The EthnoMed Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Getting into medical school felt like the finish line. It wasn't. In Part Two of our conversation with Dr. Ayman Youssef, Chief Resident of Quality Improvement in Internal Medicine at Harborview Medical Center, we pick up where we left off in medical school in Galveston, Texas where his sense of belonging had to be earned all over again. Ayman takes us through the culture sho...

Send us Fan Mail What does it mean to belong somewhere when you've never quite fit anywhere? In this episode of the Provider Pulse Series EthnoMed Podcast, we interview Dr. Ayman Youssef, Chief Resident of Quality Improvement in Internal Medicine at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Ayman grew up in Houston as the bicultural son of an Egyptian Muslim father and an American mother — findin...

Send us Fan Mail "The medical system we have is very oppressive in this country. It doesn't primarily value humanity and the human experience and the health of human beings." In Part 2 of our conversation with family physician Dr. Anuj Khattar, the idealism we traced in Part 1 collides with the realities of the American healthcare system. This episode isn't comfortable—it'...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when an idealistic pre-med student becomes a physician and discovers the healthcare system isn't quite what they expected? In this first part of our conversation with Dr. Anuj Khattar, we trace the path from a diverse San Jose childhood to six different healthcare jobs across Seattle. Dr. Khattar currently works as medical director at Cedar River Clinics, teaches...

Send us Fan Mail After her crisis of conscience in Kenya, Bayle Conrad made a decision: no more international work. But finding her place in global health wasn't that simple. In this second part of our conversation, Bayle returns to Seattle with an MPH degree and more questions than answers. She turns down international jobs she's qualified for, takes a microfinance position that still i...

Send us Fan Mail What's the difference between helping and voyeurism? Between witnessing and exploiting? These are the uncomfortable questions that nearly made Bayle Conrad quit her Master of Public Health program. In this first part of our two-part conversation, Bayle takes us from her childhood in Spokane—struggling with debilitating anxiety that made her hyper-aware of power and agency—thr...

Send us Fan Mail Part 2: "Which Hard to Choose" (Part 2 of 2) What happens when you do everything “right” and still don’t get in? When two full application cycles pass with no interviews? When you abandoned a degree program only to face rejection? In part two of this Provider Pulse episode, Dr. Angelo Cabal picks up his story in Chicago, where a hard truth and a single conversation with...

Send us Fan Mail Part 1: "Which Hard to Choose" (Part 1 of 2) What does it take to become a doctor when you don't fit the mold? When you've never met a physician, when your high school gets overwhelmed by budget cuts, when you're the first in your family to navigate the American education system? In Part 1 of Angelo Cabal's story, we follow his journey from a flooded...

Send us Fan Mail In Part 2 of our conversation with Yuliya Speroff, Medical Interpreter Supervisor at Harborview Medical Center, we further explore the profound human work of medical interpretation. Yuliya pulls back the curtain on what interpreters witness every day—the cultural gaps, missed cues, unintended misunderstandings, and the invisible labor that makes cross-linguistic care possible. We...

Send us Fan Mail Medical interpreter and educator Yuliya Speroff traces her path from a book-filled childhood in Siberia to high-stakes conversations in Seattle hospitals.  She explains how medical interpreting in the U.S. often falls to interpreters juggling work for many different fields, how vicarious trauma can affect medical interpreters, and what it means to convey emotion faithfully—without...

Send us Fan Mail Raised by Vietnamese parents who survived war, Tra Tran grew up believing that everything would be okay—but learning what that really means took her from New Mexico to the global stage and back again. She shares how generational resilience, privilege, and honesty shaped her work in refugee advocacy and self-discovery.  In this conversation, she reflects on privilege, burnout, and...

Send us Fan Mail From a teenager navigating a new life in Toronto to becoming Canada’s first African woman to hold a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in the health sciences, Dr. Bukola Salami’s story is one of resilience, representation, and the transformative power of mentorship. In this episode, Dr. Salami joins host Dr. Duncan Reid to discuss her migration from Nigeria, how a high-school mentorship...

