The Doctor's Art - TopPodcast.com

Latest Episodes:

Say the Important Things: The Work of a Letter Midwife | Bryant Lin, MD and Frish Brandt Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

Many of us find ourselves awash in a deluge of instant communication. Text messages, emails, and direct messages come and go at a dizzying pace. Against this backdrop of overstuffed inboxes and lengthy text threads, we instinctively sense that letters – the kind you write or type and perhaps stuff in an envelope – are something different. Something weightier. For the terminally ill, writing a letter not only stands apart from other forms of communication — it stands apart from time. The process of writing a letter for loved ones can be a potent therapy for the patient and a legacy for those left behind.

Our guests on this episode are Bryant Lin, MD and Frish Brandt. Bryant is a recurring guest on the show and a primary care physician, educator, and researcher at Stanford University who was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer in 2024. Frish is a “letter midwife” who began her work helping palliative care and hospice patients write letters for their loved ones. When Bryant and Frish crossed paths, it led to Bryant sponsoring Frish as a lecturer at Stanford and eventually to Frish helping Bryant write a letter of his own. In October of this year, Bryant and Frish are each publishing books. Sunshineexplores what Bryant has learned about living while dying, while Unfinished Business is Frish’s guide to writing the five essential letters of one’s life.

In this episode, you will learn about the work of a letter midwife and get an update on Bryant’s cancer journey. Frish and Bryant share how their stories became intertwined, the experience of writing a letter together, and what makes writing a letter uniquely impactful for both the writer and the recipients. Together, they urge us to not put off saying the important things, and better yet, taking the time to put them in writing.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

3:20 - How Frish became a ‘letter midwife’ and began helping people write letters to address their unfinished business

10:55 - The importance fostering conversation and connection in our rapid, high tech world

15:33 - How Frish and Bryant’s letter writing collaboration came to be

26:45 - Why letters carry a unique weight

29:00 - What goes into creating a letter for someone you love

51:00 - Grappling with the concept of time and day-to-day life when you have a progressive disease

55:15 - How Bryant’s cancer has changed his approach to doctoring

1:00:00 - How Frish’s work as a letter midwife has changed her approach to life, and what we can learn from her experience

Link to Bryant’s past episodes. Links to both of their preorders.

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.

Medical Training and the Movement to Unionize | Grant Lin, MD Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

Sometimes established physicians experience a strange kind of amnesia when thinking back on their training, causing them to forget just how challenging it was. Worse, some physicians do remember how hard those years were and feel that up-and-coming doctors should suffer the same difficulties they did. To accurately understand what it is like to become a doctor, it helps to talk to those fresh out of training and, of course, trainees themselves.

Our guest on this episode is Grant Lin, MD, a brand new clinical assistant professor in pediatric neurology at Stanford. Grant completed his fellowship in Palliative Care this summer after finishing residencies in pediatrics and child neurology. While in medical school and residency at Stanford, he became a leader in the successful movement to unionize the interns, residents, and fellows that make up Stanford Hospital’s house staff.

Over the course of this episode, Grant shares lessons learned from training in palliative medicine and caring for children with neurologic diseases. We discuss the turbulence of medical training, the difficulty of essentially changing jobs twelve times in a year as a medical student, and what led to the house staff unionization effort at Stanford. Finally, Grant encourages trainees to make their voices heard and for hospitals to care for their staff so the staff can care for their patients.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:30 - Grant’s path to becoming a doctor and specializing in pediatric neuropalliative care

9:45 - The experience of taking care of children who are facing neurodegenerative illnesses

17:36 - How Grant’s approach to difficult patient conversations changed after palliative care training

21:38 - The turmoil of clinical rotations as a medical student

33:30 - Grant’s work leading the unionization effort at Stanford to advocate for better house staff working conditions

48:00 - Grant’s advice to house staff members who might find themselves struggling

In, on, or out of the Loop: Doctors in the Age of AI | Ethan Goh, MD Sep 22, 2026

Show notes

It wasn’t that many years ago that self-driving cars were the stuff of science fiction. But in what feels like the blink of an eye, driver-less cars now roam the streets of a growing number of cities across the country. In fact, it’s not all that difficult to imagine a future in which the sheer risk of driving one’s own car is considered unethical. The trajectory of Artificial Intelligence in medicine may follow a similar arc. As AI becomes increasingly adept at diagnosing patients and recommending treatment plans, it’s not hard to imagine a day when it would be unethical for a doctor not to consult AI.

Our guest on this episode is Ethan Goh, MD, an internal medicine physician and executive director of ARISE — Harvard and Stanford’s research network focused on advancing the evaluation and deployment of AI in healthcare. In addition to his role at ARISE, Dr. Goh is the Program Director of Stanford’s Healthcare AI Leadership Program and a Visiting Faculty Researcher at Google. His extensive work has been published in Nature Medicine, Science, and JAMA, with media coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN.

