#368 - Beware the Satisfied Man: A Conversation with Dr. Steve Abman (NeoHeart Special 2025)

Hello friends 👋

In this special episode recorded live at the NeoHeart Conference 2025 in San Diego, California, Ben and Daphna sit down with Dr. Steve Abman, the Dr. John Patrick Cleary Living with Legends Keynote Address Speaker. A true leader in pediatric medicine, Dr. Abman serves as Professor of Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine, Co-Director of the Pediatric Pulmonary Hypertension Program, Director of the Pediatric Heart and Lung Center, and President of the American Pediatric Society.

Through candid reflection and storytelling, Dr. Abman discusses his journey from social activism to medicine, his mentors who shaped his path, and the power of collaboration in improving outcomes for children with cardiopulmonary disease. He reminds us that the future of neonatology depends on staying curious, working together, and keeping the baby—and the family—at the center of every decision.

This conversation is an inspiring reminder that science advances not just through data, but through generosity, humility, and shared purpose.

Link to episode on youtube: https://youtu.be/tZ60p97bqT4

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Short Bio: Dr. Steven Abman is Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Pediatric Heart Lung Center (PHLC) at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado.  Having completed fellowhsip training in Pediatric Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Dr. Abman has maintained strong translational research and clinical interests in neonatal lung injury, lung vascular development, pulmonary hypertension, chronic lung disease in the newborn (bronchopulmonary dysplasia, BPD), pulmonary hypertension, and related topics.  He has received uninterrupted NIH-funding for research and training grants throughout his academic career. Dr. Abman founded and was past Director the Pediatric Pulmonary Hypertension Network (PPHNet) and was one of the co-founders and is Vice-Chair of the international BPD Collaborative. He is currently a co-leader of the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute (PVRI) Pediatric Task Force.  He recently completed his tenure as President of the American Pediatric Society (APS). His work has been recognized through several national awards as recipient of the Outstanding Investigator Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics (1998), the E. Mead Johnson Award of the SPR (1999), the Distinguished Achievement Award of the American Thoracic Society (ATS; 2015), the Maureen Andrew Mentorship Award from the SPR (2015), the Mary Ellen Avery Award (2016) from the APS and SPR, and the Arvo Yllpo Medal Award from Finland (2017).   Dr. Abman has extensive mentorship experience and leading NHLBI T32 training programs for Academic Training in Pediatric Pulmonary Diseases and currently the Multicenter Training Program in Pediatric Pulmonary Vascular Disease.

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The transcript of today's episode can be found below 👇

Ben Courchia

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the incubator podcast. This week, we're bringing you something a little different, a special recording from this summer's NeoHeart conference in San Diego, California, where Daphna and I had the honor of sitting down with Dr. Steve Abmann. Dr. Abmann was this year's Dr. John Patrick Cleary, Living with Legends keynote address speaker. And it was such a privilege to have this conversation with him at the USS Midway with an amazing audience and a great venue. Dr. Abman is a professor of pediatric pulmonary medicine. He's the co-director of the Pediatric Pulmonary Hypertension Program. He's the founder of the Ventilator Care Program. He's the director of the Patient Heart and Lung Center at the University of Colorado. He also founded and directs the Pediatric Pulmonary Hypertension Network. He co-heads the pediatric task force of the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute and is the founder and executive board member of the BPD Collaborative and currently serves as the president of the American Pediatric Society. mean, his accomplishments are a mile long. Dr. Abman's impact on our field is profound and his work has shaped how we understand and care for children with pulmonary hypertension and bronchopulmonary dysplasia. In our conversation, we had the chance to reflect on his remarkable career, his perspective on mentorship and the evolving landscape of neonatal and pediatric pulmonary care. We're excited to share this interview with you recorded live at NeoHeart 2025. So without further ado, here's our conversation with Dr. Steve Appen.

