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Healing, Presence, and Comfort Amid Child Loss | Shekinah Eliassen Mar 04, 2025

Show notes

In medicine, we are trained to fight for life — to extend it, preserve it and restore it. But sometimes the goal shifts from curing to comforting. That, in brief, is the essence of palliative care. It compels us to ask what it means to truly care for a person at the end of life, not as a failure of medicine but as a profound act of love.

In this episode, we enter a space where time slows down, where every moment is cherished, and where medicine is tantamount to presence, dignity, and grace. George Mark Children's House in California is the first freestanding pediatric palliative care center in the United States, a place where children with serious, life-limiting conditions can spend their time in a home-like setting and live fully, where families find respite, and where end-of-life care is infused with humanity and meaning. It's a place that helps families navigate one of the hardest journeys imaginable, offering not just medical support, but also emotional and spiritual care.

Joining us is Shekinah Eliassen, CEO of George Mark Children's House, who has dedicated her life to reimagining how we care for children with complex and terminal illnesses. She opens up about how the loss of her first son drives her work to this day. We'll explore the essence of pediatric palliative care, the misconceptions, the difficult conversations, the small joys, and the profound impact of honoring life, no matter how brief. This is a conversation about medicine at its most intimate and compassionate.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:53 - The family tragedy that introduced Eliassen to George Mark Children’s House

15:08 - Eliassen’s personal experience with pediatric palliative care and how her understanding has evolved

19:26 - How palliative care differs from physician aid in dying

23:21 - George Mark Children’s House’s approach to pediatric palliative care

28:09 - The importance of “savouring the moment”

37:04 - Limiting factors that currently prevent pediatric palliative care from expanding

41:44 - The role that spirituality and religion play at George Mark Children’s House

48:17 - Eliassen’s advice to her past self on how to prepare for the life-changing experience of child loss

Shekinah Eliassen can be found on Instagram at @shekinahceliassen.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

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.

A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine | Damon Tweedy, MD Feb 20, 2025

Show notes

Medicine is often framed as a meritocracy, where intelligence, hard work, and dedication dictate success. Yet, institutions of medicine are shaped by histories of exclusion, bias, and systemic inequities. And for clinicians coming from marginalized backgrounds, the journey is not just about learning the science. It's also about learning an entirely different set of rules — rules that are unspoken and unwritten, but deeply felt.

For Damon Tweedy, MD, this struggle was deeply personal. Raised in a working class, all-black neighborhood, medicine once felt worlds away. Earning a spot at Duke Medical School was a milestone, but it came with new challenges. The paradox of being both visible and invisible; of constantly proving — sometimes subtly, sometimes forcefully — that he belonged. Dr. Tweedy talks about the paradox of striving to be “twice as good,” while still being mistaken for the janitor, turning down an invitation to play golf with faculty because he simply did not know the game, and realizing that for some of his classmates, medicine was not a leap into the unknown, but simply an inheritance.

Beyond race, this episode is also about identity, resilience, and what happens when personal history collides with professional expectation. It's about how trust in medicine is built or broken not just for doctors, but for patients. Dr. Tweedy shares how his own experiences have shaped the way he interacts with patients, why he approaches conversations with more humility, and why sometimes the most important thing a doctor can do is simply acknowledge the weight that a patient carries into the exam room. Ultimately, this episode is about the search for authenticity in a system that often demands conformity.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

3:24 - Dr. Tweedy’s path to medicine and his experience as a black first-generation college student

14:08 - How Dr. Tweedy navigates experiences of being discriminated against as a black physician

24:58 - Dr. Tweedy’s approach to navigating discriminatory experiences between patients and trainees

29:56 - Dr. Tweedy’s path to becoming a public voice regarding race and medicine

32:07 - The current approach to teaching race and medicine in medical school, and Dr. Tweedy’s thoughts on how it can be improved.

43:42 - Effectively serving patients of different racial backgrounds without falling into profiling or prejudice

48:49 - Dr. Tweedy’s advice for new medical students

Dr. Damon Tweedy is the author of Black Man in a White Coat (2016) and Facing the Unseen(2024).

Dr. Tweedy can be found on Twitter/X at @damontweedymd.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

All Physicians are Leaders | Peter Angood, MD Feb 12, 2025

Show notes

Physicians are trained to diagnose and treat disease, but they're not always taught how to lead. Yet in an era of increasing administrative burdens, evolving healthcare policies, and growing physician burnout, leadership skills have never been more essential. How can physicians reclaim their voices in healthcare decision making? What makes an effective physician leader in today's complex landscape?