Over the course of this episode, Dr. Goh details the current capabilities of AI in the medical space, including the surprising finding that AI alone does better at diagnosing disease than doctors who are themselves using AI. We discuss the limitations of studies that compare AI to doctors in relatively noise-free tests and consider the importance of designing workflows that allow healthcare providers to work synergistically with AI. Finally, Dr. Goh reminds us that medicine isn’t just coming to the right answer, it is also about care, making the value of a person in the room who understands a patient’s disease as well as their humanity something that is not easily replaced.

In this episode of The Doctor’s Art:

3:10 - Dr. Goh’s professional journey to the intersection of medicine and AI

9:15 - An update on the status of AI in medicine

20:25 - How is it that AI does better at diagnosis than physicians who are using AI?

29:45 - If AI has become better at diagnosis than humans, why keep humans in the loop?

37:26 - Necessary changes in medical regulation, licensure, and liability to capitalize on AI in medicine

47:54 - Training new doctors in the age of AI

Where Is God in This?: Grappling with a Child’s Cancer | Grant Romoser-Claunch Aug 25, 2026

Show notes

When a child tragically gets cancer, parents and families often find themselves grasping for ways to make sense of their new reality. It is one thing to know abstractly that we live in a world where the innocent suffer, but it is another thing entirely to suffer alongside your own child. Such a life-altering experience can raise heavy questions for parents, at times forcing them to reassess their most closely held narratives and cherished beliefs.

Our guest on this episode is Grant Romoser-Claunch. Grant is a Christian pastor at Newsong Fellowship in Illinois and a husband and a father. When his four-and-half month old son Simon was diagnosed with leukemia, Grant was confronted with the daunting question: Where is God in this? His 2025 book Bone of my Bone chronicles his journey with Simon and captures the spiritual challenges and growth he experienced along the way.

Over the course of our conversation, Grant shares Simon’s cancer story from diagnosis all the way to remission. We explore how Grant’s faith was challenged and re-formed while caring for Simon and reflect on how deeper learning often requires a preceding process of unlearning. Finally, Grant reminds medical professionals of their moral duty to wield the power of their position with love.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:30 - Grant’s work as a pastor and the path that led him to his work

9:30 - The heart wrenching story of Grant’s son’s journey with leukemia

33:50 - How Grant’s experience with his son’s cancer challenged his faith and motivated him to write

41:50 - The ways in which Grant’s understanding of God transformed throughout his son’s journey

48:20 - How the concrete details of life can lead us to profound insights

1:00:30 - The impact of doctors who wield their power for their parents instead of over their patients

Weight and See: The Ongoing GLP-1 Revolution | Marilyn Tan MD, FACE, FACP Jul 07, 2026

Show notes

GLP-1s have taken the country by storm. Patients are losing and keeping off weight at levels previously only seen through bariatric surgery. Research trials have shown the drugs to be effective at reducing the risk of heart attack, stroke, and cardiovascular death. They protect the kidneys, reduce sleep apnea, and treat fatty liver and peripheral artery disease – all while being studied for a laundry-list of additional indications. The drugs originally designed for glucose control in diabetes are transforming lives — and raising big social questions.

Our guest on this episode is Dr. Marilyn Tan, clinical professor of medicine at Stanford University and chief of the Endocrine Clinic at Stanford Health Care. Dr. Tan focuses on diabetes management in both her clinical practice and research, and she is on the front lines of using GLP1-1s in patient care.

Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Tan provides a brief history of the development of GLP-1s and describes just how large a leap forward these medications are in weight management. We discuss the patient experience of being on GLP-1s for weight loss – and the stunningly wide array of other uses for the drug beyond weight loss and diabetes. Finally, we discuss the curious effect these medications seem to have on cravings beyond food, and reflect on the use of GLP-1s in the context of an addiction-saturated society.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:37 - Dr. Tan’s path to endocrinology and her work in the field

7:45 - The challenges and rewards inherent in treating a disease like obesity or diabetes that is strongly affected by factors beyond the control of the patient but still requires behavioral interventions

15:45 - The landscape of obesity treatment prior to GLP-1s

22:45 - How GLP-1s function and how they differ from the drugs that came before them

28:10 - Common patient experiences and treatment courses with GLP-1s

35:30 - The growing evidence that GLP-1s can be effective in treating addiction, and the complexity of medicating individuals to address issues with systemic roots

49:00 - Improving your overall health while living a busy life

Musical Rounds | Melanie Ambler Jun 02, 2026

Show notes

The hospital can be a harsh backdrop to many of life’s most pivotal events. Alarms blare at inopportune times, rounding doctors intrude on delicate conversations, and vigilant nurses disrupt rare periods of rest. All the chaos can add to the stress of a patient’s hospital stay and create an emotionally discordant experience — seemingly out of step with the profound grief, joy, or intimacy one might expect to accompany the weighty moments that happen in the hospital. In the face of this challenging environment, what can be done to connect patients to the emotional threads of their lives — to invite meaning during these critical times? The answer, at least in part, may lie in music.

