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Breaking Barriers: Journalism's Role in Healthcare Equity with Simar Bajaj

• Public Health Coalition at Yale

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Today's guest is Samar Bajaj, an award-winning journalist and science writer whose work bridges the worlds of medicine and storytelling. Inspired by his uncle, a radiologist in the U.S. Air Force, Samar learned early on that medicine is ultimately about humanity—a principle that guides his reporting today.

In this episode, we explore Samar’s journey to becoming a leading voice in health journalism. Through compelling storytelling, he sheds light on stigmatized diseases, healthcare biases, and the systemic barriers that shape public health. Hear how his investigative work has exposed disparities in medical technology, influenced policy discussions, and amplified the voices of marginalized communities.

Samar also shares the realities of freelancing, the obstacles he faced breaking into the field, and how persistence led to impactful reporting. From global health explorations to advocating for improved health literacy, his experiences highlight how journalism can be a catalyst for change in the public health spectrum.

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Speaker 1:

What do I mean by confront stigma and injustice in healthcare? I think part of it is just a shining a light on the work that journalism can do. In shining a light, right, I think we often think of the science. As I mean, the science is settled, the science is superior, right? It's almost this triumphalist sense of what the science is and that, in turn, leads to this gloxing over sometimes, of when the science fails fundamentally, when it does not serve the people it is ostensibly meant to serve. It's not just a historical thing, this is a present day thing, and journalism is a unique way to bring light to that.

Speaker 2:

Samar Bajaj is the award-winning journalist and science writer whose 70-plus articles have appeared in 26 newspapers and medical journals, including the Washington Post, nbc News and the New England Journal of Medicine. A Harvard grad turned Marshall Scholar, she has light on stigmatized diseases and health policy issues that shapes patient lives, with the belief that writing is a form of civic engagement. In this episode, we discuss the story behind Samar's newfound success, his specific articles and the impact that journalism has on public health.

Speaker 1:

Samar it's been good for you and it's great to be out here on the podcast. I think it's. Yeah, I mean it's an interesting time in the country and it's motivating in one sense right, the work that we're able to do as journalists, the work that writing can have in a really critical political time and it's dispiriting and sort of emotional in certain ways, but also energizing in terms of the importance of that work and the importance of writing as a form of political engagement.

Speaker 2:

Before we get all into your brilliance as a journalist, I kind of want to get a sense of who you are as a person and maybe introduce you a little bit to the audience.

Speaker 1:

Yeah for sure. So my name is Simran Vajaj. I was born and brought up in the San Francisco Bay Area. I lived in one city my whole life, that's Fremont, california. I mean it's just a wonderful place to grow up. I think it is. The weather is always nice, the food, the food's great. It's a competitive area, to be sure. I mean it is a competitive area. The schools that I went to were quite competitive, but in a way that I appreciate, in a way that I felt inspired by seeing sort of what my other classmates were up to, what they were working on and what sort of impact they were able to have, and I think it was something that I found quite gratifying in one sense and it pushed me to want to think about my own work in a very serious way and not just as doing something for its own sake, but because it has some broader meaning, some broader significance. So I think I really enjoyed growing up in the bay area and, just like the weather, I think I'll circle back to that.

Speaker 2:

That's hard to beat anywhere else yeah, yeah, for sure I can imagine. I'm from philippines myself and the weather there compared to new haven here, right honestly amazing. In your childhood, I guess I kind of wanted to see, um, what got you interested in healthcare and medicine? Wasn't that competitive drive? Or was it a parent that inspired you? What got you interested in it?

Speaker 1:

I mean it's a little bit my uncle that inspired me. Both my parents are accountants. So, no, I mean not medicine, there's no medicine within the household but my uncle, he is a radiologist and he served in the us air force and around around when I was nine years old or so. Um, he was deployed to afghanistan and he would ascend, he would call me and over over skype right, because zoom wasn't a thing at that point um, and he called me over skype because I was terrified that he was gonna die, that he's gonna, uh, I mean I'd never see him again, right, he's like beloved uncle, like he said, far away in this dangerous land. So he called me over Skype every week and basically tell me what he was up to, like basically proof of life, so to say. And he would tell me in some of these conversations how he was treating like US Air Force personnel, nato personnel in Afghanistan, but also Al-Qaeda and Taliban members.

Speaker 1:

And it struck me as profoundly confusing. I was like what? I mean? Those are the bad guys. Why are you treating the bad guys?

Speaker 1:

And what he said is quite simple but profound like, well, medicine doesn't care if you're good or bad, it treats you because you're human right and like the politics of what to do with you or bad it treats you because you're human right and like the politics of what to do with you, that can be decided by someone else. But as a doctor, for me I'm taking care of the person in front of me, right, regardless of who they are. And I remember, like sort of nine years old, being like profoundly sort of surprised and in wonder at this idea like what is this medicine that they're talking about? That is just like so amazing, that is so this stands such an incredible pillar, and thinking that that, oh, I want to be just like Michael. I want to do exactly this. I want to be like him because medicine is this great thing and obviously the reality is a lot more different. That's a nice ideal.