Here to answer these questions is Peter Angood, MD, President and CEO of the American Association for Physician Leadership, an organization dedicated to empowering physicians with the tools and strategies to lead successfully. With years of experience as a trauma surgeon and a leader of patient safety at organizations ranging from The Joint Commission to the World Health Organization, Dr. Angood has thought deeply about expanding the role of physicians beyond the bedside.

Over the course of our conversation. Dr. Angood first takes us into the mind of a trauma surgeon dealing with split-second life-or-death decisions, then discusses the evolving role of physician leadership, trends that concern and excite him about modern healthcare, and concrete skills all clinicians can develop to lead meaningful changes.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:23 - How Dr. Angood became drawn to a career in medicine

5:58 - The day-to-day experience of a trauma surgeon

18:39 - How Dr. Angood expanded his role beyond the operating room

21:44 - The role of the Joint Commission

23:02 - Finding the balance between patient safety, teamwork, and physician autonomy

31:37 - Dr. Angood’s leadership philosophy

41:40 - Why all physicians should be seen as leaders

43:45 - Dr. Angood’s advice for how to be successful in a leadership role

53:57 - Dr. Angood’s advice for new clinicians

Dr. Angood is the author of Inspiring Growth and Leadership in Medical Careers: Transform Healthcare as a Physician Leader (2024) and All Physicians are Leaders: Reflections on Inspiring Change Together for Better Healthcare (2020).

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

How Not to Die | Michael Greger, MD Jan 31, 2025

Show notes

The American diet is the leading cause of death among Americans. Accumulating medical evidence now shows that poor diet not only contributes to heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, but also to cancer, Alzheimer's disease, liver disease, and much more. Despite its direct and indirect roles in causing half or more of all deaths, food is not something doctors learn about in their training, nor is it something that's emphasized enough to patients by the medical establishment.

Our guest on this episode is Michael Greger, MD, a specialist in lifestyle medicine and one of the most trusted voices in evidence based nutrition and public health. He is the internationally best selling author of How Not to Die (2015), How Not to Diet (2019), and How Not to Age (2023).

Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Greger shares his approach to healthy living, focusing on the surprising power of whole-food, largely plant-based diets in transforming our bodies at a molecular level. He discusses strategies for helping patients and ourselves achieve behavioral change and explores how our brains and palates are rewired by processed foods, how we can reverse this, the ethics of patient counseling around lifestyle interventions, why there is such a mismatch between nutrition beliefs and behaviors among physicians, and his most high-yield recommendations for starting your journey to eating well.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:45 - How Dr. Greger’s grandmother’s miraculous recovery due to diet change inspired him to build a career in nutrition science

6:58 - The disconnect that exists between the American medical system and the science of nutrition

13:57 - Why nutrition education is lacking in American medical training

21:31 - Issues with compliance among patients trying to adopt a lifestyle of healthy eating

28:00 - Supporting patients who are not interested in preventative healthcare measures

35:15 - Navigating the confusing and often conflicting landscape of nutritional studies

43:20 - Whether there is a universal dietary recommendation

46:49 - Simple ways to improve your diet, starting today

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

A Prescription for Connection | Julia Hotz Jan 22, 2025

Show notes

In recent years, it has become evident that loneliness is one of the most pressing public health challenges of our time — so much so that the US Surgeon General has labeled it an epidemic with far reaching consequences. The pain of isolation doesn't merely gnaw at our sense of belonging: it undermines our physical wellbeing, erodes our mental health, and places an invisible strain on communities. In this climate of ever widening personal and cultural divides, the collective call for deeper human bonds feels both urgent and universal.

Our guest on this episode is Julia Hotz, a journalist and passionate advocate for social prescribing, the practice of directing people to community activities and social support networks as part of their health care. She is the author of the book The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service and Belonging (2024), in which she argues that whether it's group classes, volunteer opportunities, or simply forging new friendships, true well-being is as much about our social fabric as it is about physical health.

Over the course of our conversation, we discuss the psychology of isolation and loneliness, the tangible health effects of loneliness, the historical societal forces that drive humans increasingly apart, the role of social media in connecting and separating us, and how patients and physicians alike can take proactive and creative steps in making human connection an integral part of living well.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:50 - What social prescribing is and how it became Hotz’ focus as a journalist

5:32 - How loneliness became a crisis in the era of social media

18:46 - The ways in which social prescribing can change the conversation between doctors and patients

28:24 - The impact that our relationships and environments have on our physiological wellbeing

38:29 - How doctors and health care systems can leverage the power of social prescribing

45:00 - How social prescribing is beginning to find its place in the American healthcare system

56:03 - How social prescribing can bring a stronger sense of meaning into the lives of both patients and doctors

To learn more about how you can get involved in the social prescribing movement, Julia recommends visiting Social Prescribing USA and socialprescribing.co.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

Personalized Medicine — A Threat to Public Health? | James Tabery, PhD Dec 31, 2024

Show notes

We have featured many techno-optimists on this show — healthcare leaders who believe that precision medicine and emerging technologies promise to revolutionize and democratize medicine in the best of ways. But look under the glossy veneer of this optimism and we see a far more complex story, one that touches on questions of power, inequity and the troubling ways in which genetics can be wielded, intentionally or not, to shape society in potentially dangerous ways.

