You are listening to the ATS Breathe Easy podcast, brought to you by the American Thoracic Society.
Welcome to the ATS Breathe Easy podcast. We're recording here at the American Thoracic Society Conference in San Francisco. I'm your host, Erika Moseson. I'm a pulmonary and critical care medicine physician in Oregon and a member of the ATS Environmental Health Policy Committee. And we're here to talk about cuts at the NIH and how it's affecting our community, and I am going to let my wonderful guests introduce themselves.
Well, I'm Shade Afolabi. I'm a pediatric pulmonologist in Texas and I'm a part of the ATS Health Policy Committee. And I have extensive research experience, or maybe not extensive, but research experience in the environmental health and community if realm [00:01:00] as it relates to asthma. And I have a lot of experience with working with the community.
And that's one of my strong points and my strengths. Excellent. Thank you. So I'm Josh Fessel. I am trained as an adult pulmonary critical care physician and started my career in academic medicine. I was at Vanderbilt University, ran a a basic and early translational science lab. I tell people it was a chemicals and test tube cells and dishes, mice and cages kind of lab.
And then saw patients in the Veterans Hospital there. And then about seven and a half years ago, I made a career pivot and moved to the National Institutes of Health. I started at the National Heart, lung and Blood Institute. And I was one of the program officers that oversaw the pulmonary vascular disease portfolio.
So did pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary embolus, that kind of work. Branched out into some other things that was, that were really exciting data science and sort of big data assets and how you use that to. Fine [00:02:00] tune your your, your clinical studies. And then around early 2020 some stuff happened.
As you, as you all may remember, the division of lung diseases where I was, got very busy. And so in response to the pandemic, I started getting involved with a lot of the nihs efforts to support pandemic response from clinical trials to preclinical models and not, you know, everything in between.
In the course of doing that, I worked with a number of amazing colleagues at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and was lucky enough to move to Ncats first as a senior clinical advisor. And then a little over a year ago, took the reins as the Chief Medical Officer for Ncats and the director of the Office of Translational Medicine.
And then about six weeks ago, I left the NIH. I submitted my letter of resignation in mid-February. Gave myself about five [00:03:00] weeks to transition all the projects that I was working on to make sure that they were gonna be safe, that my people were gonna be. Uh in good positions that the patients that we served by our study with our studies were in good positions and do it as, as thoughtfully as we could.
And my resignation became effective on March 31st. And then on April 1st thousands of my colleagues were let go in the second round of reduction in force. Wow. Can you talk about I know briefly because I know there is so much going on, kind of what the NIH has meant historically for research that affects the ATS community and what the changes are that have been unfolding so rapidly in 2025.
Wow. Thanks for the easy question. It, it's, it's, it, it, it, it's hard to get our, our. Heads and our arms and our hearts around it because the, the NIH has been an indispensable, critical [00:04:00] steadfast partner in everything that the ATS does, cares about, stands for, and addresses. You know, it, it. Maybe one great example of of how intertwined they are is that one of the hats that I wear as I serve on the ATS Drug Device Discovery and Development Committee.
That's something that I started before I came to NIH and I was sure that I would have to stop doing that. I. Because that seemed very sort of pharma focused, private sector kind of thing, and like, that's not what government was about. And it was absolutely it, it took no discussion at all to say, no, no.
That can be part of your official duties as a program officer. You know, it was expected that the NIH was, hand in hand with ATS in doing all of the things that we are all trying to do. And so the, the, the impact the, the negative impact of [00:05:00] what's been happening over the last few months is, is hard to put words to the way I summarized it for a group just a little while ago, and it felt so stark to say it this way, but I think it was, it was real, is.
It. What do we do? I'll phrase it as a question here. What do we do when our critical partners in the Department of Health and Human Services are unreliable for the foreseeable future? And I hate it like it sticks in my throat to say that, but the reality is that's where we're, yeah. What are the changes that have come out that you've seen in terms of the.
Layoff timelines and everything and, and other promotions. And how have those affected, you know, timing of grants or even pulling funds back? I mean, everything is in disarray at the moment. And in part it's because it [00:06:00] is, there is very little clarity about how decisions. Are being made or can be made, and this is true, whether we're talking about the internal reduction in force efforts or we're talking about the, the external facing grant landscape.
You know, I, I think as I, as I put it to somebody recently, if, if I time travel back in my mind and if I imagine being at NIH a few weeks ago or a few months ago, and you said, go through your grant portfolio and point out the ones that you know to be at risk for termination. I'm not sure I could do that because I can make guesses, but that's where we are and that's not how these processes are supposed to work.
And so what that does is create a lot of anxiety understandably so. If, [00:07:00] if a grant isn't terminated, for example, but it's just on hold, why is it on hold and what would ever make it come off hold? And what do the career scientists do in the meantime? Exactly. What do you do to free it up and what do you do in the meantime?
Because it's not like you can't just press pause mm-hmm. On a clinical trial. Mm-hmm. You can't just press pause on engagement with community partners, that they're partners. They are not a resource, they are humans that are working on things that matter to them. With you. Mm-hmm. And you don't turn humans on and off.
That's not how we work. No. And the, the anxiety that you see the community display about what happens next, when finally, finally they started to feel like there was an investment in communities and really utilizing communities really strongly. To further translational research, to fur, further community-based research.
And now I get emails about, is is this still happening? Are we safe? What's the next thing? Do, do people wanna know what we have to say? [00:08:00] It's, it's a challenge. The, these communities are, are speaking out and feeling a lot of anxiety. With regard to that, and they, and they already have so many things that they have to worry about in this changing landscape.
And this is just one more thing to add onto it. And I, and I will say for non career scientists, I think this is, can be even more troubling, right? For those folks that are early career, those folks that are, you know, kind of hybrid clinician researchers and the vast majority of. People in academic medicine are those clinician educators.
Right? Right. And they're, they're also wondering what's happening and what are the next steps. And they're very much struggling with finding where, where is my career gonna go and where am I gonna go? And, and. Where am I gonna find this funding? Am I, am I gonna go through the NIH? Is my funding secured here?
Am I gonna become a pure clinician and am I gonna just leave academic medicine altogether? [00:09:00] And then do you know, kind of private based telehealth or, you know, something else, or, you know, a vast variety of other things, but things that aren't patient facing as much mm-hmm. Anymore. Mm-hmm. And so this is.
This is an opportunity, we just talked about this as we sit here to really kind of voice some of those concerns of people who don't feel like they have a voice, who don't feel that they can really express themselves in, in, in safe ways. Because there is so much anxiety and there's so much stress associated with this.
And I and I really commiserate with everyone and hope to give at least a few of them a voice. Absolutely. And when we think about who are the. Even trying to highlight stories of people who've had their funding ripped away or their grants cut off and, you know you know, my heart really thinks about the patients involved in clinical trials, who showed up in good faith to literally put their lives and health on the line to try to help us find new treatments for drugs who are [00:10:00] having these things.
Pulled out from under them. But even trying to find examples to highlight, you know, makes you worried because these people, you know, in the concentric circles around those studies are worried about, you know, potentially drawing attention to themselves. And I think one of the reasons I'm here hosting this podcast is I'm a full-time clinician, right?
I have no NIH funding. And so I feel as a full-time clinician, I know how important the NIH is because all the treatments I rely on to keep my patients alive and outta the hospital and hopefully help them survive these illnesses. Come from the science that the ATS does, the science that the NIH does, right?
You know, nobody found cures for lung cancer under a. Pillow on a couch, right? These things came for generations of dedicated scientists teaching the next generation, and it seems like we're gonna lose an entire, very important link in that chain of those next scientists to get us those next super important medications.
Can, can you think of an example that we can, that we can share of in the ATS community of important trials that have been [00:11:00] halted that are shareable? 'cause I also, sometimes I worry about. Pulling attention, and I think that's speaking to that anxiety and fear that people really have. Yeah, no, I, I think the anxiety and fear is real.
I, I will say that I, I sort of purposely don't have a specific trial in mind, so I, I, I can't inadvertently paint a target on anyone. The risk to trials that are underway is real. And actually, now that I'm talking, I could think of one, but I'm not gonna specify the trial. But, but the risk is real.
And as you say, those, those people have, have given of their time, have given of their bodies to be part of this. And that's times 10, if you're talking about a study that's being done in children. Mm-hmm. And there's the immediate. Apparel of like is it safe to stop this trial? I mean, you know, when grants were being terminated one of the things that I was doing in, in my[00:12:00]
cMO role at at Ncats was thinking about, okay, like most trials have a process. Like, I think it's safe to say all trials have some process that's delineated for how safety signals are identified, communicated, and acted on. So, you know, and one of the first questions that I would ask in my role as overseeing clinical trials with safety in mind was, okay, if you have to press the big red button.
