Today's guest, Dr. David Walton, is a brilliant example of making it count and living with purpose. The youngest of 3 boys, David didn’t understand his true potential until later in his academic journey, in large part thanks to his single mother’s enduring belief in him, even when he didn’t believe in himself. Late in his collegiate career he realized his vocational calling – to work as a physician and dedicate his life to remediating inequity in healthcare amongst the poor and disenfranchised. He relocated to Boston for medical school, where he obtained his MD and Masters in Public Health from Harvard. After completing his residency in Internal Medicine and Global Health he spent the next 15 years living and working in rural Haiti, where his work focused on health systems strengthening, improvement and expansion of medical care, and medical infrastructure in resource-constrained settings. Dr. Walton is the co-founder and previously served as the CEO of Build Health International, a non-profit dedicated to designing and building health infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries. He now works as the Senior Director of Global Health at Butterfly Network, focused on reducing disparities of access to healthcare by making medical imaging accessible to everyone around the world. Most important, David met the love of his life after he moved back to Boston full time, and he and his partner are the proud parents of Blue, the cutest rescue dog in Boston.
Today's guest, Dr. David Walton, is a brilliant example of making it count and living with purpose.
The youngest of 3 boys, David didn’t understand his true potential until later in his academic journey, in large part thanks to his single mother’s enduring belief in him, even when he didn’t believe in himself.
Late in his collegiate career he realized his vocational calling – to work as a physician and dedicate his life to remediating inequity in healthcare amongst the poor and disenfranchised.
He relocated to Boston for medical school, where he obtained his MD and Masters in Public Health from Harvard.
After completing his residency in Internal Medicine and Global Health he spent the next 15 years living and working in rural Haiti, where his work focused on health systems strengthening, improvement and expansion of medical care, and medical infrastructure in resource-constrained settings.
Dr. Walton is the co-founder and previously served as the CEO of Build Health International, a non-profit dedicated to designing and building health infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries.
He now works as the Senior Director of Global Health at Butterfly Network, focused on reducing disparities of access to healthcare by making medical imaging accessible to everyone around the world.
Most important, David met the love of his life after he moved back to Boston full time, and he and his partner are the proud parents of Blue, the cutest rescue dog in Boston.
E8 David Walton
Britt: [00:00:00]Hello, and welcome to off track on purpose, the podcast, where we come together to reimagine academic and faculty life. I'm your co-host Britt [00:00:15] Yamamoto. And along with Mya Fisher, I want to thank you for joining us.
We're here to have heart-centered conversations with people who have experienced and successfully endured advanced academic training and gone on to have a meaningful social impact, the creative pursuits and practical actions.
[00:00:30] Today's guest. Dr. David Walton is a brilliant example of making it count and living with purpose. The youngest of three boys, David didn't understand his true potential until later in his academic journey in large part, thanks to a single mothers enduring belief in him, even when he didn't believe in [00:00:45] himself. Late in his collegiate career. He realized his vocational calling to work as a physician and dedicate his life to remediating inequity in health care amongst the poor and disenfranchise. He relocated to Boston for medical school, where he obtained his MD and master's in [00:01:00] public health from Harvard.
After completing his residency in internal medicine and global health, he spent the next 15 years living and working in rural Haiti, whereas work focused on health system, strengthening improvement and expansion of medical care and medical infrastructure and resource constrained [00:01:15] settings..
Dr. Walton is the co-founder and previously served as CEO of build health international, a nonprofit dedicated to designing and building health infrastructure in low and middle income countries.
He now works as the senior director of global health at butterfly [00:01:30] network focused on reducing disparities of access to healthcare by making medical imaging accessible to everyone around the world.
Most importantly, David met the love of his life after he moved back to Boston full time. And he and his partner are the proud parents of Blue, the cutest rescue [00:01:45] dog in Boston.
Please enjoy our conversation.
Okay,
Preflection [00:01:56] Britt: We're ready to start with our pre flections on our [00:02:00] conversation with Dr. David Walton. What's coming up for you, Mya
Mya: I'm really interested in how his medical school training and experience what that taught him about people. And because it looks like the bulk of his career has [00:02:15] been focused really on helping people in low resource areas. And I'm interested in what motivated him. And whether that has always been the plan.
Britt: This of course is our first conversation with a non PhD with a [00:02:30] medical doctor. And, I've heard a lot of stories over the years about some of the rigors of medical school training and particularly young doctors and what they're expected to do with long hours and the almost seems an [00:02:45] endurance test or almost like a hazing that's happening. David attended know, one of the top institutions in the world. And I'm curious how that was And if in fact that was his experience. But, to your point about people, but also just the nature of the relationships. [00:03:00]
Mya: So I'm always interested in what leads people to do things outside of the U S and also with, coronavirus this year and the changing landscape and what are his goals for doing that kind of work globally?
Britt: I know a little bit about David's [00:03:15] personal background and is so humble and kind, and Soft, I would say. And I say that in the most positive way. And the challenges that I assume exist in making your way through medical school, through Harvard, through all of these [00:03:30] places that My anecdotal experience is that it doesn't necessarily lead one to be softer or more humble or or kind.
So for someone with his credentials and his experience and the kind of re remarkable [00:03:45] work that he's been doing he's just comes across as just such an accessible human being.
Mya: Yeah. And to your point, the things that are generally valued are, those may not be the characteristics that he exhibits. To people, those may be great characteristics. And [00:04:00] so I'd be curious how that persona or those characteristics have served or hindered him in his career in any particular way, shape or form, if at all.
Britt: And I've always been [00:04:15] impressed by his fashion. So we'll have to ask him a little bit where that fashion sense comes from.
Mya: I had a chance to watch a couple of a YouTube video interviews with him and he seems to be a dynamic [00:04:30] conversationalist. So I'm excited.
Britt: Absolutely. All right. Lots to look forward to why don't we jump on him?
Mya: Let's do it.
Dr. David Walton, Conversation [00:04:36]
Academic Origin Story [00:04:36]
All [00:04:45] right.
Britt: We're
here,
Britt: here with Dr. David Walton based in Boston, Massachusetts. Thank you for joining us today, David. It's great to have you.
David: Really a pleasure to be here with you.
Britt: As we start all of our conversations, we'd like to invite you to start with your academic origin story [00:05:00] and what brought you to graduate school and beyond.
David: So my academic origin story is a long one. It actually begins in grade school. I was a very poorly performing student. My mom who's a single mom at the time. [00:05:15] Had to go back and forth to parent teacher conferences. I wasn't doing my work. I was acting out. It was incredibly problematic. To the point where I almost needed to repeat the fourth grade, not because the, what folks thought would be [00:05:30] the raw ability wasn't there, but that I just wasn't applying myself.