Speaker 1:

Medicine doesn't live up to that in a lot of cases, in most cases. But that I think I learned in high school, that I think I learned more in college and I think ultimately that actually inspired me more. That high school, that I think I learned more in college and I think ultimately that actually inspired me more. Right that, this image, this dream of that nine-year-old naivety? Right, and the nine-year-old vision that medicine is equal care for all right. That's something to aspire towards, right, and also the inequities I see, all the inequities that I directly face. It reminds me of that work and reminds me of sort of the importance of working towards that dream instead of dismissing it as some childhood fantasy yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I think a lot of kids are like whenever you ask them, like what do you want to be? When you grow up and say doctor, and you're like, oh, like they have a certain idea of the work that they do and like the job that they have to do and I guess, the broad impact and the really good work that they do for the community. But when you do grow up and you see the actual work that you have to put in to be a doctor, it could be Islam will confess on that. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Like when you got into high school or maybe even Harvard, was the dream always to just be a doctor, or how did you, I guess, get into journalism?

Speaker 1:

in that sense, yeah, it's interesting, I never considered journalism as something I would ever do, frankly, right, until my, like, sophomore year of college. Right, I didn't do my high school paper, I didn't. I was never part of my college paper, the Crimson so it struck me. I mean, it just wasn't in the plan, right, it was one of those things where I was going to be a doctor, right, I didn't have a sense that doctors can do much else, right, and what's more, if they could do much else, like I wasn't. What was I good at? Right, what was I going to do beyond being a doctor? But sophomore year I took two creative writing classes and they just happened to be on science writing and it worked out nicely. It fulfilled my pre-med requirement for an English class, right, I mean it, I was taking it for that reason and I just fell in love. I thought I had, to that point, done a lot of sort of research writing, academic writing, writing research papers. But this is the first time that I was kind of writing for fun, writing for creatively writing, in a way that was just trying to be interesting, trying to be captivating, right, not about having like a reader, like who is like a peer reviewer, right, but like the public, right, who can put down this paper and put down your article at any moment, right? So you really have to do right to engage. And I just found it amazing and I said, okay, this summer, right, I want to just try to do journalism, right, I want to just try it out. Right, see how it happens, I applied for a bunch of internships, maybe up to, maybe even a dozen, and I didn't get a single one.

Speaker 1:

I didn't get a single internship because I had no experience. I, at a single internship, um, because I had no experience, I had no background, I had no reason to do this, right, I literally put my academic papers as my writing sample for a lot of these internships. Yeah, I'm kind of who I had, um, and it struck me, I mean, I was, I was really sad when I like didn't get any of them. Obviously, it's like kind of heartbreaking. I was telling, talking to my friends, my mentors, all um, it's a chicken and the egg. You need experience to get experience, this and that I was like, very woe is me.

Speaker 1:

I remember talking to one of my mentors about this and she essentially tells me but similar, why do you need an internship? I'm like, well, I don't know what I'm doing, I haven't done this before. I in terms of no, no, no, why don't you just do this on your own? I said, well, I, I guess, I guess I could freelance. I mean, I've heard this is a thing, um, so I spent that summer, um, freelancing.

Speaker 1:

Must've sent 500 cold emails to different editors, right, just that. I have this idea. Uh, well, let me write. I have this idea. Well, let me write. Nobody, let me write it.

Speaker 1:

Um, but I think over time some people gave me a chance. I turned one yes, into two, two to three, and it was just one thing. We're just really grinding it out with a lot of luck behind my sales that by the end of summer I had just found that I can do this work and I can be good at it and I can publish in some amazing places on some amazing topics and reach, um, reach, a lot of people right with it and it just I feel quite inspired and I just like I want to try to make this work right. I mean, there isn't, there isn't that big a model of the physician journalist. There are physician writers, there are physicians who write, physicians who write memoirs, whatnot there's not so much of a model of this journalist, but that's what I want to keep up, because I think there's rules for both. There's a rule for the science and being able to be an incredible clinician. There's a rule for the person who's able to communicate that effectively and build trust beyond your clinical walls.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and I think, just to like, before we get into the juice of it, I kind of want to clarify, like your trajectory at least. I kind of want to clarify like your trajectory at least. Um, when you were a sophomore you said that it was that was the first time you really interacted with writing and you interacted with the idea of maybe being a journalist or doing more with writing. How was your interaction with writing before that? Was it positive, negative? Was it just like then they just got out of the way as a pre-med student or as a, like someone in medicine high school? How was that?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I mean it's interesting and I guess it strikes me that, like, perhaps sophomore year wasn't my first interaction with writing. I mean in the sense like I had great teachers in high school. Um, I did have a blog in high school where I wrote about medicine and just like, but it was one of those blogs where like three people read it one of it is my mom. Right, it's like nobody's reading my blog and more just a way to learn about medicine. I would just write it. I write about it. So I mean, I always had great experiences with writing. I always had great english teachers.

Speaker 1:

I always really tried to write good essays, um, but I think that was more like it's almost came from a love of reading. I read so much in my childhood childhood and writing felt like a way to approximate that in some ways. Right, they're like how can I write like the people I read? But it was one of those things. I did it for my English classes. I did it because I was a good student. I paid attention, I tried to learn as much as I could, I tried to hone my craft, but it wasn't sort of a professional endeavor, it was always just something for class.

Speaker 1:

Right that I was like thinking about writing I didn't have a negative experience towards it, but it was more of a neutral experience. Right, it was almost that I was doing it because it's a means to an end. Right, writing is a craft to get a finished product, to get an essay that is going to be graded, or is a craft that I need to finish this research paper. I think what college and sort of the college classes taught me is that it's a end in and of itself and it's an exciting end in that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I think, like that is one of the, maybe one of the good things that journalism does provide you with the idea of writing being more than just something that you do in class, but it has actual impact for a lot of a lot of people. Um, I kind of wanted to understand what, what, when was the time when you got committed to journalism? You talked about your development, how it, how it got inspired. Um, what was? Was it a story? Was a specific um? Was it like a change of mindset? Like when did that happen? Where you're like I think I'm actually good at this and I want to continue this for the long term.