In the middle of the night because somebody has a, a bad event or dies on study and let's be real. This is science we're doing. We, if we knew all of the answers, this wouldn't be a trial. This would just be regular care. So let's be honest about the risk and let's you know, if you had to do that, how would you do it if the answer wasn't really thought out and crisp?
That trial was already in trouble from my standpoint, and we had some work to do before FPI first patient in. So those rules exist, but nobody has a plan [00:13:00] for what do you do if somebody just says, okay, you have to stop now. And can those processes be adapted? Like what if you, you know, I mean an example that I put forward is what if, and I think this is relevant to a lot of the things that we think about in ATS.
What if you had people on study who as part of the study were on long-term steroids? Not cool to stop those just, you know suddenly in the, in the middle of a Tuesday. And so so there was that part of it. That we were trying to manage in a very dynamic and active way. 'cause there wasn't a response plan for that.
I think as things have evolved, people are starting to think that way, but it totally changes how you approach the the conduct of a clinical trial. And, you know, to your point about anxiety in the communities that we have to partner with, that's very real. I was, it [00:14:00] was at the herky Polock Syndrome network meeting, and one of the patients that was there said, are we still gonna be able to do clinical trials for our disease?
And it broke my heart and I now the answer was yes. And I said, you notice I didn't pause to think about it. Yes, we are still gonna be able to do clinical trials for HPS and for every other disease that we study in the ATS we're gonna have to get creative about how we do it, but it's not optional.
Just like providing high quality healthcare. It's not optional. We're gonna have to figure out a way to do it. So but it, it, it is, it is a real it, it is a, it is a threat to the success of any research endeavor, particularly clinical studies and clinical trials that didn't exist practically speaking six months ago.
Yeah. And it seems so unnecessary. Just, you know, just this. Ripping of the rug out from under such good work and you [00:15:00] care for children. And as the mother of three young children myself, I know that a pediatrician obviously sees even more than parents do the impact of even small experiences on our kids of even getting a few changes in medication.
Right. Or changes in environment. Right. And how that can have lifelong impacts. What are you seeing as a pediatrician? So I. I think parents actually do see these small changes and I, and I think that they can see the impact and the influence of what these small changes mean for their children and the trajectory of their children.
Parents are warriors for their children and really fight strongly for their kids, especially their children with special needs, their technology dependent. Resource heavy children they want every resource that they can get in order to lead to the betterment of their children when they're adults.
And this is for for a variety of patients, can be very, very stress inducing when they're waiting for a cure for their child. [00:16:00] And they've been looking at that research. They've, they've had their finger on the pulse more than I have, and they are now like, well, what's gonna happen? How are you, how are you being affected?
I've, I've been asked that question. Mm-hmm. And and because, and I think I've asked that question because they're concerned about what this means and what are next. Steps for their children. And so I, I think parents, especially parents of children with rare diseases, complex diseases are, are concerned.
And I think that they have some anxiety, but I don't, I think they don't know where to go next. They don't know what their next steps are going to be. And that's a big challenge. And speaking to this being kind of drawn out from underneath us, you know, in six months there's. In less than six months, there's been a lot of questions that I'm getting about what's going to happen next.
Mm-hmm. Not knowing what can possibly happen on the horizon. And families actually trying to coalesce to figure [00:17:00] out what are some ways that we can uniquely get around these challenges to to find cures for their, for their children and, and things like that. And and I hear. Plenty of families that are going to researchers and saying, well, what can we do to fundraise?
What's the next steps? Right? And so the research will happen but is it gonna happen as robustly? Is it gonna be as equitable as it has been? Now? Is it gonna be as as complete as it needs to be for these families? And it's, and it's a, it's a big point of stress that I'm, I'm seeing there too.
Yeah. You know, I mean, the whole point of having, you know, federally funded research is to ask those questions for rare diseases or to ask the questions that aren't just geared towards finding a profitable pharmaceutical target. You know, much as we all need to prescribe medications, but to find the, you know, the simple low hanging common good solutions that I think there won't be as much incentive out apart from our, you know, patient's, families that are really energetic.
But then the other thing is then [00:18:00] you're. You're running into the host of, you know, well, who's got resources, who's got the question? That is, you know, topical. But we know that science unfolds over decades. So the decades long question seem like they're not getting asked.
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To take advantage of these savings, go to conference.thoracic.org today. And then here at a s obviously we have all these amazing young researchers all these people wanting to like start out their career. Do you have any advice for them on the how to weather the storm? So I would say. It's going to be really challenging and I, we [00:19:00] talked about this earlier.
