The Doctor's Art

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...

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...

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 Cent...

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 Us...

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 cas...

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...

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 crippli...

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 addit...

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...

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...

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. P...

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 maintai...

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 command...

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 discu...

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...

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...

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 me...

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 his...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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 tr...