The Nocturnists

Dr. Erika MacIntyre reflects on her path into critical care and chronic ventilation medicine, as well as the mounting pressures she faced during COVID-19—including professional strain, loss of personal outlets, and family challenges. Seeking change, she and her family embarked on an ambitious sailing journey across the Atlantic, navigating both physical and emotional challenges while living simply and disconnected from modern conveniences.

Looking for more from The Nocturnists? Explore The Nocturnists+, our subscriber-only feed featuring The Nocturnists After Hours—a monthly series where host Emily Silverman is joined by executive producer Dr. Ali Block for more informal, open conversations about medicine, culture, and their own lived experiences. Subscriptions start at just $10/mo and include exclusive discounts on our new merch. Learn more or subscribe at thenocturnists.org/plus.

Pediatric intensivist Dr. Chris Carroll tells the story of an unexpected consult: a young gorilla named Kevin, critically ill with Shigella sepsis during an outbreak at the Jacksonville Zoo. What begins as a strange crossover between human and veterinary medicine becomes something deeper as Chris works alongside veterinarians trying to save Kevin's life. In the process, he is struck not only by the similarities between caring for sick children and sick animals, but by the reverence and tenderness the veterinary team brings to their work. We talk about pediatric ICU medicine, the human-animal boundary, grief across species, and what doctors might learn from veterinarians about compassion.

Chris originally performed this story at a live storytelling event produced CHEST as a part of our Satellites Storytelling program.

Looking for more from The Nocturnists? Explore The Nocturnists+, our subscriber-only feed featuring The Nocturnists After Hours—a monthly series where host Emily Silverman is joined by executive producer Dr. Ali Block for more informal, open conversations about medicine, culture, and their own lived experiences. Subscriptions start at just $10/mo and include exclusive discounts on our new merch. Learn more or subscribe at thenocturnists.org/plus.

Solange Madriz, a public health professional at UCSF, reflects on her work training birth attendants and clinicians in rural Guatemala to respond to maternal emergencies through low-cost simulation. For years, she helped others prepare for postpartum hemorrhage, preeclampsia, and other life-threatening complications of childbirth. Then, after the birth of her own first child during the pandemic, she developed severe postpartum preeclampsia and found herself on the other side of the hospital bed. In our conversation, Solange talks about public health, maternal health, the limits of knowledge when your own body is in crisis, and how her own medical experience changed the way she thinks about her work.

Solange originally performed this story at a live storytelling event produced UCSF Institute of Global Health Sciences as a part of our Satellites Storytelling program.

Looking for more from The Nocturnists? Explore The Nocturnists+, our subscriber-only feed featuring The Nocturnists After Hours—a monthly series where host Emily Silverman is joined by executive producer Dr. Ali Block for more informal, open conversations about medicine, culture, and their own lived experiences. Subscriptions start at just $10/mo and include exclusive discounts on our new merch. Learn more or subscribe at thenocturnists.org/plus.

In this episode, infectious disease physician and global health leader Dr. mike Reid reflects on a moment early in his career working in Botswana, when a young patient died in front of him despite his efforts to help. The experience brought back a memory from childhood, when he first heard his father quietly describe himself as a failure. In a field where the needs often far exceed the available resources, mike explores how physicians learn to live with doubt, responsibility, and the persistent feeling of not doing enough. Together we talk about the emotional landscape of global health, the role of failure in medicine, and what it means to keep trying anyway.

mike originally performed this story at a live storytelling event produced UCSF Institute of Global Health Sciences as a part of our Satellites Storytelling program.

Looking for more from The Nocturnists? Explore The Nocturnists+, our subscriber-only feed featuring The Nocturnists After Hours—a monthly series where host Emily Silverman is joined by executive producer Dr. Ali Block for more informal, open conversations about medicine, culture, and their own lived experiences. Subscriptions start at just $10/mo and include exclusive discounts on our new merch. Learn more or subscribe at thenocturnists.org/plus.

While navigating a painful period in her personal life, ICU physician Nikki Mittal cares for a patient with severe brain injury whose family is preparing to withdraw life support. After a difficult earlier interaction that leaves her questioning herself, the family gathers on the day of withdrawal and unexpectedly asks to pray for her. In that moment, the usual direction of care shifts—the doctor who came to support the family finds herself receiving comfort and reassurance from them instead.

Nikki originally performed this story at a live Satellites Storytelling event produced by Dr. Shayne Poulin and the Riverside-San Bernardino Chapter of CAFP in 2025. This event was generously funded by the California Health Care Foundation, as a part of our Satellites Program.

Looking for more from The Nocturnists? Explore The Nocturnists+, our subscriber-only feed featuring The Nocturnists After Hours—a monthly series where host Emily Silverman is joined by executive producer Dr. Ali Block for more informal, open conversations about medicine, culture, and their own lived experiences. Subscriptions start at just $10/mo and include exclusive discounts on our new merch. Learn more or subscribe at thenocturnists.org/plus.