Send us Fan Mail Franky Erra grew up on Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands—an archipelago shaped by ocean, community, and a deep history of resilience. In this episode, Franky traces his path from a close-knit childhood surrounded by family and coral lagoons to his current role as a Disease Research and Intervention Specialist with Public Health – Seattle & King County TB Program. Thr...

Send us Fan Mail In this moving episode of the Provider Pulse Series of the EthnoMed podcast, we hear the extraordinary life story of Jeniffer Huong — one of Harborview’s original Cultural Care Mediators in the Community House Calls Program , which now serves patients in eight different languages. Born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Jeniffer’s early years were shaped by discipline, education, and family...

Send us Fan Mail What does it really mean to find your why in medicine? In this episode, registered nurse Brandon Gim joins the EthnoMed Podcast Provider Pulse series to share his nonlinear journey—from growing up in a Korean immigrant family in South King County to finding meaning in community health and mentorship at Harborview. Brandon reflects on the pressures of expectation, the role of self-...

Send us Fan Mail This episode of Provider Pulse goes beyond clinical roles and takes you behind the scenes with Kenn Arning, Harborview’s longtime mail clerk and self-described ‘postal detective.’ For more than four decades, Kenn has sorted 5,000 pieces of mail a day, tracked down misdirected packages, and built connections across every department in the hospital. Kenn shares how his Quaker educat...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Provider Pulse Series , Dr. Duncan Reid sits down with Jefferson Nguyen , medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Growing up in South Seattle as the son of Vietnamese refugees, Jefferson Nguyen never imagined that his path to medicine would be a straight line — because it wasn’t. In this candid conversation, Jefferson shares how a...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Provider Pulse , Dr. Duncan Reid sits down with Dr. Ethan Hua , faculty in Interventional Radiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. Hua shares his journey from growing up as the child of Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants in Southern California to finding his way into medicine — a path that included an unexpected pivot from marine biology,...

Send us Fan Mail We continue our Provider Pulse interview series where we elevate diverse voices from across healthcare fields to hear the paths people took to their current roles and how their life experiences shape the care they provide. In the second part of this two-part episode, we continue our conversation with Daniella Runyambo , co-executive director of Programs and Community Impact at the...

Send us Fan Mail We continue our Provider Pulse interview series where we elevate diverse voices from across healthcare fields to hear the paths people took to their current roles and how their life experiences shape the care they provide. In the first part of this two-part episode, we speak with Daniella Runyambo, Co-Executive Director of Programs and Community Impact at the Refugee Community Par...

Send us Fan Mail We continue our Provider Pulse interview series where we elevate diverse voices from across healthcare fields to hear the paths people took to their current roles and how their life experiences shape the care they provide. In this episode, we speak with Alexandria Braithwaite , RN   a nurse at the International Medicine Clinic. Alexandria shares her remarkable journey—growing up b...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Provider Pulse , we continue our mission to elevate diverse voices from across healthcare, exploring the unique paths people take to their current roles. Our guest is Chelsea Ng , an incoming first year medical student whose path to medicine has taken her from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and Seattle. Chelsea reflects on the challenges of adapting to new cultures an...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Provider Pulse , we continue our mission to elevate diverse voices from across healthcare, exploring the unique paths people take to their current roles. Our guest is JJ Bola —writer, poet, mental health social worker, and UNHCR Ambassador. Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and raised in London, JJ Bola shares his family’s journey as refugees, the uncerta...

Send us Fan Mail The next installment of the Provider Pulse interview series where we elevate diverse voices from across healthcare fields to learn the paths people took to their current roles. On this episode, we speak with Dr. Abdifitah Mohamed, an internal medicine resident at the University of Washington.  Dr. Abdifitah Mohamed's journey began in Somalia where the loss of a loved one spar...

Send us Fan Mail The next installment of the Provider Pulse interview series where we elevate diverse voices from across healthcare fields to learn the paths people took to their current roles. On this episode, we speak with Dr. Noga Rogel, an internal medicine resident at the University of Washington who is preparing to start a fellowship in rheumatology.  Dr. Rogel reflects on how her childhood...