Hello Friends đ
This week we have the pleasure of chatting with the exceptional Dr. James Lemonds from Riley Children's hospital. Dr. Lemons' work in neonatology has impacted thousand of babies and families around the globe. His kindness shined throughout the episode and it was a true honor to host such an amazing human being on our show. You will definitely enjoy this episode full of positivity. Enjoy!
Bio: Jim is the Emeritus Hugh McK. Landon Professor of Pediatrics and past Director of the Section of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine for 22 years. He attended Princeton U. as an undergraduate, then medical school at Northwestern U, residency at the U. of Michigan, and fellowship at U. of Colorado. He has served in numerous leadership positions nationally and internationally, and was Chair of the Perinatal Section for AAP, Chair of the Committee on Fetus and Newborn, and Principal Investigator for the NICHD Neonatal Research Network for 20 years. He has been funded for his research by the NIH for over 35 years, and has published over 300 scientific manuscripts and edited several books. The Newborn Intensive Care program at IUSM is one of the largest in the country, providing state-of-the-art care for ~10,000 newborn infants and their families each year. Jim is particularly proud of the Family Support Program, which is run by six former parents of critically ill newborns, and who are now employed full time at Riley Childrenâs Hospital and the Indiana U. Medical Center to support families in the NICU. With 40 MD neonatologists and 12 PhD faculty, the neonatology research programs in stem cell biology, fetal and neonatal metabolism, clinical and translational research, and international health care are recognized internationally. Jim and his wife, Pam, have been to Kenya over 30 times (at least annually since 1994), and raised $3 million to build the Riley Mother and Baby Hospital of Kenya in Eldoret, Kenya, where they now deliver ~20,000 babies annually and have a 140 bed newborn intensive care unit â all directed by Kenyan physicians and staff. Jim works on social justice issues locally and globally, including human trafficking, mental illness and addiction, orphans and vulnerable children, deaf and hearing-impaired children, poverty, environmental justice, and interfaith cooperation. He and Pam have three adult children â Ken, Kevin and Meghan, and two grandsons, Nick (11) and Ben (8).
The transcript of today's episode can be found below đ
Unknown Speaker 1:00
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the incubator. It is Sunday, we have a great interview scheduled for you guys today, Daphna, how are you? I'm doing well. You know, we've been so caught up planning for the Delphi conference that
Unknown Speaker 1:17
we had to remember that we had such a such an interesting interview today.
Unknown Speaker 1:23
We hadn't forgotten to be honest, we didn't forget, you know, the days are running together. So the problem that we ran into, is that we underestimated the enthusiasm that would be generated by this conference. Because
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in typical incubator fashion, we all sat around a table, and we were like, Who would we love to have come speak at this conference, and we made a list. And we thought, Alright, we're gonna get probably 20, we drafted a long list of speakers, right? And we're like, we're probably going to get 20% of these guys, right, because like, that's the way it's going to be. And then we'll, and then we'll scramble for for more speakers, and our dream list of speakers. Pretty much it's, it's coming true. It's insane. It is insane. That's so exciting. It's super exciting. However, despite the success, we're still we're still aiming to make this a successful conference. And to that end, we do not want to find ourselves overwhelmed. And so we are going to keep the number of seats kept, as we've discussed. And so we'll let you guys know, when the tickets go on sale, we'll probably have a special episode release that day, so that we can announce some of the specifics of the conference, we can talk about a little bit what we're going to cover the format, because everything is a bit novel. And it's not like a regular medical conference. Because we do we do feel that there are many medical conferences that are happening in the field of neonatology that are doing a phenomenal job, and that we're not really there to compete with, but there is
Unknown Speaker 3:10
a place for a conference on innovation in neonatology. And that's what we're putting together. So that's exciting.
Unknown Speaker 3:17
Yeah. So for more details to come, and to tide you over. We have a great, like we said, it's a really good interview today. Yeah, I mean, I think we do.
Unknown Speaker 3:32
I think we've done a shout out to the person who has recommended this interview to us. And, and I think, I think she deserves yet another shout out because it is, again, when we say that we we welcome your emails and your suggestions, we do take them very seriously. And for example, so Teresa Rexrode, is the one who reached out to us. When was it done? I have her email, her email opened up months ago.
Unknown Speaker 4:03
I think, April, she reached out to us in April. And she was like, Hey, I think this would be a great interview. And this obviously started the process of us getting in touch with Dr. Lemons and trying to set up the recording, and so on and so forth. And look, look where we are today. So we take your suggestions, extremely seriously. And I would say 99% of them do materialize into a podcast episode. And so for the ones who have recommended other people,
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takes us some time.
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It's also we're lucky we're lucky to be ahead of schedule, let's say the time of us scrambling for interviews and everything else is thankfully now behind us I think now we've reached a level of
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of professionalism and organization that allows us to to have some poise and be able to see things coming but anyway, all right. This is we're taking way too much time of this interview.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
Hey, let me tell you you have Dr. Lemons bio. Tell you about Dr. Lemons for sure. Dr. James lemons is the emeritus Hugh Mackay land and Professor of Pediatrics and the past director of this section of neonatal perinatal medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine for 22 years. He attended Princeton University as an undergraduate medical school at Northwestern University residency at the University of Michigan and fellowship at the University of Colorado. He served in numerous leadership positions nationally and internationally was the chair of the perinatal section for the AP chair the committee on fetus and newborn and and has been a principal investigator for the NI CHD neonatal Research Network for 20 years. He has been funded for his research by the NIH for over 35 years and has published over 300 Scientific manuscripts and edited several books. James and his wife Pam raised $3 million to build the Riley mother and baby hospital of Kenya in Eldoret, Kenya, where they now deliver 20,000 Babies annually of a 140 bed NICU, all directed by Kenyan physicians and staff. Dr. LeMans works on Kenya in Africa. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 6:09
No, because in the US, we have a tendency to name stuff after places where people came from, you know, so that's true. But that's, that's yeah, we'll talk about him. We'll talk to him, Kenya, all staffed by Kenyan physicians, so very neat. Dr. Lemons works on social justice issues locally and globally, including human trafficking, mental illness and addiction, orphans and vulnerable children deaf and hearing impaired children, poverty, environmental justice and interfaith cooperation. So we are very pleased to welcome Dr. Lemons to the show today.
Unknown Speaker 6:42
Dr. Lemons, thank you so much for being on the podcast with us today. How are you this morning? Terrific. Thank you for having me. Dr. Lemons, you have a you have a long career. You're an extremely accomplished neonatologist. We like usually to go back to,
Unknown Speaker 7:02
to the origin story of how did people become neonatologist? I understand that you grew up in a household where your father was an accountant and your mother was a nurse.
Unknown Speaker 7:13
Do you think that there's anything in your parents background that steered you towards medicine and neonatology specifically?
Unknown Speaker 7:21
Yes, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 7:23
For reaching back. Yes, I had four brothers have four brothers.
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One other went into medicine. I think it was largely driven by my mother.
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She's was a very
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an uncommon common person
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who didn't prioritize much in the way of material things.