We're excited to be launching The Nocturnists+, a subscriber-only feed featuring a special monthly episode called The Nocturnists After Hours, as well as discounted rates on our awesome new merch.

The Nocturnists After Hours episodes are more intimate and unstructured—a space where I step away from formal interviews to join executive producer Ali Block for casual, open conversations about medicine, culture, and our personal journeys.

For our first episode, Ali and I talk about what it means to be "the doctor" in your family—the one people call when something feels off, when a diagnosis doesn't sit right, or when things start to fall apart.

It's a role that comes with a strange mix of pride and pressure. There are moments where you can help in meaningful ways. And moments where all that knowledge just makes things harder.

We found ourselves circling a question that doesn't have a clean answer: when do you step in, and when do you let go?

We're really excited about this new corner of our community, and we'd love your input as it takes shape—especially around the kinds of conversations you'd like to hear, whether Q&As, deep dives into philosophical questions related to healthcare, or explorations of trending medical stories.

Today, we're sharing a short teaser of our first After Hours episode. The full episode is out now in our subscriber feed, with new ones dropping the second Tuesday of every month. Subscriptions start at just $10/month, and for the next two weeks, we're offering 10% off for early subscribers.

We invite you to learn more or subscribe at: thenocturnists.org/plus

Tiffany Chan shares how her journey from a small-town family optometry practice to high-intensity academic medicine at Johns Hopkins was transformed when her mother suffered a major brain bleed, drawing her back home to care for her family. Ultimately, her mother's recovery, later passing, and the deep relationships her parents built with their patients helped Tiffany realize that the meaningful, community-rooted life she truly valued was in Grass Valley, where she now continues the family practice and honors her mother's legacy.

Tiffany originally performed this story at Medicine Story: on the meanings of healing, a live storytelling event produced by Dr. Rebecca George from the Sierra Valley Health Center in Nevada City, CA in 2025. This event was generously funded by the California Health Care Foundation, as a part of our Satellites Program.

The Nocturnists is made possible by the California Medical Association and donations from listeners like you.

This episode of Stories from the World of Medicine is sponsored by The Physicians Foundation. and our friends at the podcast Unleashed: Redesigning Health Care.

Physician and writer Frances Southwick tells a deeply personal story about love and illness. Growing up queer in rural Colorado, Frances experiences mysterious episodes of sudden paralysis triggered by intense emotion, beginning in adolescence and persisting for decades without a diagnosis. After years of shame, misattribution, and near-abandonment of dreams, Frances falls in love with Judith, builds a life with her, and finally receives a diagnosis of type 1 narcolepsy with cataplexy—explaining why moments of beauty, joy, and love literally caused collapse.

Frances originally performed this story at Medicine Story: on the meanings of healing, a live storytelling event produced by Dr. Rebecca George from the Sierra Valley Health Center in Nevada City, CA in 2025. This event was generously funded by the California Health Care Foundation, as a part of our Satellites Program.

The Nocturnists is made possible by the California Medical Association and donations from listeners like you.

This episode of Stories from the World of Medicine is sponsored by The Physicians Foundation. and our friends at the podcast Unleashed: Redesigning Health Care.

Community health workers Alicia Ashorn and Anthony Thigpen share their personal stories—Alicia's journey through addiction and recovery, and Anthony's path through grief, transformation, and reentry work—and how these experiences shape their care for people returning from incarceration. In the conversation that follows, they reflect on the power of storytelling, the emotional complexity of supporting clients in crisis, and the wisdom required to balance compassion with boundaries. Through vivid anecdotes from the field, they illuminate the essential yet often unseen role of community health workers as bridges between the clinic and the community, offering trust, dignity, and hope to people navigating systems that routinely fail them.

Alicia and Anthony originally told their stories at Journeys of Healing: Stories of Resilience and Transformation, a storytelling event presented by Transitions Clinic Network in Los Angeles in 2025. The event was made possible by a generous grant from the California Health Care Foundation in support of our program, The Nocturnists Satellites.

The Nocturnists is made possible by the California Medical Association and donations from listeners like you.

This episode of Stories from the World of Medicine is sponsored by The Physicians Foundation. and our friends at the podcast Unleashed: Redesigning Health Care.

Sharon Fennix spent 38 years incarcerated before becoming the hotline coordinator for the Transitions Clinic Network (TCN), where she now supports people returning to the community with empathy, compassion, and lived experience. In this episode, she talks with Emily about reentry, the power of peer support, and the creative life she built inside prison—evolving from seamstress to playwright, director, and storyteller whose productions bridged divides and transformed her own sense of self.

Sharon was a producer for Journeys of Healing: Stories of Resilience and Transformation, a storytelling event presented by the Transitions Clinic Network in Los Angeles in 2025. The event was made possible by a generous grant from the California Health Care Foundation in support of our program, The Nocturnists Satellites.

The Nocturnists is made possible by the California Medical Association and donations from listeners like you.

This episode of Stories from the World of Medicine is sponsored by The Physicians Foundation.