The Future of Medicine

Dr. Michelle Mello, professor of law and health policy at Stanford University, joins The Future of Medicine for a conversation about one of the most frustrating and consequential parts of American healthcare: prior authorization. For many patients and clinicians, prior authorization is the process behind the letter saying an insurance company will not cover a medication, procedure, or service unle...

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of the nation’s most influential public health leaders, joins Stanford Department of Medicine’s The Future of Medicine for a conversation with Dr. Euan Ashley about science, service, public trust, and the future of public health. In this episode, Dr. Fauci reflects on his early career as a physi...

Dr. Christopher J.L. Murray — health economist at the University of Washington, physician, and founder of the Global Burden of Disease framework — joins The Future of Medicine to discuss what decades of data across 204 countries reveal about human health, and where it's headed by the end of this century. Dr. Murray's Global Burden of Disease project involves 19,000 collaborators in 167 c...

Dr. Samuel Klein, Division Chief and William H. Danforth Professor of Medicine and Nutritional Science at Washington University Medicine, joins The Future of Medicine for a conversation about obesity, metabolism, insulin resistance, and the revolution sparked by GLP-1 medications like Ozempic. In this episode, Dr. Klein explains why obesity is far more biologically complex than many people realize...

In this episode of the Future of Medicine, we welcome Dr. Robert Wachter, physician, author, and chair of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, for a conversation about artificial intelligence, healthcare, and the future of medicine. Dr. Wachter reflects on how the digitization of healthcare reshaped modern medicine — and why many of the frustrations clinicians experience today,...

In this episode of the Future of Medicine, we welcome Crystal Mackall, the Ernest and Amelia Gallo Family Professor and founding director of the Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy at Stanford, for a conversation on CAR T-cell therapy, pediatric cancer, and the future of biologic medicine. Dr. Mackall reflects on her path from a working-class town in Ohio to becoming one of the world’s leading...

In this episode of The Future of Medicine, we welcome Stephen Quake, a bioengineer, physicist, and serial entrepreneur whose innovations have transformed how we measure biology and deliver care. Dr. Quake shares how his early fascination with building and experimentation led him from physics into biology, where he helped pioneer microfluidics, enabling the automation of complex biological experime...

In this episode of The Future of Medicine, we welcome Yvonne "Bonnie" Maldonado, pediatrician and infectious disease expert at Stanford, for a powerful conversation on vaccines, public health, and the fragile progress of modern medicine. Dr. Maldonado reflects on the lessons behind her Grand Rounds talk, “Lessons from a House on Fire,” drawing from the global eradication of smallpox, one...

In this episode of The Future of Medicine , we welcome Priscilla Chan, MD, pediatrician and co-founder of Biohub, a first-of-its-kind research initiative combining frontier AI with frontier biology to accelerate progress toward curing or preventing all disease. Dr. Chan shares how her experience caring for children with rare and undiagnosed conditions shaped her commitment to transforming how scie...

In this episode of The Future of Medicine, we welcome Jonathan Chen, MD, PhD, clinician, AI researcher, and Associate Professor at Stanford, whose work focuses on combining human and artificial intelligence to improve clinical decision-making. Dr. Chen reflects on the rapid rise of AI in medicine, and the moment he realized everything had changed. He also walks through surprising findings from his...

In this episode of The Future of Medicine, we welcome Eric Topol, MD, cardiologist, scientist, bestselling author of Super Agers, and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, whose work has helped shape the field of digital medicine and the use of data, genomics, and artificial intelligence to personalize care. Dr. Topol reflects on how medicine is shifting from treating disease to...

In this episode of The Future of Medicine, we welcome Alexis Thompson, MD, MPH, pediatric hematologist and internationally recognized expert on sickle cell disease whose work helped lead to the first approved gene therapies for this serious condition. Dr. Thompson reflects on the extraordinary transformation of sickle cell care over the course of her career. From the early days of newborn screenin...

In this episode of The Future of Medicine, we welcome Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, PhD, MD, MAS, physician, epidemiologist, and Editor-in-Chief of JAMA, whose work sits at the center of how today’s most influential medical research is evaluated, communicated, and translated into practice. Dr. Bibbins-Domingo takes us inside the high-stakes world of scientific publishing, exploring how editors weigh ev...

In this episode of The Future of Medicine, we welcome Mark Skylar-Scott, PhD, bioengineer and researcher at Stanford University, whose work sits at the forefront of 3D bioprinting, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. Dr. Skylar-Scott explores the bold challenge of organ manufacturing — why it’s one of the hardest problems in medicine, and why there is good reason for optimism. He explai...

In this episode of The Future of Medicine, we welcome Anna Lembke, MD, psychiatrist and professor at Stanford School of Medicine, and author of the bestselling book, Dopamine Nation . In this conversation, Dr. Lembke explores how modern life reshapes our brains — from digital media and compulsive overconsumption to addiction, recovery, and the science of pleasure and pain. She explains why “the mo...

In this powerful episode of The Future of Medicine, host Dr Euan Ashley sits down with Dr. Miriam Mutebi, a breast surgical oncologist at the Aga Khan University in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr. Mutebi discusses the rising incidence of cancer in low and middle-income countries, where 70% of global cancer deaths occur despite only 5% of resources being allocated to these regions. She shares her personal jour...

What does it really mean to care for patients in an era increasingly shaped by technology? In this episode of The Future of Medicine , host Dr. Euan Ashley is joined by Dr. Arthur Kleinman — psychiatrist, medical anthropologist, and one of the most influential thinkers on illness, caregiving, and the human experience of medicine. Across a wide-ranging and deeply reflective conversation, Dr. Kleinm...

In this compelling episode of The Future of Medicine, we dive into an insightful conversation with entrepreneur and philanthropist Mark Cuban. Known for his no-nonsense approach, Cuban brings his entrepreneurial spirit to the forefront of one of America’s most pressing issues: healthcare. Join us as we explore Cuban's perspectives on the broken healthcare system, the escalating drug prices th...

In this special episode of The Future of Medicine, host Euan Ashley sits down with Jennifer Doudna, Nobel laureate and co-discoverer of CRISPR-Cas9, to explore the dramatic ascent of genome editing and what it means for the future of medicine. From the promise of precision therapy that could be “one-and-done” to the challenges of translating groundbreaking science into scalable treatments, this co...

In this episode of The Future of Medicine, we sit down with Dr. Sumbal Desai to explore how consumer health technology is reshaping medicine at scale — and why the human connection between patient and physician remains central to care. From breakthrough blood pressure sensing on wearables to a world-spanning hypertension predictor, Desai shares the design philosophy, scientific basis, and real-wor...

In this episode of The Future of Medicine, host Dr. Euan Ashley sits down with William Flanary, MD—better known to millions as Dr. Glaucomflecken—for a candid, funny, and deeply human conversation about medicine, media, and what it means to be a physician in the digital age. Recorded during a Stanford Department of Medicine Grand Rounds event, the discussion blends clinical reality with storytelli...

Episode Description Welcome to the Future of Medicine, a podcast from Stanford Department of Medicine. Meet the thought leaders reshaping how we understand disease, deliver care, and imagine what’s possible in human health. Built around Stanford Medicine Grand Rounds, one of the longest-running and most respected forums in academic medicine, this show features world-renowned physicians, scientists...