(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to another episode of Surgeon's Lives. I'm your host, John Monson. My guest today is Mary Horn, who is the professor and chair of the Department of Surgery in Stanford in California. Mary is a Michigan native, having grown up on the shores of Lake Michigan. She originally thought she was gonna be a pediatrician, but surgery soon called when she did her surgical attachments. And before long, she became passionate about general surgery and spent a fellowship time in Oregon before taking up her position and faculty in the University of Alabama. That was going to be a five year stint, but she ended up staying there for 14 years before moving to our current position in California. She's married to Ibn Rosenthal, who is the head of Otorhino Larangology, head and neck cancer surgeon in Vanderbilt. He moved there some two and a half years ago, and so we spend some time having a conversation about how anyone can balance these professional aspirations and with personal lives, which is always challenging, with two highly successful surgeons. So without further ado, we'll go across and listen to what she has to say, but before that, please like and subscribe to the channel and send me your comments and tell me what you think and maybe who you'd like to hear interviewed in due course. I'm John Monson and this is Surgeon's Lives. Anyway, so thanks for taking the time. It's not too bad if you're 8.30 in the morning. - Yeah, it's good. Yeah. - I don't know if you've seen any previous episodes of what's very grandly entitled Surgeon's Lives, but it's really, obviously we'll spend a little bit of time talking about the usual stuff, career development and mentors, et cetera, but as much as anything, I started this because everybody can read that on PubMed or Google and I wanted to try and talk to Surgeon's to show to other people, particularly younger people, that there's more to Surgeon's than just turning up writing a paper and six grants or being president or whatever. So that's why the subtitle is called Stuff That Matters. - Okay. - You know, whether you've got 100 papers or two or 500, really doesn't matter at the end of the day. So what I ask people to do, and I'll ask you to do, it is just to walk us through a brief life history starting with the words I was born in. (laughs) All right, well, I was born in a small town in the Upper Peninsula, Michigan called Manastique, Michigan. It's a town of maybe about 2,500 people, like Michigan, and grew up there in small town and then matriculated to the University of Michigan. I was in a program that no longer exists, but it was called the Interflex program, which was when I was there a seven year pre-med med program. So basically you got accepted to med school straight out of high school and did your undergraduate work and had some kind of integration of undergrad in med school. And then had some, you know, great, great times there and fell in love with surgery on my third-year clerkship and decided to apply. - A way to do, yeah. - Was there medicine in the family or? - Oh, okay, yes. All right, so a little bit more about my background. My father was a dentist, and unfortunately he died when I was nine in an accident. So, and I am one of seven children, I'm the sixth of seven. Yes, so, you know, I think that was really a major kind of turning point in our childhood of losing our father at such a young age and also for my mom. She had never remarried, but raised her seven children and sent them all to college, which wasn't necessarily, I mean, they both had college educations, but I think where we grew up, not everybody went on to college. - Seven kids though, raising them alone, if you like, is absolutely task. - Yeah, so a very tough female role model in my life, for sure, are very resilient, yes, yeah. - So you wanted to do medicine. - I knew I wanted to do medicine at a pretty young age, yes. And I don't exactly know why, but it was just something that it seemed interesting to me. I think I was curious about the human body. You know, I like that, you know, living in a small town, you knew the doctors in the town. They were very engaged, involved in the community, and it just seemed like a great specialty in so many different ways. - Of course that, you know, straight out, how is effectively out of high school into medicine is the European model, very much so. And so the program doesn't exist anymore, is there a reason or? - Right, well, I think the program was initially developed to try and get people more engaged involved in primary care and become primary care physicians for the state of Michigan. And I think, you know, so I always joke around that I got, so the upper peninsula, the nickname for the upper peninsula is the UP, and if you're from the UP, you're called a Uber. So I always joke around that I got in on the Uber quota 'cause they would usually take one student a year into this program from the upper peninsula. - Whatever it takes. - Exactly. But anyway, so after your first year of college, you did an internship with a primary care physician in rural Michigan. So all these, the way the program was designed was to try and create more humane positions that were committed to, you know, taking care of the