I'm definitely concerned about our pediatric colleagues already. Fewer and fewer medical students are going into pediatrics. And now those pediatric scientists are probably going to decrease in number as well, more, more robustly. So it's definitely a big concern, but I, I. I think the parent parents are very can be very savvy.
They have to have resources for sure. But they, they are, a source of hope for me because while they ask, how am I doing, why they ask, what does the research look like? They also ask, what can I do and how can I help? Because they know how important this is. Now these, it's a small population of parents, but.
That small population of parents can do wonderful and amazing things. And I [00:20:00] think about the CF Foundation and everything they've been able to do, and I think about all these other foundations that have really modeled themselves off of the CF Foundation as well, and how there is the potential for families to really coalesce around around these issues and these problems and really work hard.
But once again, I bring up that big concern as. How do we make this complete? Mm-hmm. And how do we make this equitable? And that I don't have a, I don't have the answer to. So that's why we need new young scientists to come in and think of all of these really innovative things and get excited that there are new and innovative ways.
To be able to find the funding, to be able to do the work that needs to be done for these critical populations. I know it makes you really start to think about how do we really think outside the box? I mean, do we need to basically rehouse the NIH in a coalition of medical and scientific societies that isn't directed by the government, right?
I mean, those are big scary things to think about, but you know, maybe there's, [00:21:00] we really, this is a time for creativity. It, it is, it is absolutely the moment for creativity, I think. And, and I, I think you hit it exactly, Sade. It's, it's that's why we need to make sure that we protect and preserve and nurture the
scientists, clinicians, thinkers in the ATS community that are in the early stages of their careers because they are gonna come up with the things that we can't necessarily even think of, but they can't do it on their own. Mm-hmm. So we need you know, we need. Academic medical centers to get creative about how they support the career trajectories of these young scientists and young clinicians and young thinkers because,
these are the smartest people in the world, and if there's no career path for them, guess what? They'll find something else that is impactful [00:22:00] to do. So make sure there are career paths plural, and they will look different than they looked when I was coming up through the system. Right. Sorry, I didn't mean to mash on the microphone there.
I got all excited. You know, the. They are gonna look different. They have to look different. So get about it. You know, I, I was telling some folks earlier that one of the things that I hope is an exciting thing to think about, this is a scary time to think about getting into the line of work.
But what I hope is exciting is that I think. More than a lot of other groups that are out there all trying to think about how to solve this problem, these problems. The ATS community is made for this moment. We know how to make high stakes. Decisions in chaotic situations with limited and changing information and [00:23:00] C, was that the right decision?
Nope. Better make a different decision and learn while doing like, we do that all the time. We do it in our clinics, we do it in the bronchoscopy suite, we do it in the operating room, we do it in the intensive care unit. We do it. Everywhere. And so those skills transfer to other realms of our professional and let's be real, our personal lives because this moment of crisis is not restricted to nine to five or you know, whatever time you get up to whatever time you decide, you're done working for the day.
This is, this is everywhere. This is quite literally the health and wellbeing of, of our country. And so it is time for maximum creativity and it is time to get all the smart people around the table. Parents are brilliant because like you say, they do notice those small changes and, they're not just parents either, right?
They wear other hats when they're not in your clinic. And [00:24:00] gosh, that might be a really rich source of creativity. And so we need to we need to make sure that we are not missing a beat in terms of getting all of that input together and letting everybody here, you know? The good ideas, the less good ideas.
Like right now you know, don't, don't worry, don't filter too much in terms of, you know, well that'll never work because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, maybe it won't, but for heaven's sake, put it out there. I mean, every week in the ICU, someone comes to you basically dead, you're gonna try a bunch of stuff.
You know, if someone's sick, like, well that drug's toxic, or this is that. Yeah, of course I would never give to somebody healthy, but things are sick right now, so we gotta try anything we can. Yeah. To bring. Precisely, you know, countries, you know, scientific and research enterprise, you know, back to health, you know, but just in the ICU, this is a time for teams.
Yep. This is a time for collaboration and this is why the ATS is so important because we can collaborate [00:25:00] and our conferences are great places to collaborate through assemblies is a great place to collaborate and. Through these podcasts is actually a great place to collaborate because there are folks who are gonna hear this, who are gonna ask questions, who are gonna reach out and, and make those connections as well.
