epstein is the author of Thoughts Without a Thinker, The Trauma of Everyday Life, Advice Not Given, The Zen of Therapy: Uncovering a Hidden Kindness in Life, and other books. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Epstein shares how he discovered Buddhist meditative and mindfulness practices during his formative years, how he helps patients reframe their understanding of suffering, and what it's like to be allowed into the most vulnerable, intricate, and even spiritual spaces in the minds and hearts of other people.

In this episode, we discuss:

2:12 - Dr. Epstein’s reluctant path to medicine after growing up as the child of a doctor

10:08 - The lessons Buddhism has taught Dr. Esptein about himself and his relationships with others and the world

17:12 - Differences between “medical materialists” and “medical humanists”

19:33 - How Dr. Epstein’s humanistic views of medicine have affected his approach to treating patients 

23:45 - An overview of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis

28:12 - How Dr. Epstein’s approach to working with patients differs from other psychiatrists due to Buddhist influences

36:54 - The extent to which Dr. Epstein’s patients are aware of the source of his approach and techniques

39:42 - How Dr. Epstein grapples with the high stakes involved when treating the mental suffering of his patients

46:12 - Dr. Epstein’s advice for medical students and clinicians on managing the mental distress of patients

Dr. Mark Epstein is the author of many books, including:

The Zen of Therapy (2022)

Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself (2018)

The Trauma of Everyday Life (2013)

Going On Being (2008)

Psychotherapy Without the Self,Open to Desire (2008)

Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart (1998)

Thoughts Without a Thinker(1995)

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

Moral imagination is the ability to transcend one's own immediate context and experiences to explore diverse moral perspectives and ethical scenarios. In medicine, where decisions can reverberate profoundly through a patient’s life, moral imagination allows us to navigate the ethical complexities of particular situations while honoring the dignity of others. But how can this capacity be developed? Can we actually teach moral imagination to clinicians? In this episode, we are joined by Lydia Dugdale, MD, director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at Columbia University, who has deeply explored these issues through her writings and research. She is the author of multiple books, most recently The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom, (2020). Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Dugdale shares her efforts to nurture moral imagination in her students, the importance of acknowledging suffering not just between clinicians and patients, but also among clinicians themselves, what sustains her through the most challenging or mundane moments in medicine, and more.

In this episode, we discuss:

2:31 - Dr. Dugdale’s calling to medicine

5:06 - How Dr. Dugdale became interested in clinical ethics

8:49 - Why it’s difficult to engage the spiritual side of medicine

16:18 - The importance of cultivating imagination, especially for physicians

21:44 - The place that higher education has (or doesn’t have) in shaping the “souls” of students 

27:25 - The importance of creating space to reflect on the patient connection

36:14 - Dr. Dugdale’s advice for trainees and clinician on how they can better approach addressing suffering with patients 

In this episode, we discussed Alan Deresiewicz book “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life” (excerpt from which is published in The New Republic) as well as Steven Pinker’s response essay The Trouble with Harvard.

Dr. Dugdale is the author of The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Addiction and substance use disorders have long been mired in misconception and stigma, seen as moral failings or a lack of willpower. But the reality is far more complex and nuanced. In this episode, we are joined by Nzinga Harrison, MD, a psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist who is the co-founder of Eleanor Health, a tech-enabled provider of comprehensive and longitudinal care for substance use disorder and mental health. Dr. Harrison holds a faculty appointment at the Morehouse School of Medicine, previously served on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and is the author of the upcoming book "Un-Addiction: Six Mind Changing Conversations That Could Save a Life". Over the course of our conversation, we discuss our rapidly evolving understanding of addiction as more akin to a chronic illness with heritable and environmentally shaped components, the omnipresence of addiction in modern society, and the centrality of finding life purpose in truly transformative health care. 

