The Underside of Medicine | Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD

The Doctor's Art

Henry Bair and Tyler Johnson

Medicine, Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Philosophy

5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While this podcast has largely featured clinicians sharing the joy they have found in medicine, in this episode—breaking with tradition—we speak with a physician left disenchanted by her experiences working in medicine. Our guest is Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD, a minimally-invasive and bariatric surgeon who conducts research on gender equity and implicit bias in medicine. At Stanford Hospital, she advises initiatives to promote physician well-being and diversity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her frontline experiences were featured in Newsweek, NBC, CBS, and other press outlets. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Salles shares fiercely honest accounts about the difficulties she has faced as an immigrant, minority, and woman in medicine. Her stories are by turns saddening, shocking, and amusing, but ultimately invoke us to reflect on the part we can all play to create a more just and inclusive path for current and future physicians.

In this episode, you will hear about:

Dr. Salles’ path to medicine and her regrets along the way - 2:11
The social pressures within medicine to overlook the downsides and hardships of a medical career - 7:11
Why Dr. Salles chose surgery as a specialty - 11:02
How, upon accepting her first academic position , Dr. Salles found herself in an environment that did not adequately support her surgical practice and her research - 14:12
The systemic and cultural factors that led to the lack of support Dr. Salles faced - 23:03
Dr. Salles’ research on gender equity in medicine - 29:57
A discussion of the challenges of life as an academic physician - 32:13
How Dr. Salles made the decision to put herself over her career and leave her academic position - 36:47
Why it can sometimes seem that hospitals are exploiting physicians - 41:12
Advice on how institutions can better promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in their culture - 47:32

Learn more about Dr. Salles’ work on her website and follow her on Twitter @Arghavan_Salles.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to [email protected].

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
0:17.2	create better doctors?
0:18.8	How can we build health care institutions
0:20.6	that nurture the doctor-patient connection.
0:23.0	What can we learn about the human condition
0:25.0	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, from doctors and nurses to patients and health care executives, those who have collected a career's worth of hard-earned wisdom.
0:40.0	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.
0:53.0	Join us as we think out loud about what illness and healing can teach us about some of life's biggest questions.
1:00.0	Over the past year we have spoken with more than 50 clinicians about what makes
1:07.8	their work meaningful. But in this episode we are changing things up and
1:12.0	speaking with someone who has been
1:13.9	disenchanted what their experience is working in medicine. Our guest is Dr.
1:19.5	Argybun Salas, a minimally invasive and bariatric surgeon who conducts research on gender equity and implicit bias in medicine.
1:27.0	At Sanford Hospital, she advises initiatives to promote physician well-being and diversity. During the COVID-19 pandemic,
	...

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