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Assembly Series returns: Fireside chat with neurosurgeon and CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta

Dr. Sanjay Gupta speaks in Graham Chapel as part of the Assembly Series (Alan Zhou | Student Life)
Washington University’s school of medicine and Here & Next hosted Dr. Sanjay Gupta in Graham Chapel as the first speaker in the newly reinstated Assembly series. He spoke about a range of topics including pandemic response and preparedness, mental health, misinformation, our diets, and how he blends his roles as a journalist and doctor. Nov. 15
Gupta is a renowned figure in both the fields of healthcare and journalism, and currently serves as the associate chief of neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and chief medical correspondent for CNN.
Gupta discussed how as a journalist, his primary goals are communicating information that is authentic and accurate, while also creating a sense of agreement. The third objective is more challenging than the first two.
“People can look at the exact same information and come to very different conclusions. [Take] what we’re seeing in the Middle East right now, people will look at what happened on Oct. 7 and have very different sorts of points of view on what it would mean going forward,” he said.
Gupta also explained how those spreading misinformation and disinformation have differing agendas that are not always negative.
“I think there’s a bit of an unfair notion towards people who are conveyors [of misinformation] because there are people who are out there who are just doing it to cause chaos, and chaos is a currency,” he said. ”But there are others who have genuine concerns.”
This ties into the lack of trust and fragmented response to the COVID-19 pandemic that stood out to Gupta.
“I was struck by how heterogenous the response [to the pandemic] was across the country…That triggers a lot of problems with people not trusting information, but one thing that has been working…is thinking about it as a matter of national security,” Gupta said.
He argued that while we do not necessarily need a full government agency to deal with public health issues, applying this kind of thinking to the topic, behaving proactively, and sending more cohesive messages to the public would benefit the country.
Gupta said this issue is still worth addressing, despite the pandemic having a lesser impact as it once did, “I think [COVID] is something that we’re still in the early lifecycle [of],” he said.
He also put the United States healthcare system in a global context and pointed out that compared to many less developed countries, the United States is lagging behind, and emphasized that it is the only developed country where life expectancy is currently decreasing.
“The top three causes of premature death are opioid overdose, suicide, and cirrhosis of the liver, typically due to alcoholism. Well, they’re called the deaths of despair,” Gupta said. “And I think there’s a direct tie in to you know, the amount of stress that we’re under the country and in our overall mental health.”
Gupta said he tries to maintain an optimistic view for the future, but has significant reservations about where mental health is headed in America.
“I think we’re gonna look back on this and say we did not fully address people’s mental health, and as many accomplishments as we had in our society, that was a big mess; people weren’t happy, they didn’t have joy in their lives,” he said.
Professor of public health and event moderator, Matthew W. Kreuter noted that while many public health institutes frequently talk about the leading causes of death and illness, much of Gupta’s work focuses on aspects of health, like sleep and food. Gupta emphasized the importance of minimizing sugar intake during the event.
He said that eating too much sugar can starve the brain while simultaneously stuffing the body. “Too much sugar doesn’t help to store more energy, it just shuts your brain off,” Gupta said.
Gupta gave the audience advice about regulating their own diet. “Food is a conscious decision. I’m going to send a signal from my outside world to my inside world every day,” he said. “Be really diligent about your choices in terms of how you’re communicating with the inside of your body. Start that as young as you possibly can.”
The audience of Gupta’s talk included professors, undergraduate and graduate students, as well other WashU community members.
First-year medical school student Kavya Parekh explained why she chose to attend Gupta’s talk.
“I grew up watching CNN and Sanjay Gupta, and he was a really important correspondent during the pandemic,” she said. “I also listened to his podcast and read his book, and he’s done some important communication and health care things so I was just super excited to hear him in person talking about the part of healthcare and medicine that I’m interested in.”
Gupta’s work encompasses her interests in medicine, public health, and communications. “As a medical student, it was very inspiring to see how many other fields he has brought into his work in healthcare, and how important communication and media are in terms of sharing medicine and communicating medicine to others in a post-pandemic world,” she said.
Mansi Garneni, another first-year medical school student, echoed this sentiment.
“There’s so much information so there needs to be a trusted voice from the institution of medicine,” she said.
Garneni said she was interested in Gupta talking about the tangible impact of public policy on public health.
“As future physicians we necessarily have a stake in and have a responsibility to shape policy in a way that is best for patients and patient care and also participate in the media and the public facing side of it,” she said.
Second-year Brown School student Bel Orinda greatly enjoyed the talk and appreciated the chance to listen to such an important figure in the field of public health, she walked away from the event with a new appreciation and value of humility.
“At the end of the day, the things we’re studying here are going to be beneficial, or we’re going to end up serving other people and that should be our mindset, approaching our work with a perspective of humility. Allowing our knowledge to serve others in ways that [not only] fulfills that change [in] our communities for the better, but also our callings and passions.”