In this episode, we discuss:

2:40 - Dr. Harrison’s early experiences — good and bad — with physicians and how they shaped her path to medicine

8:41 - What brought Dr. Harrison’s to a career in psychiatry 

13:50 - How Dr. Harrison came to focus on the emerging subspecialty of addiction medicine

17:57 - The reckoning our society has gone through surrounding addiction in the face of the opioid epidemic

22:49 - The definition of addiction and its pervasiveness throughout our society

26:44 - How we can intervene in earlier stages of substance use disorders

31:23 - Approaches to speaking with patients about substance use without buying into the stigma 

34:45 - A glimpse into Dr. Harrison’s upcoming book “Un-Addiction: Six Mind Changing Conversations That Could Save a Life” 

39:17 - The most important question to address with a patient as they grapple with addiction in their lives

45:01 - The importance of valuing meaning and fullness over productivity in order to bring meaning back to medicine and to life

You can follow Dr. Harrison on Twitter @NzingaMD.

Visit Dr. Harrison’s website at: www.nzingaharrisonmd.com.

We want to take this opportunity to spotlight National Addiction Treatment Week from October 16th to the 22nd, 2023. This is a week for us all to learn more about addiction and evidence based approaches to care, and to tackle the stigma surrounding addiction within the medical community. To get involved, visit www.TreatAddictionSaveLives.org. 

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023

For many people, the idea of politics in healthcare conjures up hyperpartisanship, where power and party loyalty trump public interest. But Joshua Sharfstein, MD is passionate about politics and health care because to him, these are opportunities to bring together wide-ranging expertise and navigate seemingly irreconcilable interests to implement changes that change the lives of millions. Dr. Sharfstein has led a career reflective of this passion. He has served as the Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health, the Principal Deputy Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, and the Commissioner of Health for Baltimore City, and is currently Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Sharfstein discusses why public health matters, how he handles partisanship in politics, and his career highs and lows and lessons learned on effective crisis management.

In this episode we discuss:

2:16 - How medicine and politics ended up being a twin focus of Dr. Sharfstein’s career

5:07 - The milestones of Dr. Sharfstein’s career in healthcare leadership

8:39 - Why healthcare arouses such intense partisan political feelings

13:51 - How public health’s messaging and communication must change in light of current advancements in information technology

18:42 - The formative public health crises that Dr. Sharfstein has dealt with throughout his career

26:33 - Ideas for strengthening the US’s weak public health system

29:28 - How COVID-19 revealed the flaws of our public health system

33:55 - Dr. Sharfstein’s advice for clinicians who are interested in working in public health

38:00 - Sustaining drive and momentum amid bureaucracy in public health

41:56 - A sampling of the unsafe products that Dr. Sharfstein has successfully gotten taken off of the market 

Dr. Sharfstein is the author of The Public Health Crisis Survival Guide: Leadership and Management in Trying Times.

You can follow Dr. Joshua Sharfstein on Twitter @DrJoshS.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Imagine if, as a teenager, you were told that you would lose your vision over the course of a few decades. How would you approach your life, your world, and the people in it? Joining us to discuss these questions is writer Andrew Leland. Andrew has retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that affects the retina's ability to respond to light, leading to progressive irreversible vision loss. Andrew's works have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and elsewhere, and he is the author of a 2023 memoir titled The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight. Over the course of our conversation, we explore the culture and language of blindness, what it's like to grieve the gradual loss of sight, how visual impairment changes the appreciation of beauty, how blind individuals can harness the full richness of the human senses, and more. Ultimately, Andrew's deeply personal stories and sharp insights remind us to see the dignity in those living with disabilities, both visible and invisible.

In this episode, we discuss:

2:16 - Andrew’s journey with vision loss starting from his teenage years

6:58 - The isolation of having a condition that most around you cannot experience or fully understand

11:56 - How blindness exists on a spectrum and in many varieties13:23 - The milestones of gradual blindness that Andrew encountered over the course of his life

16:49 - Andrew’s advice for how be tactful when interacting people with disabilities such as blindness

25:48 - Andrew’s reflections on the internal psychology of ableism 

28:12  - How blindness has altered Andrew’s personal relationships

30:16 - How Andrew’s experiences as a sighted individual affects his current perceptions with low vision

32:57 - How Andrew’s loss of vision has shaped his relationship with his other senses and how visual impairment affects the appreciation of beauty

44:19 - Andrew’s advice to clinicians on how to best meet patients where they are with their disabilities

Learn more about Andrew and his work at https://www.andrewleland.org/.