Hello, good evening everybody. We're Ben and Daphna. We're the host of the Incubator podcast. We host a podcast that, where we review the latest evidence in unitology and interview a lot of the people in this audience tonight. So thank you for giving us this opportunity. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or on our website at the-incubator.org. Enough of the shtick. We are super honored and proud to be the catalyst of this event where we honor Dr. Steve Abman. Steve is a leading figure in pediatric healthcare. holds several distinguished roles that highlight his dedication to improving the lives of children with complex respiratory and cardiac conditions. As a director of the Pediatric Heart Lung Center and the co-director of the Pediatric Pulmonary Hypertension Program, he spearheads innovations, innovative research, and treatment. His role as co-head of the pediatric task force and at the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute. He's also the director of the Ventilator Care Program, the founder and director of the Pediatric Pomerania Hypertension Network and the founder and executive board member of the BPD Collaborative. All this demonstrates his commitment to advancing care and as president of the American Pediatric Society, Dr. Adman's leadership and advocacy continues to shape the future of pediatric medicine. We're very excited to invite Dr. Abman on stage, and I hope that you will appreciate his humility, his leadership, and the accomplishments that he's able to do over the course of his career. Dr. Abman.

We're going to invite you to take a seat. Yeah, and then maybe you can tell us the story of this helmet Because as you disclosed to us before the the event you did not fly Planes in the in the Air Force

Dr. Steve Abman

No, I didn't. In fact, I think this such an amazing venue tonight and I just can't thank all the organizers, Amir, Victor and their whole team for putting this together. What could be better than sunset on the Midway in San Diego? Beautiful weather, beautiful venue. And wow, this is fantastic. The piece that I was thinking of, my wife and Carolyn is here. Carolyn, do want to stand up for a minute? I have to embarrass you. Carolyn has been amazingly supportive for me throughout my career and I think it finally paid off tonight. She met Tom Cruise. So I think we're even now is that right? Getting closer. Okay. The other thing is Carol is an OB. And one of the patients that she delivered many moons ago is a neonatal nurse practitioner in Denver. And they became very, very close. They still work together. And her husband, the neonatal nurse practitioner was the real deal. He was an Air Force flight pilot with many exciting experiences and she gave Carolyn this flight jacket and the helmet. And the reason why I'm showing it today is that as much as we really celebrate on the Midway and what the Midway means to us in many ways, I really want to make sure that we give proper acknowledgement of our support and the sacrifices that were made by our veterans, by those who really serve, whose airplanes you see here, how they landed them under adverse conditions, how they fought for our peace and security. And so this is really an honor of him and other veterans. And we may disagree a lot about different politics and have conflicts over things. But the commitment that those folks have made is extraordinary. Being here today, I want to make sure that we acknowledge that as we celebrate what's going on with neonatology, its advances, and all these other things. So that's really why I'm wearing this jacket and brought the helmet as well as by way of saying thank you and our recognition of those folks.

Ben Courchia

That's terrific. That's great. Dr. Abman, I feel like you had some remarks prepared where you wanted to maybe honor Dr. John Cleary.

Dr. Steve Abman

Yes, I think we heard such a wonderful tribute from Amir of Dr. John Patrick Cleary. What he has done, I mean, his dedication to children, improving their outcomes, his devotion, forming the NeoHeart meeting that he did so successfully with Amir and Victor, where he speaks mightily about who he was. And really, this is what the event is about. I'm so happy that I'm here to help out with things. This is really honoring him and his legacy so nicely spoke about it has his skills, his talents, his values and integrity that we want to see passed on in our community. And the fact is we are a community together. We grow together. And I think to me this meeting has made that happen. And I think that's what our goal should be. As we learn from each other, we improve how we care for kids at our institutions, but we form this community of collaborators that do team science and team care together. And I think that he really embodies that and so I really dedicate my remarks to him. I know that Neoheart is dedicated to him as well and I think that's the spirit I think that's so important to transmit here.

Ben Courchia

That's great, thank you. My first question for you today really centers around that. mean, I think for us it is an honor to speak to you today in this particular venue at NeoHeart, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. What does this milestone mean to you, especially given your long-standing commitment to neonatal and pediatric cardiopulmonary care?

Dr. Steve Abman

Well, I think that the 10 years and what this conference has done has been extraordinary. Number one, number two, I think the important thing is this, that too often we've siloed off our specialties as opposed to being focused on problem solving with our individual patients. And so NICUs were closed off often to the rest of the world, like our pediatric ICUs tended to be that way. And although they're in the same hospital sometimes, there wasn't a lot of crosstalk. There wasn't even crosstalk between those who survived and graduated from NICU care to ambulatory settings. And that continues today, Adults who were prematurely born still have major health problems. Many of them respiratory, they could be cardiovascular, there are a lot of mental health and stress and anxiety issues that have been underserved and long underappreciated. And so there are steps that that represents that we could do better and the NeoHeart meeting has helped us by opening the doors with neonatology and pediatric cardiologists, maybe a pulmonologist every so often or intensivists, But the idea that you're talking to nurse practitioners who have the bedside wisdom and they're part of engagement and rounds. The fact that we have therapists, respiratory therapy has been extraordinary and their skills really make such a huge difference. So we are teams in our institution and I think NeoHeart reinforces that message that we are trying to solve problems of the sickest of our newborns, improving their health and outcomes, communicating well with families along the way and that we do that best as a team that's multidisciplinary, engaged with regularity on the care. In the old days, for example, of a cardiologist doing an echo and saying, you, are over. And the idea of targeted neo echo at the bedside, integrating cardiovascular care with pulmonary care with the specialties has been amazing. I used to always start my talks about the lung circulation by saying, we're the poor cousin of the airway. And no longer. You know, now I think we're seeing such remarkable advances. And it's not because we necessarily have a magic bullet to cure disease. We still need to work on stuff. But the fact that people are talking to each other, exchanging ideas, and doing the best they can to enhance practice.

Daphna Barbeau

Thank you. That was wonderful. Before all of your titles and accomplishments, and we heard many, many, many, a long, long list, were there certain questions or ideas or experiences that first sparked your interest in science or medicine, and especially in pediatrics? 

Dr. Steve Abman

Wow, that's quite a question. Well, know, I would have entitled this as my origin story that Amir and Victor wanted us to talk about in some ways. So today will not be about medicine research per say, but rather, they asked me, how did I end up doing what I'm doing? And it made me kind of scratch my head and think about this quite a bit. How the heck did this happen? I was never a Johnny Science Fair out of junior high school or college and it happened in sort of a different way, in ways that were not predicted. So life is not linear. Opportunities come up, and it's really embracing the unexpected, I guess, is the theme of this, beginning very early. early on, boy, I'm the child of an immigrant who came over as a young boy with his father and two brothers. Their mother had been murdered in programs, came over to Chicago, which was not easy in Chicago, worked Maxwell Street, you may have seen Blues Brothers, they have a big scene in Maxwell Street where they have little carts selling things and they sold slippers there and my dad never even finished high school. He served in the military to have a paycheck to send back to his father and brothers and so he was he was the one who taught me many things about life, many things to appreciate of what it means to give and I'm still learning from the memories of him of how to use opportunity and to grow and how to give back. I dedicate a lot of my work and things and think about him quite a bit that way. 

Now the whole idea of what to do career-wise, I was really a late bloomer in terms of interest in medicine. I was really engaged in high school with many other things. I was kind of a jock. did football, wrestling, and track. All those sports, I didn't do any of them well, which is why I picked three of them. But along those lines, I also developed interests in the issues that were going on in the late 60s we had the Vietnam war, we had a women's lib, we also had issues related to Jim Crow and racism and civil rights. And so while I was a jock mostly, I got involved with developing in my high school a social awareness club We had the Pep Club, you know all the little things for jocks and everything like, but we had a social awareness club to get engaged in community issues, get engaged in protests and demonstrations against the war, to promote some of the policies that could help with the underrepresented. And so I did that in a way because I had skills in photography. And early on, because of that, I got involved with Jesse Jackson when he came to Chicago. He was part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and started Operation Breadbasket and Push in Chicago. So he came on weekends, they're a photographer. I'd go down to their meetings. When they had demonstrations, I'd photograph the people visiting in those settings. And it got me deeply engaged in civil rights issues. So I went off to college thinking I would end up being in poli-sci or government or something like that. And early on I met another key person in my life. It was Paul Wellstone. And Paul Wellstone was a professor at Carleton College. And he was amazing. He had hair out to here. He had biceps. He was a big eight wrestler in the old days. But Paul was so devoted to working with the public policy issues that I got to work with him early on in college. And we planned a bus. went down to Mississippi, for example students from Minnesota to develop the first some poll watching, voter registration, because it was the first slate of black candidates running in Mississippi. And we stayed with some of the families in the community while working. They would get pulled over. are blacks and whites driving together and things like that? Nothing bad physically ever happened there. But we were in, it was pretty interesting. But what struck me coming back and talking with Paul was that I was far more interested in the folks we lived with, the folks I met, their culture down south, what their backgrounds were, and far more interested than government or public policy. So Paul, in his wisdom, and we had done a lot of stuff together with protests and things, he said, you know, Steve, this is not for you. And it was really his influence that said, what do I really want to do that will make a difference? And that's the first time I ever thought of, I were a doctor, if I could provide healthcare, I could learn about other cultures, provide hands-on services. I thought that would be living the high life. At the time, I thought science was kind of boring. Do I really want to do that? And so Paul gave me that advice by telling me that I was kind of failing with these things, but it really helped redirect and got me to know myself and what I wanted to do.

Then what followed was I did spend a summer as a college student working in a laboratory. Never had done science before. Harry Jacob, who is head of hematology oncology at Minnesota, he offered me a position, head of little funding, from a family with a child with a blood disease called hereditary spherocytosis. It's hard for me to even say today. HS. And so I met the child, I met the family, and suddenly it made sense to me why we do research. Here's a child with a disease we've got to do better. And you couldn't beat me out of the lab with a baseball bat that summer. And I was doing terrible things. was mouth pipetting radioactive labeled stuff, unsupervised. But it was such an experience. And that really connected me with science and health care and really paved the way of why I went into pediatrics, why I went into medicine, and why I like the blend of science with clinical care.

Ben Courchia

This is such an interesting story because I think that in an era where medicine is sometimes, as you mentioned earlier, feels still a bit siloed. How do we ensure that as we are trying to collaborate more and more, that our collaborative efforts always keep the baby at the center? And I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit of what does that look like in practice?

Dr. Steve Abman

Yeah, well, number one, sometimes we have to put our egos aside. That is, we might not know exactly the right thing to do, but together we could be better problem solvers and make the baby the center of what we're doing. So when we're rounding with different specialists, we don't have to outsmart any of them or prove them wrong that my way was right. We have to open the door of communicating and sharing language, sharing the same mission. And that's where, again, getting back to NeoHeart, what this meeting means, It does that and having the targeted new echo for example the bedside where you really know the baby You know the family you know the ventilator. You know what the course has been It's not just an echo and see you later But rather you could then work with cardiology and together with regular conferences at the bedside meetings Regular meetings to go into detail about strategies come up with the best of ideas and see if they work together you learn together and to me that's the spirit of community that's really needed to really enhance the outcome of our kid. And again, NeoHeart's a way of getting there.

Ben Courchia

For those of you who are looking at Daphna and I passing messages, during incubator recording, we can text each other. And we do a lot of this stuff on the fly. So we don't have that privilege here. So you'll see us passing notes and stuff. And that's our process. So thank you for being forgiving.

Daphna Barbeau

Collaboration is certainly a recurring theme to all of the people. For those of you who don't know, we've been interviewing some of your colleagues for the last few weeks to months. again, collaboration is one of the recurring themes, of course. Dr. Feynman told us Steve brought folks together, always working together through efforts like the PPH Network, which of course started with 13 centers How did you cultivate this collaborative spirit in a field that's been fixated on competition? 

Dr. Steve Abman

Yeah, you know, think we sometimes are mistaken because I think sometimes it goes to help in medicine.You know, we train that for each class you take as an undergrad, you have to have the highest score and do that consistently. It's you against the rest of the class. And you get enough of those boxes checked, you can get, you have a career in medicine. And unfortunately, I think that spills over into when you actually become a resident fellow and physician. And I'm sure it's true for other professions too. I'm really talking about the doctor now, but beyond medical school. And so the idea of breaking away from that mold and saying we're in this together, really do something good about health care and outcomes, and that it's not a zero sum game. If you get a grant, doesn't mean I can't get a grant. If you're right about what to do from this given echo finding, then I can't be right. Breaking down the barriers simply starts with communicating and listening and supporting each other. And developing an attitude of challenge and be challenged is a good thing. When people disagree with me, I love it. You know, it's not personal. How could we together figure this darn thing out to get smarter, better, do better research? Search from the bedside to the laboratory and vice versa. Have those translational conversations. And how would I've learned at my center programmatically, what does it look like at your center? And together can we learn from everybody's experience to do even more better, I guess, with team care and team science.