Our guest on this episode is James Tabery, PhD, a bioethicist, philosopher, and author of the book Tyranny of the Gene” Personalized Medicine and its Threat to Public Health (2024). Tabery gives us a tour of the rise of personalized and precision medicine, a field that promises to tailor treatments to our unique genetic profiles. Importantly, though, he highlights how the blind pursuit of these advances can distract us from larger public health challenges and exacerbate inequality. In our conversation, we explore the historical forces that have shaped modern genetics, ethical dilemmas involving the tension between patient autonomy and societal justice, and necessary guardrails around technological advances.

We hope this conversation will challenge your assumptions, whether you are a clinician, a patient, or simply someone fascinated by the ways science shapes our world.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

3:15 - How Tabery became drawn to his work in philosophy and bioethics

5:30 - Tabery’s view on the potential perils of the constant march of scientific progress

9:34 - The ways in which his father’s early experience with precision medicine shaped Tabery’s thinking on the topic

19:33 - Examining the promises and realities of precision medicine

30:12 - Navigating the inequities caused by the exorbitant cost of precision medicine

35:29 - The challenges doctors face when approaching “financial toxicity”

40:00 - Tabery’s worries about medical genetics and AI

49:51 - How innovation be controlled in order to better align with ethical concerns

James Tabery can be found on Twitter/X at @jamestabery.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

Navigating the Wear and Tear of Living | Vincent Deary, PhD Dec 05, 2024

Show notes

Life can be hard when we are sick. But even when we aren't, life can still wear us down in quiet, surprising ways. Indeed, major traumas are relatively rare, and it's the moments when too many things go wrong at once, or we are exposed to prolonged periods of stress, that we fall into a spiral of exhaustion, fatigue, burnout, and hopelessness.

Vincent Deary, PhD is an author and health psychologist who explores the mundane struggles of everyday life. His writings blend clinical insight, literary finesse and wisdom drawn from philosophy and art to illuminate how the wear and tear of life affect all of us, and how we can navigate through it all. He is the author of How We Are (2024), which explores the power of human routines and the challenges of personal change, and How We Break (2024), which delves into how individuals cope when pushed to their limits.

Over the course of our conversation, we discuss what the clinical work of health psychology looks like, what happens to our minds when we deal with stressors in life, the importance of storytelling for psychological growth, balancing self-improvement with self-acceptance, the role of constitutional luck in our search for happiness, the importance of restorative rest, how clinicians can cope with grief and guilt from their work, and more. By bringing an empathetic lens to the complexities of modern existence, Vincent helps us create a path through difficult times.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:43 - What health psychology is and how Deary became drawn to this field

18:58 - Deary’s motivations for exploring the emotional toll of experiencing life in his writings

22:42 - The benefit of approaching each patient as a “case”

31:46 - Finding a balance between self-improvement and self-acceptance

38:10 - Using the bio-psycho-social model to explain our capacities for weathering stress

43:14 - Fostering a healthier perspective on work-life balance

50:55 - The importance of community and institutional support in helping people process compassion fatigue

58:05 - Strategies for connecting more deeply with patients within a clinical setting

Vincent Deary can be found on Twitter/X at @vincentdeary.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

Abolishing Death | Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnson, Ph.D. Nov 26, 2024

Show notes

Variations of cryonics — the long term storage of human beings, usually at low temperatures — have long been featured in science fiction. In stories involving space travel, it’s often used as a solution for long-duration journeys. But increasingly, this is not just the stuff of fiction anymore.

The prospect of preserving ourselves, potentially indefinitely, forces us to ask some of the most profound questions we have ever faced: are we meant to transcend the boundaries of our mortal lives? What does it mean to be alive? If life can be extended, what happens to its meaning, urgency, and beauty? These questions, by turns technological, philosophical, ethical and even spiritual, are what we explore in this episode.

Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnson, PhD is a neuroscientist who studies the nature of conscious experiences to better understand how we can preserve cognitive function. His book The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death (2024), explores the viability of delaying death and its societal implications. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss the science of human preservation, definitions of life and death, broader questions about how we derive meaning from life, whether or not the finitude of human experience is essential to our conceptions of a well-lived life, our social contract with future generations, and more.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

2:44 - How Dr. Zeleznikow-Johnson became interested in the future of longevity

6:00 - Dr. Zeleznikow-Johnson’s definitions of “life” and “death”

14:29 - Why Dr. Zeleznikow-Johnson thinks that believing death is inevitable is a form of “learned helplessness”

17:52 - The level of faith one would need to have in the future of technology to consent to cryosleep

24:16: - Whether the finitude of human existence is essential to its meaning

29:05 - Whether every death is an inherent tragedy

30:25 - How the limitations of the human brain could impede longevity

33:16 - The ethical dilemma that would arise due to the financial costs of this technology

36:30 - Why Dr. Zeleznikow-Johnson is confident that cryonics will be successful

46:42 - The core thesis of Dr. Zeleznikow-Johnson’s book The Future Loves You

50:15 - Whether immortality is a desirable objective

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

Racing the Clock to Cure Prion Disease | Sonia Vallabh, Ph.D Nov 14, 2024

Show notes

One of the most mysterious and frightening entities in medicine are prion diseases — rare neurodegenerative disorders that are usually infectious in nature but involve not bacteria or viruses, but proteins. Prions are misfolded proteins that can induce normal proteins to become misfolded as well, resulting in a chain reaction that leads to irreversible brain damage and death. What makes prions alarming is that they are incurable, can incubate for decades in a person's brain without symptoms, and are usually associated with 100% mortality within months to a few years.

Sonia Vallabh, PhD was a recently-married lawyer in her early career when she witnessed her mother's baffling sudden health decline and death. Her mother was ferried from hospital to hospital, yet dozens of doctors could not figure out why she was seemingly succumbing to rapidly progressive dementia at the age of 52. It wasn't until after her death that Vallabh discovered the cause was a genetic prion disease. Subsequent testing revealed that Sonia Vallabh herself had inherited the same genetic abnormality. Determined to find a solution, Vallabh and her husband Eric, a transportation engineer, decided to retrain as biomedical scientists in a race to cure her before it grew too late. The couple now leads a prion research lab at the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard. They are also the co-founders of the nonprofit Prion Alliance.

Over the course of our conversation, Vallabh opens up about what it was like to accompany her mother in her last months of life, the psychological toll of dealing with a fatal medical mystery, how she lives each day with an awareness of how ephemeral life is, what prion diseases are and what makes them so difficult to treat, what makes her optimistic about the future of her work, and more.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

3:23 - Vallabh’s early memories of her mother and the devastating experience that overcame her at 52 years old

16:37 - The process of grieving the loss a parent

22:32 - What prion diseases are

25:35 - How Vallabh made the decision to undergo the genetic testing that confirmed she inherited a mutation thah causes prion disease

36:27 - Vallabh’s major career change to become biomedical researchers

45:50 - Where the quest for an effective therapy for prion disease currently stands

52:08 - Vallabh’s message to listeners on how to approach life

View Sonia Vallabh’s TED Talk on her quest to cure prion disease.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

A Vision for Justice | Judge David S. Tatel Nov 05, 2024

Show notes

The second half of the 20th century saw monumental shifts in civil rights in the United States, with the end of legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement affecting all spheres of life, from education to health care to housing to marriage and more.

Judge David S. Tatel is a civil rights lawyer who has contributed to key advancements in voting rights, educational equality, and disability rights. Over the course of his five-decade career, he has served as Director of the National Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, as Director of the Office for Civil Rights during the Carter administration, and as a federal judge on the D.C. Circuit, considered the second highest court in America.

Judge Tatel also happens to be blind, due to a rare genetic condition called retinitis pigmentosa. In 2024, he published a book titled Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice.

Over the course of our conversation, Judge Tatel opens up about how he has wrestled with vision impairment in both his legal career and his personal life. He discusses what it was like to be diagnosed with an incurable, progressive, blinding disease as a teenager, how he struggled to make sense of his identity as a blind individual even as his career was taking off, his philosophy as a lawyer, how his beautiful relationship with his wife and children have helped him navigate the world, and how he met his guide dog, Vixen. Judge Tatel's legacy is one of judicial integrity, a lifelong commitment to equality, and a testament to the boundless potential of individuals living with disabilities.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

3:45 - Judge Tatel’s experience of being diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa as a teenager

15:33 - The inspiration that led Judge Tatel to focus his legal career on civil rights

22:47 - Judge Tatel’s experience of progressively losing his vision while ascending in his legal career

28:05 - Visual elements of life that Judge Tatel misses and how he now “experiences” vision

33:12 - Why Judge Tatel regrets concealing the truth about his blindness early in his career

37:01 - How Judge Tatel’s blindness has influenced his civil rights work

44:45 - Judge Tatel’s concerns about the future of democracy in the United States

46:27 - The ways in which getting a guide dog late in life changed Judge Tatel’s sense of freedom and his perspective on blindness

49:06 - Judge Tatel’s advice to his former self

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

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