Andrew is the author of the memoir The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight (2023).

In this episode, we discussed John Hull’s book Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness.

You can follow Andrew on Twitter/X @Quailty.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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It's been less than a year since ChatGPT was released in November 2022, but in that time, reports have emerged of ChatGPT outperforming physicians in everything from clinical reasoning to documentation and even to empathetic communication with patients. How are we to make sense of the role of clinicians when artificial intelligence and digital health technologies seem to be advancing at a pace beyond our reach?

Here to discuss this is Jag Singh, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and former Clinical Director of Cardiology and Founding Director of the Resynchronization and Advanced Cardiac Therapeutics Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is the author of the 2023 book Future Care: Sensors, Artificial Intelligence and the Reinvention of Medicine.Over the course of our conversation, we discuss how digital tools can make healthcare more human-centered, how we validate the effectiveness of these tools, what we can do to prevent the profit motive from corrupting their implementation, and the skills that clinicians need to cultivate in order to thrive in the future. 

In this episode, we discuss:

2:21 - Why Dr. Singh chose the specialty of cardiology, and specifically electrophysiology 

7:43 - Why Dr. Singh became interested in digital health

10:17 - How doctors know if remote monitoring and other digital interventions  truly work in the interest of patients

15:57 - Dr. Singh’s concerns over the digitization of health

21:36 - How we can center digital health interventions on patients and what clinicians can do to be a part of the solution

34:54 - Whether or not academia is doing a good job of preparing future clinicians to work with digital tools 

37:33 - How digital tools might change the role of the clinician

43:25 - The skills that clinicians will need to develop to better work alongside AI

59:25 - The values that clinicians will need to cultivate to work effectively in the digital future of health

Dr. Singh is the author of Future Care: Sensors, Artificial Intelligence, and the Reinvention of Medicine(2023).

You can follow Dr. Singh on Twitter at @jagsinghmd.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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"It's like having a backstage pass to the world." 

That's how Stephen Fabes, MBChB describes his epic adventure exploring all six inhabited continents on a bicycle. Over the course of 6+ years, he cycled across 75 countries and 53,000 miles, discovering how human stories shape our conceptions of health and illness. Currently an acute medicine specialist at the Royal London Hospital, Dr. Fabes is also the author of the 2020 memoir Signs of Life: A Doctor's Journey to the Ends of the Earth. His writings have also appeared in The Guardian, The Telegraph, CNN, and the BBC. 

In this episode, he joins us to share thrilling, thought-provoking, and amusing moments from his journey, what his travels through refugee camps and war-torn hospital wards have taught him about health care at the margins, and stories of everyday kindness that underscore our common humanity.

In this episode, we’ll discuss: 

2:07 - Why Dr. Fabes decided to become a doctor 

3:50 - The roots of Dr. Fabes’ sense of adventure

13:16 - How medical training differs in the UK and the US

14:34 - Dr. Fabes’ planning process for his 6+ year international bicycle journey

16:20 - A recap of the path that Dr. Fabes took on his 53,000 mile

21:15 - The most challenging aspects of Dr. Fabes’  journey and how they gave him the urge to visit medical projects on his travels

23:11 - How Dr. Fabes grappled with the moments when his health or life was in jeopardy

27:28 - Dr. Fabes’ takeaways from observing such a wide variety of international medical practices

32:38 - The challenges that arose as Dr. Fabes’ transitioned back to regular life after his trip

35:27 - How Dr. Fabes’ experiences have shaped how he now approaches medicine 

36:42 - The importance of keeping an open mind in order to best meet your patients where they are

