Reflections on Dr. Bryant Lin’s Journey: A Living Lesson in Medicine, Humanity, and Hope
I was randomly shown this American news YouTube video the other day—you know, the kind with dramatic lighting and slightly-too-loud piano music in the background—and I almost scrolled past. I almost skipped it, but something made me stop. It was about a Stanford doctor, Bryant Lin, who was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer despite never having smoked. A few clicks later (okay, a rabbit hole later), I learned he was not just navigating his diagnosis—he had turned it into a course. A literal, actual Stanford course.
And not just any course. A real-time, real-life, raw and radically honest weekly seminar called From Diagnosis to Dialogue, where he shared his personal scans, his treatment decisions, his thoughts about prognosis. Every week, he invited people into the room with him: his oncologist, his palliative care doctor, his thoracic surgeon, his wife. Not actors. Not simulations. Real people talking about real fear, love, frustration, and uncertainty.
And he taught it while receiving chemotherapy.
This was education in its rawest, truest form. Narrative medicine—live.
We talk a lot about narrative medicine in the abstract: the idea that stories help us make sense of illness, that reflective writing builds empathy, that listening deeply to a patient’s story can be as diagnostic as any scan. But what Dr. Lin did was far more radical. He didn’t just teach about patient perspectives. He invited others into his own. He modelled how to walk through suffering—not around it—and how to teach while walking.
And something about that is both deeply moving and deeply challenging.
As clinicians, we often struggle to talk about death, especially our own. There’s still a cultural expectation in medicine that we are the ones with the answers, the ones who don't break, the ones who carry others through grief but don’t really experience it ourselves. But doctors are human. We get sick. We die. And when we speak about it, something remarkable happens. It re-humanizes the entire field.
Dr. Lin isn’t the only one who’s done this—but the intimacy and immediacy of his teaching is unique. He joins a powerful lineage of physician-writers who’ve shared their illnesses not to be heroic, but to be honest:
🩺 Dr. Paul Kalanithi, whose memoir When Breath Becomes Air has become a kind of sacred text among healthcare workers. His writing wrestled with the meaning of time, purpose, and identity as he moved from neurosurgeon to terminal patient.
🩺 Dr. Kate Granger, the British geriatrician who blogged about living with sarcoma while launching the #HelloMyNameIs campaign—a global movement reminding healthcare workers to introduce themselves before touching a patient.
🩺 Dr. Richard Teo, a well-known cosmetic surgeon in Singapore who gave a searing talk shortly before dying of cancer. He spoke about chasing money and status, and how it took a terminal illness to finally learn what mattered.
In all these stories, there’s a quiet common thread: reflection as medicine. Not just for the one telling the story, but for all of us listening.
Dr. Lin’s reflections aren’t just personal—they’re political. Lung cancer in never-smokers, particularly among Asian populations, is a rising and under-discussed public health issue. Many of us still associate lung cancer solely with smoking, and that assumption can delay diagnoses, shape funding decisions, and distort public empathy. He discusses the high rates of his type of cancer among Asians in the class. His diagnosis—like much of his life’s work—calls attention to what often goes unseen.
Because this isn’t a story of a doctor who suddenly became thoughtful after getting sick. Dr. Lin has long been asking better questions.
He started the Consultative Medicine Clinic at Stanford, designed for patients with elusive, complex conditions—the so-called “medical mysteries” that don’t fit neatly into guidelines or boxes.Dr. Lin’s illness—like his life’s work—calls attention to the invisible. He also co-founded Stanford’s Center for Asian Health Research and Education (CARE) because he understood that data gaps and structural inequities have real consequences. Even now, while undergoing treatment, he’s still advocating for change.
That’s the part that lingers with me. Even while unwell, even when discussing life expectancy in uncertain terms, he’s still using his voice—not just to teach students, but to push for better screening policies, culturally attuned care, and more equity in healthcare systems.
When I think about narrative medicine, I often return to the idea that stories don’t just describe the world—they change it. They shape how we respond, what we prioritize, who we care for, and how we care. But only if we take the time to really listen.
And this is a story we should all be listening to.
So here’s my recommendation: set aside an hour this week and watch the first lecture of his course here. You don’t need to be a doctor or a medical student. If you’ve ever been a patient, or loved someone who has, it will speak to you. If you’ve ever wondered how we can hold compassion and knowledge in the same breath, it will teach you. And if you’ve ever been afraid of death (which is all of us, really), it may make you just a little less afraid.
Dr. Lin’s story is not just about dying—it’s about teaching, connecting, and continuing to serve even as his body changes course. His course isn’t just a curriculum. It’s a legacy.
He says it best himself:
“I'm not sure how long I have. One year? Two years? Five years? In a way, this class is part of my letter—what I'm doing to give back to my community as I go through this.”
It’s one of those lines you want to write down. But maybe more importantly, it’s one of those lines you want to live by.
Victoria Ekstrom is a consultant gastroenterologist at Singapore General Hospital and co-lead for Narratives in Medicine at SingHealth Duke Medical Humanities Institute. With a background in behavioral science, she is passionate about the intersection of medicine, communication, and the arts. Through her writing, she explores how narratives and humanities can transform patient care and medical education.