rural populations in Michigan. But it was like super competitive to get into. So everybody went into ophthalmology and neurosurgery and dermatology and things like that. So I think after a while, they just decided to sunset the program that it really wasn't achieving the ends that they were hoping. And now they just have the regular matriculation into medical school. - It's kind of interesting, you know, multiple countries around the world struggle with this issue of creating primary care docs for their community, their country, their society. And they all have different ways of doing it. And they all fail. I mean, it's not easy, you know, it's, and the number of people that go into programs, you know, on the back that were ostensibly set up to achieve something who then instantly sidestep into something else, you know, it's just a, there has to be a different way. - Sorry, yeah. - There has to be a different way. So surgery was just, you did your attachment and this was for you, it was immediately obvious. - Oh, I got interested in surgery. So I originally thought I'd be interested in otolaryngology, you know, kind of when you're a medical student, you're talking to other students. They're like, oh, it's a great mix of surgery and medicine, you know, great anatomy, you know, diverse problems that you take care of, of the different senses. And so I thought I was kind of heading toward otolaryngology. Did my surgery rotation really loved it and thought, that's great, I love surgery. And then I did my otolaryngology rotation, I said, nope, I actually really like general surgery and not EMT and so switched over to what I was planning to apply to. - And stayed in Michigan? - Stayed in Michigan, stayed in Ann Arbor for another seven years, doing my general surgery, residency, research years. And during that time, I met my husband who did match in otolaryngology at Michigan. He was a medical student when we met. And so I finished a couple of years before he did. So actually he was on faculty at Michigan for a couple of years while he was finishing his residency. - And that was before after you went to Oregon? - That was before, yeah. So two years on faculty at Michigan while he was finishing his residency. And then we did fellowships in Oregon together. - Okay, Ryan Ryan. Oregon was the laparoscopic Lee Swanstrum sort of-- - Actually I was at OHSU with Fresh Shepherd. - The other side of the street, yep. - Okay, and then a dramatic departure. - Yes? - You couldn't ask for two different environments or I would imagine from Michigan to Alabama. - Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah, so that dual professional couple looking for jobs. When we started looking, we said we'd go anywhere but New York, LA or the Deep South. So we had to redefine what the Deep South was. But they were, I would say there was just a couple places that had really good jobs for both of us. There were places that we looked at that might have had a good job for me, but kind of a made up job for my husband or vice versa. But I think at UAB, we thought there were great jobs for both of us. We would go there for five years and then start our career and then for someplace else and ended up saying they're for 14. - But, you know, I mean, you just raised the reality of the situation, which is that if it's a couple's match if you like, regardless of what level, you go where the couple's match is and everything is secondary because you otherwise, one of the partners is a loser. And that's not sustainable, really, is it, you know? Or it's different, you know? - Yeah, yeah. And I always tell, you know, because I think a lot of younger folks who are in the situation that we were, that it's like the most stressful year of your life because fellowship isn't so bad. Everybody has a fellowship job, but not everybody has a job when you're finishing fellowship. So trying to match all those things up, everybody's gonna compromise, that there's not gonna be the ideal job and the ideal location for both people. And so you're gonna have to compromise and make the best, but, and I think, you know, when we went to UAB, I think I was more reticent to go to the South than my husband. And, but at the same time had great mentors there and didn't know anybody, I think from the state ever, or anybody who lived there before we moved there. So it was quite a transition. - I mean, that goes without saying, of course, it would have been a dramatic cultural shift. How would you describe it as in, you know, if somebody said to you, like, what was Alabama like? - I think, yeah, the things, so UAB is amazing and UAB itself is very multicultural, very kind of open-minded. And, you know, I just, and my husband's Jewish and I'm not, we don't have the same last name. You know, our realtor is driving us around through different communities and we go through this place, Mountain Brook, which is, you know, a very lovely affluent community just outside of Birmingham that has great public schools, 'cause originally when we were moving there, we said we wanted to live in a neighborhood with sidewalks, good public schools, all those things. So it's showing us those neighborhoods. And it was kind of apparent that that was not a neighborhood for us. And, you know, just