I think the reasons for that are varied, but primarily my dad left when we were three, he was still around. He was in my life a bit, but not completely. [00:05:45] And I think as a young child, I had very poor ability to cope with that. And so I think it manifested itself by acting out by not doing my work and just performing very poorly.
And that [00:06:00] actually continue well throughout my younger years. And I'll say, I remember very specifically, I had a teacher named Ms. Notton who was actually the first teacher was my sixth grade science teacher. And was the first time that I [00:06:15] actually enjoyed what I was studying and loved science.
Therefore I applied myself and I did well, and my mother who had never doubted my abilities, but was really struggling, frankly, to try to get me to apply [00:06:30] myself, saw that I could, of course do the work. And from there I built my confidence a bit through high school, loved biology as a freshman in high school, loved math, that was Ms. Notten as my teacher. but I did okay in high school, I was very active [00:06:45] extracurricularly, but I didn't knock it out of the park.
And I'll tell you, there was another turning point that I think is very, absolutely instrumental in my, in where I am today, which is I went to a small liberal arts college called Augustana [00:07:00] college. And I remember very specifically one of the pre-med requirements. Cause I knew I wanted to go into medicine was that I had to take calculus and I had done very poorly in math. I think primarily I didn't like math, but also I had several teachers in [00:07:15] grade school who I think frankly were, I don't think they realize that the trauma that I had endured and the approach that would have necessity.
Mitigating that trauma or at least working with it to be able to bring the best out of me. I also was asked this [00:07:30] question by my now wife, my then partner and that I had never reflected on before when with this as an adult, she said, when was there, when did you have a teacher who looked like you?
And I said, oh, wow. I never thought about it. Not in grammar school, not in grade school, not in [00:07:45] high school, 0.0. I identify as black and I'm also not in college. So it wasn't until. Medical school, where I actually saw people who taught me, who looked like, and they, frankly, let's not get [00:08:00] to get it twisted it's not that many. It was very few in number, but at least I saw them. So I think that also played a role in it.
On A Turning Point--I Believe in Me [00:08:09] But back to their collegiate story, I was petrified of math, petrified of [00:08:15] calculus. And I had a calculus teacher and he was just so good at teaching, but also really meeting students where they're at.
And he just worked with me and I had, extra tutoring, et cetera. [00:08:30] I was still just so nervous and so scared. And so I didn't have, the people call it imposter syndrome or what have you, but I didn't have the words for it. Then I just knew that I was scared. And if I did poorly in calculus, then what am I as a, I will never be a doctor.
I'll never be able to reach my goals. And there was [00:08:45] one very clear moment that defined, frankly I fundamentally believe this moment defined my entire collegiate career and then medical school career, it was finals were, had taking finals, no cell phones back then. So I was in my dorm room and I was studying [00:09:00] and my phone, my, the landline for my dorm room rang and it was my calculus teacher.
And he said, Hey, what do you do know right now? Where are you? I said, oh, I'm in my room. Studying for the final right now. So of course I full blown panic. They said just [00:09:15] come on over come over. I was up campus. It was down. Canvas is probably a 20 minute walk. I grabbed my stuff.
I was just, I don't even remember what I was thinking. All I remember is that fight or flight of this is it. I'm going to fail. I'm done game over. This [00:09:30] is everything I dreamed it was over. And so you have to cross this bridge over a street. And he intercepted me outside the building, across the bridge.
Right before I got there, he saw that I was just a mess. And he said, stop just take a breath, breathe. It's going to be [00:09:45] okay. You will be okay. What we're going to do is we're going to go in. I'm going to give you all the time. You need to collect yourself. And then we're going to start and I'll give you as much time as you would have otherwise had you won't be penalized for being late.
I knew you were in your room and you're studying. So I took that [00:10:00] final after I composed myself, which took a fair bit of time. I would add, and I got an A on that final and I got an A in the class and that A demonstrated to me that despite the fact that I thought I was many [00:10:15] things, but never did, I think I was a good student ever.
I believe I, that led me to believe that I could do the work I could achieve. I could succeed in all the areas in which I thought I was, it was [00:10:30] predestined to be a failure. And so that was it. That was all it took. And so from that day forward I was lucky enough to get A's in my other classes. And then.
I never got a B again, I got, I had one and this is not to pat myself on the [00:10:45] back from my collegiate record, but I one B in organic chemistry that first semester, and then I said, oh, but then I'd had that calculus experience. I said oh no not that not me. And I was able to get all A's throughout the rest of my collegiate career. Not because I'm [00:11:00] somebody special, but because Dr. Klaus believed in me because he believed in me, I believed in me once I believed in me, man, I was on fire.
On Applying to Medical School [00:11:12] And then, I was, it was time to apply to [00:11:15] medical school. I was confident I was going to get in somewhere. But I was applying to locally, to at that time where geographically was the Chicago schools because that's where I was from when I was going in the school in the Midwest.
And then, yeah know, university of California, San [00:11:30] Francisco was in California, therefore sunny, therefore warm. At least I thought that was warm every San Francisco is warm at the time relative to Chicago and Stanford we're out there but I was nervous. I might not get in. And then as all good stories include this [00:11:45] story includes my mother.
And so my mother yeah. Saw some pamphlet or something from Harvard medical school and she opened it because that's what she did with my mail. And she said, oh, look, Harvard is encouraging you to apply. You're going to apply. [00:12:00] And I said, that's a terrible idea. I will not get in. I applied, I remember applying to Harvard, undergrad and I didn't get it.
And I don't know. Probably that was the better choice on their part. And I said, I'm not going to get into Harvard medical school. And I actually don't want that thin envelope. I don't want to do [00:12:15] that. So we're not going to do that. Like most discussions with my mother, there is one way that way is the right way.
That right way is her way. So I ended up applying to Harvard medical school only because you essentially forced me to. [00:12:30] And I was lucky. I wasn't, I was lucky. Yes, but I was also happy and thrilled to be able to get in. And I got onto the other schools that I was applying in as well. And I was so happy.
I was, [00:12:45] so I was, again, it was another pivotal moment where I believed I did this thing. And now I believe in myself, I have confidence in myself. Others potentially saw it. I didn't see it in myself. So I called my mom as soon as I got the letter. And I said, Mom I couldn't believe this. Guess [00:13:00] what?
I got into Harvard medical school. He said, and she said, without missing a beat, she said, yeah, I told you, you would. And then she changed the subject as if it was a fait accompli, which it was for her, but clearly not for me. So those [00:13:15] pivotal moments for me. In my academic journey, we're really critical in helping me believe in me that ultimately led to me realizing my potential and my dreams to be a clinician that's involved in global [00:13:30] health.
