The Doctor's Art

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 lat...

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...

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 professiona...

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 h...

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 Resilienc...

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...

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...

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...

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...

"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 Hosp...

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 pac...

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...

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. Shar...

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 su...

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 devel...

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 contextualiz...

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, m...

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 wi...

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?...

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 ,...

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 s...

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 Histo...

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 reco...

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...

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...