driving us around and, oh, this is the Jewish Country Club and the, you know, Birmingham Country Club, I think at that time didn't have any black members, the entire Mountain Brook public school system didn't have any black students, period. There was no busing in Mountain Brook. So when the, you know, when the school kind of busing laws and acts came out, kind of the way to respond to that was to just not have busing. And so it was, so that was kind of a lot of my first introduction was just going around with the realtor and just being culturally, like how differently it, Birmingham evolved. - Yeah. - And so I had to say we got really lucky. We ended up buying a house in the city proper of Birmingham, so which meant we would send our kids to private school, but we lived, we landed in a great neighborhood of dual professional couples with different last names and different religions. And so it felt that felt like very much like home. And in fact, I still to this day feel that my friends that I made in Alabama are more liberal than my friends I had in Ann Arbor, Michigan than the people I know here in Palo Alto, California, because they were truly, you know, care deeply about the social problems in Alabama. - Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, the US is, you know, I always say to people that everything you say about the US is true because it's so big, you know, it's the big, the poorest, the richest, the most racist, the last racist, all of those things. Somewhere it's one of those things, et cetera. And sometimes the least expected, as you say, you're going to, I think to be fair, most people would say is the deep sounds. - Yes, yes, it was. - Regardless, I mean, I think just look at the ruling that just came out of the Alabama Supreme Court, right? - Yeah, and it's, you know, I obviously I'm from the other side of the Atlantic and, you know, spent most of my years over there. And, you know, it's a different type of culture. And, you know, sometimes people here think I come from a communist country, you know, et cetera. Which, you know, you don't think that at all. But it's very different. And of course, UAB had a kind of a legendary leader with Kirby Bland when you went there. - Yeah. - Et cetera. - And you transitioned, or they transitioned, I should say, with Herb. - So I left right before Herb got there. - Oh, you left this before? - Yeah. - Okay. - So Kirby recruited me there. But the person who really recruited me there was Solomon Vickers. - Yeah. - He was the chief of GI surgery at that time. And he was the one who recruited me there. And then he left after about five years of my time there to be the chair of surgery at University of Minnesota. - Yeah, and has now moved on again, yeah? - Yes. - Yeah. - So you then transitioned to the place that isn't a real world, Anuato. - Yes. - Again, extraordinarily intellectually exciting. But, and was that the attraction, or was, did you have an ambition? You know, were you, when you were going into medical school in Michigan, were you always going to be a chair? Did you want to be a chair? Was that the sort of the North Star for you? - Not at all, you know, there were not many women in leadership and academic medicine at that time. And especially coming from a small town, I think when I initially went, I thought I would be a pediatrician in our primary care doctor in a small town because that's what I knew. But, and I tend to think myself a little bit more as like the accidental leader. So I first got my division chief job when someone left to go to the University of Minnesota. And I thought we would then be doing a search for our next division chief and Dr. Bland basically, I think at a little bit at someone's urging, or maybe a lot of it at someone's urging, asked me to step into that role. And I have to say it was really intimidating. I was just getting promoted to associate professor. I thought, who's going to want to come and work for me? I don't really have a reputation. Why would somebody want to come and work for me? So that, you know, like the imposter syndrome that many of us feel at a time. But I have to say that job was an amazing job. I think it's still my favorite job to this day. And I tell people all the time that being a division chief is probably the best job out there in academic surgery because you're kind of working side by side more with your people, building your programs together. And, you know, really involved in all missions together. And being a department chair, which I don't think I really, again, it was one of those things I've been division chief for nine years and I thought I can't do this job forever. I better start kind of looking. And my name was getting put in for department chair jobs. And so I thought, well, maybe I'll just apply 'cause I knew the job was coming open at UAB. So I'll apply for a couple of those jobs and kind of get some practice. It'd been a while since I've interviewed. And so I applied to a couple of jobs. And then it became apparent, you know, fairly early on in the search that they, that I was like a real candidate. Like they were legitimately interested in me. Again, I was like, whoa, you know, totally surprised. And then again, the dual professional piece comes in that, you