To learn more about Dr. Fabes’ book Signs of Life: A Doctor’s Journey to the Ends of the Earth and his work, visit https://stephenfabes.com/

Follow Dr. Fabes on Twitter/X at https://twitter.com/DrStephenFabes.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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When Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD attended his first meeting at the American Medical Association (AMA) as a first year medical student, he was struck by the collaborative spirit he witnessed among physicians of all specialties from across the United States. But he was also filled with insecurity over whether he, as a gay man, would ever be truly accepted for who he was. 22 years later, Dr. Ehrenfeld is now the first openly gay president of the AMA. An anesthesiologist by training, he is also a senior associate dean and tenured professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin. 

In this episode, Dr. Ehrenfeld shares his journey in medicine — from how he has channeled his experiences with discrimination, to becoming a leading advocate of health equity especially for LGBTQ individuals, to his time as a combat veteran in the Navy, to now leading one of the most influential medical organizations in America. Our conversation also ranges in topic from the future of medical education, to physician burnout, to the promises of digital health, and more.

In this episode, we discuss: 

2:18 - Dr. Ehrenfeld’s path to becoming an anesthesiologist

5:03 - How health equity came to the forefront of Dr. Ehrenfeld’s work and how it has taken center stage in his leadership at the AMA 

11:57 - The role that the house of delegates plays within the AMA 

13:37 - How Dr. Ehrenfeld represents the democratically determined positions of the AMA 

17:03 - Dr. Ehrenfeld’s mission for his year as President of the AMA 

19:26 - How the AMA invests its resources on tackling systemic issues that affect health

24:42 - Dr. Ehrenfeld’s perspectives on physician burnout

32:02 - How medical training needs to change in order to prepare for the dawning of AI 

38:38 - Engaging with the politics of healthcare 

41:45 - How the AMA is working to ensure that doctors can affect the future of medicine through programs including Health 2047 and the Physician Innovation Network

45:27 - Why Dr. Ehrenfeld believes that medicine is still a worthwhile calling 

For more about the AMA, visit https://www.ama-assn.org/.

Follow Dr. Ehrenfeld on Twitter @DoctorJesseMD.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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In recent years, loneliness has transformed from a private, personal experience into a full blown public health crisis. Studies have repeatedly shown that loneliness and social isolation increase the risk of premature death, dementia, and all sorts of mental illnesses. In this episode, Jeremy Noble, MD shares how he is combating our national crisis of loneliness by fostering connection through art and storytelling. Dr. Noble is the founder of the Foundation for Arts and Healing, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, and the author of the 2023 book Project UnLonely: Healing Our Crisis of Disconnection. 

Over the course of our conversation, we discuss Dr. Noble's unique path to arts and medicine, the three types of loneliness—social, emotional, and existential, what meaningful social connection looks like, and the healing power of creativity.

In this episode, we discuss: 

2:08 - Dr. Nobel’s journey to becoming a “public health practitioner” and the personal meaning that the has found in his work

5:44 - The issues that Dr. Nobel is most interested in addressing within public health

7:03 - How Dr. Nobel found his way to the arts and humanities

14:21 - The benefits available at the intersection of the arts and medicine

16:09 - The mission of the Foundation for Art and Healing and Project UnLonely

22:26 - The definition of “loneliness” and the importance of loneliness literacy 

24:19 - The “pyramid of vulnerability” for loneliness 

27:10 - Evolutionary reasons for loneliness and how those are exacerbated today

34:19 - The three types of loneliness

38:20 - How we can cultivate a culture of connection in a society that has grown to distrust people and institutions 

42:24 - What public health agencies should do to better prepare our society to reckon with loneliness 

44:11 - The importance of addressing the loneliness inherent in medical training

Dr. Nobel is the author of Project UnLonely: Healing Our Crisis of Disconnection(2023).

Learn more about Project UnLonely and The Foundation for Art & Healing: www.artandhealing.org.