Unknown Speaker 7:47
And really, as we grew up, we didn't appreciate the incredible values, I think the core values that she always had. So I I learned very early on the importance of helping another person seeing people appreciating small acts of kindness and trying to replicate that so I think I was always my brother's we've always been focused more on service
Unknown Speaker 8:13
is then we appreciated them the joy you get from from that. So I think that's always been a big part of mine. I lean toward the service, even ministry at one point.
Unknown Speaker 8:24
But this and I spent time in Ethiopia, actually for months.
Unknown Speaker 8:30
During med school, two of my best friends went to Israel for four months and I went to
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Ethiopia Ethiopian experience some of that
Unknown Speaker 8:41
development been country medicine. Yeah, don't don't jump ahead. We you're
Unknown Speaker 8:47
you're eating on our contact here.
Unknown Speaker 8:51
I'm kidding. But um, so I mean, it's interesting that you're mentioning service as a driving force for what really leads you towards medicine. I'm curious. I mean, there's many ways to find fulfillment in service and in helping others. Why in neonatology
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so in med school I
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like many third year students experience the wonderful relationship with a family with a
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five year old girl who developed leukemia and actually died during my time there
Unknown Speaker 9:23
that cemented my passion for or peds. And then,
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during internship, we were on call, you know, 36 hours off 12 for the whole year.
Unknown Speaker 9:37
You know, back in those days, but I I especially loved my time in the NICU in probably the excitement I wished I I was prophetic enough at the time to envision
Unknown Speaker 9:50
what I would like to look back on when I'm 70 like I do now, and I feel so lucky to have had many mentors who pointed me and told me, you know which direction to go
Unknown Speaker 10:01
And at that time, they
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affirmed my,
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I guess my qualifications, to do neonatology and sent me to Denver, which was the best part of the physiology program. And I did combine research with clinical.
Unknown Speaker 10:18
But it was looking back, I think it was more of the relation, it was the excitement of the emergency characteristics of a critical care environment. But I think, looking back, it is more the fulfillment that I felt, building those relationships. You know, in an instance, when you're dealing with sometimes life and death.
Unknown Speaker 10:42
And that's almost always the case in the NICU, from the parents perspective, regardless of the gravity of the condition of the baby.
Unknown Speaker 10:50
In their eyes, they see that so I, I really, I found out I was
Unknown Speaker 10:56
not only fulfilled, but somehow able to learn to listen better, you know, as you evolve over your career, is something you do.
Unknown Speaker 11:06
I think if you're,
Unknown Speaker 11:08
if you're good and work hard at it, it's something that I always tell students that you, you will get better and better at, it's hard to appreciate, think we're empathic now, but that can grow and then you can get better and better at understanding life. And
Unknown Speaker 11:25
its full range in the NICU is the crucible for all of those relationships and passions and extremes of emotion, I think.
Unknown Speaker 11:35
So it's a place where you get to experience I think the the, the full extremes of the of life, every, you know,
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socio economic status, every
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education, educational level, and every income level, every race and ethnicity. Race is probably not a good word to use, but in more every culture, every moral kind of habit.
Unknown Speaker 12:04
And trying to learn and appreciate people's upbringing in that crucible, it teaches us everything. And the few people I think get to experience human relationships with that full breadth of humanity. I think it goes through all the tragedies and the joys of it, it's quite amazing. I wish that's why I tell people, now students nice and you know, follow your heart. But,
Unknown Speaker 12:30
but also try to envision where you would like to be 70 years from now looking back? Yeah, and in a place where you've been able to utilize your talents and your passions? Well, you know,
Unknown Speaker 12:43
you've been in a place where you can advocate for those without a voice, if that's important for you.
Unknown Speaker 12:49
And try to, you know, see yourself a bit better than I did, I was lucky to follow the path, I think but
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but I think we have a much more mature young population that I think can can be more intentional about,
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you know, doing what really matters in their eyes. And if we can measure that and help them.
Unknown Speaker 13:11
That's what I love to talk about. I'm in the hammered hearing you you talk about neonatology that way because it's one of my it's one of my favorite parts of the job is walking with families. And and I wonder when I hear you talk about your upbringing, and the values that were so important to you, you know, connectedness, human acts of kindness.
Unknown Speaker 13:36
And medicine has changed a lot over the course of your career. And sometimes it feels like we're pulling so far away from some of those, you know, simple values that really still matter to families and patients. And
Unknown Speaker 13:53
I wonder if you can speak to that, about how that's changed over the course of your career, and how people are who are really still drawn to the humanistic side of medicine, like, how do we, how do we fit in and how do we not, you know, get overrun by all of the, you know, Manchester call and things like that.
Unknown Speaker 14:15
Now, it's a it's a good question. I, I remember, by the way, your comment about walking with families a
Unknown Speaker 14:24
few years ago, very recently, relative to my life, I
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was reading that New Age philosopher rammed us who said, We are simply walking each other home.
Unknown Speaker 14:36
And it's my favorite way of
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saying now just to give a mind's eye view of where I think we should be, you know, nobody's better and nobody's in front of isn't back.
Unknown Speaker 14:52
Just just but for the grace we know that could be our daughter
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in generational poverty or so.
Unknown Speaker 15:00
The Born blacks versus whites, you know, our
Unknown Speaker 15:04
white privilege is something we need to discuss and recognize, I think.
Unknown Speaker 15:10
But yes, you're right. It has changed a lot in organized medicine. I remember with our chair at the time, my best friend for 45 years with Shriner, who was is a neonatologist and, and chaired a department for 22 years while I ran our division. For that time, he kept talking to me about RV use, you know, that they're coming, relative value units of productivity, you know, for the fact I said, Well,
Unknown Speaker 15:39
don't talk to me about that I'm, we're not going there. And I kept pushing back for 20 years that I said, You'll never give a number to our faculty to assign a value. I said, everybody has their own. This, you know, you know, persona, and
Unknown Speaker 15:57
we have all different strengths and weaknesses, and but it eventually came and we're in one of the bigger health systems in the country, one of the more profitable quote, not not for profit health systems in the country here in Indianapolis. And
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it is,
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it is, I think, important to speak out.
Unknown Speaker 16:19
We have a handful of wonderful faculty in our department who were kind of birds in the saddle around this issue and speaking out of the importance of relationships in in the inappropriate prioritization and emphasis sometimes on
Unknown Speaker 16:39
profit, all the right words are always said, but when it comes down to it, it can be the bottom line, but I tried to
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encourage young people, residents and students and fellows and so on to, to look carefully at truly the important part. To me, there's no, there's no profession better than academic medicine.
Unknown Speaker 17:07
And you can carve your own kind of niche path. But in this environment of a large medical center, you meet so many people who has, you know, strive for excellence, and it raises the bar for all of us, it's just, it's important to make sure that one of those bars is, is the caring side and the
Unknown Speaker 17:30
advocacy side, you know, I think there are four, four legs to the stool, of course, the mother clinical care, the teaching and training, and then the research, but also the advocacy part we need, you can't be silent anymore, especially now we have to speak out
Unknown Speaker 17:48
and
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call out or name the issues that are problematic in caring for patients equally, you know, so I always emphasize, you know, that our job is to create a safe space for whoever comes into our care without judgment, to be as they are and begin there.
