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.

Joining us in this episode is Dr. Ajo Boetang, an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician at Stanford.

She graduated from Yale, received her medical degree from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School,

went back to Yale to complete anesthesiology training and undertook a critical care fellowship at Stanford.

Prior to becoming an Intensivist, Agua worked in the realm of addiction medicine, performing research on hepatitis C among injection drug users, and working with programs that trained heroin users in the administration of Naloxone to mitigate overdose.

She also has a passion for serving those at the margins of society, including homeless and

prison populations. Ajoa marries her clinical focus with her interest in narrative medicine as a writer and poet.

She's currently investigating racial and ethnic disparities in critical care medicine.

So Agua, how do the different elements of your career, ranging from addiction medicine to health

...