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Dr. Aziza Shad is Humanizing Healthcare · The Uplifters

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: An uplifter is a compelling leader who tries to breathe life and hope into people around them who listen and care and guide and help whose way of being in the world inspires who uplifts with humor and understanding
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: who leads by example don't judge vulnerable bold determination who are here to create a better world who can learn and teach who encourages you who shines their light to lead other people who uses their best self in order to help others i found the life that i liked and i worked toward that we are all uplifters big love
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Uplifters.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Terry Tomoff and I am nominating Dr. Aziza Shad.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to The Uplifters podcast.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Aransas Savas.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And today I am joined by Dr. Aziza Shad.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: She is the chief of pediatric hematology and oncology at the Children's Hospital at Sinai with Baltimore.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: she's a professor of pediatrics and oncology at Georgetown University School of Medicine and the co-founder and medical director of the ASLEN project which supports clinical palliative and support care for children in Ethiopia Dr Shad is known around the world for her research efforts but she's most well known for her deep commitment to her patients and their families and finding innovative ways to ensure that these patients receive well-rounded care
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: she was nominated for a show by one of the first guests Terry Tomoff whose life was forever changed by the care she received from Dr. Shad through her son's long battle with cancer in short Dr. Shad is the epitome of an uplifter and I am so glad that she's here with us today so that bio was a mouthful
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: yeah it certainly was you could have shortened it and just kept it to Aziza Shad pediatric oncologist as I read about your work I was so moved not just by your work in research and the care that you've provided but by the way that you've approached this job
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now it would be understandable for you to just show up and treat symptoms.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And yet I get the sense from your work that you're doing something much bigger and broader.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: What brought you to this field, Dr. Shad?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_03: It goes back a long time ago when I was a medical student in Karachi, Pakistan at Dow Medical College, one of the premier institutions of the country, also attached to a general hospital where the poorest of the poor came for care because free care was provided there.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: I was always interested in taking care of children, so while I was working in pediatrics
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: Our days would begin in the morning seeing children with infections seeing children with malnutrition kids would come in with diarrhea and vomiting I would start at one end of the room putting IVs into patients and by the time I got to the end of the room to put the IV in the first one had already come out so you started all over again that was the kind of place that we learned and learned precious lessons but at the same time there would always be children with cancer who also came in
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: Children with leukemia, children with bone tumors, children with brain tumors.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: Number one, in this hectic environment of trying to take care of hundreds and thousands of children who were almost ready to die from infection or malnutrition or diarrhea, nobody had time to devote to a child with cancer.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: Besides, treatment of cancer is expensive compared to other illnesses.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: So
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: they were disregarded we were never really even taught how to recognize their symptoms to understand the pain that children go through to see that there was even a possibility of cure two things actually affected me the most and changed the trajectory of my life one was a notable professor in Pakistan
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: There were two kinds of people that I saw and who mentored us.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: There were people who were brilliant but not great communicators and probably did not have the empathy that it takes to sit down with the family, spend time with them and explain to them what their child was going through.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: and then there were the others who were absolutely wonderful who understood that if you didn't take care of a family well or a child well you would not be able to succeed in what you were trying to do and I remember being in a room with one of them and a family came in with a child with a bone tumor and he looked at the child for barely five minutes and then said to the family there is nothing I can do for your child think of him as having died in a car accident this was a young family this was their first child
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: how could you have even said something like that you could have still given the message that there was not much you could do because we were not capable of taking care of children with cancer but you could have done it in a better manner from that day onwards I teach communicating bad news to medical students at Georgetown to residents at Sinai to anyone who walks into my clinic the importance of what it means to establish relationships with families
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_03: the importance of breaking bad news irrespective of whether it is telling somebody that your child has cancer or trying to explain to them that in spite of everything that you did to make their child better the disease keeps coming back and helping them change their hope from the hope for cure to hope for a comfortable death with dignity and that takes time effort and learning
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: What changes when a family understands realistically what's happening?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: You have to prepare them.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: when they bring a child with a bone tumor or with leukemia for example they've been told by the emergency room or by their pediatrician sometimes pediatricians are great most of them are and they will explain to them that I am worried that this child has something more going on than just an infection I'm really concerned that this may be a cancer and then they refer them to us but every now and then you will get a family
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: that is unprepared when they walk into the hospital to see the clinic they're being directed to which says pediatric hematology oncology and they're like why are we coming to a cancer clinic my child doesn't have cancer to take that parent who is still in shock to help them understand
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: that we need to do a whole bunch of tests on them to prove or disprove whether he has a blood disorder or cancer takes a lot of time effort and understanding and once those families understand they become your partners the person who referred me to your podcast Terry Tomoff I couldn't have wished for a better parent to partner with me we were one team