Ben Courchia

One of the themes that came back when we spoke to lot of your colleagues, mentees, is the one of generosity. And I'm wondering what are your thoughts on what you think, what is the role of generosity in the pursuit of good science and compassionate care?

Dr. Steve Abman

It's all about, I think that should be the centerpiece. It should be the centerpiece for all of our lives and everything we do. You know, you can think about it in terms of the word kindness. What we do daily, little kind acts that we do are more value to us than they are necessarily for what you might be doing on that day in that small way. Generosity in science is the same thing. You give out an idea openly and see that idea being advanced. And so together you do far better than keeping it locked in because you want to write your grant, your paper, your abstract, be the first to do it, and you cannot talk across poor boundaries. And so way with those kind of boundaries, I think, is really a misunderstanding of why we do what we do. For example, of my folks that I think the most of, and you know these people, Alan Job. Alan Job has been fantastic, and he's been my role model showing generosity of spirit Every symposium he's in, every time he hears research, he comes up with a creative idea, gives up the idea. It hasn't been his career, I don't think. Jeffrey Witsit in the laboratory, also from Cincinnati. Jeff, he developed transgenic mouse models of you name. And never did he say, have IP on these. You can't have them until I publish X, Y, and Z. He made his animals available to everybody, gave them feedback. And look what Alan and Jeff have done in clinical neonatology in terms of understanding the developing lung and its biology. Those are kind of folks that I think we should try to emulate because they really bring out this message of generosity. 

Daphna Barbeau

And it's been stated not just that you're generous with your time and your intellect, but also towards your community. So Dr. Feynman also mentioned a charming story about you and your son Ryan, about how when Ryan was a little boy, he noticed people standing at the bus stop outside your house in Denver and asked why they didn't have a bench while waiting for the bus. And in response, two of you built a bench for the neighborhood together. So this is obviously a simple but deeply thoughtfull act of generosity. How does that explain the way you approach generosity in terms of community and caring for patients?

Dr. Steve Abman

I have to say it's really the drinks of Ryan you're talking about, but the bench wasn't quite right, but it worked. it's, you know, I like the phrase that, Mentees become mentors. And our children are the same way, aren't they? Our children sometimes give us life lessons and insights. And so doing the right thing with those little questions sometimes stimulate a new direction, a new thing to do. And that simple symbol of building a bench, I think. I think that's probably what Jeff was referring to.

Daphna Barbeau

And we'd like to hear, speaking of mentors, we know you wanted to speak about your mentor, Dr. Franco Corso, whom you've spoken about with great admiration. Tell us a little bit about what did he teach you and how does that shape your approach to medicine and mentorship? 

Dr. Steve Abman

Oh, I wouldn't be here without Franco Corso's influence.

Daphna Barbeau

Take your time.

Dr. Steve Abman

He has been such a incredible human being. He got a P. He was at the Bronx School of the Sciences. And I would make fun of him that he was such a nerd because he would always have the slide rule but never learned to dance. so we have this same quirky sense of humor from day one. He was fantastic at the bedside. And he always had time for everybody who would cross his path. He would take a medical student and ask him a question and he would spend time with the student looking things up. But as result, what happened to Frank over time, who was a great role model at the bedside, how he taught, everything about him, he wasn't writing papers. His academic career was kind of suffering and it was really a risk for not being promoted. So being one of my role models and heroes, I said, know, I don't know what the heck I'm going to do as a fellow working with Frank and some other talented faculty, but I was going to help Frank try to get his career on track. our chair at the time said study fetal physiology of the lung. At the time I said, okay. And I decided I was going to do this to help Frank with his career It turned out that wasn't quite Frank's thing. He ended up being internationally known for cystic fibrosis research in terms of clinical research and the way he's using big data sets and he was fantastic where he left me in the lab with a bunch of fetal sheep, but I just loved it. But even though Frank wasn't engaged in fetal physiology, the pulmonary circulation or those kinds of things, he always encouraged and supported and came up with the freshest of ideas. And he was a real mensch, I guess is the best word. And he remains that way.And anyway, his values, his sense of humanity, integrity, his time for everybody under the sun and what he did. Frank, to this day, again, I wouldn't be here without Frank.