Dr. Nobel can be found on Twitter/X @JeremyNobel1.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Since childhood, Clancy Martin has been preoccupied with, and even addicted to, the idea of suicide. A survivor of more than ten suicide attempts. Clancy has spent his life wrestling with questions like: where do these impulses come from? Why am I haunted by them? Why do I feel so much guilt? Can I be helped?

Clancy is a professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri — Kansas City, where he teaches existentialism, moral psychology, philosophy of the mind, and ethics. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of more than ten books, most recently 2023’s How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind, in which he chronicles his struggles with suffering, substance use, and an obsession with self-destruction. At the same time, the book is a prescription of hope and an eloquent reminder of the interconnectedness of our lives. These are the issues we grapple with in this episode. 

Content warning: Due to the sensitive nature of the topic of suicide, this episode might be distressing for some listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, in the United States, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by texting or calling 988, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For our international listeners, please refer to local resources in your country for support. 

In this episode, we discuss: 

3:53 - The importance of “speaking honorably” about suicide and removing the taboo surrounding the topic

9:23 - Applying the biopsychosocial model of illness to suicide 

13:29 - Clancy’s lifelong experience with suicidal ideation 

22:58 - Moving past our tendency to see suicidal ideation as a personal sin or failure. 

27:07 - Understanding the different reasons why a person would consider suicide 

35:54 - In Clancy’s view, what lies on the other side when one moves beyond a suicidal mindset 

44:42 - Clancy’s advice for how to cope if you are currently vulnerable to suicidal thoughts 

Clancy Martin is the author of How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind (2023).

In this episode, We discuss Clancy’s 2018 essay, I’m Still Here. 

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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Medical anthropology provides a lens through which we can view the intricate tapestry of human health, woven with the threads of cultural beliefs, social structures, and biological realities. Few have played a more significant role in creating this discipline than psychiatrist Arthur Kleinman, MD, whose early, extensive field work in Taiwan and China have shaped how we think about cross-cultural healthcare systems and their impacts on human suffering. Many of his books, including The Illness Narratives and Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture, have become seminal texts in medical anthropology. Dr. Kleiman is also a moral philosopher whose writings have explored the frailty of our existence and how uncertainty and crises sharpen our moral identities. 

Over the course of our conversation, we discuss Dr. Kleinman's bold explorations of human wellness across cultures, the search for meaning amid pain and suffering, the struggle to lead a moral life, and medical anthropology as a clarion call for a more nuanced and empathetic approach to health and healing.

In this episode, we discuss: 

2:26 - Dr. Kleinman’s path to medicine 

7:00 - How anthropology and psychiatry became central to Dr. Kleinman’s work  

11:23 - The four core questions that define Dr. Kleinman’s decades of study 

16:09 - How cultural definitions of a healthcare system greatly impact its effectiveness and reach

22:12 - Finding meaning in experiences of pain and sorrow 

33:56 - An anthropological view of human existence, morality, and ethics 

46:00 - The basis for Dr. Kleinman’s book The Soul of Care 

47:51 - How Dr. Kleinman’s search for meaning shapes his approach to medicine

50:35 - The delineation between “morality” and “Morality”

57:40 - Connecting to our shared humanity by “doing” care

Dr. Kleinman has authored seven books, including his most recent, The Soul of Care.

In this episode, We share excerpts from: Dr. Kleinman’s book What Really Matters, Morten Lauridsen’s choral piece O Nata Lux, and Bryan Stevenson’s book Just Mercy. 

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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From ancient myths to science fiction, humans have long been fascinated by the idea of transcending the limits of our natural lifespan. But what does modern medicine say about the practical, actual possibilities of extending human life? Joining us to explore this tantalizing question is Tony Wyss-Coray, PhD, a neuroscientist and director of the Phil and Penny Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Stanford University. While his research focuses on age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease, his work has involved identifying the “biological age” of various organs and its implications on various diseases, and treating old animals with the blood of young animals to halt, and even reverse, aging of the body. 