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: and our only goal was to make her son better and it was because we spent those initial few days together helping her understand helping her husband understand they were a young couple too they had one older daughter and then this little two-year-old who is now being told that he has leukemia but once that understanding came through I couldn't have had a better partner
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody knew that Ryan would face all the hurdles that he has faced over the last 20 years.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: I had no idea that his leukemia would come back three times.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: I had no idea that he would have to go for a bone marrow transplant and that years after his bone marrow transplant he would probably have to deal with what we call second cancers.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: but every step along the way his parents were there with me and with their son to make sure that no stone was left unturned.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what is different when a family is out of sync with their provider?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: when they're out of sync with their provider the bond of trust that you need to establish with the family right up front never happens so they question you at every step number one the acceptance that their child has cancer many a times doesn't happen for a long time the other thing that doesn't happen is the anger never goes away why did it happen to me
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: if that child has a complication maybe the hospital didn't do enough for him this chemotherapy that you're giving my child is actually destroying his life he can't go back to school you know his friends can't be with him and that blame is transferred to the team that's taking care of them
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: which is why you need multidisciplinary programs to take care of children and families with cancer.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: The oncologist may be the treating physician who makes the diagnosis and who establishes the treatment but if I didn't have my oncology nurses who I tell you are the backbone of taking care of children if I didn't have my social worker
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: if I didn't have the chaplain working with me if I didn't have a child life specialist or an art therapist or music therapy or pet therapy I don't know how I would do my job
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: it's so beautiful too to think about what's possible when a team of experts become a community and I assume that what's happening here in this partnership is that the parents are the expert in their child and in their child's lifestyle and needs and how this family lives and so if they can partner and bring in that expertise with all of these other experts something
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: is possible that would not be possible otherwise which is that the solutions are a good fit for the reality.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_03: You are absolutely right because the one thing that sometimes you forget when you have a lot of children you're taking care of or you're in a low or middle income country where you don't have all these support mechanisms we tend to forget about the parents and we tend to forget about the siblings.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: That is such an important part of what you're doing
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: because in these years of practicing pediatric oncology, how many divorces have I seen?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_03: How many siblings have I seen run away from home?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: How many siblings have I seen get angry with the child who has cancer because he gets all the attention or she gets all the attention?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: I remember this one mother, the other siblings driving test
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: had been postponed several times and it was absolutely essential that she be there for the driving test.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: I remember sitting in the room with the patient and making sure that the mother felt comfortable going and getting that driving test done for her daughter.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_03: These are the little things that you must do in pediatric oncology.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: When you make a pledge to that family that you will do the best
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: to provide their child with the best of care that you possibly can they trust you and you can't let down that trust so pediatric oncology is not a one-man show it's not like going to the ENT surgeon who says yeah you've got fluid in your ears I'll put tubes and you're going to be fine this is a community that takes care of a family and that community extends to where the family lives as well because that community needs to participate in the care of that child too
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I imagine that the outcomes are much better for children who are supported by a community than those who are simply treated as an individual.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: Definitely better.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, we know that the trauma that affects families who are faced with any life threatening illness is seen years after the event.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: in the form of PTSD, post-traumatic stress syndrome, or PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot about the link between stress and creativity when we are experiencing acute stress we have a very narrow view and I think it's an evolutionary outcome right like we had to outrun a lion we needed to just focus on outrunning the lion but when we have a more expansive view we're able to see all of the creative solutions that can be found in the whole and that to me is essentially what you're talking about here that's right
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: I agree with you completely.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's a very gratifying field.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's a strange thing because often people will come and ask you why on earth would you choose pediatric cancer as a specialty?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's so sad we can't even think about it.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's actually not.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: The reason I left Pakistan was because I saw these children come in who could have been treated.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: When I read the literature I
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_03: 60% of children in the United States at that time in the late 70s and early 80s were being cured of cancer but in Pakistan the survival rate was zero
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: and I felt like I needed to go out of the country to get a different perspective on the management of childhood cancer and come back to Pakistan and you know provide those resources for the children so I moved to the United Kingdom and while I was working there in the hospital doing a pediatric internship I truly learned the value of human life.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_03: when you're in a country where children die left right and center because they're brought in late because the family doesn't have the resources life does not have much value but when you move to a country where everything is about making somebody better one loss or one child is a huge loss you learn the value of life and living life well and that's what I learned in the UK
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: and it just so happened that I met my husband in London he was doing his doctorate here at the University of Pittsburgh so I moved but my desire to make things better in my own country or other low and middle income countries never really left me
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_03: and all I wanted was to gain the knowledge and education and while I learned all that in the United Kingdom and in the United States, I wanted to give back and that's what I've done for the remainder of my life.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is there still that vast inequity between developed nations and lower and middle income nations?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: More than 80% of the children who are diagnosed with a childhood cancer survive in the United States and in other Western countries where resources are available, where diagnostic technology is available, where all these support mechanisms are available to get them better.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: But take one step into Africa and for example, Ethiopia, the country where I have focused my efforts for the last 10 years.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: When we moved there 10 years ago,
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: Survival was way below 20%.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: Cancer was not a priority.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Pediatric cancer is still not a priority for many low and middle income countries.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: Therefore, if you compare survival, where we talk about actually close to 100% survival for certain selected cancers in children, and these children go on to live normal productive lives, it is less than 20% in many parts of the world even today.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: In Ethiopia,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: where close to maybe 12,000 to 15,000 children get diagnosed with pediatric cancer a year thanks to the efforts of our ASLAN project and the awareness for pediatric cancer that is now available in Ethiopia maybe 3,000 children make it to treatment that means 12,000 children are still not getting to the centers where they can be treated they probably die undiagnosed
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: They probably go to local healthcare workers who may not really recognize how pediatric cancer presents.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_03: And those are the children who deserve to get the same care.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: I've always believed that it should never be your place of birth that should define
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: The Treatment or Care You Receive for Cancer.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: That color, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, educational level should never matter because a child is a child no matter where he's born or where he lives.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: And every child should have the same equal right to treatment and cure as any other child living in the world.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: How do you approach that with the Aslan Project?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: so about 15 years ago Mary Louise Cohen was a well-known lawyer in Washington D.C.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: and a philanthropist with a heart of gold approached me and said that she had visited Ethiopia and met a young man over there who was 14 years old by the name of Temesgan Gamacho.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: He had come from the village with his mother who had sold all her possessions, which was her cows, remember most people in Ethiopia live in the villages, to bring him to the city to be treated for a bone cancer that was huge at that time.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: He was seen by Dr Rick Hodes,
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: Rick Hodes is a well-known American physician who has settled in Ethiopia and had countless children over there.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: He met him at the Mother Teresa orphanage and brought him to his home and decided that he would take care of him
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_03: and provide treatment for him today the treatment if you have a bone tumor in your lower extremity that means in your leg you can actually do something called limb sparing surgery where you can take the tumor out after some chemotherapy replace that diseased bone with a cadaveric bone or a prosthesis
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: and that child has full use of the leg that's not possible in places like Ethiopia so this child had an amputation to get rid of the tumor and then he was getting chemotherapy Mary Louise and her family were vacationing in Ethiopia and they met him and decided that they would support him financially to get through his treatment unfortunately he developed disease in the lungs so that means that the tumor came back
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: and even today under the best of circumstances if you get a relapsed osteosarcoma it's still very difficult to cure them so they had two choices right he could go back to the village and spend his last few weeks or months with his family there but die in pain
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_03: because pain management or palliative care as we call it is not really well established in low and middle income countries.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: The other alternative was Mary Louise had been supporting him all this time.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: She wanted to give him the possibility of a better life
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_03: and so she adopted him and brought him back to the United States and that's how I was contacted to take care of this extraordinary young man who taught us so much we couldn't cure him because the disease was incurable but he got two and a half good years of life and once he passed away Mary Louise knew that I was working in many other countries through the International Network for Cancer Treatment and Research
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: where my mission was together with my mentor who's no longer here but to whom I owe a huge debt of gratitude Dr Ian McGrath who taught me that every child is equal no matter where you live you need the same chance of survival so I used to go with him to different countries in Asia in Latin America in Africa so we could set up these programs for pediatric cancer she said to me what can we do in his memory and I said do you know what kind of care we have in Ethiopia she said no
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: so we took a trip to Ethiopia and found that the hospital the main hospital there had children with cancer but they didn't know how to treat them these children were in beds next to children with life-threatening infections
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: Contagious Infections, HIV, no water on the units, sewage coming down the walls, but parents had hope in their eyes.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: They felt like their children would get better.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: And that was so heartbreaking.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: In that moment, I knew that this was a mission that if we could accomplish, we could make a difference in the lives of children in Ethiopia.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_03: and that was the beginning of the ASLAN project.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: She and I co-founded that project.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: We had nothing.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: We started from scratch.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: So we started knocking on the doors of the Ministry of Health, universities, hospitals, physicians, acquaintances, anyone who would sit and listen to us about why it was important to bring cancer care to Ethiopia.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: Two years, we didn't get any traction and then there was a breakthrough and somehow people started listening.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: and we established the first treatment program at the Tikur Mbesa Hospital, which is also called the Black Lion Hospital, the largest hospital in Ethiopia, it's in Addis Ababa.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: And together with a bunch of parents of children that I had treated at Georgetown before I came to Sinai, this nonprofit had enough money that we could go to Ethiopia
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: Renovator Unit which was done by a parent of a child of mine and start the Aslan project.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: The next person who joined me was Julie Bross.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: She is a remarkable individual who is a lawyer, gave up her profession to become the executive director for Aslan and much of the success of Aslan today is because of her partnership with me.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: She had the know-how and the vision and I had the dream and we put it all together.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: and we moved we renovated the first unit the first ever pediatric oncology unit for Ethiopia and we started training pediatric oncologists and we started training nurses and we started training pharmacists and we started lobbying for medicine
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: and realizing that most of the children came from the villages of Ethiopia.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_03: They would have no place to stay.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: So abandonment of care would be a very big problem.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: We helped establish TAPCO.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_03: TAPCO is now like the Ronald McDonald House.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: in the United States it's a place away from home for families whose children are in treatment they live there we teach them trades so the mothers weave these beautiful straw baskets that get sold they get money from it so they can support themselves too food is provided we have a teacher there for the children because children shouldn't just be sitting there and not doing their homework and we have a psychologist on board who helps the psychosocial needs of the family
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's really replicating that community.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_03: We started with one program.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_03: Today we have five programs.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_03: We have over 20 trained pediatric oncologists in the country.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_03: We have so many more in the pipeline.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: We have 3000 children in treatment.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: We have survivors of pediatric cancer in Ethiopia and we continue to expand.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: We have a strong relationship with the Ministry of Health.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: Ethiopia has just been declared a GICC country.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: This was an initiative started by the WHO and St Jude Global and a number of other partners.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_03: it's called the Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer where the goal is that by 2030 60% of the most curable cancers will be cured irrespective of which country you come from and you have to be selected that means you have to meet certain criteria to be part of that initiative initially and Ethiopia has been accepted for that
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: I see why you describe your work as satisfying it's very gratifying it's a field where you lose children and I have in all these years of practicing pediatric oncology which is more than 25 years I remember every single child I've treated I'm in touch with a lot of the parents irrespective of whether their children are grown up and parents in their own right now or children who lost their battle to cancer but those parents
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_03: have a relationship that transcends every boundary.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is so clear how
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: you have used the relationship as your focus for healing I imagine that is healing for you as well and gives you a sense of nourishment in your work I can also imagine that that could get overwhelming and exhausting and one of the things that many uplifters struggle with is keeping healthy boundaries between
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Their Purpose and Passion and the Self-Care That's Needed to Sustain that Good Work in the World.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: How have you experienced that?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_03: When I was a fellow at the NIH, in addition to the training that we were being provided, we also had to meet with the psychiatrist once a week.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: And we would all laugh as a group we met with.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_03: Of all the people, do we need a psychiatrist?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, why do we need a psychiatrist, you know?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: And now I understand the value.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: it was a safe place for us it was a place where you could go talk about what your week or your month had been like about the children who you had lost remember when I started my fellowship in 1989 children with HIV were just being diagnosed and we were the first group of fellows who learned to take care of children with cancer and children with HIV on the same unit since
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: the protease inhibitors did not exist in those days we had drugs like AZT and DDI the initial trials were just beginning with those agents and we were part of administering those clinical trials we saw children with hemophilia
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_03: Dr Aziza Shad is Humanizing Healthcare
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: or a Child Either and you cannot take care of your own family either because you have to balance both things.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a mother, I'm a wife, I'm a homemaker and I'm a pediatric oncologist at the same time.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: So how do I take care of myself?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: I still have my phone on 24 hours a day and this goes against all norms.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: Most physicians will tell you and most people will tell you you cannot have your phone on 24 hours a day but for me
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: My family is important the family I treat is important right why should a mother stay up half the night worrying about something if she could just pick up the phone and ask you that one question so that she could sleep in peace how much does it take away from me a couple of minutes to answer a telephone call
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody has ever abused my phone.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: Every now and then you'll have a very anxious parent who may call many times but nobody ever abuses that privilege.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: But how do I take care of myself?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: I used to sing a lot.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: I used to love singing.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: I try and go back to it but I think my voice is terrible right now so I couldn't even sing in the shower.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: I love taking long walks because that's where I clear my mind and I love to think.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: I love gardening I love beautiful flowers that's how I spend my time and more recently I have had two grandchildren the most beautiful children in the world for me and they have changed my life forever when I spend time with them that gives me a week of contentment and I wait till the next Saturday when they can come back and see me and all the pain and the sadness and the fear and
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: and the worry takes a backseat to the love that I have for them and the time I can spend with them.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: How beautiful.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: You mentioned retirements.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you envision that that's even possible for you?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: No, I cannot retire.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: My husband and I have very different views on it.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_03: My husband is a college professor.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: He looks forward to retirement.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: He does a lot of global health work and he wants to focus on that.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: And then he looks at me and my children look at me and they're like, mom, are you ever going to retire?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think so I don't know what else I would do I have to keep doing what I do because the mission is so huge and we have very little time in the world right and when you work in pediatric oncology and you see little children get cancer and those who don't make it you realize how precious every day that's given to you from God
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: How Precious That Day Is and how you should utilize as much as you can.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_03: If you can't help someone, don't harm anyone.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_03: Do what you can to make the life a better place for people.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, you are a gift.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: Just someone who's trying to do my little bit to make the world a better place in this era when, you know, wars and poverty and natural disasters destroy so many lives.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_03: This to me is a form of giving back, explaining to the world that things can get better, but it has to be one person at a time, one family at a time.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, a very wise guest.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Her name is Dr. Helen Atiyah Galad-Naberthe.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: She's the CEO of NYC Health and Hospitals in Elmhurst here in New York.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And she grew up with a belief imparted by her father that you can't fix the world, but you can fix your neighborhood.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so she took a very intentional approach to changing health outcomes in her neighborhood.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I hear that in your story.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: and while Ethiopia is far from your neighborhood it is a neighborhood and you have looked closely at the problem and worked in concert with the community to find solutions that are a good fit for these people for the way they live for their values and adapted your approach to their needs and I suspect that's exactly the way you do everything
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: I learn a lesson from every child and from every family that I come across but the courage the spirit the desire to make things better that I have seen in the young Ethiopian physicians that I've had the privilege to train is second to none they have become leaders for their country I do know that even one day if I
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_03: Cannot Do My Work Anymore.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_03: The Ethiopian cancer work will continue because of the young men and women who feel so strongly that their children should live as well.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: What a legacy, Dr Shad.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for giving us this beautiful story of your work and this beautiful example to inspire us all.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much I just want to let people know that each and every one of us can give something back you know often we think oh I don't know what I can do for somebody but there's always something you can do a kind word a small gesture
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_03: and then if you have the privilege of having a profession of some sort or having a skill of some sort imparting your knowledge to people uplifting people giving them hope hope is extremely important without hope you can't move you have to have a dream and you have to have hope and things do happen perfectly said and here's to lifting each other up as we do it because we all need that support and that community for those of you listening
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: I hope I get to meet you in May May 17 we are hosting our first ever Uplifters live event so many of our guests so many of our audience members are going to be in one room and I get sort of dizzy with excitement every time I think about what happens when you put a bunch of Uplifter energy in a single contained space and allow all of these amazing women to connect with one another to inspire each other
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I have ideas about what might happen but the truth is I'm going to be just as surprised as everyone else so I hope you'll join us Dr Shad absolutely all of those listening out there I hope you will join us as well thank you and thank you for having me it's been a pleasure talking to you
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to The Uplifters Podcast.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you're getting a boost from these episodes, please share them with the uplifters in your life and then join us in conversation over at theuplifterspodcast.com.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: head over to spotify apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast and like follow and rate our show it'll really help us connect with more uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss one of these beautiful stories big love
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Painted water sunshine with rosemary and thyme Dwell in the perplexing though you find it vexing Toss a star and hover, be your own best lover Relish in a new prime, plant a tree in springtime Dance with idle hindsight, bring the sun to twilight
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: lift you up lift you up lift you up lift you up lift you up
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: Beautiful.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: I cried.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's that little thing you did with your voice.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: In the pre-chorus, right?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: I was like... Mommy, stop crying.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: You're disturbing the peace.