Ben Courchia

Thank you for that. And I think that it highlights a little bit some of the situations we find ourselves as trainee, as clinicians, when we're not exactly sure what's gonna happen next. And I think that that's another theme that came up in a lot of our research for this particular interview, because the unexpected can often feel very intimidating, specifically for our breed in terms of having control over the aspects of our lives. we've spoke to describe you as someone who help others see possibility in the unknown. How do you personally approach the unexpected both in your work and in the mentorship you provide others?

Dr. Steve Abman

Yeah, you know, I think the unexpected offers so many opportunities. a small example is one of the early projects I did with Frank Acursow while he was out at the perinatal research facility that I worked. Simple question. At birth, the pulmonary circulation dilates from very constricted in part. I think I'm missing it here the low PO2, and oxygen is increased at birth and that causes vasodilation. Well, Frank made a very simple observation that you give the fetus oxygen and it dilates the lung. Blood flow increases three, four fold over an hour. But if you keep waiting, blood flow goes down. So you've increased oxygen, yet blood flow despite the dilation goes down. And that things say, obviously the fetus doesn't want to have a lot of flow of blood into the lung and utero. Well, that's not a mechanism. That's more teleology. But Frank thought that was amazing. And it's that little observation That little observation of why can't we maintain flow to mimic birth that something's opposing it? That people say, it's messy, let's ignore it. Frank made that the challenge to me. He said, figure that thing out. What is it about the blood vessels during development that changes their responsiveness? What mechanism of that oppose dilation can that have something to do with some babies failing to dilate their lung at birth and have persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn? Really simple, unexpected thing. And boy, that set the stage for everything. Setting blood vessels, the endothelium, seeing what nitric oxide at birth does giving nitric oxide, many other things along the way. So that simple observation, that's where Frank's richness was. And completely unexpected. Opened the door for something that we said, let's throw away this data, let's find something that fits our paradigm better. So the idea that we should keep an open mind to changing our paradigms, which will change our approach to clinical disease at the bedside, will change our approach in the laboratory to be more creative, and lead to novel therapeutics, again, that was one of Frank Curso's lessons to me. 

Daphna Barbeau

Yeah, it really seems like taking opportunity from challenges, which brings me right to my next question. Many of your colleagues described you as persistently and ever upbeat and positive about the future, even when everything was going wrong, even when you shouldn't have been so positive. So where does this stem from, and how do you maintain this type of optimism? 

Dr. Steve Abman

I guess ignorance is bliss, huh? So I don't know. Yeah, there are many things in life that are challenges. It's all relative. I guess I have a sense of being grateful, you know, thinking about my background, how I came to do what I did. I sometimes look out the window at the laboratory or the hospital, and there could be some issue coming up, some pressure. And I just think to myself, why am I worried about this? Look what I'm doing. And I should be grateful. I have a certain sense of gratitude for having been able to do what I wanted to do, to have the freedom to do it, creativity is there. And so it puts things into perspective. And then as intensivists, as neonatologists, seeing death in children, seeing families that are disrupted, seeing so many things that are really big issues that it makes so many of these other administrative and other kinds of academic issues seem pale in comparison. And so having that perspective of how important our kids are that we take care of, their families, our mission, it puts things in perspective, I guess, that way. So I think to me that's the point.

Ben Courchia

We just have a few more questions and then we can let the rest of the evening continue. one of the things that's so interesting is that when we were talking to Dr. Cornfield, he said that you believe that I quote the fact that the now is ephemeral. Could you elaborate on that idea? How it influences your perspective both as a physician, as an educator, and as a researcher?