Unknown Speaker 18:10
And to be kind, you know,
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sorry.
Unknown Speaker 18:16
You can tell,
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I get a bit emotional thinking of all the 1000s and 1000s of patients, but you know, the young, young, African American teenager who just had a baby, but who shows up, you know,
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don't, you know, criticize her for having gotten pregnant, you don't discuss how you're going to discipline your child, if you're in generational poverty, living in an apartment complex, perhaps an abusive
Unknown Speaker 18:49
you know, parents relationship, or prostitution or whatever else, or drugs or whatever else is going on. You need to start there and compliment that young lady, and thank her for being there. And then
Unknown Speaker 19:04
listen to her story. And then always say something kind before you leave. Because I tell people that may be the first time a professional person
Unknown Speaker 19:15
has ever said a kind word to her and she may not have ever heard something affirming of value, never felt like she's seen or heard. And so this is something I think, really important in and it gives great
Unknown Speaker 19:34
reward. I think it's just in that relationship, the privilege of being, as you said, walking with his parents through whatever journey it is, is is a great the greatest privilege of all. And I think
Unknown Speaker 19:49
that to me, is where the fulfillment of medicine is now can you teach that can you teach genuine caring to simply caring for another just as you would
Unknown Speaker 20:00
For your own child or your, you know, your brother or sister.
Unknown Speaker 20:05
I don't I'm not sure when we say we have one of our faculty,
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academically studies, empathy.
Unknown Speaker 20:13
You know, so compassion I learned
Unknown Speaker 20:17
that, to me, the best definition of passion was taught to me by a professor of theology. And she said, Then, she said to me, here's a human at sea. This is, by the way, is the, this is the way we usually think about compassion. But she said, compassion is the recognition of the interconnectedness of all things.
Unknown Speaker 20:37
It's it's kind of the foundation of understanding compassion, that we're all connected, not connected just to each other, but to all life and all inanimate, to the cosmos. You know, so what we do ripples. I always say love should lead the way in any decision and, and the love ripples, we won't see 99% of what happens as it ripples, but it's going to generate some reaction and something good
Unknown Speaker 21:10
if it's genuine, but again, how do you
Unknown Speaker 21:14
mean we need to model that is how we treat each other, especially in a, you know, an environment like the NICU filled with so many emotions, and so many obstacles. And
Unknown Speaker 21:28
a long time ago, I started when I first came here, 43 years ago,
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I was on faculty in Colorado for a few years before deciding to come here and that we'd be here five years, and then another medical center, but we ended up loving what we could do, we had so much flexibility. But I started
Unknown Speaker 21:49
the parents staff seminar series. So I found a handful of couples that were maybe a year or two out from their journey, but articulate and insightful
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and invited them to come back and give an hour kind of interactive, talk with our house staff hoping that a lot of us elderly faculty would be
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accidentally listening and affected and learn a bit
Unknown Speaker 22:17
in sharing what was good and bad about their experience. And, you know, obviously, it was so different than what we as physicians and healthcare providers saw is important
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that I learned so much about
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the value in all parts of life of
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listening to people's
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journey in a ni I'm digressing a bit, but the best thing that ever happened to me probably was, we belong to a large Presbyterian Church and a few 1000 members. And I happened to we happen to rejoin there.
Unknown Speaker 22:58
At a time, maybe 20 years ago,
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when a class was just starting called faith in action. And I ended up
Unknown Speaker 23:06
kind of taking over the class and organizing it every Sunday for 10 years. We did every topic. And you can imagine from you know that some of the it? Yeah, it's interesting that I mean, you're saying you're digressing, but I don't I don't think you are, and I'm not sure if you're if you're familiar with this concept of called the overview effect. It is a it is a term that was coined by I believe, astronauts, and it describes this cognitive shift that happens to astronauts as they go into space and see Earth in the context of space and realize how humanity is just connected as one exactly as you were describing, actually. It's beautiful. And it's interesting that that it seemed from the description of what's been given of the overview effect that you have to go into outer space to see the earth standing alone in the universe to hanging in the void, as they say, right have to get this perception that humanity is is is interconnected. And somehow through neonatology and through your career, you've reached that overview effect. And I think that's, that's pretty neat.
Unknown Speaker 24:21
Thanks. Yeah, in some ways, it's kind of an interview.
Unknown Speaker 24:25
Overview. Right, right. Or an interview. Yeah, that's that's a beautiful thank you for
Unknown Speaker 24:32
I wouldn't, I was
Unknown Speaker 24:35
I was just wanted to finish that one thought
Unknown Speaker 24:38
about this class. So we would organize for Sunday's usually around a topic, like human trafficking or immigration or poverty or gun control or violence or whatever. And I learned and I always met, I don't know 20 or 100 people around picking those four speakers.
Unknown Speaker 25:01
But I learned, for example,
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in domestic violence and met a woman who was getting her master's in divinity, or at our small seminary, we have an Indianapolis, African American woman. And she began the series. After she spoke the next Sunday, the Superintendent of police may have spoken. And then the head of the women's shelter Julian Center here in Indianapolis, spoken in a psychologist in the children. But when she spoke the first Sunday,
Unknown Speaker 25:33
she spoke about her experience of domestic violence in, I thought I knew a lot about domestic violence, and what rape might be, I learned I knew nothing about it, until I heard her speak. And tell us what that really was. So it taught me that in all these parts of,
Unknown Speaker 25:56
of our lives, it's really a critical to value the person in the journey. And
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maybe we can help them through the journey. But at least we can learn
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and be able to share with others what that what that journey may be a little bit like, even though we're not in it.
Unknown Speaker 26:21
And then if we're going to do something about it, we know somebody who can help lead the way, that woman is the person that I would want her on board to help deal with domestic limits, because she and so in our in everything we do, that's what drives me nuts about corporate greed, etc. How many?
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How many corporations actually have that kind of balance with somebody who represents their clientele, teaching them teaching us how to do walk the walk the talk correctly, and recognize the leadership
Unknown Speaker 26:57
value anyway, it was a those 10 years that taught me and introduced me to so many 1000s of people that were kind of beneath our radar, usually, but to truly can,
Unknown Speaker 27:09
can lead our world if we would let them mostly women, by the way.
Unknown Speaker 27:16
I, I feel like I can take the liberty of asking you this question because you've, you've talked about your faith and your relationship with the church. And and I am always curious, for colleagues of mine who who are
Unknown Speaker 27:32
who have a strong faith. How do you deal? How do you reconcile sometimes your faith and the things that we see day to day in the NICU?
Unknown Speaker 27:42
In terms of there's a lot of things that happened in the NICU that that can make you question your faith, I believe right. And I think I think based on what happens to innocent children, the situation's they're placed in, and that I think, is very difficult sometimes to, to understand and process and I am wondering if your experiences throughout your career in the NICU have at times challenged your faith? Or has your faith allowed you to thrive and transcend what you were seeing in the ICU?
Unknown Speaker 28:16
Well, I've been thank you for asking that. That's a brave question.
Unknown Speaker 28:21
And it's something we don't talk about nearly enough. I think. I when I round, I will often ask the residents and students how do they deal with suffering, especially of innocent babies and children and that everybody and we all will face that as we go through life in one form or another obviously, but in the medical environment, especially critical care environment, we face it a lot.
Unknown Speaker 28:50
So it's really great that you raise this
Unknown Speaker 28:55
and I yeah, my personal experience. Yeah, obviously, I've struggled with that a lot. But when I first came to Indiana, I don't know after a couple years, I remember there was one or two weeks where we had a lot of deaths.
Unknown Speaker 29:13
And
Unknown Speaker 29:15
then of course you meet other families who may have faith based you know, foundations may be Muslim and may be Christian and may be Jewish, it may be Sikh, whatever.
Unknown Speaker 29:30
Can the in all variations in between? And maybe not maybe the atheists
Unknown Speaker 29:38
but I remember I was driving home, happened to go by our church and saw the light on
Unknown Speaker 29:46
our senior pastor, we have about eight or nine ministers, but senior pastors light was on in we were relatively new to that church at the time. But I decided to stop because I was feeling pretty depressed and
Unknown Speaker 29:59
you
Unknown Speaker 30:00
And they walked in and he was there. And I sat down, he welcomed me and sat down and I explained,
Unknown Speaker 30:09
you know, the challenges I was trying to understand better, how does, how does innocent suffering? How does our faith, how can we understand it, put it in some context. And he said, You know, Jim
Unknown Speaker 30:27
he was a brilliant, man after one meeting in the north X, as we were leaving with our three kids. Were very young, he remembered the next week, all of their names.
Unknown Speaker 30:37
Wow. He's very, very put together from that side. And he, he said I, before I went into ministry said I was the director of PR for the Baltimore Orioles and professional baseball.
Unknown Speaker 30:53
And he said it he said, I was pretty good at it.
Unknown Speaker 30:56
And he and he, they had him his wife had a son.
Unknown Speaker 31:01
And he was turned out to be a prodigy. And that's one reason I mentioned is memory and his ability to recognize faces and put this together because I believed him. He said that my son when he was just three, he started sketching, and drawing really, quite expertly that he played the violin, he got leukemia when he was five, he said, we had access to the best of care of Hopkins and so on. But he died a year later. And he said, Sorry,
Unknown Speaker 31:33
said,
Unknown Speaker 31:36
he said for quite a long time.
Unknown Speaker 31:40
He said, I was in limbo, I just
Unknown Speaker 31:44
kept asking the same questions you're asking. He said, How? If I really believe, and he happened, obviously to be Christian, during minister, he said, How
Unknown Speaker 31:56
can I understand this and he said, he said, ultimately, I said, in our case, in Christianity, but similar in most of the great religions, if you believe that the prime driving force of our Creator is love.
Unknown Speaker 32:12
And that love is more powerful than any anything. And if you believe that, he said that somehow, that love has to include my, my son.
Unknown Speaker 32:27
And
Unknown Speaker 32:28
so
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I've, that's what I've taken away.
Unknown Speaker 32:34
And if we can somehow demonstrate a little bit of that love and the way we care for each other, and for our patients, and staff, etcetera, etcetera,
Unknown Speaker 32:45
without judgment, and try not to understand we all came from different, you know, upbringings backgrounds, and that's what, and that's what kind of
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tattoos us with our beliefs. Hopefully, we're good enough to be open to learn and change. As we experience more and more of this, some of us are better than others at that.
Unknown Speaker 33:13
But that's how I look at the world, I guess, in the creation is
Unknown Speaker 33:20
as hopefully, trying to share that love is genuine, caring for each others, but especially in what we do in medicine.
Unknown Speaker 33:28
Just a little bit in the knowing that's, you know, kindness or listening better or, you know, sharing a tear with parents are sharing a laugh. It's appropriately known as smile. But being being demonstrably caring is really important things often that we're taught in medicine, you know, to be objective, well, it's fine to be objective. But that doesn't mean you can't
Unknown Speaker 33:58
hold somebody's arm or hand
Unknown Speaker 34:01
wrapped in a mental hobby. It's appropriate.
Unknown Speaker 34:06
Obviously, that gets a bit harder as we get into these recent decades, but, but I still do that a lot.
Unknown Speaker 34:17
And if it's genuine, you know,
Unknown Speaker 34:21
then I think,
Unknown Speaker 34:23
to me, that's, that's the best I can I can capture. Try to capture that. Yeah. Thank you for asking that. That's really something we should all be discussing and trying to help, you know.
Unknown Speaker 34:39
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Unknown Speaker 35:01
I, what I what I liked about your story is you actually started this by talking about
Unknown Speaker 35:08
physicians and healthcare personnel being involved in advocacy. And I think that word can be so vague for people can be so almost insurmountable seeming, but what you've really described as just kind of even individual advocacy, right, like taking an opportunity to
Unknown Speaker 35:30
fight on behalf of somebody else, a baby, a family, and kind of every day in the unit. So that's something we can all do.
Unknown Speaker 35:40
And at the same time, your advocacy has certainly reached beyond, you know, individual one on one, I mean, you were instrumental in the development of your program at Riley's. You were instrumental in the newborn screening program. And so I guess my takeaways are that being a one on one, individual advocacy can be just as powerful as you know, these large overreaching advocacy projects, and for some people even more, but also that you don't have to pick one or the other, that you can both be a humanistic physician at the bedside and do these big,
Unknown Speaker 36:32
you know, large scale projects that you don't have to pick one type of career or the other.
Unknown Speaker 36:39
I think that's, I think that's right. And well said, Yeah, I always try to point out the, as we're talking about an individual patient who might might be a mom with addiction, you know,
Unknown Speaker 36:51
we tell the story of big pharmacy, sometimes as,
Unknown Speaker 36:56
as the foundational cause of that.
Unknown Speaker 37:00
But we deal with the mom and try to help her journey through recognizing it's a disease may be the most difficult disease in the world. But while we're trying to care for her and understand her and learn from her, it's important to, especially for young people to realize that by appreciating her journey, we can begin to understand on a broad scale, the systemic issues and eyes emphasize you know, that as physicians, we're very lucky because we're in a position in our communities usually have some respect and some influence. And we should look for opportunities to address systemic issues.
Unknown Speaker 37:44
And if we can, in are lucky enough to get into leadership positions, and that was very lucky to be asked and invited often, you know, stepped into this, like the newborn hearing screening program with the American Academy of Pediatrics. And I got to travel a little over with my wife, presenting the evidence around the science around newborn hearing screening effectiveness.
Unknown Speaker 38:06
So that it became
Unknown Speaker 38:09
operationalized into law in most every Western
Unknown Speaker 38:13
country.
Unknown Speaker 38:15
And that was very fortuitous. It was an accident. Look at for me, but I just had was asked to write the statement for the American Academy and lead a taskforce and I was just when I was chairing the committee, and he just no more. So I was, you know,
Unknown Speaker 38:31
just lucky, I guess, to be in that position. But that's why I always say to young people
Unknown Speaker 38:37
say yes, say yes to everything. And I know that can be a bad habit. But I never realized until as you know, five years 10 years later you because you said yes to that you happen to meet somebody that 10 years later you reconnect with them, another opportunity comes up and you
Unknown Speaker 38:58
you know, try to avoid, you know, burning bridges, if you can avoid saying anything negative in the public arena, about someone that's very hard to do, but very important than what we do. You know, never criticize another physician.
Unknown Speaker 39:14
Publicly, lots of stories around them always try to look through positive way to assess but, but you're right, and
Unknown Speaker 39:24
it's all relational. I say sustainability is is relational.
Unknown Speaker 39:31
You don't have the relationships. It's like I work in Kenya, you know, I've been very lucky to be involved in sickle cell disease in Kenya. So tell us a little bit. I mean, I want to go back to to to some aspects of how you care for families in the NICU. But but we've been we've been teasing the audience about about your relationship with with Ethiopia, with Africa with Kenya. So my understanding is that you're
Unknown Speaker 39:59
the Indian
Unknown Speaker 40:00
She lives that you've taken on in Africa. They all started from a trip that you took that all started from a trip that you took as a medical student when you went to Africa.
Unknown Speaker 40:11
I am curious as to on that first trip, I'm assuming something must have happened at that time that really sparked something for you to then keep coming back. Because if the experience was negative, obviously, maybe you wouldn't have had such a prolific relationship with with these countries. But what happened on that first trip that really ignited this passion for for global health and global outreach?
Unknown Speaker 40:38
Yes.
Unknown Speaker 40:39
So my two friends who were Jewish in medical school said, let's, let's see if we can get permission to organize six months of elective time, because they wanted to go to study in Tel Aviv. And,
Unknown Speaker 40:53
and I said, Well, let me so my, my old time youth director of our church, when I was in high school,
Unknown Speaker 41:00
somehow she, she heard about it and said, You should write a grant to the Presbyterian Church. So I did and somehow got this grant. So I got to go there, I was very naive.
Unknown Speaker 41:10
It was more of an adventure. You know, it was right on a branch of the Nile River with these 20 foot long crocodiles. We weren't even in a village, we were 20 kilometers from a village and bite on the Sudanese borders, we saw lots of
Unknown Speaker 41:25
gunshot victims from the Sudanese Civil War that was ongoing, even now, but back then.
Unknown Speaker 41:33
And I was living with two surgeons in their families who had set up a clinic there.
Unknown Speaker 41:39
It was just the most remarkable experience, but I don't know that I processed it.
Unknown Speaker 41:46
You know, in a big context, a love to relationships with all the patients that came from walking through 100 kilometers, you know, with different
Unknown Speaker 41:57
issues, lots of crocodile amputations that we saw.
Unknown Speaker 42:03
Huge poverty, of course, and we visited many villages, but I saw the beauty of that land and
Unknown Speaker 42:12
understood the beauty of the people there. And they, they were more generous than, that's where I first learned, I think that
Unknown Speaker 42:20
sometimes the hearts of people who have very little materially
Unknown Speaker 42:25
have a much bigger than ours, and then they
Unknown Speaker 42:29
in a much more capable of, in some ways, leading efforts to address issues, if given the resources and a little bit of opportunity, and maybe some guidance. So anyway, it taught me a lot. And I don't know that I appreciated how much.
Unknown Speaker 42:45
And then when I returned home,
Unknown Speaker 42:49
eventually got married, and then
Unknown Speaker 42:53
in residency just after residency, and then we had our three children. And my wife was not keen on. I could hardly even talk about developing countries. He was not in that kind of an experience until our two youngest were in high school. And then she said, You know, Jim, this is the maybe now's the time.
Unknown Speaker 43:13
And so I had been the advisor of a medical student by biters. And I wouldn't go into pediatrics. So I thought, well, you're you're not worth continuing to support here. You're not going to do peace.
Unknown Speaker 43:29
You said, No, I'm going to do something in International Medicine. So I lost track of Bob for a few years. And then
Unknown Speaker 43:36
I walked across the street because I'd heard about this Indiana University Kenya partnership that had started it's now called the AMPATH program is the best relationship between two universities, medical schools in the world without question, it's unbelievable. How right it is, from the very beginning. It was founded on research and clinical care, and teaching and training. So they found out four of our faculty went over there to Kenya in 1989 found that they wanted to build a second medical school and they premises be there with a family, one family at a time with one doctor for a year at a time for 10 years with no cost just to begin to help teach because we only had like six full time Kenyan faculty. So that was 33 years ago. Wow. We've graduated.
Unknown Speaker 44:25
They have graduated
Unknown Speaker 44:28
1000s and 1000s of physicians, we've started residencies in almost every specialty now. We're just starting a newborn fellowship. There they are.
Unknown Speaker 44:37
Because I got involved in my wife, my wife, it was her idea to do this. So we we spent three months back in 1994. But then we come back every year since and usually two or three times, but we did we started.
Unknown Speaker 44:51
We're not about building buildings, but because of the relationships we had there is so amazing. I always tell people I probably have two or 3000 on my bed.
Unknown Speaker 45:00
As friends that I see for an hour, every three years or so,
Unknown Speaker 45:04
these are the kinds of things you understand that and
Unknown Speaker 45:08
and it spurred us to begin fundraising. So we did and we raised about two and a half million dollars to build a
Unknown Speaker 45:18
Women's Hospital and other baby hospital there. We got them to call it the Riley mother baby hospital and they're delivering now it open 2009
Unknown Speaker 45:29
It's the most amazing thing with what's transpired there. And they deliver about 20,000 babies a year. It's a small hospital. It's part of the medical school complex.
Unknown Speaker 45:40
We built it for about 30 babies in the NICU. We have 130 Babies annual census, I mean average daily census 130 babies at a time. We now have two Kenyan neonatologist, who are the best of the best. And they're the ones who are leading the effort now to begin this fall and unit Policy Fellowship for Kenyan pediatricians.
Unknown Speaker 46:02
And it's gone in 1000 directions.
Unknown Speaker 46:07
But the reason we built it was because
Unknown Speaker 46:11
they needed, they said we need to have some place safe and beautiful for patients to deliver, but also for the physicians to be proud of and practice
Unknown Speaker 46:23
and do the research and so on. And so Kenyans have led all of that we've had $150 million of NIH funded research that are with Kenyan principal investigators.
Unknown Speaker 46:36
And as Thomas
Unknown Speaker 46:39
kickable people all over the world are again, if given a bit of
Unknown Speaker 46:45
support.
Unknown Speaker 46:48
AMPATH says they they lead with care. That's how it started. I said well, as you lead with love, that's what your care is really. And it's genuine is all led by the Kenyan
Unknown Speaker 47:00
people through their trials, tribulations and obstacles, but they know how to navigate, they know what needs to be done. So they taught us
Unknown Speaker 47:09
so so so much. And
Unknown Speaker 47:12
I'm involved in many different parts of that now we did a universal newborn hearing screening study in Nairobi for 9000. Newborns, we're just about to publish that.
Unknown Speaker 47:24
For the first time, my friend is building a neural developmental children with this disabilities center, right, that will connect to the mother videos with the bridge. So that it's a comprehensive program for children with you know, so you see what can be done.
Unknown Speaker 47:45
And then it's all being done in the right way for the right reasons for the right people, but against themselves. I just say, you know, you can you can
Unknown Speaker 47:56
give a man a fish and feed him for a day he is you know, and you can teach them to fish feed him for a lifetime. And I said, Well, one thing even better, is to build
Unknown Speaker 48:06
and stack a clean pond where he can fish in perpetuity. That's what you do. When you build a school, taught by themselves for themselves. Even medical school in this case, but it'd be a nursing school. You know, that's what in sustain excellence and, and continue to ripple.
Unknown Speaker 48:27
I want to I want to ask you, I'm dying to ask you this question then. Because you're obviously a very bright man. And you say that we should say yes to everything. And there's no way that you take on these initiatives and feel like you're adequately competent to take them on. And I mean, I'm assuming there's a there has to be an impostor syndrome, at least when you're when you're being asked to go build a medical school in in, in in Africa, right? I mean, how do you what is your advice for, for us, the younger generation when we're we are maybe asked to take on projects that seem unreasonably difficult and we say who I'm not want to take this on? There's got to be somebody better? I think your career is a display of you just just succeeding at every turn, but also never saying no, but how do you negotiate this this internal conflict of like, Oh, my God, am I going to do this project justice? Am I the right person? I think this is very difficult sometimes to, to deal with.
Unknown Speaker 49:35
Yeah, it's, it's,
Unknown Speaker 49:38
you pose such wonderful questions. It's a bit like, you know, Brene Brown, and her wonderful
Unknown Speaker 49:48
TED talk on vulnerability and you know how we learned humility because you're right.
Unknown Speaker 49:55
I
Unknown Speaker 49:57
I learned the
Unknown Speaker 50:00
that it's against somebody has to do it. And
Unknown Speaker 50:06
I often felt like, you know, I'm not the right person and totally incapable of doing that. But I, but I was always surrounded by people who
Unknown Speaker 50:16
I knew had had the, you know, different talents and different expertise that together, we can, and it just takes somebody to, to kind of Jumpstart.
Unknown Speaker 50:30
And oftentimes, it's giving another person an opportunity to get involved in the leadership.
Unknown Speaker 50:36
Who may think exactly like if you're saying in that's the best way, if you can lift somebody else up in the process, you know, have them lift themselves up in the process and get the credit and value and vision that said, I do often say that I, I hate the business plans and strategic plans, five year strategic plans.
Unknown Speaker 50:58
Why is that? Yeah, yeah, because it's often too limiting. I tell people, you know, who could look back at the Empress program. And I wasn't one of the founders, but it three internist and a pediatrician who really started that whole program that Kenya.
Unknown Speaker 51:15
And
Unknown Speaker 51:17
I said, if they had laid out a five year plan, it was it would still be one, one little building.
Unknown Speaker 51:27
I said, yeah, yeah, lead with love. They would have sold themselves short. Yeah. So one of the more important things I learned was from a theologian at our church, we have an ever theologian in residence. And he started off as a very conservative young person, he said and grew into this more inclusive. And he's published now prolifically written several books, he calls it the kind of basic tenet is plurality of truth.
Unknown Speaker 51:56
Yeah, so we all, you know, come from our little part of a world with our perception of what's true.
Unknown Speaker 52:05
And he said, just in Christianity, he said, there are 25,000, more than 25,000 many denominations that people think they found the truth in this part of scripture or whatever.
Unknown Speaker 52:15
And he said, he said, maybe if we thought about all these diverse opinions and views in our humanity, which are growing and expanding, as part of the ongoing intentional creation, just like biodiversity, right? He said, he said, If we looked at it like that, and then, from a theological point of view, recognize the importance of seeing each other's little truth. But instead of building a wall, that's the only maybe like the six, you know, blind men and the elephant. Seeing it's different parts. If we could just collectively try to begin understanding each other's then maybe we'll come a little bit closer to the ultimate parts truth. So I took him on rounds with me once in the NICU. On our team. We had 15 very complicated babies in
Unknown Speaker 53:05
a very in several parents who are choosing courses of their babies that were different than we traditionally one would expect. Unless a baby a member with trisomy 18. And
Unknown Speaker 53:17
parents, the dads push a professor of math.
Unknown Speaker 53:22
At IU, mom's a high end defense software technician, they have six other children. They knew about the diagnosis prenatally and knew that she would maybe die in utero.
Unknown Speaker 53:36
My dad bursts my dad subsequently and they looked us out there they're they're kind of
Unknown Speaker 53:44
living wills for their for their daughter. And it turned out she weighed 1500 grams, that term birth was it room air,
Unknown Speaker 53:53
had a large VSD
Unknown Speaker 53:57
came over from our birthing center at that time to the NICU
Unknown Speaker 54:02
and had a male aminika seal which was known beforehand
Unknown Speaker 54:08
and say they want the elected to go ahead and surgery repaired the mind of an NGO seal ended up with a shunt and then we found the baby had suffered geometria with it.
Unknown Speaker 54:19
And they said well, she's still doing so well. Like her children are there six kids, you know, to get enough some time if possible to understanding she would die prematurely. So one of our surgeons laparoscopically
Unknown Speaker 54:34
endoscopically repaired and esophageal atresia. Yeah. And she did well
Unknown Speaker 54:43
ultimately died at four months but it created huge stress moral stress for our staff. And I remember one meeting we went all around the room and
Unknown Speaker 54:54
and at the end, everybody was kind of venting there. Some
Unknown Speaker 55:00
Times frustrations with a family if you know doing more, do something to a baby rather than for a baby. And this little girl, Heather was her name.
Unknown Speaker 55:10
And it's very easy to understand everybody's different views on this. But I said at the NAACP Well, we have, we have parents who are obviously very bright, they've been presented with every option from, you know, going ahead with this surgery versus just withholding all fluid and giving some
Unknown Speaker 55:33
medication for pain and letting her die peacefully.
Unknown Speaker 55:37
That's what they wish. So we have parents who are very knowledgeable know the full range of options,
Unknown Speaker 55:43
and obviously love their baby very much. So I said, How is how is it that we could
Unknown Speaker 55:50
ever think that our, even our intentions are good,
Unknown Speaker 55:55
you have a set of parents who love their child, so
Unknown Speaker 55:59
what can be better than directing the care than their love? So I, that's what I've always so I call it the plurality of love, rather than plurality truth. So trying to help us that love in the
Unknown Speaker 56:13
you know, it helps us build the trust helps us become less judgmental, let's better understand the moral pillars, principles that might guide that family. But so, so I've learned over the years, you know, that our I remember when I finished fellowship, I thought the kernel of truth was about, I'm holding my hands, size of a basketball.
Unknown Speaker 56:38
Now, I believe
Unknown Speaker 56:41
the truth is, we can understand it is so miniscule that it's hard to appreciate in how we have the arrogance is as humanity to somehow say that this is absolute. Even abortion, I mean, I obviously spent, we spend our lives caring for the most vulnerable.
Unknown Speaker 57:02
I hate the term pro life, it implies that everybody else is anti life.
Unknown Speaker 57:08
But how is it that we can presume to understand better than the context of that family?
Unknown Speaker 57:16
That wish and that relative love for her family? We are human and how come? We don't have the vital capacity for divine love. But I think the love for a child is as close as you can get one of my favorite quotes is, children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven. It was Henry Ward Beecher in 1840.
Unknown Speaker 57:39
Yeah, yeah. Brother advocating for, for, for human rights and research. And yes, you're right. His sister wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. He was the first minister at our church actually back in 18.
Unknown Speaker 57:53
But anyway, his quote, I always thought, Well, that's about as close as we can come to understanding divine love. But anyway, our ability to
Unknown Speaker 58:02
think,
Unknown Speaker 58:04
or arrogance is, as they say, is, is pretty, pretty awesome. But there's, but there's something. There's something pretty amazing about working in the NICU, I believe, that teaches us this lesson about plurality of truth in a very elegant manner, right, because I think some of some, I mean, neonatologists are known and I don't mean this to brag, but like, we're like, our specialty has had the privilege of having such smart individuals, right? People who have had a level of intelligence that is incredible. And to see, these people get it wrong, when we review the history of certain topics, and the fact that they get it wrong, so often just reminds you that there's, there's truth is a very fluid concept. And, and I think, to me, that's, that's what's amazing is when somebody says, Oh, this is an outdated practice, it's like, you know, this was the truth not too long ago, and your truth today may not be the truth tomorrow, and have some respect for, for how dynamic all of this is. And, and, and, and I think to me, this is, this is what's beautiful about neonatology is that there's we don't like we say this, with Daphna on the podcast every so often. We are not internal medicine. We don't have guidelines for everything. We are a specialty that constantly says we don't know. You do not know for sure. And this humility is something that is that is to be cherished. Now. What you were talking about leads me to the question I've been wanting to ask you since the beginning of this interview, which is that I was reading an interview that you gave either to Riley's Hospital website, I don't remember. But it describes a case where a family of very preterm babies were being basically given the awful konsult by the by the neonatologist, right like God IV
Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
Ah, PDA NEC, like the gloom, doom and gloom, everything's going to be terrible. A bit.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:06
Yeah, a bit like, let's, let's let's cover our butts make sure that we told them everything that could be wrong. And it mentions that you came in the room and you said no like with a big smile saying we got this right. And and that how this this your approach about trying to build trust and trying to make patients comfortable and not really adopt this, this doom and gloom attitude is something that defines you. And I am wondering if you could speak to that and give us some advice for for for us starting in this field as to how do we navigate how do we how do we reach this point where we can be upbeat, we can be optimistic, but also we're not completely
Unknown Speaker 1:00:49
deceptive either. But but really, my my goal in this question is how do we steer away from just giving the parents the whole list of everything that could be wrong without mentioning ever once? What could go? Well, what what's what's your take off? That's a great point. And my mentors were really super at that. And
Unknown Speaker 1:01:13
so often,
Unknown Speaker 1:01:16
I sometimes will share statistics, but usually try to avoid statistics. Because, you know, ultimately saying, well, for your baby, whatever happens, it's 100%. And we can't predict.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:32
But we can say there's a high probability, you know, that your baby may not survive through the first week.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:40
And usually don't give a timeframe but
Unknown Speaker 1:01:44
but, you know, understanding and listening to the parents hope, and sometimes their background is very helpful in that but hearing how they're looking at their pregnancy and if their child is really important. It's kind of like when a baby, in fact, is dying news terminal on a ventilator.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:05
And they parents have been counseled repeatedly, in a sensitive way. And they understand that, but when they're with their baby, they're talking to their baby, they're touching their baby holding the baby's hand. And the nurses sometimes will come back and say they're in denial they're in denial is a great way to journey through life. It's a big, important tool, but they're not in denial. They're just still the baby's alive and pleasant. So being present, it's so important for everything in life.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:37
Critical to be present.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:40
It's why it's important to say yes to everything so you can be president.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:44
You'll meet that next, you know, leader or
Unknown Speaker 1:02:47
whatever. But anyway, that
Unknown Speaker 1:02:51
out of 1000s of those experiences, I then started a program
Unknown Speaker 1:02:57
where we hired a first was a part time mother of a baby with long term disability to work full time, well, part time halftime, and be paid as an employee in our NICU. Now we have six full time there are mothers so far, but who have all been through the NICU with their own journey, triplets, Down syndrome, cetera, et cetera. And they work full time in three of our hospitals.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:26
One works is bilingual works
Unknown Speaker 1:03:29
at Eskenazi, we have three at Riley and three have a different the mother maternity hospital or two at maternity hospital. And they're all paid full time employees to in the building and built an academic program where they we have, I don't know, 40 or 50 Different kinds of sub set programs, all to support families.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:54
From the view of
Unknown Speaker 1:03:57
families, parents who have gone through the journey, and can teach us how to do all this better, you know, and understand.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:08
Yeah, so. So, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:10
It's a great, it's a great question. But I always like to
Unknown Speaker 1:04:16
concentrate and understand the hope that parents have until that bit, and I'm obviously providing realistic information all the time.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:26
But the key is to build that trust and to know that they know we're just human, but we care deeply. And that's enough to start. And then if things change, you know, then then we have the trust to
Unknown Speaker 1:04:43
to provide that different perspective. I always say it's better to that's why I always you know, tell the house. You know, every family that we do an x ray on a baby.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:56
Take five minutes and show them that X ray explained it to them.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
To show them a normal X ray, if there's something abnormal, even if it's normal, just so normal, but show them so that they own the information, it's their baby, not ours. And from then on, they need to understand that they can ask for a second opinion, they are the owners, and they, all this information is not ours, it's theirs. And, you know, printing out a growth curve to take with them on the discharge can be a very proud piece of information to, you know, see they grew right along with 50%, down both head circumference and weight, you know, something that they did and why nutrition is so important. trust their gut instincts and always ask, and they're the boss, you know, and advocate for your child for this. It can change a whole dynamic for the rest of the life hospitalization. Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, but again, it gets back to, you know, how do you how do you teach people the joy of caring?
Unknown Speaker 1:05:58
That's where you get your kind of spiritual fulfillment. I think.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:03
Even if you're atheist, it's that the participation in
Unknown Speaker 1:06:10
relationships.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:12
That actually, that actually brings me to what is probably my last question, because we are nearing the end of our of our time with you.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:21
So I anticipate that you have similar thoughts about working with learners and trainees and mentees as you do with working with families. And I think that relationship has changed a lot in medicine, also. And so
Unknown Speaker 1:06:40
I find now that mentors feel like things are very transactional and resource based, but what you're really describing is this culture of just caring about each other, including your own staff. And so I hope you'll just speak to some of those lessons about working.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:02
So I've had, I've had the
Unknown Speaker 1:07:05
middle schoolers shadow with me in the NICU in high school, of course, and a lot of pre med,
Unknown Speaker 1:07:11
some elderly, you know, grandpa's that rack, they used to take care of telephone operators, and plumbers and
Unknown Speaker 1:07:19
housekeeping people around rounds would be once just to show them how important they were to, you know, you can't have a dripping faucet next to a man who's trying to rest.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:30
So you have to be polite on the telephone and welcoming, you know, so we get the next call next.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:36
And once they see what happens in that NICU, they they understand that
Unknown Speaker 1:07:42
I used to
Unknown Speaker 1:07:45
I've always thought I've met the best students I've ever met.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:49
Well, last week, I met another one that's even better.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:54
You know, I've worked with 1000s of students, I love to work with students, and
Unknown Speaker 1:08:01
I've invited several to be on different boards, philanthropic, you know, things that I'm involved with, just as experienced this as a young person, because also we value the young person's perspective, you know,
Unknown Speaker 1:08:18
that this young lady
Unknown Speaker 1:08:21
after we spent I just I was giving a talk on this kind of thing over that I do every month over at Eskenazi.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:29
And she was so enamored, and she's good friends with another student
Unknown Speaker 1:08:33
that I work with have worked with a lot. And so she came over, she spent about two or three hours and, and she was so she said Dr. Lemons, he said I the last two years and COVID I really lost some of my passion is really diminished. And I don't understand why. And here she is. She has a full scholarship at Purdue to pay for her undergrad, her master's in public health and engineering. And her med school. She has a scholarship for fire. Wow. And she has been involved in leadership positions in 20 different community service program she designed with a faculty member a new engineering master's degree with a focus on humanitarianism. Was that possible? Anyway she's this amazing young lady and and she was feeling just kind of still I don't know if burnouts the right word I hit use that term. I don't think anybody in medicine should ever be burned out.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:35
And so
Unknown Speaker 1:09:37
her passion is around global health, and that's what she wants to pursue.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:43
And I was so inspired by this person, Angeles, her name and in fact, cash this. It's these young people that give us hope for our world is broken as it is right now.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:00
If we can help affirm them,
Unknown Speaker 1:10:04
and how to get the joy out of medicine, that's that's a big part of our job, I guess, but also a big part of the gift we've been given
Unknown Speaker 1:10:13
to help on this, on this journey, if we can walk each other home in a healthy manner with good relationships, that's about as good as I think we can do.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:28
I have one last question. Do you regret not pursuing a career in professional tennis? Oh,
Unknown Speaker 1:10:37
you know, just one. So I, I did get the play. Yeah, we we won the national championship. I know you. I mean, I was looking this up. You were quite good. I was pretty good.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:50
But before not that good, but I did. I got to play in the National Clay courts and the national press when I was in high school. And I got the ball boy for all the great you know, Rod Laver and Tony Kramer and all the greats. But just the finish with one compliment to my mom. So they had the men's and women's national appellate courts outside Chicago, and we happen to belong to that tennis club. My mom with five boys wanted something for us to do in the summer. We all had jobs that she wanted us to. So I had the opportunity to really get pretty good at tennis, but certainly not great. But
Unknown Speaker 1:11:31
my mom.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:33
So Althea Gibson was maybe the greatest woman, African American tennis player, even better than some of our current ones. Fantastic. But back in the 1950s, she just won Wimbledon and came to the national Clay courts.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:50
And my mom invited her to stay at our house.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:53
Well, she graciously declined, very. And she said that might create too many problems. That was a
Unknown Speaker 1:12:02
big part of segregation at that point.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:07
Then 10 years later, we're sitting at dinner with all my brothers and my mom was recalling that we were talking about how wonderful it was that she gave us a chance to play tennis, and swim and stuff in and participate in. And she said, she lost maybe 50 of her friends.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:25
Because she invited Althea Gibson, an African American woman.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:30
And I thought,
Unknown Speaker 1:12:33
a brave
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pioneer,
Unknown Speaker 1:12:37
kind of quietly, I think she gave us some of those values. And we didn't even know it.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:45
But I, she died when she was almost 96, just the same as she lived
Unknown Speaker 1:12:51
very graciously,
Unknown Speaker 1:12:54
simply, you know,
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very lucky to be given
Unknown Speaker 1:13:00
some of that perspective,
Unknown Speaker 1:13:03
you know, being self aware, may be the most important there's a great book called
Unknown Speaker 1:13:08
really leadership that's about a Jesuit priest who went on to Wall Street to become a broker. And, and he was trying to discern the value of this on Wall Street versus what he grown up with a nice and is a Jesuit priest, you're picked, because you love the people you serve, you don't
Unknown Speaker 1:13:26
frighten them, you know, you don't mess with fear. We should, we should love the people we care for and serve in our staff, etc. Second, was interesting to self awareness, they were picked because they're self aware, they understand their weaknesses, their strengths, so that when the Pope said you go to Argentina, they go in and suddenly quickly and the third is creativity. You know, Einstein always said in for
Unknown Speaker 1:13:53
imagination is much more important than information and the fourth was heroism. however you define that but the willingness to be vulnerable and step out.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:04
Lead, you know, lead
Unknown Speaker 1:14:06
a program in neonatology you know, it's Yeah, but those are, those are all great lessons. But being self aware, only 10% of humanity they say is intuitively self aware of everything. You know, understand see yourself kind of in relationship and improve what you're, how you're being perceived. And, yeah, because that's perception is reality for families walking into a NICU speaking a different language, never treated properly, being poor, not knowing what's going on, but so taking time to speak to them in the same language at their level, if it was me on the floor, talking to a mom in a bed was so important news, taking time to get her spouse or partner there on the phone or, you know, taking that time build the trust. Not judge could be us there. All right.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:00
worth.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:01
Anyway, I've know I've gone on too long. Oh, no, this was this is this is phenomenal. Daphna. Do you have any any last questions? I mean, I'm happy to end on this note. It's it's fantastic. No, I think this is something I'm really to leave our listeners with for sure. Thank you very much. I mean, we're recording this obviously not on the day of the release. And now it makes me think that I want to release this episode sooner than than anticipated because it was a good. Jim, thank you. Thank you very much for your time. This was phenomenal. And thank you for sharing all these stories and your perspective. This was this was really phenomenal. Thank you very much. It was an honor. And I applaud you for what you're you're doing and what you're sharing and teaching all of us. So thanks for taking the time to do this. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:46
Blessings.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:48
Thank you for listening to the incubator podcast. If you liked this episode, please leave us a review on Apple podcast or the Apple podcast website. You can find other episodes of the show on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, or the podcast app of your choice. We would love to hear from you so feel free to send us questions, comments or suggestions to our email address NICU podcast@gmail.com. You can also message the show on Instagram or Twitter at Nick you podcast or through our website at WWW dot v dash incubator.org.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:23
This podcast is intended to be purely for entertainment and informational purposes and should not be construed as medical advice. If you have any medical concerns. Please see your primary care professional. Thank you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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