A Moral Drive to Heal the World (with Dr. Jim Yong Kim)
The Doctor's Art
Henry Bair and Tyler Johnson
5 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2024
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Soon after finishing his first semester of college, Jim Yong Kim, MD, PhD excitedly told his father that he'd dedicate his life to starting a social justice movement. In response, his father sternly reprimanded him, saying that the only career he'd support was one in medicine. Dr. Kim acquiesced, but over the subsequent decades would hold on to this passion for social justice and become one of the most influential individuals working in global health, poverty reduction, and sustainable development.
He co-founded Partners in Health, today a renowned medical humanitarian organization that operates in the poorest areas of developing countries. From there, he served as advisor to the Director-General of the World Health Organization and as Director of its HIV/Aids Department. He would then serve as the 17th President of Dartmouth College, before being selected as President of the World Bank, a position he would hold for seven years.
In this episode, Dr. Kim joins us to discuss his unique training combining medicine with anthropology, the cultural factors that shaped his understanding of international development, how he spearheaded radical efforts to treat millions of HIV and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis patients around the world, the inner mechanisms of the World Bank, the moral philosophy that drives his work, and more.
In this episode, we discuss:
2:32 - Dr Kim’s motivation for pursuing both medicine and anthropology
8:04 - How Dr. Kim paired his clinical training with his passion for social justice
16:46 - How Dr. Kim stayed true to his moral convictions as he faced challenges in managing global crises such as the HIV epidemic in Africa
26:29 - The story of PEPFAR, one of the most ambitious initiatives to address the global HIV/AIDS pandemic pandemic
30:45 - How committing to moral justice can help people think outside of the box to meet the economic needs of a situation
33:36 - The history and goals of the World Bank
38:11 - How Dr. Kim prepared for his role at the World Bank, an organization that operates in many sectors in addition to global health
43:28 - How Dr. Kim maintains a sense of purpose and fulfillment throughout his career
Dr. Jim Yong Kim can be found on Twitter/X at @jim_yong12.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Henry Bear. |
| 0:03.0 | And I'm Tyler Johnson. |
| 0:05.0 | And you're listening to The Doctors Art, a podcast that explores meaning in medicine. |
| 0:09.0 | Throughout our medical training and career, we have pondered. |
| 0:13.2 | What makes medicine meaningful? |
| 0:15.1 | Can a stronger understanding of this meaning create better doctors? |
| 0:18.8 | How can we build health care institutions that nurture the doctor-patient connection. |
| 0:23.0 | What can we learn about the human condition |
| 0:24.8 | from accompanying our patients in times of suffering? |
| 0:28.0 | In seeking answers to these questions, |
| 0:30.0 | we meet with deep thinkers working across health care, |
| 0:33.0 | from doctors and nurses to patients and health care |
| 0:35.4 | executives, those who have collected a career's worth of hard-earned wisdom. |
| 0:40.1 | Probing the moral heart that beats at the core of medicine, we will hear stories that are by turns heart-breaking, amusing, inspiring, challenging, and enlightening. |
| 0:49.0 | We welcome anyone curious about why doctors do what they do. |
| 0:52.8 | Join us as we think out loud about what illness and healing can teach us |
| 0:57.1 | about some of life's biggest questions. Soon after finishing his first semester of college, Jim Young Kim excitedly told his father that he dedicate his life to starting a social justice movement. |
| 1:11.0 | Immediately pulling the car over, his father sternly reprimanded him, |
| 1:15.4 | saying that the only career he'd support was one in medicine. Jim acquiesced, but over the subsequent |
| 1:21.9 | decades would hold on to this passion for social justice |
| 1:25.3 | and become one of the most influential individuals in the realms of global health, poverty |
| 1:29.9 | reduction, and sustainable development. |
... |
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