The Hippocratic Society Podcast
The Hippocratic Society Podcast is a space for continuing the conversations that begin in HippSoc discussions, on the questions, virtues, and concepts at the heart of good medicine. Through expert interviews and conversations between our hosts, each episode invites reflection on what it means to practice well and how we can best care for our patients. The podcast also shares recordings from our Hippocratic Symposia and national conference. We hope you enjoy the show!
Episodes
Hope in Medicine: Hudson Baker - A Defense of Relationship Centered Perfectionism
What does it mean to flourish when illness changes our abilities? Medical student Hudson Baker explores how relationships shape human well-being and why this matters for medicine. Through philosophy and clinical examples, he considers disability, dementia, end-of-life care, and the patient–physician relationship, offering a vision of care grounded in connection, dignity, and accompaniment.
Hope in Medicine: Lucas Martuano and Mariana Kobata - Hope at the Bedside: Care Beyond Cure
What does hope look like when cure is no longer possible? In Hope at the Bedside: Care Beyond Cure, Brazilian medical students Lucas and Mariana explore hope as a virtue between despair and wishful thinking. Drawing on philosophy and the patient–physician relationship, they consider how honest communication, compassionate presence, and attention to dignity can sustain meaningful care, even at the end of life.
Hope in Medicine: Dr. Meg Chisholm and Dr. Khalid Elzamzamy - Visual Thinking Strategies
In this episode of the Hippocratic Society Podcast, Dr. Meg Chisholm, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a certified Visual Thinking Strategies facilitator, joins Dr. Khalid ElZamzamy, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Kennedy Krieger Institute and Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins. Together, they explore how art can deepen reflection, strengthen community, and support the cultivation of virtue in medicine.
Hope in Medicine: William Stigall Abstract Session - Medicine as (Aristotelean) Art
In this abstract session of the Hippocratic Society Conference, Dr. William Stigall, Vice President and Chief Research Officer at Cook Children's Healthcare System, discusses the art of medicine under an Aristotelean framework. He strategically parses out what makes the medical profession distinct in its essence from other professions and types of work.
Hope and Truth in Narrative Oncology: Dr. Brian Quaranta Abstract Session - HippSoc Conference 2026
Recorded at the 2nd Annual Hippocratic Society Conference, this talk works through the question using two texts Dr. Quaranta teaches at Duke: Stephen Jay Gould's essay "The Median Isn't the Message," written after his own diagnosis with an incurable cancer, and Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film Ikiru, in which a Tokyo bureaucrat is lied to about his stomach cancer and must decide what to do with the months he has left.
Hope in Medicine: A Fireside Chat with Dr. John Rhee and Dr. Farr Curlin - Hippsoc Conference 2026
At the Hippsoc 2026 Conference, Dr. John Rhee and Dr. Farr Curlin guide the audience to dive more deeply on the subject of hope in the medical practice and how it might look day to day. In this lecture, the presenters discuss a clinical experience and shed light on how we might generate hope practically in the clinical setting.
Hope Amidst Challenges in Medicine Today - Dr. Ben Frush & Dr. Brewer Eberly
At the 2026 Hippocratic Society Conference, Dr. Ben Frush and Dr. Brewer Eberly discuss how one can hope amidst the pressures and difficulties of the practice of medicine. How can physicians be hopeful in the face of rising distrust in practitioners, bureaucratic pressures, time constraints, and the looming force of artificial intelligence? How can moral friendship sustain us? Drawing from philosophers and artist alike, Frush and Eberly offer a look at what it might mean to practice hope as a clinician.
A Philosophical Psychology of Hope with Dr. Allison Postell - HippSoc Conference 2026
At the 2026 Hippocratic Society Annual Conference, Dr. Allison Postell presents on the nature of hope. Is hope an emotion? Is it a virtue? Can we deliberately foster hope in our own lives, in our patients, and in medical practice as a whole? Dr. Postell addresses these questions through a variety of lenses, drawing mainly from the philosophical and psychological framework of Thomas Aquinas.
13.2 - Sincerity
In this episode, John and Michael lay out the nature of the virtue of sincerity and why it is important for physicians to be sincere, both to their patients and to themselves.
13.1 - Moral Bioenhancement and why we still need virtues with Dr. Fabrice Jotterand
Is coffee moral bioenchancement? What does it mean to enhance our moral actions and what is medicine's role in that? Are the virtues still relevant in a world of enhancement? Join us as with discuss these questions and much more with Dr. Fabrice Jotterand, a leading bioethicist at Oregon Health and Science University.