Our guest on this episode is Melanie Ambler, fourth-year medical student at Stanford and professional cellist. As an undergraduate at Brown, Melanie began researching the intersection of music and medicine. She then completed a Fulbright fellowship in France where her master’s work centered on the effect of music on patients with dementia. Once she got to Stanford, Melanie and her cello Shelby got to work bringing music to hospitalized patients. In 2024, she founded Musical Rounds – a music and storytelling project for patients in palliative care.

Over the course of our conversation, Melanie shares how her musical and medical journeys melded into one. We discuss the power of music to prompt reflection, draw out stories, and even transform the ugliness of the hospital into beauty. Best of all, Melanie plays for us live while sharing her early patient experiences that motivate her work at Musical Rounds — including the launch of her new Musical Rounds podcast.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

3:00 - How playing the cello became a central part of Melanie’s life

13:45 - Melanie play a piece that showcases the beauty of the cello

18:10 - How Melanie became interested in medicine

27:10 - How Melanie merged music and medicine in her research and in the hospital

46:00 - Reflections on the power of music in the lives of physicians

52:00 - How Melanie’s non-profit organization Musical Rounds is working to provide patients moments of reflection through music and storytelling

55:22 - A patient story that exemplifies the power of music at a patient’s bedside

Medicine in the Narrow Place | Jonathan Weinkle MD, FAAP, FACP May 19, 2026

Show notes

Many patients interpret their illness through the lens of their religious tradition. Sometimes this process brings hope, comfort, or growth – but other times it compounds their suffering. What are patients supposed to do when they don’t see their lives reflected in the religious stories they cherish? And how can physicians recognize and respond to spiritual suffering that is layered on top of the physical?

Our guest on this episode is Dr. Jonathan Weinkle, clinical assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Weinkle practices Internal and Pediatric medicine at Squirrel Hill Health Center – a health center focused on overcoming economic, cultural, and logistical barriers to health care. He serves as a consultant to the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and as the medical director of the Physician Assistant Program at Chatham University. In 2025, he published his book From Illness to Exodus with the goal of helping patients and healers navigate illness – using one of the world’s oldest stories.

Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Weinkle shares insights from the story of the Jewish Exodus that may help patients feeling trapped in the “narrow place” of illness. We discuss the spiritual and emotional complexity faced by patients whose own illness stories don’t end with a miraculous escape. Finally, we reflect on the importance of healers who understand their patients’ “idioms of distress” and who can attune to their suffering.

On this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:45 - How Dr. Weinkle found his way to a career in Med-Peds, and the many hats he wears in his current work

9:00 - Dr. Weinkle’s views on balancing faith and science in medicine

16:00 - The cultural importance and traditions of Passover in the Jewish faith

21:30 - How the lessons of the Passover can be connected to medicine and healing

28:45 - Why Dr. Weinkle chose to write a book for healers

40:00 - Dr. Weinkle’s advice for identifying and responding to a patient’s taxonomy of distress

47:30 - Attending to suffering when it cannot be ‘fixed’

52:25 - How healers can use ritual to center themselves in their work

Immigrant Physicians and American Healthcare | Eram Alam, PhD May 05, 2026

Show notes

The creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 enabled millions of Americans to meaningfully access healthcare for the first time — and dramatically increased demand for doctors. The passage of the Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act a few months later enabled tens of thousands of immigrant physicians to migrate to the US. Since then, immigrant physicians have comprised between 25 — 40% of the physician workforce.

Our guest on this episode is Professor Eram Alam, associate professor of history at Harvard. Alam specializes in the history of medicine, race, migration, and health during the twentieth century. In 2025, she published The Care of Foreigners: How Immigrant Physicians Changed US Healthcare.

Over the course of our conversation, Professor Alam traces the legal, economic, and geopolitical factors that led to the US depending on immigrant physicians to care for many of the country’s most vulnerable populations. We explore how American attitudes toward immigration have shifted over time and how the current state of politics has created a jarring disconnect: many patients depend on care from immigrant physicians and yet continue to view immigrants as un-American. Finally, Professor Alam reminds us how remembering everyone feels a little out of place, can help us see the person in front of us more fully.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

3:00 - Dr. Alam’s work as a professor and historian of healthcare and medicine

7:30 - The background for Dr. Alam’s book The Care of Foreigners.