Dr. Steve Abman

David Cornfield was one of our fellows early on who's fantastic, has the pulmonary section at Stanford University. We call him the philosopher king. So we always have these kinds of conversations. And I think because when we think of knowledge and how it's grown over time, we're very proud of what's discovered. We're proud of the changes and where we're going. But when you put everything into context, where bromide's gone, where leeches, I guess leeches are coming back a little, I don't know. But we have old paradigms of thinking about how to solve disease, how to explore things in the laboratory, how to care for patients as teams, and we're completely able to evolve to get better and better. So the idea is not to get locked in to the ephemeral in terms of thinking about how we're taking care of kids or dealing with families or doing other things, but rather realizing that this is a way how we grow. Sometimes the guidelines we write about caring for kids, they're not there to say absolutely thou shalt like their biblical commandments. But rather guidelines are put out there to help change and move forward. So those are ephemeral, those are transient. So this is how we get better by challenging the paradigm. And I think that's what David was talking about, our philosopher king.

Daphna Barbeau

We often talk about medicine as a career path, obviously for everybody here today, we know it's really a calling that really thrives on relationships and shared purpose. What do you hope the next generation of clinicians learns about collaboration, belonging, and how do people sustain meaning in their work, especially when they're coming up against a lot of outside influences and challenges?

Dr. Steve Abman

That's a great challenge, a challenging question. And I think it's one that the profession has to get better at. And I think, boy, there's so much pressure now on financial successes. We have so many hospital systems that have taken over how we think about our careers, how we manage patients. They handcuff us in terms of having the freedom, providing services to the underserved, providing the appropriate therapies because they can't afford the therapies and they're worried about the budget. Where are they at two in the morning when you have a blue baby who needs something done right then and there and they're talking about the finances. So we have to have a whole generation that's willing to take on healthcare challenges in that way and to advocate, not become parts of that system where they go after titles and bigger jobs from the financial side for their personal security, financial and things, I think they need to take on the system to make sure that we make our healthcare delivery system in United States far better than it is. And to me, that's the challenge. So how could we reconstruct medical school? How could we reconstruct undergraduates who select medicine as a career for the right purposes and then really have them take on and understand the dynamics of culture, community, what it means to be poor, how do you deal with the stresses of health systems that are so hard to navigate, how we're bankrupting families. So to me those are the challenges on top of all, you know, the clinical care and physiology and things we like to talk about.

Daphna Barbeau

some of the obstacles and I know all of us are struggling sometimes to balance career with our personal commitments but we've heard lots of stories about your dedication to your family, attending soccer games, spending time with your grandkids, a long and happy marriage. So what has your family taught you about being present both at work and at home?

Dr. Steve Abman

It's really been such a pleasure. so family has meant so much. And it's taught me a lot about my practice. I am a pediatrician, and yet I learn more from my kids and thinking about them than I ever learned from a textbook or any rotation I did on services and stuff like that. So I think it keeps you reality-based. But I think also the joys in our lives.aren't they? But it also means that when there is something going wrong, I think you appreciate what families, especially young families, are doing even more from the experiences we have as parents or grandparents or knowing folks like that. I think it enriches how we could care for kids.

Ben Courchia

Steve, our last question for you tonight is that if you had to give our audience and ourselves one takeaway, one idea that you would want us to leave home with tonight, something that we can carry both in our lives and in our careers, what would it be?

Dr. Steve Abman

let me cite a friend of mine, a colleague, Jim Padbury, who's a neonatologist, many of you may know. And Jim, we used to have a young investigators meeting for several years before COVID from folks all over the country, folks on neonatal cardiopulmonary disease. And Jim was one of our faculty one year. And I'd like to say two things, and this is straight from Jim. The first is LOL, and that is love of learning. Stay curious.Stay wanting to get better. And as Colorado newspaper used to say, their headlines, their byline was, beware the satisfied man. Beware the satisfied person. Stay curious. Get better. Work together to get that way. And the second thing Jim said, I'm having a second thing here, is get off the island. It didn't mean Coronado Island. That's a lovely place. He meant be flexible. Learn outside the box Apply things from other fields, other providers, and take that home with you. Be that person. So it's sustaining the curiosity and the love of learning, willingness to get new ideas to change the paradigm from unexpected places, and to me those are things I'd advise.

Ben Courchia

Thank you so much for sharing these insights and your knowledge. Congratulations on all the work you've accomplished throughout your career. think that I can speak on behalf of all of us here that emulating you and your career and this consistency and integrity is something that we all hope to achieve.