Speaker 1:

I think I mean it was a little bit that summer right that summer when suddenly I have this like flush of success and I'm suddenly writing for the Guardian and Time Magazine and the Washington Post. Within, I mean, just like with the summer that I started, I mean it was quite exhilarating. But I think really the part where I thought like maybe actually what I write people actually matters and actually people care about, was when I found out so this is summer 2022. And I find out in November of that year that I'm nominated for Science Story of the Year by the Foreign Press Association for an article I had written in the Guardian. And to give you the backstory about this article, this was an article that I had written for class. It was my final assignment for the class. I had sent it afterward to a bunch of outlets. Only the Guardian sort of seemed to be interested and they published it right and they know, like I sent her the draft. You're not supposed to do that they published it to. I mean you're very kind and I mean I had a great editor and suddenly I was nominated for this award. Uh, fast forward to the actual gala and I finally I won it. I'm the youngest winner they've ever had, um, and it's a science story of the year, and I'm thinking to myself like man, they must have really effed up here. They really messed up selecting me.

Speaker 1:

But also, part of it was this sense that, wow, maybe there is something there, maybe I can, right, actually do this seriously, in a serious way, and this is not just something that's a summer fling, so to say, or summer job right, where you do it for one summer and then you move on. But this is something where I think it's worth my time. I think I, I think I'm good at it. I think, um, this is something that is beneficial for the world, right, that this sort of idea of journalism as a bedrock of democracy is a way to inform and spread health literacy, um, and I really love to do it right. So it seems like this is a great um thing to keep keep going on and really hone in and make it part of my story, make it part of my work and my my who I am as a person yeah, yeah, and you did um kind of hint at um the trajectory of your career.

Speaker 2:

But maybe give like a little bit of a summary for the audience to kind of understand, like where you are now and I guess, how did you get there, I guess?

Speaker 1:

so I mean I mentioned I started, I did college and I guess I did high school in the Bay Area. I went to college at Harvard University, really loved it. I had a wonderful time. It's, I mean, in a very stimulating place, right, very. You're surrounded by incredible people and I think, much like high school. I felt quite inspired by that and I was fortunate enough at the end of my time in college to win a scholarship to study in the UK for two years.

Speaker 1:

So I'm currently at Oxford on the Marshall Scholarship studying global health and epidemiology. After sort of my two years here I'll be going back to the US, going back to back to Stanford to pursue medical school. So it's exciting in one sense. I have the next six years, um, kind of figured out in one sense and I think there's something like restrictive about that, of course, um, but something quite thrilling for me because there's just so much opportunity within those six years. I know I have a general sense where I'll be, but what I, what I'll do, what the opportunities are there, I think those are open and those are exciting.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. And I guess, like in while you were at Harvard and you're finally getting into the journalism realm, in that first summer when you sent so many emails to different people for pitches and the Guardian finally picked up your story, um, during that time period, was it? Was that the only story that you were writing? Were you doing other stories as well, for different outlets? Um, how would you describe that time, that time period, for yourself?

Speaker 1:

oh, frenzied. I was like I was writing a bunch of pitches, I was sending it to a bunch of editors, right, I was like, um, yeah, I mean that was not the only story. I was constantly trying to get another yes, because it's just so hard to get a yes, right, it was so hard to get anyone to agree to um, work on this, uh, work on this with me. And it was, yeah, I mean, it was honestly just I had to. I had to keep at it. Right, I was like had multiple stories I was juggling at once, right, um, in to, I had to keep at it.

Speaker 1:

Right, I was like had multiple stories I was juggling at once, right, um, in terms of trying to pitch them, but often I was only working physically, working on one or two stories at a time. Right, because just that's how much I could get a yes right. So, like um, I mean you get a sense right. Like I, maybe I wrote like 25 stories that summer, if I'm estimating right, I, I sent 500 emails, so you get a sense, of sort, of the success rate, so to say, right.

Speaker 1:

You don't get any one. Yes, right, so no, I mean it was profoundly challenging, but I think sort of the most valuable things in life often come from it being challenging, coming from you having to work really hard and I mean you don't always succeed. I was very lucky that I did actually succeed in this case, but it is something just where, if I didn't succeed, to have also taken that with my chin held high yeah, because it's hard stuff and um, there's just so much of luck that comes into it yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

What would you say were one of the some of the things that you were focusing on. Was it more science? Uh, more health. Was it encompassing medicine and health and science? What were like? What were you like first interested in? And then how did that kind of spread or develop as you?

Speaker 1:

became. I mean, in general, I write about all things medicine, I guess health and medicine is a good way to put it. There's a science that comes into it, but science I, I feel like, is often a broad term, and I don't write about things generally that are just simply scientific in nature. Um, there's usually a health or medicine angle. Um, for me, though, that summer, it was less of a discipline about what I was writing. I was just writing anything that people would let me write on, right. I mean, I wrote a story for time magazine on bladder cancer, um surgery. I wrote a story for Wired about hair loss, biotech. You get a sense of the range of work that I was doing.

Speaker 1:

I wrote a story for the Washington Post about pulse oximeters, for the Guardian about pig heart transplants. So it was really. There was less of a cogency about topic or focus area. It was literally sort of I am willing to write about anything right that I think is interesting and and will people let me write it now. I'm in sort of in a very provision luxurious position where I can be a little bit more disciplined, that I want to focus on stigmatized diseases and I'm going to try to pitch those articles and focus on those articles. Yeah, basically exclusively. But that took time, that took a while to come, get to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. How did you find all these different stories about, like, hair loss and trans musty pigs? Like where do you find them? Is it like from the news from TikTok, maybe? Like where do you find these sources?

Speaker 1:

Honestly, from a lot of places. I mean I think I read the news quite a bit, where a lot of places, I mean I think I I read, read the news quite a bit right, and I often find that when you're reading one article, an idea for another article often pops up right, because there's something that is kind of mentioned in passing or is sort of, um, like it's not really explored deeply or like or there's an angle that they're not considering, that it's kind of a hole in the article, right. So I often get inspired by other right and what they write and sort of seeing how can I build or how can I respond, where's the gaps, where's the sort of fascinating tidbit that is not explored. I also sort of get inspired by other people right. I mean just asking them what's interesting in your work, right, what is sort of crazy that people don't understand, right?

Speaker 1:

I think journalism is so much about talking to people and you're not always going to know what's important, but you just sort of often do and you just point you in the right direction. So it is sort of like just talking to people, listening to them right, getting a sense of what they think is important, what they think is valuable and using that feedback. Right, I mean, I think for me that is sort of how I like there's almost an endless source of ideas, right? I mean people often ask, right, well, how do you get your ideas this or that? Right, I mean, for me it's like there's so much out there that hasn't been written. There's so much that is interesting, fascinating, that evokes that curiosity, right, and it's almost a question of right, just tapping asking yourself, right, like when I like just reading actively, for example, right, asking actively, like wanting to know more about people's work. Right, and seeing what strikes you as interesting, what strikes you as people.

Speaker 2:

I haven't heard that before and only other people have heard that before yeah that's just the, I guess foundation of good journalism, and I think there's just infinite other ideas out there yeah, yeah, and I I would like think about I was like as a journalist myself, I always try to find stories to like, try, try to inspire some wonder into why this is happening, what is going on, and sometimes that type of wonder that does happen with these articles make them a lot more interesting and a lot more positive to people. Yeah, yeah, I also kind of wanted to maybe kind of get more of a reflection of your actual story. So it's 2022, you get the pitches, you start sending some stories, some type of stories, to many different news outlets. You go into your junior year. Um, are you still doing that type of work or do you take a pause? Like, what is that time period like in your junior year?

Speaker 1:

So I mean junior year, I'm like trying to freelance, I'm trying to keep it up Right, because I have these stories from the summer that are like I'm wrapping up. But I'm also thinking that, you know, I kind of want to keep this up Right, and it's obviously hard when you're in your junior year year, like thinking about medical school applications and stuff like that. But I'm trying to keep it up, like maybe doing like one story a month or so, so nothing too crazy, but like I care about this and I want to continue and I think that was sort of it was a challenge. Right, it's hard to write when you're in school, right, hard to write. Well, like you don't have a lot of open periods of time, and the open periods of time there are other competing demands on it, right from studying to exams and whatnot. So it was definitely challenging but I knew I wanted to keep it up.

Speaker 1:

But that summer I actually the summer after my junior year I spent it working at Stat News. Stat News, for those who don't know, is the medical arm of the Boston Globe Wonderful newsroom. I think it probably does the best health coverage in the country and I just had an incredible time working there and just spending the summer there, and I think for me it just confirmed it even more. So, right, like just I was in Washington DC, I was covering Congress and health policy and it was just a blast and it was a reminder of, like the far reach I mean the pieces I wrote for STAT. I mean so one of them was cited in a senate finance committee letter right demanding a hearing. I mean just like the places that it reaches and the people that read it. I mean it was just another confirmation of the impact and power of journalism yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Would you say that it was engineer year when you got your name out as an actual journalist, or was it more like after you got the experience of stat where it was like, okay, people start to know the good that you can produce?

Speaker 1:

I don't know, freed, I mean, it's one of those things that I I don't think people do know, right, I mean it's just like I think being a journalist is oftentimes a very silent profession, right, I mean, like, for me personally, until recently, I didn't really read a violence, I didn't really keep track of who is writing these articles, until I started doing journalism, I guess, when I was a reader, like, like I guess everyone else, um, I didn't really pay attention to who was writing, writing the articles, right, it was more the content and um, I always it always strikes me that I don't think I'm known particularly for journalism. Right, people might come across my article once in a while, right, or like, maybe they'll come across one article, right, but I don't think it strikes them as a similar wrote this or similar did this, right, I don't have a brand in the same way that, like, for example, david walsh walsh does right, or a lot of like louisa thomas at the new New Yorker does right, and these are people who, like you, go to them to read them, right, so, and that's fine, I don't, I, I think you read them because they're incredible writers. I don't think I'll ever reach that spot, um, but it's almost immaterial for me, because for me it's about the work that I'm doing, the pieces I'm writing and the impacts I'm having. And yeah, I mean the idea of being known is I'd rather my articles be known rather than me being. You know what I mean yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you talked about your purpose a little bit. I kind of want to discuss that about. Like, why do you write and maybe this hasn't been your career as you talk about, there's not a lot of physician journalists around and um, on your website you said that you wanted to confront stigma and injustice in health care. How does that play into your purpose as a journalist?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, I think. For me, what do I mean by confront stigma and injustice in health care? I think part of it is just shining a light on the work that journalism can do, and shining a light right. I think we often think of the science as I mean, the science is settled, the science is superior, right? It's almost this triumphalist sense of what the science is and that in turn, leads to this glossing over sometimes of when the science fails fundamentally, right, when it does not serve the people it is ostensibly meant to serve. And I think there's not just a historical thing, this is a present day thing, and journalism is a unique way to bring light to that.