And without that, I likely would have ended up in a very different place doing different things.
Mya: Wow. I think that's amazing to actually have those distinct moments that you can point to in places where your life moved or changed or, [00:13:45] progress forward. I'm not sure a lot of people have that. I feel like I have some, but not those sort of pivotal moments.
And now you've got me thinking about maybe I do, but just haven't dug through enough of it to figure it out.
[00:14:00] Britt: I'm still stuck on how you overcame the greatest nightmare of all of us. I was half expecting you to say that you were wearing nothing, but your socks running through the quad to a late final, that was going to dictate your future, [00:14:15]it's that's really a remarkable pivot point, having somebody that not only believed in you, but created the space for you to be able to believe in yourself. it's teaching in its highest form.
On Becoming a Doctor [00:14:25]
Mya: Yeah. So you mentioned that you knew you wanted to be [00:14:30] a doctor or go to medical school. Where did that come from?
David: So that's a tougher question to answer. Only because I actually don't remember wanting to be anything else ever again, back to let's bring my [00:14:45] mother back into the equation.
She will tell you, as soon as anyone asks me the question from a young age, three or four, I said, I wanted to be a doctor and that never changed. It never deviated. It actually only grew stronger. Once I started actually understanding [00:15:00] science or at least learning about science in a dedicated way. Again, I think part of that was despite the very, very challenging relationship I had with my father.
He was a physician and he would come over to visit sometimes on weekends and he would be on call. [00:15:15] And I remember Just sitting there watching him. And he would have these clinical conversations dealing with whatever clinical issue he was dealing with and trying to penetrate the language. Because when doctors, when clinicians speak to other clinicians, it can, it really almost [00:15:30] is a different language because there's so much vernacular and acronyms, et cetera. And I was just so excited by the prospect of doing that and being that, and it doesn't, it really never, ever [00:15:45] changed. And I remember, and the reason why.
Those moments, those pivotal moments that I talked about earlier were so important to me is because I knew I wanted to be a doctor in order to be a doctor. You can't be a, you can't, you gotta achieve at least in the ways in which medical school [00:16:00] defines success, rather rigidly I might add.
And so I knew that I had to do well in order to scholastically and from a test taking perspective in order to get into medical school. And I remember very [00:16:15] specifically, I remember thinking as a senior in high school, how high school was okay, but I didn't do that. Great. But medical school doesn't care about my high school grades and college will be the ultimate reset button and it's a blank slate and that's right.
I need to have really [00:16:30] deep success and unerring success. And. That's what I did. And I remember everything was dedicated to creating that vision, creating that dream, creating that re making that dream a reality. And when I got to medical school, I was [00:16:45] petrified, utterly petrified because again, I believed in myself, I was also socialized to believe that I was less than for a variety of reasons, the color of my skin, my educational pedigree, because right I was going to school with people from Harvard and [00:17:00] Yale and all these other Ivy league schools and other schools as well. And I said my little liberal was a small Lutheran affiliated liberal arts college. How am I gonna, be in the ring with these heavy hitters? And of course it was fine.
I was fine. I had a great [00:17:15] education that prepared me just as well, if not better than many of my peers and we all work fantastic together, but. Every step of the way I just became clearer and more and more excited about wanting to practice medicine, what wasn't as linear, [00:17:30] but was still rather would tracked with time was my journey into global health which I'm happy to talk about as well.
Mya: Yeah, and that was actually one of my questions. So my background is in international education. And so I'm always interested in [00:17:45] reasons that people do things and are interested in the world outside of America. Cause that's not really what we're socialized to do as Americans generally or, pursuing education wise.
So how did you start your interest in global health?
On Going into Global Health [00:17:57] David: So to set the context again, parents [00:18:00] were divorced, but we were financially stable. I lived a solidly middle class life in suburban Chicago. I say that very specifically. So you understand my socioeconomic status also understand.
Yeah. With that [00:18:15] socioeconomic status came the bubble, right? The bubble of not being able to see outside of that reality. And so the first time that I saw outside of that reality, I was in high school, a friend of mine, actually, an acquaintance of mine. And a friend [00:18:30] said that they were going on a mission trip to Mexico with their church.
And I knew that I wanted to eventually learn Spanish. And I was in compulsory Spanish classes at the time and high school. And so I said, oh, that's great. I would love to go. So I can actually like [00:18:45] practice my Spanish and then do this work that y'all are doing with this mission trip. And she said, great.
So I ended up going to rural Mexico and the Yucatan peninsula and did some interesting mission work. It wasn't very [00:19:00] religious. Either by, by its very nature, but also my own orientation. But yeah, that was the first time where I said, oh this is what people live like, and it wasn't a, it was, I don't mean that in a derogatory way.
I mean it, [00:19:15] I have never seen anything like that. I think it's important also to underscore that. So again, my I'm black, my parents are black and my grandmother at the time lived on the south side of Chicago, a poor neighborhood, but I also would [00:19:30] visit my grandmother sparingly and infrequently and didn't get exposed to either inequality and inequity, either with, within my own city or outside of it.
So seeing it outside really drove that home. I was at the west [00:19:45] and understanding what rural Mexican people live like. So that. Sort of introduction, number one of bearing witness the next summer, that same group ended up going to Kenya and Uganda. I went along with them and then I was in the work [00:20:00] mainly was in Uganda.
I'm going to spend a couple of weeks in Uganda and again, really changed by bearing witness. I wasn't thinking that the missionary work that they were doing has been, I was involved as well was fine, but that [00:20:15] wasn't the thing for me. It was. The exposure, the understanding in the beginning of putting that key inside the lock of my own mind, my own sort of awakening, to be able to see [00:20:30] outside of my own reality.
And the reality that has shaped had shaped me up until that point. And so then I realized, oh, okay. I, yeah, I'll go to college. And I'll major in Spanish, but also biology. Cause I know I want to go to medical school, but I really want to learn [00:20:45] Spanish so that I can leverage that skillset for Spanish speaking patients in this country, but also potentially work in Latin America because I majored in Spanish I then traveled to Latin America and for a study abroad, both as a freshman and a senior.
And it was [00:21:00] that senior year where I had this again, it's a, there's a slight I'm full of anecdotes. There's a slight anecdote to the story that I'll make brief, but essentially we were in Bolivia. At the time we're in La Paz. And I remember with a colleague of mine who actually turned out, he [00:21:15] also went to medical school.
Eventually we were in La Paz and we were walking. We saw this very beautiful building. We walked in and it ended up being a medical sub-specialty building with orthodontics and neurosurgeons and all these other things. And we were able to peer into an orthodontics office, which, looked [00:21:30] exactly like my orthodontist office, because I was a proud recipient of orthodontia and I said, wow, this is incredible.
We're in La Paz this is, he looks exactly like my orthodontist. We then left that building and not a block away. I saw a line of people. These [00:21:45] people were had the characteristic clothing of the indigenous people and I said, oh, I wonder what this line is for. And they were lined up to get into a clinic, which was a public clinic.
And so we were able to go in, we just said, Hey, can we take a look around? [00:22:00] And it was the polar opposite of the building that was not a block away. It was just, people were struggling, it was busy, it was just, it was chaotic. And and I'm sure that all the practitioners were doing the best they could, but it was very clear that the [00:22:15] resources were not there to be able to do everything that they wanted to do or could do for this very marginalized group of folk who were lined up outside the door.
And that again was An epiphany for me to say that w what, I just chewed on [00:22:30] it obviously for a while, but I said, but that just witnessed is exactly the kind of inequity that I really want to address in medicine. It was 1997 at the time And so terms like global health or these things didn't really exist.
There was no clear [00:22:45] pathway. So I specifically went out and sought out my professors who were teaching us. I said, Hey, when I go to medical school, how can I do this thing? Where medicine is married to addressing inequalities of access? I was probably using less sophisticated words. Cause I didn't [00:23:00] have the concepts that I do now.
And nobody knew nobody had an answer. No faults of their own. So then I, it's funny, circling back to earlier in the conversation, I specifically chose Harvard medical school of the medical schools that I was able to that I was accepted [00:23:15] to because I said to myself Harvard. Yes. But UCSF is up is amazing.
Stanford's amazing for medical education, but I thought to myself, I bet Harvard's resources are nearly unlimited. And I'm sure that if [00:23:30] I go there, I'm going to find someone who's doing this thing, this vague concept of medicine, fighting this inequity, creating better access and I'll figure it out.
I don't know how, but I'll figure it out somehow. And that's really how I ended up [00:23:45] going to Harvard. Because I just, I believed that they, that I could find someone in the mix as it were who could help me create this, make this, my vague ambitions, a reality
Britt: you're blowing us away. David
[00:24:00] Mya: you're a trailblazer. And maybe you knew it didn't know it.
David: I was fumbling along and just anxious with every new endeavor. And part of it was just going, I'm, it's funny as [00:24:15] a, 20 plus years later, I'm so much more trepidatious to take steps like that before I was just like, whoa, I guess I'll just do this thing.
And it'll probably work out now. I'm like, oh God, where the . But back then, I just, I'm, I think [00:24:30] I was more attuned with my inner resonance in my guts. Whereas now I'm overly analytical and, need all the data.
On Clarity of Purpose [00:24:37] Britt: So I'm curious, and I know that you recently spent some significant time reflecting on a pilgrimage and, I hear your [00:24:45] story and your remarkable accomplishments. And what I hear resonating is this clarity of purpose and this very strong sense of self that overcomes that self-doubt, or that overcomes whatever. And I imagine the obstacles are [00:25:00] many that are put in front of you. And I suppose I'm teeing up your answer to say your mom again, but I wonder Where that clarity of purpose originates from there. Do you have a sense of that?
David: I don't, I will say it certainly, there's [00:25:15] a lot of credit that goes to my mother for the grit and the perseverance, right? Like single mother, three boys, not a lot of support at home working a full-time job, and she did that all by herself. She raised us to [00:25:30] be independent. She raised us to do our thing and learn and be independent, but I also think that, Just bearing witness to her and her struggle and her navigating the world as a black woman, a single black woman with three boys at home [00:25:45] alone is, I don't know if there's a better example for me.
And that shaped me to be able to dig in to adversity and persevere the clarity of purpose. I D I'm very grateful that I have that, I can't point a finger to [00:26:00] where it comes from, but I do believe that it comes from something I'm unable to put into words. And then I can't explain, I think for whatever reason I am here on this earth, that clarity of purpose came with.
And I was [00:26:15] able to see it somehow into a sort of embrace it. And again, circumstances allowed me. I was born into, in the U S and I'm a middle-class family and had educational opportunities that I could leverage. But, that clarity of purpose was at least [00:26:30] where I wanted to go was there.
And it was supported certainly by my parents. I think the key to unlocking the global health and the avenue that I went in and understanding that my journey had to be tied to joining the fight against [00:26:45] inequity and creating more access came from those experiences that I described.
And again, they were, It wasn't an epiphany. Like I had, with Dr. Klaus and calculus, this was more of a repeated exposure. See it while, but then I went back to being a 16 [00:27:00] year old middle class kid in suburban Chicago. Then I saw it again. Wow. It affected me on a different level. I was older.
The experience was different. And then really spending time as a college student again, bearing [00:27:15] witness is how I describe it because I, I was an outsider looking in speaking to folks and trying to understand I could never fundamentally and fully understand. So I was bearing witness and that bearing witness really led me to understand what my role what being a [00:27:30] doctor was going to mean for me, I didn't know, at that point in time. And I was like, oh yeah, this is great. And it was an intellectual exercise, stimulating amazing career path. Great, fantastic. Acceptable to the world, right? Oh, you wanna be a doctor?
That's so great. When actually [00:27:45] I will, this is actually an important adjunct to the story. When I told people I wanted to go to Haiti. That wasn't so great, actually. All the enthusiasm. You're so smart and you're so great. And you're going to go to medical school. All right. That's so good. Good for you.
That disappeared, [00:28:00] right? Because it was not deemed. The path that I should go on and it was different and it was risky and it was, not going to private practice or whatever, or the, the folks [00:28:15] had in their head for what I should do. And, it was a, there was a journey to get even my close family and friends to begin to understand how passionate I felt, how deeply I believe that not only was [00:28:30] this my role, but this was the role that I will pursue for the rest of my life.
On Being Authentic [00:28:35]Mya: As you were talking about bearing witness, as you were talking about. Clarity of purpose as well. One of the things that came up into my mind is the things that you're [00:28:45] talking about in the ways in which you're talking about inequity and your response to those things and your desire to want to be part of solutions, relate to that piece.
And then do it, through medical practice interventions, et cetera. And as you also said, [00:29:00] those aren't what are prized, right? That's not what people who are doctors are supposed to do. I don't even know if that's the right statement, but so you know how did you combat that? Or how did you not let that deter you from doing [00:29:15] it?
And then once you were in the mixed and doing all these things, how did you do it authentically?
David: Great question. I'll give you a couple of different aspects of that answer. One is. The resolve was there. I was just so passionate. I [00:29:30] was head down. I was, working with amazing folks that were doing just world-class work.
And I said, this is it. This is what I wanted to do. I find so the epilogue to the, deciding to go into. Global health and going to Harvard [00:29:45] is that day three of medical school fortuitous as it was I've met Dr. Paul Farmer. Who's one of the founders of partners in health in 1998 was a very small NGO.
They're very large global reaching NGO and nonprofit organization. Now, back then it was tiny. [00:30:00] And I met him. He was a professor and a teacher at Harvard medical school and the co-founder of partners in health. I met him and I became his research assistant. And so I was working as his research assistant [00:30:15] at the same time as I was studying for medical school, which meant classes during the day.
And then going to the library, the sub-basement of the library, again, we're pre PDF at this point. So it's just, understanding, he's writing scholarly articles doing the, [00:30:30] what we call scholarly buttressing so creating the, the footnotes and notes for all of that, to make sure that the citations are correct down to the sub-basement of the library, pulling journals off of the shelves, xeroxing them, annotating them, and then providing those notes to him.
So it was, I learned a [00:30:45] lot, but it was not a glamorous role but it was Driven by the folks that I have great role models, I could say, yes, this is what I had all these vague thoughts of thinking about how to really get engaged in this battle against [00:31:00] inequity. These folks are doing it and I see them and I'm watching them and I'm just so inspired by what they're doing.
And so I want to be a part of it, and that was a key factor and really make it, keep going. Despite people not really understanding and [00:31:15] people, I really mean close friends and family, which, on some level is really hurtful, right? It's deeply hurtful. And and not that they meant anything by it, but that, the thing that, one of the things that you're most passionate about in the entire world, they either don't agree with or you begin to describe your [00:31:30] experience as you, what you could see their eyes glaze over because they're not really interested or something else. And it was, it took me awhile to adjust. I think.
The second part of that answer is also that I went through some phases. I went through my angry face, [00:31:45] where I was working in, in Haiti. And I came back to the us and I was just angry at everybody for all the resources that they had in the squandering of resources and, all, it just, it was an emotional reaction from being in, in these [00:32:00] places and living amongst these folks and trying to do my best to be in solidarity with them and work in solidarity with them.
And just being hamstrung by so many different things, but largely lack of resources. And then I come back up here again. In medical school or in [00:32:15] residency, because I was going back and forth and just seeing the complete opposite access of, I have access to everything, anything I want at any time, really, to the edge of science and medicine.
That's how far we are at [00:32:30] in these hospitals, these academic teaching hospitals. And I was very angry for a little bit of time. And then I realized that anger isn't helpful and that I needed to turn that anger into productive energy. That really is [00:32:45] focused on. Taking the best of what I can do here and bringing those resources or facilitating, I should say the redistribution of resources into the places that have been utterly bereft for years, not [00:33:00] because they are an accident of history, but because of history itself and the exploitation that the colonial era exploitation and both slavery, economic exploitation.
Colonization all of those [00:33:15] things that were not an accident, of course. And then and then, we stigmatize many what we call now low and middle income countries because of that. And I felt that my role was to say that is both to educate myself, not only on the history that I never [00:33:30] learned as a child, because so much of what I learned about our history and our role in history. Wasn't as glamorous as I had been taught, but also thinking about how do we begin to redress these issues? How do we begin [00:33:45] to think about, what solidarity truly looks like? And I had to get out of my own way. That's another important part of this story is. I had a lot of confidence I was growing, I was learning in medical school, all these other things. So then I go to places like Haiti and I think I know stuff I can tell [00:34:00] you. I did not know a darn thing and I really had to learn and I'm still, I'm always learning, but I had to learn how to listen.
I had to learn how to [00:34:15] be with people for no reason, other than to understand, not to do a thing or to ask a thing or to prescribe a thing, but just be understanding their experiences to the best of my [00:34:30] ability, understand what their lives are like, what the, what are the contours of their everyday being.
And it is only with that humility that I was really able to be effective at my job [00:34:45] because when I. Carried forth. I very colonial mindset of, I actually know how to solve these problems, which was, couldn't be further from the truth when I finally shed that. And is, if again, this is not a, I am done, but it [00:35:00] continual process and evolution, it is only then that I began to understand what my role really could be.
What kind of transformational effect that I could have in a way that is again, in [00:35:15] solidarity and in accompaniment with those who I am standing alongside, but who happened to be bereft of resources by the very nature of our history and their history.
On the Humanity of Education [00:35:25]
Britt: Okay. There's so much there that I'd love to explore a bit more. Of [00:35:30] course the name of the podcast is off track on purpose and what it means to get off track for each person is a bit different. And each discipline also offers a slightly different track and arc of convention. And you're the first [00:35:45] medical doctor that we've had on the pod. This is a new track for us to explore.
And my experience with medical school is very limited and only from anecdotal or largely like horror stories, of just [00:36:00] what's expected of medical students and what I would interpret as somewhat, almost like a hazing of young doctors and especially those that are still med students.
And so I wonder how you. Both. And describe the general experience [00:36:15] for medical students going through that process. You talked a little bit about your own experience about enduring and making it through that. And so that experience, what are some of the hurdles that, that one has to overcome, whether that be external or internal. And I [00:36:30] imagine the internal ones are somewhat similar to the ones that any doctoral program, but offer.
David: I have a good friend who is a Haitian physician and he talks about Haitian medical school. Being a defomacion as [00:36:45] opposed to a fomacion. For my soon like education and training, he describes his defomacion because it can beep or extract the humanity out of you in so many different ways.
My own experience, I think the very nature of how we structure [00:37:00] medical education and to getting better footnote, but how we structure medical education and training is very divorced from the person we're looking to help. And again, I think folks are really trying to change [00:37:15] that, but, I had a Harvard was always trying to redo its curriculum and be on the cutting edge.
But at the end of the day, when I went to medical school, it was largely. Two years in the classroom and two years clinical, and you do your preclinical thing and your clinical thing, and your clinical thing is [00:37:30] keeping your head above water and trying to do the right thing as a medical student and not get in trouble and get good grades and all of those things.
And I think that what you lose in all of that is what is my, what w why am I here? What am I doing? What is my [00:37:45] purpose? And I, and in addition to that, how can I really be a part of this person's journey in a way that is meeting them where they're at understanding what ails them as it was. And really trying to accompany them through the process.
We don't learn that. And [00:38:00] not only do we not learn that from a pedagogical point of view, we also don't have room for that from a structural point of view, our entire clinical interaction, whether you're in the office or you're in the hospital is designed to do [00:38:15] just the opposite. We go in, we do these tests, we take your blood, we do the scans.
We figure out what's wrong with you. And then we try to help you. And then we send you home and hand you off to another provider. And as a patient in the most vulnerable point in [00:38:30] your life, when you're at your, at the mercy of all these other people. We don't do a good job. And I think the work hours and all that stuff, that's just a symptom of a lot of the larger pathology of, the issue that we have with what medical education or clinician education [00:38:45] should really be about what the emphasis should be placed on.
Really understanding, listening, empathizing, and really trying to be in service of your patients. I will say from, the, this generation of [00:39:00] young doctors are incredible Things are evolving, things are getting better. And I think they're much more in tune with the inequalities, both foreign and domestic they're in tune with, understanding what an inclusive workspace looks like.
[00:39:15] I can tell you the Boston academic teaching hospitals have never been a good example of that. And that's no secret that's been written about and all in all manner of publications. And I think they're much more in tune with what it means to [00:39:30] really try to walk that path with folks who are at the most vulnerable point in their life.
There's still tons of room to go. But I draw my inspiration from these young folk who are just so much better than we ever were [00:39:45] in that point in their career about the things that I think are the most, some of the most important aspects of being a healer.
On Translateable Skills and Training [00:39:52]Mya: thinking about your experience with medical school and all of the things that you've done up to this point, your global health mindset we're [00:40:00] in 2021 and we were just still in the midst of a pandemic. Part of my interest in this podcast is, our training trains us for certain things. But if we do other things, we [00:40:15] still have skillsets that can be applied to other things, but we don't think about it that way. And in thinking about the pandemic what do you think either your global health training and, or your own medical training could contribute to what you had [00:40:30] mentioned earlier about what you could do how you could be transformative in in the inequity struggles or medical struggles of people around the world.
David: So a couple of things come to mind. Number one is, one of the things that we [00:40:45] do outside of the us so much better than we do inside of the U S is decentralize the system, primarily because that you have to, so what do I mean by that specifically? So when I think about some of the [00:41:00] most effective things we do in medicine and health and public health, Outside of vaccines and things of that nature.
It's now actually what I'm talking about it is leveraging and working with community health workers. Why is that [00:41:15] important? It is important because these people, these community health workers live amongst the people that they're looking to accompany, they understand the struggle. They understand the cultural nuances.
They understand the language, they [00:41:30] are their neighbors, their sisters, their brothers, their uncles. They have lived with them in the same village, et cetera. There is an intimacy of knowledge and understanding that we, whoever we are, whether we're of the same culture and speak the same language we're living in a different geography or a different [00:41:45] socioeconomic class, we will never know those things as intimately as.
And so there have been unbelievable gains made and there's still more work to be done in working with community health workers, which has been going on for some time, but [00:42:00] gaining more and more tracker traction in not only preventing illness, really preventative care, et cetera, but also being able to treat illness ideally before people have to go to a medical facility, [00:42:15] keeping people out of the hospital, a great actually COVID is a great example of that as is a Ebola as is any transmissible infectious disease where, you know we, as outsiders, we know we need, part of it is contact tracing people, getting [00:42:30] exposed, talking to them, understanding prevention, I don't necessarily look like the people that might be trying to work with.
I don't speak the language when we can leverage community health workers and they can do that really intimate work and that tricky work and challenging work is just [00:42:45] so much more effective. And again, you're meeting people where they are, but also helping to prevent, spread and catching cases early. Not only in COVID.
But I was in west Africa for Ebola and it was just so much more [00:43:00] effective there. And we have, yes, we have community health worker programs here, and I will there's I won't throw any shade as the young people say. And and all of that, my kinfolk who are community health workers.
We just don't embrace it as a system here, medically there are many examples [00:43:15] in the world that do and do it well. And we just continue to insist on, are very old, antiquated, super expensive, AKA the most expensive in the world way to go about practicing medicine, which time and time again [00:43:30] is proven to be ineffective both on us on small scale, but also on large scale.
So I think that's certainly one of them. And I think the second thing I would say is.
I keep getting reminded of the need for humility and [00:43:45] it just keeps coming up. The most recent example is my reorientation internally. To not blame people who get sick because they don't take the vaccine. I will be real with you that impulse is there because I just don't. [00:44:00] I struggle.
I struggled to understand not why people don't get the vaccine in certain senses, but sometimes like the conspiracy theories and the thing that I just, I really struggled with that. I don't struggle with the access issues. I'm passionate about those things. I don't struggle with people who [00:44:15] have had traumatic experiences in the past.
I'm here for that and I rely on one, want to trust that is the other things. But at the end of the day, when a patient gets in front of me, none of that matters. I treat them as if they're the only person in the room and their life does matter, and I'm going to treat them and [00:44:30] help get them through this illness the best I can.
But it's also an important for it's important for me to understand that, my impulse is to judge, I can't judge. I just got to keep chipping away at helping people understand the value of vaccination, the value of, both the [00:44:45] individual value, but the collective value for all of us.
And in order to do that, I need to check my impulses, reorient, stay humble and meet people where they are. I'm I, I was [00:45:00] literally chomping at the bit trying to get into the front of the line at the hospital when they made the vaccine available, because I was, I had the privilege of being able to treat folks with COVID from the very beginning of our surge initial [00:45:15] surge.
This is in March of last year on the inpatient side of the academic teaching hospital I worked with and I saw all of it again, I was bearing witness. I was into trying to intervene, not just watch and trying to do what we do right. And save [00:45:30] lives. But I saw unbelievable loss. I saw horrible outcomes for it and things I would never wish on anybody.
And it was just the, and people, alone in rooms, dying just with clinicians holding their hand, which is great, but it's not their family. It's not their [00:45:45] loved ones or not. It just, and there, it was just all the things that you try to avoid it. And you see them. I haven't seen shades of that before because of the places that I've worked in the lack of access.
So it wasn't, I wasn't, [00:46:00] it wasn't a, I wasn't a stranger to those things, but I will say it was very different to work in the most resource rich place in the world and not have the things we need, [00:46:15] this cruel twist of fate that put us right in the crosshairs of this global pandemic and of the places that everyone would have anticipated would have been the best place to be were any type of global pandemic to happen.
It was [00:46:30] one of the worst. And so that was a really new and challenging experience. Not only for me, but for many of my colleagues. And I think part of that, those lessons are anything that is. And all of these [00:46:45] issues that we face, the inequity, the racism, the legacy of colonialism, the structural violence, all of these are forces so much bigger than ourselves.
And at the end of the day, you just got to put your head down, align [00:47:00] yourself on the right side of history, do the right thing and chip away, because it doesn't happen to, there is no big change often or almost ever. That happens overnight. It is really, you want to go to bed or, take your close your eyes.
And the last moments you have a life feeling I [00:47:15] worked hard to create change. I don't know if I created change, but if I created some change, I know that the folks after me are gonna pick up that torch and continue onwards and continue the legacy of doing these things that I think are, again, I think [00:47:30] bending the arc the moral are towards justice.
So that's what keeps me going. And that's the thing that I think I think about over and over again, as I continue thinking about the challenges here, in the Boston academic teaching hospitals, and then, again, the inevitable, [00:47:45] predictable and horrendous inequity that we see in all realms of health, outside of the U S in many places, but especially the access to vaccines.
On Renewal and Wellbeing [00:47:57]
Britt: So I want to ask you a little bit about. Renewal and [00:48:00] wellbeing and personal sustainability in all of this work. And I know that you recently took time out for yourself to be able to reflect and reflect deeply on not only the, I think the last year and all the intense experiences that you've [00:48:15] talked about, but perhaps even with a longer arc back.
And to whatever extent you feel comfortable, I wonder if you'd like to share a little bit about what either led you to that decision to take that time for yourself and also perhaps what you learned as a [00:48:30] result of taking that time.
David: Great question. And I will, so what you're referring to is exactly that I went on a pilgrimage is called the Camino de Santiago.
It is a very. Old pilgrimage a couple [00:48:45] thousand years old beginning in France, going, walking all the way through Spain to reach the Western edge of Spain in a city called Santiago, where the ashes of St. James are alleged to be entered. As I alluded [00:49:00] to earlier in this discussion, I didn't really, I don't, I'm not overly religious.
I was raised Catholic and I just like many folks who were raised Catholic. I have a lot of issues with Catholicism as an institution, but I went more because I [00:49:15] knew I was at a very significant moment in my life where I was going to hit a brick wall. If I didn't double down on. Thinking critically and executing self-care and caring for my mental health.
It isn't [00:49:30] just COVID was certainly part of it. There was a, it was a couple of years even antecedent to that, but I think part of what has made me successful, but clearly is a double-edged sword in an Achilles heel is things get tough, you put your head down, you just keep [00:49:45] going. You keep pushing, you keep doing the things. And not that they're in that moving forward. And in that, just putting your head down, there was little, if any room for me, there's lots of room for trying to [00:50:00] do the things that I've fully believed in and felt very passionately about.
But there was no room to create space for what I needed and recharging spiritually, emotionally, and from a mental health perspective. And so I did [00:50:15] half of the Caminos, I walked about 250 miles and the Northern edge of Spain just skirting the ocean.
And then, when I got closer to that, Santiago, you dip down into the inland areas and I really needed to, and I had the agency and the privilege that's [00:50:30] I wanna make that clear to hit the pause button and just get away. My partner was unbelievably supportive. And when I told her I only had three weeks, she was like, you should go longer than three weeks.
You need more than three weeks. But three weeks is what [00:50:45] I had. And I went on this journey and this journey for me was walking. And thinking and being I talked to you about being earlier with others. I have never, in my life [00:51:00] created space for me to be with me in a way that was intentional. And so this was the first time and, I didn't know what to expect.
I didn't want to create a set of false expectations that I would come back [00:51:15] transformed and this new David and all these other things. But I can tell you that the only thing I did for 16 days was wake up, get breakfast, walk 20 plus miles, [00:51:30] get to my next destination, rest a little bit, go to bed, get up walk.
And those, when I say walk, I was walking, but it was characterized by just deep reflection and. [00:51:45] Thinking both inward and backwards and forwards, but I really needed to be in introspective and take this time, walking through nature, walking, looking at the ocean, walking through the forest and [00:52:00] just be with myself. And it was the most healing and nurturing experience that I've had. And not everyone can take, two and a half weeks to walk 250 miles across Spain.
[00:52:15] But what I will tell you is my takeaway is wow. Okay. There is a better version of myself waiting on the other side. Of being intentional about my healing, about introspection, [00:52:30] about meditation and treating myself with as much vigor, but treating those aspects of myself with as much vigor and ambition as I do, trying to, fight inequity in this world.
And, you come back to your life [00:52:45] because you hit the pause button and everything is different and you're back in the rat race as it were. But, I'm doing better at taking that intentionality and those experiences that I learned there and inculcating them into my life as I can here, it isn't as easy as it was there, but. [00:53:00] I can certainly be much better at creating space for myself and being intentional about that and carrying that forward and reaping the benefits they're in. So really I think a pivotal moment for me in learning how to be a better [00:53:15] human to myself and for myself in the years that I have left in this life.
Mya: Wow. Yeah.
On Transforming Medical Education [00:53:23]
Yeah. I know that we don't have a lot of time left, but if you could retool, for a place like [00:53:30] Harvard, that's always rethinking its curriculum. What would you like to see in medical training that would help? Because it sounded like a lot of the qualities were specific to you as an individual versus something that you learned right. Through [00:53:45] school or training. And is that even possible? This next generation that has inspired you in so many different ways can also take care of themselves as well as others.
David: That's a great question. And there are many people working on these things now. So I give [00:54:00] them credit for trying to solve these issues. I think that the primary challenge of medical education is to fill the cup of these folks who have decided to choose this as their life's path with the beauty of humanity right? [00:54:15] Now, it strips it away, absolutely strips away. You plug the hole, you strip it away and you plug some holes back, but you build, you strip it away and then you put, what do you replace it with? You replace it with. Working and you replace it with knowledge, medical knowledge, and you paste an ethics class here and you paste a few other classes [00:54:30] there. I think things are changing for the better, but I think fundamentally, what does it mean to address someone's humanity and what are the, and then you, to me, you work backwards from there.
What does it mean to create an inclusive environment that we don't do a great [00:54:45] job of in medicine when you're working with someone, what does it mean to recognize them as their authentic self? What does it mean to actually see people and understand. Their perspectives in the ways in which they experienced it. How do we, [00:55:00] resocialize our clinicians to think about those things and therefore, and then therefore in that sort of interacted very differently than they otherwise would because we are in large part [00:55:15] socialized in a lot of difficult and harmful, really damaging ways. And then we, that plays out in our clinical interactions. What I would say is learn to teach humanity, like what does it mean to be [00:55:30] human and the experience of being a human and in every single aspect of that. We have a big challenge to reorient our systems to function that way because it's compassionate and empathic and amazing. I might, as [00:55:45] I might be, not me personally, but it's, a persona as a clinician, the system is really designed to not facilitate those things. It's designed primarily for, in my opinion, economic output as a large cofactor in [00:56:00] what keeps the engine going. And I think there need to be other inputs and other outputs that we actually really prioritize.
Britt: So we've come to the end of our time with David. I want to thank you there've been so many times where I felt like we were in some ways [00:56:15] walking along the path and going on a little bit of a pilgrimage together both through your own journey but also connecting it to my own.
So thank you so much for sharing all of these insights. And I think we got you at the right time only days after [00:56:30] returning and having all of these fresh reflections right there to share.
David: Absolutely my pleasure. And, you have caught me at a very reflective time, but I think it's a time that for me, will carry forward to, how I think about [00:56:45] things moving forward, how I want to evolve and change and continue to learn moving forward, because. I got a lot to learn. And I also feel like I have a lot to do, and I hope together we also have a lot to do to [00:57:00] make this world a better place. And I don't say that tritely. I say that with every fiber of my being, because there's a lot of things that we need to work on that I think are very pretty scary and are big thorny [00:57:15] issues.
But I think, one of my final thoughts, this would be hope is what keeps me going. I have very challenging days like everybody else, but if I didn't fundamentally believe that we, I can play a small part and the, we can [00:57:30] play the biggest part in creating a world that we really want to live in. And that it's the right place for our children and their children's children, I would be doing something else. As hard as this work is. And the other people who are doing all the other incredibly challenging [00:57:45] and difficult work we're on the right side of history. It is a belief that we are doing something that is going to benefit others greater than it benefits ourselves.
And that's what keeps me going day in and day out, despite the challenges that [00:58:00] not only I face, but others face on a daily basis.
Mya: So much resonance. And both your story and your perspective inspire, encourage other people who might be in the middle of medical school and wondering, what am I doing here? And who have [00:58:15] similar people oriented perspectives and desires to want to do things that impact the lives of others for better.
And so I wish we could keep talking. I do know that the next time I am in Boston, I will look you up. And I am excited to [00:58:30] see where these the post pilgrimage reflections take you in magnifying the next steps of your journey of what you imagine the world to be able to be and what you can do as part of it. So thank you so much.
David: Thank you. I feel like I was [00:58:45] in communion with you all, and this was just a fantastic conversation and I will absolutely take you up on that offer for a meeting up in Boston. Don't be a stranger to the east coast.
Reflection [00:58:55] [00:59:00]Mya: A lot of things that are percolating in my mind from that conversation, as somebody who does equity and inclusion work, it's [00:59:15] just really interesting to hear from somebody who's driven by things that I feel like are similar to me. And also because I often feel like I don't meet as many people who are explicitly looking or interested in those things. And so to talk to somebody who's [00:59:30] doing it from a health perspective Was just interesting. And then also to hear the things that resonated with him, whether it's bearing witness, that really resonated with me and this idea of humanity. Seeing people as human [00:59:45] beings first. That's at the core of what I teach in my trainings are based on. It's encouraging and building my confidence as well. To know that there are like-minded people. And so that from off-track on purpose, making me feel like there are people with a [01:00:00] similar purpose. So that's really cool.
Britt: What a remarkable human being David is not only for his external facing accomplishments of All the things that he's done the work that he's made possible and the lives he's touched but also just the deep reflective [01:00:15] just very honest exploration of self. We could have talked for hours. I think, the thing that really strikes me too is the clarity of these particular times in his life were almost like a, to some degree, like a sliding door moment where if things had [01:00:30] gone differently perhaps he would not be in the place that he is. And if we just use that example with the calculus class, which is quite a dramatic story, If that professor had reacted differently and just said, [01:00:45] sorry, I'm holding the line here. And you, if you're going to fail this final and you're going to get a C or a D or whatever, and treated like you'll learn your lesson. So the next time you'll make sure to check your calendar twice. And different approach leading [01:01:00] to a different set of outcomes. But that professor chose a different path and was able to hold him in that experience in a different way. It truly was life-changing .
Mya: What's interesting about those moments too is they weren't his alone, there [01:01:15] were other people that were a part of it. So it's not just David's response to what is happening, but also those people who whether intentionally or unintentionally, made choices to handle the moment in the way they did.
Changed his life. and that [01:01:30] makes me think about, when people are like, why do invest in people or, why do you care about people when you don't know if that's ever going to become something right. And you do it. People are worth it.
And he [01:01:45] mentioned that too, when people come to his office, he doesn't, blame them. He doesn't, say, oh you have this because you did this. He still looks at them as fundamentally human beings that deserve care. And. I think, your [01:02:00] comment as a remarkable human being, It's somebody who really genuinely cares about and centers people in. In his experience of what he does it's unique and it's remarkable. And then it's exhausting, [01:02:15] right? Like he said, he would hit a brick wall. And if we think about the people in our lives who are potentially like that and Checking in or seeing how they're doing or just creating the space for them to be like, I need to breathe or I need to take care of myself.
I think there are a lot of [01:02:30] lessons there that, people can take away from just that sort of reflection and understanding of oneself. And also that these things don't happen in a vacuum. They happen in community with others and as the others, we should also be [01:02:45] cognizant and aware of that as well.
Britt: I think a very prominent theme that weaves through just about every conversation that we've had. On the pod has been this acknowledgement of learning and how whether it's called a learning posture or a learning orientation [01:03:00] or a commitment to learning. I think all of our guests have spoke to just what it means to be in a place of not knowing because that's the space of learning.
That place of clarity and assuredness [01:03:15] often being the road to mishaps and. And he's no different, I suppose if you were to create some caricature of the, in the world of the place, like the one institution of where knowledge reign Supreme, it would be Harvard [01:03:30] medical school.
And so to have gone through that training and to maintain that level of curiosity and openness is no small thing.
Mya: And there's the classroom learning, right? The training that he got and then his learning out in the world and [01:03:45] both types, he allowed and permitted to change him right.
In different ways. And so I think something that might get lost when we talk about learning and, new knowledge and new information is that. That learning has the potential to [01:04:00] change and to change our perspectives. And we're not always comfortable with that, but I think for all of our the people that we've talked to, they've been open to learning and allowing it to change them.
Not always comfortably, but engaging in [01:04:15] that change which is encouraging because it means that we can change as human beings, we can grow and to hear people talk about it. And that they're all, so in the space where that's continuing to happen is that it's not a fixed point.
It's not [01:04:30] just when you're in school either. So that's the kind of stuff that gives me hope and inspires, the belief that things can be better.
Britt: I don't know about you, but I'm ready to go for a walk, maybe not 200 miles, but... [01:04:45]