Hi, I'm Henry Bear.

And I'm Tyler Johnson.

And you're listening to The Doctor's Art, a podcast that explores meaning in medicine.

Throughout our medical training and career, we have pondered.

What makes medicine meaningful?

Can a stronger understanding of this meaning

create better doctors?

How can we build health care institutions

that nurture the doctor-patient connection?

What can we learn about the human condition from accompanying our patients in times of suffering?

In seeking answers to these questions, we meet with deep thinkers working across health care, from doctors and nurses to patients and health care executives, those who have collected a career's worth of hard-earned wisdom.

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.

We welcome anyone curious about why doctors do what they do.

Join us as we think out loud about what illness and healing can teach us about some of life's biggest questions. Our guest today, Dr. Pam Coons, is the director of the Center for Gastroantecens at Yale Cancer Center.

For 19 years prior to that, she had been at Stanford University, most

recently serving as director of the Stanford Neuroindocrine Tumor Program. But in 2020, Dr. Coons announced

her departure due to years of gender discrimination,

microaggressions, and verbal abuse.

In this episode, we are fortunate to have Dr Coons join us and share her experiences well at Stanford, how she overcame these challenges

and how she now advocates for equity in academic medicine.

At Yale Medicine, Dr. Coons is currently also the Vice Chief of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiative in the Medical Oncology Division. In 2021, Dr. Coons was recognized as the Women Oncologist of the Year by Women Leaders in Oncology.

And I will also say that she is a dear personal friend and mentor and probably as much as any other person responsible for both the current

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