Speaker 1:

I mean just, for example, a simple example of the pulse oximeter, which was used, incredibly, during COVID but would overestimate blood oxygen levels in black and brown people, overestimate blood oxygen levels in black and brown people, right, which had the effect of black and brown people would come to the emergency room, right With COVID, the like ER docs or ER nurses would put these pulse oximeters on their fingers to see whether they're actually sick or not. It would overestimate the blood oxygen. So they say, oh, you can go home, right, you don't need to be here, right, and then a lot of these people would die because they didn't get the care they needed right, because the tech, the device was not working right. Now it is the role of journalism, it is the role of storytelling, to bring attention to that and push the FDA, push other actors to require changes to make this technology more inequitable. Right, it was never maliciously designed to be sort of like overestimated and black around people. It just wasn't designed for those populations in mind.

Speaker 1:

So it is one of those things when I talk about confront stigma and injustice. It's in an informational way. It's in a health literacy way. It's in a way where giving disinformation to health policy leaders so they can do what they think is best, they can sort of help. Hopefully, the goal in health policy is to close inequities, is to address stigma, and part of that requires good information. Part of that requires good stories that compel people to make a change rather than accept the status quo.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's where I guess the beauty of journalism is that a lot of people don't really see Like. I feel like a lot of people when they just see articles or see writing, they just they don't really see the impact of it or the importance of it, they just see it as another article. But the idea of journalism being used as an informant for health policy makers, for a lot of people that actually make the things or make the policies that affect you, and not on a daily basis, is, I guess, a very, very important part of journalism that a lot of people do sadly overlook. Yeah, in your actual writing, what do you tend to focus on? Do you tend to focus on the detail of a person's narrative, on the complexities of a certain science, research? What do you tend to focus on?

Speaker 1:

It varies so much on story to story. If I'm writing a feature which is a longer story, I'll often try to build a character, I'll try to build a scene, I'll try to bring people to where I am. Often I'll be reporting in person for the features, so that one is a lot more creative. It's almost like a creative writing-esque. If I'm writing a news story, right like a science study story, I will be focused a lot on the science, I'll be focused on the limitations, I'll be focused on the methodology, I'll be focused on explaining that right, I think science journalism is so exciting because it is so broad, right in a scope, right, there's many different sort of levers that you can be taking it from, addressing it from um, and I think that is something that I find quite exciting.

Speaker 1:

Um, just this opportunity to be, um, thinking about medicine in all these manifold ways right In the way of who are the scientists behind it, what is sort of the methodologies behind it, what is the questions that are being interrogated, and are those even the right questions? I mean, there's a larger philosophical questions here, and I think for me, my favorite thing that I've done, don't just stop at the science, but get into the ethics, get into into the history, get into these other dimensions right that are fundamentally intertwined um with the science and inform what, what science we get and how we get it yeah, yeah, that last part is very important because a lot of science, communications, or a lot of even policy these days they focus so much on the science.

Speaker 2:

they don't look at it in context of society, in history, in politics, and usually they're not that effective, both in policy and in stories and in communication, which leads to a lot more disparities and a lot more issues that arise because of it. When you talk about like you have a Harvard degree and also trying to be an author as well, I do imagine that education there was very, not elite, but very good in a sense. How do you use your education? I imagine you were a chem and a science double major. How do you use your education in both those fields to apply that to your writing and make your writing even better?

Speaker 1:

I think it's interesting because I don't write about chemistry per se, but I did study chemistry in college but it informs it in a certain way. My chemistry background and degree helped inform how I read papers about the basic science, how I read papers that are really getting into the nitty gritty of, like these, different pathways and receptors and different enzymes. I mean, just having that chemistry background, fundamental basic science background, is enormously helpful. History of science is a little bit more relevant because oftentimes in the pieces, the longer pieces, the feature pieces, I will try to dig into that history. I'll try to bring that in Because I think it informs so much of where we are today and the changes and the changes and continuities over time are quite fascinating when it comes to science.

Speaker 1:

And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier about the sort of triumphalist nature of science. Right, there's this tendency to view science as always progressively marching towards the future. Right, insatiably marching towards the future, and understanding the little whirlpools that science takes, the step backwards, the mistakes, the falls that happen along this way, I think are quite fascinating and they're quite informative when we're discussing some of the tricky issues we're facing today and how there is a precedent for that. There's a legacy to that and there's change possible. I think that's, ultimately, what I find most inspiring about history and science right, that things are not static, no matter how they seem right now. Change is possible and it's almost a matter of changing your timescale or changing what you do now.

Speaker 2:

You can either wait a lot of time, right, right, or you can push forward or change, yeah, more quickly I want to also kind of discuss, maybe like the collaboration that you may have had, um, as a journalist, that you may have to do, um, what has that looked like? Because I do believe, like as a journalist, you will have to like, talk to people, find people to talk to for sources, get help for that as well. Maybe you're editing part as well. Like what is that like us collaboration to make your story so great?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I mean, I think freelancing is definitely interesting because you're not in a museum, you're kind of doing it on your own, um. But it always felt like a collaboration for me with my sources, right, that I was working from them, I was learning from them, right, and sometimes you can't take your sources at your face value, right, um, especially in science, journalism, especially, right when, um, I mean in certain sort of cases, especially when it comes to health policy, um, but it is something where, by and large, oftentimes you're talking to experts about their field of expertise and you're trying to learn from them, um, so you can explain it well to your audience, um, and I just found it profoundly rewarding, right, just the willingness people have to give of their time to speak with me and be patient with me. It always felt like a great collaboration. We're in the same game of trying to get the details right. I'm trying to, like I might explain it differently than you, but we're similarly hoping to make sure that we're getting it right, we're explaining to people right, and that we're explaining it in an engaging way. So that always struck me as sort of like an incredible collaboration.

Speaker 1:

There's a collaboration with your editor, right, sort of back and forth, like, similarly, trying to make the piece as good as it can be, as clear as it can be, and a really gratifying one. And I think editors, in my opinion, ought to have their name on the story alongside the author. They just played such an incredible role. They're such a huge part of the process. Somehow let's do that. But really I think the real collaboration between other journalists that came from me, I think, more when I was working at STAT and had the opportunity to work with several other journalists or being in a newsroom, working at staff and have the opportunity to work with several other journalists or being in a newsroom, I think it lends itself more to like joint byline pieces. I've done a couple otherwise, but it's more. It's harder as a freelancer. I think it's certainly easier when you're in in the newsroom, when you're in sort of like um, working with other reporters who this is their expertise and you can team up with them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and that and that provides you with more knowledge about how to be a better hero, for sure, yeah, yeah. What are some of the? I know I'm talking about some stories already, but what are some of the stories that you have found to be very impactful in health advancement, global health advancement, even that a lot of people may not have known or maybe talk about, I guess. What are some of the unique stories that you think have been really impactful?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, one comes to mind. It's this story I wrote for the Guardian on this first-of-its-kind policy anywhere in the world, basically in Brookline Massachusetts, this town in Massachusetts, that banned people from buying cigarettes if they were born in 2000 or beyond. If they were born in 2000 or beyond, right, so essentially, if they were born in the 21st century. And the idea of this policy was that okay, if you are already smoking, continue to smoke, right, I mean, we'll tax, we'll do this and that, but we're not going to ban it from you, but we're going to grandfather it out. We're going to stop the current generation, the current young people, from ever being allowed to smoke because smoking is not safe at any age. And I mean it's a kind of interesting policy, an innovative one, and I thought it was fascinating. I thought it presented really interesting questions about the intersection between civil liberties and public health and how that interfaces with something like addiction and what it means to make a free choice.

Speaker 1:

So I wrote that piece for the Guardian and it came out, was very well read, and later that year I hear news that the United Kingdom is going to be implementing a similar policy, that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is going to be implementing a similar policy, that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is going to be implementing a birth date cigarette ban in the United Kingdom, and I'm a little bit. I mean this is kind of crazy, right. I wonder if there's any connection. I mean it was published in the Guardian, right? So there's a fair chance that people like in the I mean in the United Kingdom, in Israel, reddit, right?

Speaker 1:

so there's a fair chance that people like in the I mean in the, like united kingdom, in his reddit writing this is one of the big papers there, um, so, yeah, so I do a little digging, do a little talking and sure enough, um, they had read it, they thought it was really interesting, they thought it was well proposed. I mean, they have it was one of the pieces they read among several. Uh, but it was one of those moments where people do read what you write right and it can have tremendously profound impacts. It can have a leader of a country think you know, this is actually a really good idea and we should do this too, right.

Speaker 1:

And it's almost this way of how can I mean, this is small town, massachusetts that proposed this, then New Zealand proposed this, then the UK proposed this. So how things can spread and how things can, um, I mean really just spiral into something greater and journal, how journalism can play an important role along that way. I mean, don't get me wrong, I take no credit, right in this sense, of what the uk doing, but I like to think I had some small role and, um, informing sort of the terms, meets and bounds, also, the debates and the conversations and the idea to even propose it, yeah, yeah for sure.

Speaker 2:

I feel like that's where, like you, when you see the direct impact of your work on people, that's like, yeah, it's rare, though it's rare Like it doesn't happen so much right.

Speaker 1:

And oftentimes, like, oftentimes it will reach a lot of people, it will find its way in, like, find interesting lives beyond the article, but nobody tells you, right, like to give you another example. This is very random, but one of the articles I wrote for Stat. I was trying to find it again because I wanted to check a number that I had put in the article. So I searched the name of the article and found, and, lo and behold, on Google it shows that Good Morning America had done a segment on it, right, and I opened the segment, watched it.

Speaker 1:

They don't mention my name, but they mentioned the article and the findings and I'm like this is really cool, but nobody ever let me know about this. I mean, like, had I not searched my article randomly, had I not titled it basically the same thing, right, I would have never found this and never known about this. So it's like one of those things in journalism it's wonderful when it happens. It's even more wonderful when you find out about it. But you have to be willing to accept that if this never happens or you never find out about it, that's fine too, because it's enough to have written the article. It should be valuable enough to have written the article. All these things are cherry on the top.

