The Visible Voices

Prescribing Music: Why Melodies Work When Medicine Fails.

Dr. Melanie Ambler is a physician and cellist who founded "Musical Rounds," a program dedicated to integrating music into patient care. In this episode, Melanie reveals her journey into playing cello on hospital rounds during her medical student rotations at Stanford School of Medicine. We explore the science into how music accesses the brain's "backdoor" to treat neurodegenerative diseases and discuss the preliminary findings of her Musical Rounds research study.

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In this episode I speak with emergency medicine physician and medical educator Anand 'Swami' Swaminathan MD MPH.  We explore how humility, vulnerability, and effective communication drive better medical education, knowledge translation, and professional growth. Swami shares his journey from singing acapella to shaping emergency medicine education, emphasizing the importance of reaching broader audiences and embracing uncertainty.

Swami is a known and visible voices for RebelEM — a free open-access medical education platform,  EM:RAP a premium emergency medicine education podcast and YouTube channel and his own Instagram — Sharing quick videos and insights. 

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Former US Attorney Joyce Vance joins Dr Resa Lewiss to discuss her New York Times bestseller Giving Up is Unforgivable A Manual for Keeping a Democracy and why civic health matters now more than ever.

As the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017, nominated by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the Senate, Joyce brought together communities to solve problems. 

In 2017, she received the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health's Lou Wooster Public Health Hero Award for her leadership in creating a community-engaged initiative that brought together law enforcement, the medical and business communities, and educators to address the heroin and opioid epidemic in northern Alabama.

Today, she's a professor at the University of Alabama  and a legal analyst for MSNow  She's also a podcaster, co-hosting #SistersInLaw the new Sisters Sidebar, and the CAFE Insider podcast with Preet Bharara.

Three MicroSkills Joyce offers to listeners: 1. register to vote, 2. stay registered by checking your status 60 days before elections, and 3. make a voting plan with the goal of bringing others with you.

Book Giving Up is Unforgivable

Podcast Sisters in LawPodcast CAFE Insider Podcast

Newsletter Civil Discourse

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In this episode I meet up with Tina Shah MD MPH, a triple board-certified physician in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, and critical care who is running for Congress in New Jersey's seventh district.

We dive deep into Tina's journey from White House Fellow, to working with Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to ICU doctor to congressional candidate, exploring how physician burnout, healthcare affordability, and insurance company barriers to care drove her to pursue systemic change at the policy level.

Tina shares powerful patient stories—including her own mother's cardiac care denial and a diabetic patient's life-threatening hospitalization due to medication rationing—that illustrate why doctors need a seat at the table in Congress. We discuss civic health, the misinformation epidemic, healthcare workforce crisis, and how she successfully led a grassroots movement that defeated the insurance lobby in New Jersey to protect patients from prior authorization denials. 

Website: https://www.drtinashahforcongress.com/

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In this episode of the Visible Voices podcast, I speak with the former mayor of Stockton, California, and 2026 candidate for the Lt. Governor of California Michael Tubbs. Michael currently serves as a special adviser for economic mobility and opportunity for Governor Gavin Newsom.

He shares his journey as a first-generation college student at Stanford to a leader across the state and in Stockton Ca. He emphasizes the importance of education, community empowerment, and addressing poverty through innovative programs. We talk about  the The Stockton Scholars, and The EPIC (Ending Poverty in California) program.

Michael's memoir is the 2021 The Deeper the Roots: A Memoir of Hope and Home. Watch to learn more on HBO Stockton on My Mind documentary.

Website:  https://michaeltubbsforca.com/

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In this episode I speak with Dr. Thomas Fisher, an emergency medicine physician and Chicago Illinois congressional candidate. We discuss the profound impact of the pandemic on healthcare, the intimate relationships formed in emergency medicine, and the motivations behind Dr. Fisher's run for Congress. The conversation delves into the importance of moral leadership, social determinants of health, and the role of physicians in civic engagement. Dr. Fisher emphasizes the need for active participation in shaping healthcare policies. Conversation highlights

• The  writing of his 2022 book The Emergency as a cathartic process during the pandemic.

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Dr. Resa E. Lewiss has spent over 25 years educating, speaking, and writing about healthcare, equity, and innovation. She is an emergency medicine and lifestyle medicine physician, a TEDMED speaker, healthcare designer, and award-winning author. In The Visible Voices Podcast, Resa shares smart, sharp, and insightful conversations with subject matter experts and interesting people—people who are really making a difference, have something to say, and a story to share.

Resa doesn't do surface-level healthcare conversations here. She examines the architecture—power structures, equity gaps, and the distance between evidence and practice—to help you choose health and healthier behaviors in all aspects of life. She connects ideas most people keep in separate boxes. Since 2020, Resa has been here weekly with new episodes every Wednesday.

Dr. Lillian Liang Emlet is a Professor of Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, dually trained in Emergency Medicine and Critical Care. She's also a certified energy leadership coach and the CEO founder of Transforming Healthcare Coaching.  She also hosts a podcast by the same name.

We talk about a common phenomenon in healthcare: clinicians who are exceptional at their work getting promoted into leadership roles without the skills or support to succeed. Lillian shares how she helps healthcare leaders at all levels—physicians, nurses, NPs, PAs, pharmacists, executives—develop as whole people first before tackling the complexities of leading teams and systems.

Lillian explains what energy leadership coaching actually means, and why healthcare will always need guides for its leaders even as we work to transform the culture.

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In this episode, Dr. Resa E. Lewiss speaks with Jillian Johnsrud, author of Retire Often and mini-retirement coach, about taking intentional career breaks to combat burnout and realign with what matters most.

Jillian defines mini-retirements as breaks of a month or longer where professionals step away from their primary career to focus on recovery, adventure, or family time. She works primarily with high-achieving professionals who have over-indexed on career advancement while under-indexing on lifestyle and wellbeing.

The conversation explores the unique challenges facing healthcare professionals, including a dangerous cultural narrative instilled during medical training that physicians must suffer, lack agency, and simply endure. This programming makes it extraordinarily difficult for doctors to prioritize their own health and take necessary breaks.

Website: https://retireoften.com/

Book Purchasing Link: https://lnk.to/retireoften

Free Opt-In Worksheets:

• Planning: https://retireoften.com/mini/

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In this episode of Visible Voices, Dr. Resa E. Lewiss is in conversation with Dr. Claire Wardle, a leading expert on misinformation, media literacy, and public trust in science. Claire is an associate professor at Cornell and co-founder of the Information Futures Lab at Brown University's School of Public Health. She shares her decades of experience working across academia, international news organizations like the BBC, and the United Nations and in community non profits.

The conversation explores the intersection of misinformation and public health, from vaccine hesitancy to the rise of AI chatbots and their impact on mental health. Dr. Wardle emphasizes that trust is local and everyone has an emotional relationship to information, explaining why human-centered design and community engagement are essential to combating false narratives. She offers practical advice for healthcare professionals considering social media storytelling, discusses the importance of media literacy education, and reveals what keeps her up at night about the absence of regulatory oversight in the age of personalized AI.

The discussion highlights how communities, authentic storytelling, and cross-sector collaboration can help transform the internet into a place of trust while protecting public health and democracy.

Follow Claire's work via her website and LinkedIn.

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