13:00 - The story behind the 1965 legislation that led to the mass employment of physician immigrants in the US

22:10 - How the role of immigrant physicians in the US healthcare system complicates the idea of meritocracy in medicine

29:00 - The ways in which US immigration policy has changed the experience for foreign-born doctors over time

33:45 - Dr. Alam’s view of how current immigration crackdowns fit into the larger historical narrative of US immigration

45:36 - How dehumanizing political rhetoric surrounding immigrants can blind us to the humanity of those who care for us

53:26 - The unifying power in acknowledging discomfort in ourselves and others

Healing the Healers | Mary Brandt, MD Apr 14, 2026

Show notes

The epidemic of physician burnout isn’t just a personal problem. Burned out doctors are more likely to make mistakes, less likely to follow preventative care guidelines, and more likely to have dissatisfied patients. When a burned out physician leaves an institution or quits all together, it can cost north of a million dollars to replace them. Unwell doctors lead to unwell patients — and an unwell health care system. The toll that the burnout epidemic has taken on physicians, patients, and even the bottom-line requires more than individual adaptation on the part of physicians. It requires a grass-roots movement to heal the healers.

Our guest on this episode is Mary Brandt, MD — pediatric surgeon and Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Surgery, Pediatrics, and Medical Ethics at Baylor College of Medicine. Over the course of her clinical career, Dr. Brandt published over 245 peer reviewed publications, 26 chapters, and 2 books. She became particularly attuned to the suffering of trainees and physicians while serving as General Surgery Program Director and Dean of Student Affairs at Baylor, and she subsequently obtained a Master of Divinity Degree to better understand and articulate what she was observing. Dr. Brandt is a persistent advocate for physician wellness and correcting systemic issues in medicine.

Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Brandt describes the moment she felt called to surgery, her fruitless efforts to resist this calling, and how the combination of competence and humility allowed her to manage the pressure of operating on children. We explore the evolution of the physician-wellness movement and why the health care system cannot afford to ignore the wellness of its physicians. Finally, Dr. Brandt posits that the hard work of compassion is what can sustain physicians long term.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

3:00 - Dr. Brandt’s unexpected path to becoming a pediatric surgeon

11:00 - Dr. Brandt’s mental approach to the high stakes work of pediatric surgery

27:49 - The disconnect between the work of healing and the business side of medicine

38:15 - How Dr. Brandt’s studies in liberation theology have influenced her vision for the healthcare system and medical practice

42:00 - The three shifts healers can make to collectively change medicine

48:20 - The ‘practice’ of compassion and how it can protect physicians from burnout

AI and the Biggest Experiment in Medicine | Robert Wachter, MD Apr 07, 2026

Show notes

The electronic medical record (EMR) has become an unwelcome interloper in the exam room. Too often, patients find themselves answering questions delivered from behind a monitor by physicians hurriedly typing away. This isn’t the kind of care anyone wants — but it’s what the system demands. Thankfully, change may be on the horizon. AI scribes are now being rolled out in EMRs across the country, capable of listening to a visit, generating a clinic note, and freeing the physician to be present with their patient. But these scribes are only an opening act of a much larger experiment — one that asks not merely whether AI can redeem the medical record, but whether it can usher in something closer to a Golden Age of medicine.

Our guest on this episode is Bob Wachter, MD, professor and chair of medicine at UCSF and a leading voice in hospital medicine and administration. In 1996, he and his colleague Lee Goldman coined the term “hospitalist,” giving rise to what has become the fastest growing specialty in the history of modern medicine. He has authored over 300 articles and 6 books, including the New York Times bestseller The Digital Doctor (2015) and A Giant Leap: How AI is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future (2026).

Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Wachter traces how a long-held fascination with systems drew him into studying medicine's digital transformation over the past 15 years — a period spanning the turbulent rollout of electronic medical records and now the arrival of AI. We explore the bumpy history of adopting powerful but general-purpose technologies, how such technologies force complex industries to reshape themselves, and humanity's humbling track record of predicting what comes next. Dr. Wachter makes the case that AI's integration into medicine constitutes the biggest experiment the field has ever undertaken, and explains why he believes it will ultimately resolve many of the health care system's deepest problems and elevate the practice of medicine itself.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

3:46 - Dr. Watcher’s path to medicine and to his study of digital transformation

8:06 - The wins and losses of the transition to electronic medical records

26:45 - Why Dr. Watcher is optimistic that AI will deliver a “golden age” for medicine

37:30 - Contending with the potential dangers of AI in the revenue-focused medical industry

50:30 - Dr. Watcher’s view on if there will always be an important place for doctors in the future

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

The Doctor’s Art

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected