In this episode of the Resonance Podcast, hosts Sydney Larsen and Aruni Areti sit down with Dr. Peter Hotez, physician-scientist, pediatrician, vaccine developer, and Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. He traces his path from an MD-PhD student in New York to developing vaccines that have reached millions of people around the world and speaks on the growing challenge of anti-vaccine misinformation and what it’s meant for his life and work. Along the way, the conversation turns to mentorship, storytelling, and what keeps someone going after decades in the field. 

Dr. Ricardo Nuila, a hospitalist and faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine, discusses his background, including his upbringing in Houston, education at Georgetown University, and medical training at Baylor. He highlights his role as director of the Humanities Expression and Arts Lab (HEAL) at Baylor, which aims to integrate humanities into medical education to combat burnout. Nuila's book, "The People's Hospital," explores the history and current state of American healthcare, particularly at Ben Taub, a public hospital serving underserved populations. He emphasizes the importance of human connection in medicine and the need for a public healthcare option.

In this episode, we talk to Dr. Thao Galvan, transplant surgeon and associate professor of surgery in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at BCM, about the role of mentorship in academic medicine. We discuss her journey to transplant surgery, her work across disciplines from ethics and policy advocacy to basic science research and innovation, how mentors have supported her throughout her career, and how she mentors students, residents, and fellows now.

Ms. Stacy Nigliazzo, a nurse and operations administrator with an instructor role for Baylor College of Medicine’s Humanities Expression & Arts Lab (HEAL) joins us to discuss the lasting connection that can be fostered through the practice of Narrative Medicine. She shares scientific data, techniques, and personal examples of how Narrative Medicine and art can not only improve the clinician experience but also foster a deeper human connection between provider and patient. We also dive into how these principles are being implemented and practiced at Baylor College of Medicine as a part of medical school curriculum design to better equip our next generation of physicians. 

In this episode of Resonance, Gianni Calderara and Nithya Erabelli sit down with Dr. Paige Reed, an interventional radiologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center, to discuss her journey into IR, the variety and creativity of the field, and the unique opportunities it offers for patient care, procedural innovation, and research. Dr. Reed shares insights into her daily work, mentorship experiences, and the evolving role of women in IR. She offers advice for medical students and aspiring radiologists on finding their passion, building meaningful careers, and navigating the challenges of medical training. Listeners also get a glimpse of Dr. Reed’s personal interests, from horseback riding to cooking, highlighting the balance between professional fulfillment and life outside medicine. 

Dr. Atul Maheshwari, neurologist, educator and Assistant Dean of Curriculum at Baylor College of Medicine joins us to unpack the neuroscience of learning. He explains what’s really happening in our brains when we study and how understanding those principles can make us better learners. We also dive into how these principles shaped the design of BCM’s new medical curriculum, linking the science of learning to the challenge of training the next generation of physicians. 

In this episode, we chat with Dr. Galant Chan, assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and program director for the internal medicine residency program, about her journey to academic medicine. We reflect on the evolution of the Baylor community, trace the history of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, and explore the future challenges and opportunities in academic medicine and clinical education.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Jesus Martin Maldonado, a distinguished child and adolescent psychiatrist with over 40 years of experience, to explore the profound impact childhood experiences have on mental health. Dr. Maldonado shares his expertise on child psychiatry, emphasizing the importance of understanding the child’s environment, including family dynamics and school interactions, in diagnosing and treating psychiatric conditions. He discusses the value of play therapy as a unique tool for connecting with children and uncovering their emotional worlds, as well as the crucial role of family therapy in fostering better communication and healing. Together, we delve into the evolving landscape of psychiatry, including the challenges posed by social media and technology, and the importance of empathy, patience, and relationship-building in nurturing young minds.

Gianmarco Calderara:

Hello, and thanks for listening to Resonance podcast, a podcast run by medical and graduate students at Baylor College of Medicine, where we interview clinicians, faculty, and researchers about their work in an effort to promote health, education, and ingenuity. My name is Gianni Calderara. I am a fourth-year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine, and I'm going to be co-hosting this episode today with my co-student and one of my close friends, Ryan Sorensen.

Ryan Sorensen: 

Nice to join you today, Gianni.

Gianmarco Calderara:

Ryan is going to be leading us through a conversation with Dr. Andrew Lee. I'm just going to give a brief introduction to Dr Lee. So, Dr Lee is the Herb and Jean Lyman Centennial Chair in Ophthalmology, and he's also the founding Chairman of the Blanton Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology at Houston Methodist Hospital. He's also a professor of ophthalmology, neurology, and neurosurgery at Weill Cornell Medicine, and an adjunct professor of ophthalmology at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas A&M, The University of Iowa, and the University of Buffalo. Dr. Lee has been an American Academy of Ophthalmology member for over 25 years. He has served in various leadership roles. He's also a past president and current chairman of the board of the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society. He's authored over 500 peer-reviewed publications, has written a few textbooks, and has given a whole bunch of named lectures. He also has a very large YouTube presence with over 80,000 subscribers. So, Ryan introduced me to Dr Lee. Ryan, could you tell us a little bit about how you first met Dr. Lee and sort of how this podcast came about? 

Ryan Sorensen:

Yeah, Dr. Lee is one of my mentors. I'm interested in ophthalmology, and he's a neuro-ophthalmologist. I met him my first year of medical school, actually at an event that he was presenting on building our brand for residency applications, which is the

subject of our podcast today. And since then, I've been on multiple research projects with him and helped with his YouTube channel. It's really been a pleasure to get to work with him over the years, and I'm really grateful to have him as a mentor. 

Gianmarco Calderara:

Yeah, and like Ryan said, this episode is going to be all about preparing for residency applications, which are coming up later in the fall. Dr. Lee's going to be talking to us sort of about building our brand for residency and how we can sort of sell ourselves to programs and what we want our message to be, and how we can go about conveying that message in the best way possible. I'm excited to hear from him, and I think it'll be a good episode. So, without further ado, let’s hear from Dr Lee. 

Ryan Sorensen:

All right, let's get to it.

Gianmarco Calderara:

All right. Well, Dr Lee, thank you so much for being here and agreeing to do this with us. I was really excited to hear about this topic from Ryan because I know applications are kind of, you know, around the corner, and I'm very excited for my own personal learning and some strategies I'm going to get just from a personal point of view. So, thank you so much for being here and taking the time to do this with us. 

Dr. Lee:

Thanks for having me.

Ryan Sorensen:

Yeah, we're excited. We were just going over the introduction earlier, and I told Gianni that this is a really special opportunity for both of us just to sit down with you and get some insight into applying to residency programs. So, if you don't mind, we'll just get right into the questions. First, if you can just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what got you interested in ophthalmology and how you ended up in Houston.

Dr. Lee:

So, I'm from Charleston, West Virginia, but I went to the University of Virginia for medical school and college, and then I chose to come to Houston for residency. I was at Baylor College of Medicine for ophthalmology residency and was the chief resident. And in my chief year, my chairman decided that I would come back and join the faculty when I finished at Johns Hopkins in neuro-ophthalmology. And so I did. I was on the faculty at Baylor for 10 years, and then we were 10 years at the University of Iowa before we decided to come back to Houston, and I became the Chair of the Blanton Eye Institute here at Houston Methodist Hospital.

Ryan Sorensen:

All right, thank you. Can you tell us a little bit about why you're interested in academic medicine and why you chose to do academic medicine over private medicine?

Dr. Lee:

So I think, like most people who choose academics, you're going into it for clinical care, education, and research. But for me, the thing that keeps me in academic medicine is getting the chance to work with wonderful young people like yourselves. And there's nothing more rewarding for a teacher than to see the success of their students, professionally and personally. And so that's what keeps me going every day and keeps me in the game.

Gianmarco Calderara:

And I know we talked a little bit about your YouTube channel that you have. I talked a little bit about how I watched some of those videos my first year of medical school. Where did that idea come from and how did that YouTube channel start?

Dr. Lee:

So, over the years I've learned that young people learn differently than when I was a medical student, and young people of today want things that are quick. They like video formats, they want the information now and on-demand, and they don't want to go to the library. And so for me, it was a learning experience of my own to reframe my teaching style to meet those needs of the modern learner, short, digestible video vignettes about focused topics that are less than three minutes. It turned out to be the most rewarding thing that I've done in the education space in a long time because that YouTube channel has 6 million views and 80,000 subscribers, which is way more than any paper or any book I've ever written in my whole career. 

Gianmarco Calderara:

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about sort of your experience, you know, interviewing residency applicants and kind of just looking over applications over the years? 

Dr. Lee:

So as an interviewer, what we're looking for is two things, "fit" and "fitness." They're not the same thing, even though they sound similar. Fitness is what you bring to the table as an applicant, your credentials, your scores, your grades, your CV, your extracurricular activities, and that determines your fitness. And because there are so many applicants to ophthalmology, almost everybody has fitness. What we're looking for in the interview is not fitness. We're looking for fit. And for fit, what we're looking for is alignment with our value system. But also, can I see myself working with this person every day for three years, and is this the kind of person that I would want to see out in the community and be proud of. So for me, our product in academics, and education especially, is people. And so what we're looking for is fit and a good product. 

Gianmarco Calderara:

So I guess kind of what we're talking about today on this podcast is really fit. We're really honing in on how we can kind of optimize our fit as applicants. And I guess at this point, when you are, you know, applying, your fitnes...

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Mollie Gordon, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and founder of the nation's first psychiatry fellowship dedicated to treating human trafficking survivors. Dr. Gordon shares insight from her research and advocacy efforts aimed at combating human trafficking, both domestically and internationally. She provides practical guidance on identifying victims of human trafficking as well as next steps for clinicians once a victim is identified.

Dr. Charu Agrawal is an assistant professor in the Hematology Oncology Department at the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. In this episode, she shares her experience working as a palliative care physician and her journey through medicine. She discusses the challenges and rewards of palliative medicine while highlighting the importance of holistic end-of-life care.