know, it's really hard to, and my husband was also division chief. Okay, so here we are both division chiefs. I'm like, we're never leaving UAB. Like where are we ever gonna find jobs? And so, and, and someone was a dean at that point and making, my husband is an otolaryngologist. It was a division in the department of surgery. And they were basically making it its own department. So he would be the department chair. (laughs) Anyway, so we went to interview at Stanford and I first met my kind of airport interview. We used to do airport interviews and not Zoom. And then the dean called me and said, we'd like to invite you on campus for an interview. But I want to know now, like if there's, you know, where we want to get the search done. So I would just want to know now, is there anything that would keep you from coming? And I said, well, my husband would need a good job. And he's like, who's your husband? And so they, you know, started working with him and, you know, what opportunities they had at Stanford. And they were looking for a new leader, their cancer center based the medical director of the cancer programs at Stanford, which is kind of, and still is like one of the premier programs that we invest in. And they were, so, and he was a head neck surgeon who did mostly reconstructive surgery for head neck cancer, but did a lot of research in cancer tumor imaging. So it was one of those things where nothing's ever perfect for both people, but these were two great jobs at an amazing institution with a lot of resources. And we said, if we're ever going to leave Alabama, which we didn't feel like we needed to leave, but at the same time, we never saw ourselves living there for our entire lives. But we were very happy there, very comfortable. You know, we're like, we're never going to get another chance to go together for two good jobs at an amazing institution. So that was how we ended up there. And are up here, whatever, it was really a great, you know, a tough transition, but a great transition to part to leave. - You know, shortly after I moved to the States, I did that Harvard course on academic leadership for physicians. And, you know, the Harvard model uses case studies, you know, of various events. And, you know, the ongoing SAGA, which was Stanford and UCSF and... - Oh, yeah, yes, the merger, the merger, yes. - What was a multiple case study? - Yes, yes. - And they tried this and that was a disaster. And then they tried this and that was a disaster. So did you, I mean, Stanford is, you know, has all of the obvious positives, but was there anything that scared you about it? - Again, I think that imposter syndrome and was a little bit intimidating, but mostly, you know, it was excitement for a lot of different reasons. And part of, like, I didn't know much about the program and Stanford really had a very small faculty. A lot of the teaching faculty were part of this group called the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. They weren't Stanford faculty. And I think after that kind of merger or demerger, the school medicine really committed to building up an academic faculty on the Stanford campus. And Tom Crummel, my predecessor, I think really gets a lot of credit for really developing, recruiting great people, building solid academic programs. So it was, in no way, kind of a fixer upper job. It was, you know, a good solid program that there were some opportunities in different areas and some incredible strengths in areas as well. But we also had two new hospitals opening. So I took my job in 2015. The children's hospital opened in 2018. The adult hospital opened in 2019. So about a year later than it was supposed to, but that was just an incredible opportunity because new hospitals bring new resources. You can hire more people. So it wasn't a job where you kind of, it couldn't really grow. We, I mean, the plan was that we needed to grow our programs to fill these two hospitals. And so those things were like really exciting to me. When I was at UAB, we, after about three years or four years of our time there, they opened a new hospital and just seeing what a new hospital and growth can do for programs is impressive, yeah. - Yeah, no, no, for sure. You know, it's that phenomenon of, you know, when you come to visit, do you see cranes, you know? If you see, if you don't see any cranes, go back to the airport. If you see cranes, you know, that's probably something good is gonna happen. Throughout all of this, I'm guessing you must have had at least one, if not more than one mentor or, and you know, most people do, whether they call them mentors or not. And was your mentorship experience intentional or just serendipitous? As in, did you seek out mentors, you know? - Yeah, so I think both. I would say, so, you know, thinking of mentors that have been really important in my career, I would say first, in some of them, so it's hard to, I think there's mentors and sponsors, right? So I think, Laser Greenfield, who was my department chair at Michigan and Mike Mahalan, who was the program director at the end, were always kind of strong sponsors out there. And you didn't always know that they were doing things to help advance your career, but everyone's valued here. I'd hear something about, you know, Kirby Bland saying, oh, Mary, Laser's so proud of you. And, you know, so you knew that they were kind of talking about you. And then, but my real mentors and sponsors too, I would say were Selwyn, you know, who were recruiting me there. I think has always done things to try and, you know, advise me, help kind of guide my career. And I think also, it's an amazing sponsor for many things that have happened for me in my career. Another person is Leigh Neumeier, who I met because I was trying to get a research grant done in the VA, and I needed access to VA data. And she was, and they initially said no, and she was on the governing body on data access. So I just tried again, and I said, no, this is really what we need it for. I think this is a good use of the data. So she sent me an email back, and she said, well, we have some concerns with talk and figure out how we could potentially make this work. And so, in that kind of relationship of getting a research project going, and her helping me figure out how to do it, she became an incredible kind of mentor in my career and also a sponsor and then a friend. You know, so I think we share a lot of things that her husband's also a surgeon, and they've had the dual career crises as well and challenges. So anyway, so I would say she's been another incredibly strong, important mentor and sponsor in my life. And then when I got to UAB, I just went around and met with a bunch of people. I had done basic science research during my undergrad and medical school and residency. And during that time, I also got my master's in public health. When we moved to Alabama, the three and one year old, the husband who was doing basic science research too, and I was like, you know, I just can't do it. I can't do that all, but have this other tool set of data sciences and epidemiology. So I went around and met with different people. And the woman who is a chair of preventive medicine and catarina Kifa, incredibly successful data science researcher, kind of took me under her wing and just helped me identify some projects, helped me write grants, was an incredible mentor on how to navigate that. And, you know, I am so grateful to just stay and introduce me to other people and collaborators. But it was just, and I think it's really good. And then she was also somebody I could go talk to and say like when the division chief job came open and they were asking me to do it, I didn't think it was like a good time for me to do it in my career. I just thought I would, yeah, the other things kind of that were just my grants were just, you know, really getting going and things like that. And so I went and talked to her. And because she's a very uninterested mentor, rather somebody in your department who might have a strong feeling when we're the other. So she was a really good mentor for me to be able to reach out to for questions and support and advice of that. - You know, the way you described that is, I mean, as you start off by saying, you know, you had all of these things to do. You just can't do all of that. You know, that's not legal for, you know, a famous department chair to say you cannot be good at everything. You know, you're not meant to say that sort of stuff. But it's true, you know, the triple or quadruple threat. You know, I always struck me over the years, certainly when I was a chair that never really existed anyway. You know, people are not good at absolutely everything. Number one and number two, there's a maximum what you can do. But I mean, what you describe is, I don't know if the trendy word would be, you know, a vulnerable experience of realizing that you needed help and going and asking for help. You know, I think that is my personal view is that that's incredibly important to just, you know, front up with people and say, hey, I'm new here, you know, can you help me? Because it's, you know, surgery has never been very good at at accepting the fact that people aren't fully minted the day they turn up. And, you know, is, do you, how do you, you know, mentor young faculty in that respect? - Yeah, I think, you know, based on that experience and other people who I've seen who have done it well is when new people show up, I'm like, you're not going to be busy the first six months, right? Your clinic's not going to be busy. You've got to find your way around this institution anyway. So just look up people that you think you might have shared interest in and with and make appointments and go talk about your scholarship, your science and, you know, look for opportunities for collaboration, but really to take that time early on. And I tell them, like you think you're going to have all the time in the world as well, that, oh, I can put this off for a year or two, but that time goes by quickly and especially when you're on a clock as an assistant professor in order to get promoted. That's something you really have to intentionally focus and on in the very beginning. - Yeah, the, you know, that thing, this being on the clock or they think they have time. I mean, one of the things I always tell people, if you have a project or an interest or a passion, started on day one because this business of, you know, I'll just get myself clinically stable in one thing or another and then I'll start to do this. That never works because it just becomes overwhelming. Number one, and number two, you know, it takes a discipline to say, okay, on day one, I'm going to go and talk about this project, which will take another two years to do anyway. But I think it's very, you're right. I mean, it's important, you know, to hit the ground running in terms of your focus. How would you describe yourself as a chair? How would others describe you as a chair? - Oh, that's a good question. Let's see, how would I want them to describe me? - Exactly, yeah. - I like this phrase of like eyes on, hands off. So that I'm really aware of everything that's going on and I want to know and I want to understand, but I don't, you know, I have great division chiefs. I don't want to kind of reach in and because I really appreciated that from Kirby, like he was not a micromanager at all. Like, I would go to him with big problems and big successes, but otherwise he let me make the majority of the decisions. And so I, and that was great for me in my own growth. So I'd like to hope that people think I care, that I am supportive, that I'm like their cheerleader, back there hoping and helping them reach their success, that I'm available if they need me, but I'm also, don't want to be running every minute of every day. There's a couple of things I'm a little more in the weeds on just in terms of like, oh, our efficiency and things that I think I can use my influence to try and make their life better. - So, you know, eyes on, hands off. So that's what you want to do, do you succeed? - I think so. I think I, you know, people always will do the underground right and come to me if they're unhappy with their division chief. And I mostly try to listen. And then I will pull the division chief aside, say, hey, I think you need to listen a more a little bit about this or maybe reach out to this person. And, you know, sort this out. And, you know, I had some pretty strong feelings about a couple things and I'll let them know, but I'm not, I think, totally going to impose my view or my feelings, yeah. - You mentioned earlier on that, you know, when you started down this line, there weren't a lot of women leading departments or leading divisions, et cetera. That is definitely different now, but to what degree, you know, is obviously a debate. And it's a debate that's actually not that easy to have. It's not totally dissimilar to what's going on in the Middle East. It's very difficult to have the debate. What's your, if somebody outside of surgery said, so, you know, what's the deal about women in surgery? I thought women didn't do surgery. How do you just, how do you think we're doing on that? Are we obviously making some progress enough, too much, not, you know, different the wrong way? - Yeah, I think a lot of women, I don't know, women in my generation go two ways. One, you can be like a super fierce advocate for just not enough, we need more, we need more, we need more. And then others are like, I don't want to be seen as a woman surgeon or a woman chair. I just want to be a surgeon or a chair. And I probably fall a little bit more into that camp, you know, that I think that everybody should be able to have opportunities and chances to succeed in that, that we need to, you know, recruit. So we're doing great on women in terms of residencies, medical schools and residencies. I would say we're struggling maybe a little bit more on minorities, especially Hispanic and Black minorities coming into medical school and coming into surgery. So those are areas I think that we could do better. And it's just, that is definitely like how do we, how do we get people in the pipeline? So, to answer your question, I don't think it should be an us versus them. I don't think it should be seen as a zero stone game that every time a man gets a job, it means a woman didn't or something like that. So I think that that is divisive. And last year we had this circumstance where we had an amazing match across general surgery, plastic surgery, vascular surgery. So of our 13 categorical residents, while we're women, probably half or some from an underrepresented in medicine group. And our director of communications put out this like face sheet in case you missed it. These are the new trainees coming to the farm. And we got totally trolled. - Oh, really? - Totally. And it was, it was in part because of something else that had happened at the Stanford Law School where they brought in a very conservative federal judge and the students kind of got, basically protested in his lecture. That made box news. And so people were out there kind of trolling Stanford already. And when this came up that, I mean, I think it got like over 16 million views and lots of comments, including even Elon Musk commenting on our face sheet. So we were quite concerned about our trainees who we had accepted into our program and the disparaging things that were being said about them based on their gender or their race or both. - And what was the main theme? - Oh, just no white men. - Yeah. - You know, right, our one guy as an Asian guy. So, and just, you know, Stanford's woke, Stanford's, you know, look at, I would never go there for surgery. This is how they're deciding, you know, they're so woke. They're just, you know, checking all the boxes around diversity and this and the other thing. But I would have to say, so we didn't really engage because we're like, it's just going to die. It's going to go through a cycle. They're going to go find somebody else to like troll. But the, what I was really heartened by is that the Med Twitter people actually did come out and kind of fight back a little bit on them or just say, congratulations. This is amazing way to go Stanford and stuff like that. So, but we decided ourselves, we didn't want to get into any, any debate on it. We just didn't think it was worthy of debate. And, you know, this whole thing of like academic freedom and all the discourse that's happening on campuses right now and, you know, the politicization of it, you know, between the congressional hearings and we had an event on campus last week for, actually it was this week for the department chairs. So the whole university, and they brought up the whole academic freedom thing. And so they, and they talked a little bit about, you know, the University of Chicago that has the, you know, it basically says, we're not doing trigger warnings. We're not creating safe spaces. Words aren't harmful. Like, you know, do you have to, like this is, you know, freedom of speech and has a very different policy than a lot of universities have taken. And one of the things they talked about is this book called "The Coddling of the American Mind." So I've been listening to that over the last several days. And I don't know if you've read the essay in the Atlantic or have listened to that book. But it's basically saying that we're, like by creating the safe spaces, we are basically fragileizing our younger generation that if we're protecting them from thoughts and conversations that are offensive to them, that, you know, it's not achieving what we're hoping to achieve. So my daughter who is in that generation probably believes differently from this book. So I think it's, I think in my generation you read it and you're like, yes, it makes sense. And so I think it's a good thing to read. And then I wanna read the rebuttals to their book. - Yeah, I mean, I think it's a cycle of what goes on. You see the difference from the other side of the Atlantic as well, which, you know, sometimes in the UK, I'm from Ireland originally, which is actually a very different country to the UK. And you see some of the stuff that goes on in the UK is just like throwing, you know, chum in the water for trolls because it's stupid stuff. You know, I remember when I worked in London, they, the council banned the use of black bin bags because they thought they were racist, the connotable. And so they introduced a bin bag, so you think? And you're like, okay, well, apart from the fact that it's stupid, you know, is that actually your job to decide the color of the refuse bags? But anyway, so I'll say Friday. So thank God it's Friday, Friday, Friday evening when you switch the light off, what does Mary Horn do? I mean, when you kick the shoes off and. - Yeah. Well, this Friday, it's not, I'm going out to a recruitment dinner, but, but normally what would we do? - That's terrible, that's. - Oh, no, no. Yeah, no, it's okay. It's okay. So one thing we didn't talk about is my husband, about two and a half years ago, left Stanford and went to Vanderbilt and took the chair job to learn geology there. So we've been now, we don't live in the same place and he mostly comes back here. This is home, I've got the dogs and our daughters in San Francisco. So he mostly travels back this way. So a lot of times I'm, you know, might be on my own on a Friday night, but I have a great group of neighbors that often will have like a game night, get together, have dinner, play games. Oh, or Mike, go see a show or catch up or do my epic. That's often different things I'll do on a Friday night. - I mean, it's a pretty unusual arrangement that Vanderbilt, Vandy and Stanford. - Yeah, yeah. - What did you say many years ago? - Two and a half. - Two and a half. Learned a lot from that experience. - I think in the end, you know, he liked his job here. He learned a lot that wasn't the job that he really wanted. Like I said, whenever you do this, you know, somebody's gonna compromise and you know, he decided the kids were out of the house. And we were both busy anyway. We both traveled a lot for work. So it's often, I mean, I was often home a lot or he was often home alone a lot as well. So, I mean, not obviously as much as living in two different places. But so I think it's going okay. It's, you know, you have to be intentional about spending time together. And in some ways, I feel like we almost talk a little bit more than we did when we lived in the same house and we would be like on our laptops or on our phone or doing some things. So it's almost like we do talk a little bit more, but it is, it is lonely definitely at times. And I feel like you're not kind of building a house together. - Yeah. So are you optimistic for the young surgeon? - I am optimistic for the young surgeon. I feel like surgery is just continually innovating. You know, just doing things that we would never have done when we were in training to really try and solve problems for patients. I think that we will not be replaced by AI. - No. - I would worry about not necessarily that radiology or pathology is gonna be replaced by AI. But I think that it might make their jobs different. You know, just like I always say, like, you know, EKG machines have been reading, giving you interpretation of the EKG since, you know, I was in medical school, right? And then the cardiologist would read it two weeks later. - And now the stethoscope actually tells you what you're hearing. - Yes, yes. So I think if, you know, I think it's only gonna be good. Like if AI looks at a CT scan, but then a radiologist has to go through and confirm things and put it into context and things like that. So I don't think radiologists are gonna go away. But I think for surgeons, I think that AI might help us in some areas. But what I think is really exciting is just, you know, we're more and more operating off the images. And how can we augment those images and use other technology to really make our third three safer, more precise, less invasive, more successful? - Yeah. I was just thinking back to an interview I did with Julie Frischlach by the way. And one of the ways he describes the DEI side of things are not DEI, but that whole issue is that she, you know, she says she never wants to chair a committee where everyone looks like you do. - Right. - And I thought it was a very good phrase, you know? If you can continually be sitting in a room with people that don't look like you and whatever that. And everybody should have that same view, you know? - So if you weren't a surgeon, what do you think you would have been? - Maybe an architect. - Do you have a great building in you? - I, you know, I think I like design. I like thinking about, you know, a form and function. And so I think, I don't know. I think that's what I'm maybe more residential and not commercial. I'm not like interested in designing skyscrapers or, but designing spaces that mean your needs. - For people. - Yeah, for people to live in, yeah. - I didn't actually ask you, I forgot to ask you. If you had, you've told me if you mentors that may tick that box, but did you have a surgical idol or do you have a surgical idol who not necessarily a mentor? - But I have a lot of idols, I think, who are surgeons. But I think, you know, what started was, you know, I think the residents that I worked with when I was in medical study and just feeling that they could, they were the ones that everybody else in the hospital looked to when a patient was sick or something bad was happening. It's like, you know, the surgical resident, if the surgical resident couldn't do something, then, you know, we're all in trouble. So I love that kind of aspect of the training and a little bit the hubris, right, that, okay, I, you know, I've got this, we can, we can fix it. So I loved being that and being part of that group and team, I think that's what really drew me to this field. So I think it started there and, but I think I talked a little bit about some of my great mentors and sponsors. Yeah. - Okay, I'm gonna ask you a few rapid-fire questions. - Okay. - They're often asked in these type of interviews. It won't be new to you. They are, of course, how people judge you at the end of the day, you know, regardless. - Right. - So what's your favorite food? - Oh, I love Thai food. - Thai food? - It's a good, a good Tom Yum soup. Yeah, I like spicy food. - Favorite movie? - Shashank Redemption. - So if you were stuck on a desert island and you had to listen to one song for the rest of your life. - One song, probably just breathe, but any better? - Best book you ever read? - Bye. - I have so many favorites, but maybe "Angle of Reposed" by Walt Stegner. - You are on Friday night, not this Friday. - Yep. - On Friday night, you have hosting a dinner and you have two extra dinner slots, two guests from anyone in history that are alive. - Boy, anyone in history? - I think I'd like to have, and now I have to think about that one for a second. There's a lot of people out there, but I mean, names that are coming to mind, like Martin Luther King. So steady in his conviction. Abraham Lincoln. I think people are just fearsome brave, right? - Those are two pretty good choices. Yeah, good choices. - Homer away. - Homer away for what? - Homer away. - Oh, do I want to be Homer, or do I want to be away somewhere else? Boy, I love to travel, but I do like being at home. - And to your life, in five words? - I rest of my life in five words. The fun, active, meaningful, connected, adventurous. - I don't do. Any regrets? - Any regrets? - I'm trying not to focus, I mean, I have them, but I try not to focus them. I always like to say, you know, don't look backward, you're not going there. - Yeah, sure. - All right, well, Mary, well, thank you so much for spending time, I hope it wasn't too boring for you. - No, no, it was great. I would love to interview you and find out more about your life and your career, too. I have to turn the table sometime. - Yeah, several people have asked to do that, and I'm steadfastly refusing. Thank you so much, and I hope you are successful in your recruitment dinner. - Great, thank you. All right, have a great weekend, bye-bye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