Over the course of our conversation, we not only discuss the mysterious mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration, but also venture beyond the lab to explore the philosophical and ethical dimensions of life extension. We ask: how does our understanding of aging affect our perception of self and identity? Is aging a disease to be treated? What are our social and moral obligations when it comes to prolonging life or enhancing brain function? Is immortality even desirable?

In this episode, we discuss: 

2:30 - How Dr. Wyss-Coray became drawn to neuroscience 

4:45 - Defining neurodegeneration and aging 

9:26 - The studies that led Dr. Wyss-Coray and his team to finding the gap between biological age and chronological age

21:06 - Is reversing the aging of an organism’s body a realistic goal? 

28:31 - The possibilities and limits of treating neurodegenerative conditions 

33:49 - Dr. Wyss-Coray’s groundbreaking work in treating old animals with the blood of young animals to reverse aging

38:51 - The philosophical and moral implications of life extension

48:57 - Dr. Wyss-Coray insight into the “secrets” behind some people’s longevity 

Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray can be found on Twitter/X at @wysscoray.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

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What happens to the mortality rates of cardiac arrest patients on days when there is a marathon happening in the city? What happens to surgical complication rates when it's the surgeon's birthday? Why do patients of younger doctors seem to have better health outcomes? 

These and other quirky questions are what preoccupy health economist, Anupam Jena, MD, PhD. Dr. Jena is a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, host of the popular Freakonomics, MD podcast, and, together with Dr. Christopher Worsham, co-author of the 2023 book Random Acts of Medicine. 

Over the course of our conversation, we discuss the often-unintuitive role that random chance plays in our health outcomes, the hidden drivers of medical decision-making, misconceptions about physician burnout, and more. As we'll see, through tackling what can be amusing questions about why physicians and patients behave the way they do, Dr. Jena encourages us to reconsider our own ways of thinking and imagine how we can do better and be better.

In this episode, we discuss: 

2:18 - The path that took Dr. Jena to the intersection of medicine and economics

8:54 - How Dr. Jena discovers topics for research

12:12 - Unexpected and important findings that Dr. Jena has learned over the course of his work

19:18 - Dr. Jena’s focus on “natural experiments”

22:02 - Thinking about physician burnout from an economist’s perspective

36:42 - The mission Dr Jena had when he set out to write Random Acts of Medicine

44:08 - Dr. Jena’s advice for medical trainees on how to understand the hidden forces of the medical system

Dr. Anupam Jena can be found on Twitter/X at @AnupamBJena.

Dr. Jena is the co-author of Random Acts of Medicine (2023) and the host of Freakonomics, MD. 

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2024

As an English professor at Yale University, essayist and literary critic William Deresiewicz observed a trend across American higher education that troubled him deeply. Instead of learning to think independently, critically, creatively, and courageously, students were increasingly subscribing to a mode of careerism, credentialism, and conformism that focused on climbing the academic or professional ladder. 

So what is the value of higher education? As Deresiewicz writes in his 2014 book Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, colleges, first and foremost, are supposed to teach you to think, to help you develop a habit of skepticism and the capacity to put it into practice. More than that, college is where you build a soul — your moral, intellectual, sensual, emotional self, through exposure to books, ideas, works of art, and pressures of the minds around you that are looking for their own answers to the big questions. Questions of love, family, God, mortality, time, truth, dignity, and the human experience. 

Over the course of our conversation, we discuss the search for a meaningful life, the worth of a liberal education, the role of mentorship, the relationship between solitude and leadership, what it means to cultivate moral imagination, and more.

