“The Doctor’s Art” is a weekly podcast exploring what makes medicine meaningful, featuring profiles and stories of clinicians, patients, educators, leaders and others in healthcare. .listen and subscribe apple, Spotify, Amazon, Google, StitcherWhen pod chaser.
In this episode, Henry Bair and Tyler Johnson, MD explore themes of storytelling, pain, anger and cultural competence. Dr. Haider Waleich, M.D.He grew up and attended medical school in Pakistan before completing a residency at Harvard Medical School and a fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at Duke University Medical Center.
He is currently an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Associate Director of the Heart Failure Program at the VA Boston Health Care System.he is a prolific writer and a regular contributor new york times, washington post, others.He is the author of his three books on popular medicine and most recently he published the 2022 The Song of Our Scars: The Untold Story of Painexamines the nature of pain as a physical as well as a historical and cultural experience.
In the conversation, Walaich compares the medical experience in Pakistan and the United States, explains why he is striving to integrate palliative care into the work of cardiology, and explains how modern medicine can address patient suffering. Offers a fervent critique of whether or not
This episode will cover:
- 2:10 How Worreich went from thinking of medical training as an ‘arranged marriage’ to loving his career
- 7:03 How Warraich stays connected to his patients and his work despite the intense pressure and responsibility he faces on a daily basis
- 13:22 What attracted Warraich to cardiology and end-of-life care
- 17:33 Warraich’s thoughts on gaps in cardiology patient care and how he is currently working to reform cardiology practice
- 22:06 Discussion of how Pakistan’s medical culture is different and strikingly similar to the US
- 28:49 How football quarterback Tom Brady inspired Warraich to stay connected to the emotional core of his practice
- 35:37 Why it’s important to stay in an area if you’re interested in it, especially if you want to change and improve it
- 41:38 Walich’s thoughts on the nature of pain and how he hopes to change our cultural discourse about it
- 45:17 How acute and chronic pain are very different processes and how suffering can be thematically and deeply personal experience
Below is a partial transcript (note there may be errors).
Bear: You’ve written a lot about death, dying, heart failure, and pain. So there are many things that we can explore. First of all, could you tell us how you got started in your medical career?
Waraichi: When I was growing up, I was pretty undifferentiated. If I had to choose, I was probably a writer and storyteller before I knew what I wanted to do with my life. When I graduated from college, I was applying to medical school, dental school, and engineering school.
And in the end, I ended up choosing medical school. It’s not for any fancy or inspired reasons other than the fact that the university is probably the best institution for education in Pakistan. So I ended up in medical school for very poor reasons. And medical school is no joke, so it really put me off quite a bit.
It can be a pretty daunting place unless you have an epiphany or purpose. So my first few years in medical school were really tough from an academic point of view. But the medical school experience itself was really, really hard until I started to find out why. , and when I got over some of the superficial nature of what I do as a clinician, I really fell in love with medicine. It almost happened by chance, but I’m so lucky to have this experience now.
Johnson: It was an arranged marriage for you, a very interesting metaphor. But what did it discover when it discovered why it loved medicine?
Waraichi: For me, the most fascinating part about medicine was that random days in our lives are probably one of the most important days in a patient’s life. For patients, it is often a situation of fear, uncertainty, and confusion about what is happening. And they look to us for guidance. They are looking to us for moral guidance and ethical guidance, not just technical guidance.
And that, to me, still never gets old. And for me, who has always been interested in exploring space, exploring people, or exploring new worlds, medicine is an opportunity to explore new worlds every time we meet a new person, and it imposes on us. responsibility. Regardless of our area of expertise or what you do, it’s a huge one, but very rewarding. And I think it’s the interaction with patients that really drew me into medicine and keeps me grounded to this day.
For the full transcript, please visit: doctor’s art.
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