Speaker 2:

Because if you wait and rely on them to keep you going right, you'll always be dissatisfied. Yeah, yeah, and that's like and that's one of the things that people like journalism, the field where, like you'd be, you might not get enough credit for what you do, but the impact of what you do is so vast and it's so important for a lot of people and if you do just try to focus on like what you do, get those those like materialistic purposes, you're not going to get a lot of value and benefit from it. Now, kind of looking into like your senior year at Harvard you've pitched to multiple news outlets for your stories. What does that senior year like? Is it more of an advancement in your story stream, more of them? Is it trying to find your craft as well? What is that time period like in your senior year?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's interesting because, I mean, for part of it I wasn't doing much journalism at all. I was focused on applying to medical school, I was focused on applying for the fellowships, including the Marshall Scholarship. But when the dust settled there, I was thinking a lot about my journalism, thinking a lot about how do I not just continue to write, but how do I focus what I write, how do I think deeply about what are the stories I want to tell and why do they matter? And that way, I think, has been profoundly interesting for me in terms of just thinking through like what do I want my focus area to be? Like, I have this luxury now to really hone in and I settled myself on stigmatized diseases, on diseases where patients are blamed for their conditions Think lung cancer, think obesity, substance use disorder, mental health, so on and so forth.

Speaker 1:

And it strikes me, as these are diseases and conditions that affect a tremendous amount of people, right, I mean at least the ones I listed and they are simultaneously like there's this weird underinvestment in them, because there's this real sense that, well, people did this to themselves. Why should the government pay for your mistakes? Right, and this almost a second-class citizenry that you create? Right with the people who are sinful, right and cannot control themselves, and people who are virtuous and have these other diseases that don't have the same lifestyle contributors, or at least perceived lifestyle contributors. So for me, I think that's sort of what I decided I would want to focus on.

Speaker 1:

I have built up this sort of like journalistic capital right. This is what I want to spend it on, and I find it profoundly rewarding. I find it profoundly valuable to be able to write about these topics, be able to speak directly to the public and bring attention to what's historically not been a very sexy topic, so to say, which historically has got been undercovered, and that's part of part of the issue, right. So how can I bring the voice to it? How can I bring that magnifying glass and a solution approach to not just always? I think anybody can write about the problems. How can you write about solution? How can you write about a writer tomorrow?

Speaker 2:

yeah, yeah, yeah, and I feel like that that part of health disease is that I mean that kind of might even go into a global health per se, about how a lot of diseases um, not just america throughout the world are stigmatized and not really understood and not understood and, uh, people kind of just give it a blind eye. But that type of work, I think, is very, very important. Um, I also saw maybe on your LinkedIn as well that you spend an entire summer after senior year going all over the world trying to encourage stories. How was that experience? I bet it was like really, really fun.

Speaker 1:

It was incredible. I got some funding for that and I essentially traveled to 12 countries in two months, in almost every country doing a different story on a different stigmatized disease. So, for example, I wrote an article about mental health in Rwanda for National Geographic and then another on leprosy in India for the Guardian, and so on and so forth, and it was just incredibly exciting. I think I understood, going in, that I only have a snapshot in each place given my limited time, but how could I make the most of each day that I had? How could I speak to the people who are doing this work and understand them and keep in touch with them so I can ask them more questions, I can confirm with them, I can pick their brains down the road? For me it was really just. I mean, what made that trip wonderful was to meet some incredible people who are doing incredible work, who are fighting the fight and learn from them.

Speaker 1:

I think there's often this tendency and a lot of global health or just a lot of global governance that knowledge flows from the global north to the south. Right, expertise flows right, sort of this. I mean unidirectional model, right. But I was really committed to what can we learn from these places that are doing some really incredible work, that are doing some really innovative work, and how can that help inform some health policy choices at home, some uh sort of how do you address diseases, how do you address different diseases? So really, for me it was just, it was an educational trip, right, and journalism was the mechanism through which I was getting my education, through which I was sharing it with other people yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I do feel like, yeah, like trying to expand your scope as a global health writer, that that does, uh, provide a new sense of purpose that I feel like a lot of like people that just do stories in america don't see how much of an opportunity you have to fight in that field. That's very cool. That's very cool. I think I have two questions to this. One is like what are you doing right now? You're now at Oxford. I can imagine it's very hard to balance your life as an Oxford, a master's student and doing journalism. What are you doing right now? And do you ever sit down and reflect on how short your career has been as a journalist and, I guess, maybe the gems that you have from that and even though it has been very successful in this short amount of time, what do you think about that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I mean I think two things. I mean I'm studying global health and epidemiology here at Oxford and it strikes me as a very useful degree. As I'm thinking about global health writing, I'm thinking about how do I very much show this course is a biostatistics course, an epidemiology course and how do I understand research very well, how do I understand it critically and then report on it in a better way? I think it is something that I find really important and it informs a lot of the part of the reason I'm doing this course. But it's also partly a situation where I am continuing to write. I'm continuing to write about things that I care about, that I unsignitize diseases.