In this episode, we discuss: 

3:00 - Deresiewicz’ approach to teaching during his years as a college professor

6:25 - The reason why parents are not ideally positioned to guide their children through questions of what they want to do with their lives 

8:02 - What Deresiewicz believes is the purpose of higher education 

10:50 - What it means to “shape the soul” of students 

17:12 - What we miss when we take a scientistic view of the world 

20:45 - The challenge of establishing normative values in society, and why a “moral education” should be prioritized instead

28:25 - The search for individualism among students today

30:55 - What true leadership looks like and why people in powerful positions in our society do not often exhibit these traits

40:28 - What does it mean to have a sense of purpose?

43:00 - How young people can work to develop their sense of a calling or purpose

William Deresiewicz is the author of four books, including A Jane Austen Education (2011), Excellent Sheep (2014), The Death of the Artist (2020), and The End of Solitude (2022), as well as multiple essays, including Solitude and Leadership (2010) and The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008). 

William Deresiewicz can be found on Twitter/X at @Wderesiewicz.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com. 

Ben Taub Hospital, located in the heart of Houston, Texas, is the city's largest hospital for those who cannot afford medical care. Texas, in turn, is the US state with the country's largest uninsured population. Amid chaotic emergency rooms and busy hospital wards serving the most financially and medically vulnerable people, Ricardo Nuila, MD finds meaning and beauty through stories he hears from his patients. In addition to his duties as a hospitalist at Ben Taub Hospital, Dr. Nuila is an associate professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Humanities Expression and Arts Lab, as well as an author whose writings have appeared in the Atlantic, the New Yorker, the New York Times Sunday Review, and more. His 2023 book, The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine, explores the ups and downs of American medicine through the lens of patients he has encountered at Ben Taub. 

Over the course of our conversation, we discuss what it's like to practice in a safety net hospital, the power of narrative medicine in connecting with patients, and how clinicians can hold onto their strength of character, even when working in a system that often feels broken and indifferent to human suffering.

In this episode, we discuss: 

2:25 - How Dr. Nuila became drawn to both medicine and creative writing  

6:07 - The characteristics that define different types of hospitals 

12:06 - A patient story that exemplifies the experience of being a doctor at a public safety net hospital 

20:33 - How Dr. Nuila finds deeper meaning in providing care, even when faced with systemic circumstances that a doctor can’t fix

25:34 - Dr. Nuila’s advice for how to get through the moments when you feel like you are “at war” with gaps in the system 

42:32 - How narrative medicine and storytelling can make more effective clinicians 

45:45 - Dr. Nuila’s advice on how to make a career in medicine meaningful 

Dr. Ricardo Nuila can be found on Twitter/X at @Riconuila.

Dr. Nuila is the author of The People’s Hospital (2023).

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2024

Born in India in 1920, Gladys McGarey, MD has a life story marked with various pivotal moments of the 20th century. She witnessed Gandhi's Salt March in her final childhood days in India, arrived in the US amid the Great Depression, began medical school four months before the US joined World War II, and became a physician at a time when few women were accepted in the profession. She would later co-found the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine and the American Board of Integrative Medicine. At over 100 years old, Dr Gladys, as she likes to be called, is still practicing medicine. In 2023, she published The Well-Lived Life A 102-Year-Old Doctor’s Six Secrets to Health and Happiness At Every Age, in which she details her approach to a happy life by focusing on finding love and purpose. 

In this episode, Dr Gladys joins us to discuss her remarkable journey in medicine, what holistic medicine means to her, her own experiences with cancer, the healing power of love and human connection, and more.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:08 - Dr. Gladys’ early years and her path to becoming a physician

7:20 - The discrimination that Dr. Gladys endured as a female physician 

11:02 - What Dr. Gladys’ medical practice looked like when she began her career 

12:23 - Dr. Gladys’s definition of holistic medicine and how it became a part of her practice 

18:22 - Dr. Gladys’s case for why love is essential when providing healing for a patient 

23:27 - How Dr. Gladys’ own experience as a cancer patient demonstrates her approach to holistic medicine

26:12 - What Dr. Gladys believes has been lost amidst all of the advances that medicine has made

30:09 - How spirituality has affected Dr. Gladys’ approach to medicine 

31:41 - Concrete ways that doctors can incorporate holistic sensibilities into their practices

Dr. Gladys can be found on Instagram at @begladmd.

