Dr MeiLan Han is a very busy doctor. She is a professor of medicine in the pulmonary and critical care division at the University of Michigan. She is an accomplished physician, researcher, and academic. She's taken a prominent public advocacy position and, as part of that, serves as a Spokesperson for the American Lung Association. She is an Associate Editor for the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. She serves on the editorial boards of Thorax, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, and the Journal of the COPD Foundation. She is also a member of the Global Obstructive Lung Disease Scientific Committee, responsible for internationally developing a recognised consensus statement on COPD diagnosis and management.
Despite all this, she found the time to impart wisdom to Medworld Insitute founder Dr Sam Hazledine on his This Generation podcast.
Dr MeiLan Han grew up in rural Idaho and volunteered as a Candy Striper at the local hospital. “Because of the rural location, it wasn’t very heavily regulated. And I got to do pretty much everything. Assist in the emergency room. I was there for codes and procedures, and I thought it was one of the most exciting and thrilling things I'd ever done.”
After this experience, MeiLan was hooked. “One of the things that I still value most about medicine, I think that there is so much value in the work, and you can feel good about, you know, doing something interesting, exciting, and at the same time, you're helping people.”
Variety in career for combatting burnout:
Michigan, where MeiLan now lives, was in the middle of its fourth stage of COVID-19 when writing this. “I took over as chief of the division here at the University of Michigan in January. And so, I like to think of myself as sort of like, the shepherd in chief.”
MeiLan explains how the effects of COVID-19 on staff burnout have been “brutal.” “Many of my faculty, particularly; unfortunately, female physicians, I think, have really had it the worst because of childcare impacting them even more so and not being able to get their work done and things like that.
She feels fortunate that she has been afforded a lot of flexibility in academics, in particular, and that’s one of the things she likes about her career path.
MeiLan says she has been lucky enough to find a variety of career avenues on which to focus her energy, which has protected her, in a way, from experiencing burnout.
“I had the opportunity to get a master’s degree in clinical research and that led to me then starting to get more involved with research and doing papers. I now have the opportunity to get into advocacy and am trying to push for change at a national and international level.”
The secret, she says, is to keep reinventing yourself.
The importance of finding joy:
"I guess maybe I'm an optimist, but I'm always excited about what that next bend around the corner is going to be."
For MeiLan, it’s about finding joy in every aspect of medicine - which comes down to perspective. For example, when she writes an academic paper, she looks at it as a creative process, “even being in something that seems sort of as cut and dry as research…It's how you present the data, get that message out, and help it have an impact.”
She explains that it is about finding places where your passions align. For her, this is between medicine and helping other people.
She says it is about having a philosophy or core values around what’s important to you in place and then keeping yourself open to the universe.
“I don't know whether you create those opportunities or attract them; I’m not sure which it is.”
“Have I always gotten every job I've wanted or whatever grant I’ve applied for? Is every paper I've submitted not accepted? Of course not - But ultimately, yes, I have very much learned to enjoy the journey.”
Advocacy and her book Breathing Lessons:
MeiLan’s first foray into lung health advocacy was ten years ago when the American Lung Association approached her as their spokesperson.
“There is a part of me that every time I hear someone say she's an advocate…or social media this…I cringe. Because that's so anti-my usual nature.”
Despite this stigma, MeiLan believes her cause is worth pushing aside these feelings and fighting for.
“One of the things that drove me to enter pulmonary medicine in the first place is that, at least in the US, many of the patients who have chronic lung disease tend to be socioeconomically disadvantaged; they live in rural areas. And I'd always sort of had a heart for that patient population.”
MeiLan found herself with a group of patients who were struggling. “They weren’t getting funding, we didn't have cures, and somebody needed to help be a voice for them. And so, I think that ultimately got me to just sort of my frustration around the issue.”
She explains that in the United States, pulmonary disease doesn’t receive much attention or public health funding.
“We don't screen for the disease. We don't create drugs for diseases. And even now with the COVID-19 pandemic, despite that, little has gone into understanding lung disease.”
When COVID-19 struck, the lack of public health funding and research on respiratory diseases contributed to the excess deaths from the pandemic, which spurred MeiLan on.
“Everything that we saw played out in millions of people across the world during the pandemic. I think we could have done better. So, I think the pandemic sort of helped to confirm my resolve on the importance of this issue, but at the same time, there is part of me that still cringes a bit. “
Helping patients is MeiLan’s “true north,” and this inspired her to impart the gift of information to her patients in the form of a book she wrote during the pandemic called Breathing Lessons.
"It explains to patients how their lungs work, but also, the whole last chapter is all about the crisis of lung health, where we're at right now, and what we need to do to move forward.”
Ideas as gifts:
Medworld believes that harnessing the collective intelligence of the medical profession could be the answer to healing from within, and MeiLan thinks that everyone has a zone of genius that we can share with others. She explains that imparting that wisdom to others is like giving them a gift—the gift of an idea.
“You can craft your message into a story. Everybody wants to hear a story, right? And the more you craft your message into a story, the more interested people will be in it. And also, to just kind of when you're talking about a concept, to have, I guess, the idea in your mind that you're presenting, you’re framing something for someone in a new way and kind of offering that up as a gift.”
MeiLan says to think about the way you frame the information that you are passing on as if it's a gift. When Sam tells her of Medworld's mission, she agrees: "I love this idea of doctors being able to share their own, you know, sort of nuggets of wisdom on a central site so we can all learn from each other."
She goes on to explain the importance of sharing information within the profession. "You can only learn so much in medical school, but I think 99% of what we learn about being a doctor and how you diagnose and just that art of medicine comes from just doing it and being with patients one-on-one."
In conclusion:
Dr Sam Hazldine asks, "If you could go back in time and speak to your 18-year-old self, what are the three most important pieces of advice you would give, whether it’s medical or life advice? What advice would you give to yourself to help yourself live a great life?"
"I think the main message to my younger self would be not to stress out quite so much, not to be quite so anxious and to realise that there's so much room in medicine for so many people to make different kinds of contributions. And everyone will ultimately kind of figure out their own path."
Then, to conclude, he asks, "How do you want to be remembered?"
"You know, it's funny. Someone asked me recently if I thought I was successful. And in many ways, I don't feel particularly successful; I measure my success in terms of winning hearts and minds. And I don't always win my patients' hearts and minds by convincing them to adopt healthier behaviours or take their medications. But you don’t want to on a more, you know, health system-wide or health policy level. There is still so much work to be done. So, I don't know what dent I'll be maybe able to make, but I'm hopeful that I will be remembered as having made some dent in something.
And make me something permanently better. And so, I don't know which of my multiple swings at the plate will ultimately have an impact, but I pray that one of them does. "
Listen to the podcast:
