Neal Baer is an award-winning television writer and producer—and a Harvard Medical School-trained pediatrician (MD ’96). Through his pioneering work on hit shows such as ER and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as his leadership in connecting media producers with doctors and scientists, Baer has helped shape public perceptions of medicine, illness and health disparities, with a special focus on issues that disproportionately affect LGBTQ communities.

In this month’s podcast, Baer recounts his unconventional journey and explains how storytelling is central to being both a writer and a doctor. Along the way, he reveals how medical school inadvertently prepared him to be an executive producer.

Baer is an adjunct professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and a part-time lecturer on global health and social medicine at HMS.