Dr. Gladys MacGarey is the author of A Well Lived Life: A 102-Year Old Doctor’s Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Any Age (2023).

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2024

There is an increasing body of scientific evidence demonstrating a phenomenon humans across cultures have long known intuitively: we are biologically wired for art. Engaging in the arts transforms our neural circuitry in deep ways that we are only beginning to uncover, and studies are showing how the arts can help us live longer, stave off cognitive decline, reduce our stress hormones, nurture the development of young minds, reduce the impacts of PTSD, and more. 

Joining us in this episode are two individuals at the forefront of the movement to translate this groundbreaking research to medicine, public health, education, the workplace, and other real world applications. Susan Magsamen is the director of the International Arts and Mind Lab at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where her research focuses on how our brains respond to artistic experiences. Ivy Ross is an acclaimed jewelry designer and Vice President of hardware design at Google. Together, they coauthored the 2023 New York Times best seller Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us. 

Over the course of our conversation, Susan and Ivy discuss the emerging field of neuroaesthetics, how the arts can make us healthier, smarter and happier, and how we can incorporate more art into our everyday lives.

In this episode, we discuss: 

2:40 - How Susan and Ivy’s paths led them to neuroarts

7:46 - What does it mean to be in a “flow state”? 

15:12 - An introduction to neuroaesthetics and neuroarts 

18:33 - Surprising impacts the arts have on health 

25:58 - The health benefits of creating art in community 

29:51 - What “aesthetics” means in the context of Susan and Ivy’s studies 

33:53 - The science behind how the arts support healing 

39:45 - Practical tips for someone who wants to begin engaging with art 

46:32 - Dispelling the myth of “high art vs low art”

Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross are the co-authors of Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us (2023).

Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross can be found on Instagram at @yourbrainonartbook.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2024

At the mention of human consciousness and the supposed interconnectivity of all things, your mind probably conjures up the countless books on meditation, alternative medicine, and mysticism that permeate self-help sections of bookstores. But complexity theory attempts to apply rigorous scientific analyses to universal questions of consciousness and being. At its heart, complexity theory seeks to understand how complex behaviors and patterns emerge from simple rules and interactions within a system. This theory, which draws from mathematics, computer science, and physics, challenges our traditional reductionist approaches to biology and reveals how life self-organizes from the substance of our universe, from interactions within the quantum foam to the formation of atoms and molecules, cells, human beings, social structures, ecosystems, and beyond.

Here to tell us more about it is Neil Theise, MD, a pathologist and complexity theorist who in 2023 wrote the book Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness and Being. Dr. Theise is Co-Director of Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology at NYU's Grossman School of Medicine and is a pioneer of adult stem cell plasticity and the anatomy of the human interstitium. 

In the first half of our conversation, Dr. Theise discusses his journey to pathology by way of Jewish studies and computer science during college, what it's like to decipher diseases through his biopsy samples, and the significance of being the doctor that other doctors turn to for guidance on treatments. In the second half of our conversation, Dr. Theise gives us a primer of complexity theory and how it seeks to explain the beauty and mysteries of life.

In this episode, we discuss: 

4:01 - What a pathologist does and why Dr. Theise finds the work fulfilling 

8:15 - Dr. Theise’s path to becoming a pathologist 

15:22 - The unique role of pathologists in learning life-changing information about patients

20:42 - What it’s like to be the doctor that other doctors turn to for diagnostic puzzles 

24:43 - A primer to complexity theory 

37:03 - The difference between chaos theory and complexity theory 

40:35 - How Dr. Theise came to study complexity theory and how it relates to our understanding of the body

54:38 - Why Dr. Theise believes that people should bring metaphysics back into their lives 

Dr. Neil Theise can be found on Instagram at @neiltheise.

Dr. Neil Theise is the author of Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being (2023).

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.

Copyright The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2024