Speaker 1:

I'm continuing to write stories from that summer and for me, I mean, my career has been so short I mean I think now it's coming to two and a half years that I've been sort of a journalist, but it's been so rewarding and it's been so, I mean, humbling in terms of the trajectory it's taken that it inspires me, that I mean it inspires me that people care, people do appreciate what I'm writing. But more than that, I appreciate what I'm writing, I appreciate the craft of it, I appreciate the stories I'm able to tell the people I'm able to meet, right, and that's what sort of drives me. I mean the awards or the places I publish, those are nice and those are. I mean, they're always cherries on top. But I write because of the writing itself. I write because of the writing itself. I write because of the people itself.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I guess part of my secret is is that I'm I, I isn't, I'm not the hugest fan of writing itself, right? Um, like this is not something that I I kind of dreaded. I think writing is hard for me, like it is for a lot of people, um, but I do it because it is the best form I know to share the stories that I hear and I learn and I and I think are so powerful. I I'm sure other people who are much more talented than I can make the TikTok short form videos that people can do on broadcast on a cable. Um, but for me, what I know how to do and what I can do, uh, from my dorm room, from my, is to write articles and speak to the public that way.

Speaker 2:

That would be beautifully said. What does the future look like for you now? Are you trying to write stories from the summer? What do you want to do in the future? To become a better journalist, to be better at your craft?

Speaker 1:

The future looks, I mean professionally, medical school is sort of on the horizon and I'm excited for that. But in terms of just what to do as a writer, I think for me I honestly have to write less, and I'll explain what I mean by that. I have to write less and read more. I think something that I've sacrificed a little bit so that I could write is just reading, reading books for pleasure, reading just things that I think are just great literature, and not just nonfiction but fiction, because oftentimes fiction writers are much better writers and better storytellers.

Speaker 1:

And I think for me, I've long told myself that I don't have time to read. I have, I sort of it feels almost self-indulgent, but, and I think there's time and place for those arguments. But now I'm at a place where I think if I want to become a better writer, if I want to really take my writing to a next level, part of it will require being very active in terms of reading good writing right, active in learning from good writing, learning how I can incorporate some of these skills and techniques into my own work right, and that requires some level of inspiration, requires some level of sort of seeking it out right and taking a step back, not in fact thinking that right to write another article right, um might be might be something that's self-indulgent, and instead it might be better to focus on craft and invest in my craft, and I think that comes from reading.

Speaker 2:

So I think I really do want to take some more time to read and use that as a platform and a springboard to become a better writer yeah, yeah, and I think that's one of the great advices that I mean a lot of journalists do have in terms of like learn from people that have done it better than you in terms of writing something. You know how to do it better for everyone else. I think that's a very, very quick advice. You did talk about this a little bit in your previous answer, but this will be the last question in the interview. Health Voices is a podcast that tries to not only allow people to learn about health issues, but to inspire them to go out and try to fix those issues on their own as well. What advice do you have for up-and-coming medical journalists that want to get into the field and what can they do to set themselves apart in making the best impact they can, not only in their communities, but nationally and globally as well?

Speaker 1:

they can, not only in their communities, but nationally and globally as well. I think freelancing is such an incredible way to write. I mean it's simultaneously something that there's no barriers to entry, but there's just incredible barriers to entry. Anyone can do it, but it just takes a lot of grit, a lot of grinding your teeth in order to get it to work. But I think that's sort of why I guess my advice for young journalists or journalists getting started or science journalists in general, is that you just have to grind your teeth and send those emails right, pitch those editors right, learn through your mistakes. I learned, like, when editors don't respond to your emails right, even if you follow up right, I learned it's because the story idea wasn't good enough Right, or it wasn't the right fit, or I mean it could be manifold different reasons, but you're going to have to try again, right. That can't be the end Right. So it is one of those things where it's just. It is something that it requires such a level of grit and perseverance and tenacity, but that's worthwhile and you need that and sort of that's how you get started. I mean, that's how I got started right, and I think there are easier ways to start journalism.

Speaker 1:

I took that in some ways a hard way. It worked out for me but, yeah, get experience where you can Work for your college paper, work for your local outlets, right, you don't need to publish a national outlet and you often start off publishing smaller outlets, like. The first outlet I published in ever was a place called tarbell. The second place was sentient media. Right, most people probably haven't heard of tarbell or sentient media ever, right?

Speaker 1:

Um, but for me, those are the places that gave me the chance first, um, when no one else would, and I was able to use that to get some of the other outlets, the bigger outlets, um, but really, just like they were, they're valuable in their own right, um, so it is for me, right, just this idea that everything sort of is valuable. You need to learn how to write right, and that comes to practice, so do that. And you need to learn how to not be able not stop right, like if someone gives you no right. That's not the end, that's sort of just an opportunity to pitch other people to try again yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Rejection is the opening of another opportunity yeah, I mean, if someone says someone says no to you, well, now you have to find another person to pitch right, you have to find another door to open right, and that might there, might not, there might be another person saying no at the end or there might be someone saying yes, you only need one yes for an article idea, right? In fact, it's actually a big problem if you get two yeses yeah, yeah, yeah and um yeah, that was really well said.

Speaker 2:

That was really well said. Thank you so much, samar. We do appreciate you featuring this episode of Health Voices. Thank you so much and good luck to your endeavors, both in Oxford and in medical school, and in journalism as well. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Really appreciate it. Farid, it was great to be on, and best of luck to you as well.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Health Voices is a podcast from the Public Health Coalition where we bring forward the leading voices in health, innovation and entrepreneurship, providing a platform for those addressing the leading public challenges of our day. Health Voices is produced by Frederick Uris-Georgi and I, farid Salman, with support from the entire PHC board. If you have questions about the podcast or want to be featured in an episode, please email us at healthvoicespodcast at gmailcom or DM us at our Instagram, healthvoicespod. And if you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to leave us a review on Spotify, youtube or Apple Podcasts. Thanks again for listening.