And so this, this is a time for innovation. And innovation requires collaboration and I think it absolutely requires the American thoracic society. Absolutely. Who else is gonna help the world breathe? Right? I. Yep. I, I mean, what I, I can't say anything. Yes. That, that is bad. Absolutely. What she said. Have you found examples of, you know, institutions, academic medical centers communities, towns, you know, hospital systems who have,
address this challenge from the NIH in innovative or helpful or creative ways that are examples you think we can highlight safely? Or can you [00:26:00] think of, of ways to navigate options for institutions to navigate this? I mean, there's all sorts of I think there are all sorts of potential creative solutions.
So one that I've put out there is, you know, in thinking about the training programs and how we support early career folks, you know, the, the standard approach is you know, you've got your, your T grant that has slots and people train on that, and then they write an individual career development award and they, you know, and on you go.
So if those are unreliable what do you do? You know, one thing to explore, I mean, I've heard people talk about approaching philanthropy. I think that's a great idea. Approach approach companies approach private sector partners and say, what if we had the, you know insert company name, fellow in, you know.
Pediatric pulmonary critical care, you know, [00:27:00] pediatric, pulmonary, pediatric critical care or, or interventional pulmonology or whatever it is, right. Get, get really innovative about how you build those partnerships. Do you have to build an entire program that way? No pay, you know, start with one or two slots, it's better than zero.
Mm-hmm. And then I, I'll share an example that was just shared at the Respiratory Innovation Summit at UCSF. The the idea. That people started from was that these grant terminations that we're seeing are probably at least partially AI enabled. Like somebody somewhere must be using some AI thing mm-hmm.
To find the no, no words and the no, no concepts and you know, mark those grants for termination. So what if we built an AI tool? To sort of get there first and [00:28:00] pivot before mm-hmm. The grant gets submitted or whatever. I don't know. I, I will say, I don't know exactly at what stage they're using those and, and this was shared with by Dave Morris at the, at the RIS, so I'm not divulging anything.
Mm-hmm. That he hasn't already told a room full of people, you know, and he said like, I mean, don't overthink it, right? Like you, you could probably, but. But there's this interesting, I thought that was a really interesting way to approach it. Does it work? I don't know. But try stuff like you say, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna try this and if it doesn't work, we're gonna, you know, get the team together and say, okay, that wasn't so successful.
Now what? And I, you know, I love that. I I love that we all sort of converged on that example. 'cause it also highlights the fact that you know, all of these things that we're talking about, all this collaboration that we're talking about happens at the bedside. Mm-hmm. Right? When we're in the ICU you gotta be in the room, in, you gotta be in the moment in the [00:29:00] action.
Uh, that's where it, and that's true of the present moment too. The patient is the biomedical research and public health enterprise. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So be part of the team. 'cause you're good at its members and we have a dispo issue and we have a huge dispo issue. Right. So the previous home may not be a safe environment to return to.
Yeah. So. What's, and we have a critical patient right now. Yeah, exactly. And we, our patient is critically ill. We need to get them to acute rehab. We get through this. Yeah. And I don't know what, what that's gonna look like, but we know that's what, and you know, and just like we do with our sickest patients, we don't wait until, you know, days into their hospitalization to start thinking about.
What next, right? We plan for it from the moment they cross the threshold and other stakeholders. So not just parents, but you know, I also anticipate though a few times in my life, I will need the American healthcare system and I'd like it to be science-based and high quality and you know, all those things when I need, when I need us.
But also our communities and states need us too. So not [00:30:00] just for, you know, keeping people healthy and saving lives, but these are also massive job programs, right? You know, big academic medical centers, healthcare centers, these are the big employers in communities. These are the people who, you know, also go out and.
Spend money in the community. They're, you know, economic engines. And so trying to make sure that our, you know, local decision makers of every political stripe and per persuasion recognize that. And then what can, what can they do? I mean, do we need to have more, you know, state, local and regional participation?
Do we have a Western Heart, lung, blood Institute, and a, you know, and then there's maybe, maybe there's different interests maybe that would actually, you know, broaden. The scope. Maybe it would be real good wildfire experts out here on the West Coast and we get some real good mold and flood experts in other parts of the country.
You know, you get just starting to think creatively about all the good that flows from research and all the good that has flown historically from what the NIH has done, and then how do we maintain that good, even if the shape is something that's different. Yeah, I agree completely. I, I think even [00:31:00] from an ATS standpoint and those state and local ATS branches or AC ATS segments, I, I think we need to make them more robust.
And I think we once again, need to collaborate more as, as that is concerned as well, so that we are really able to, to, from the ground up build we, we have a ground up. Community, but to really support from a ground up, these researchers that really need a lot of help and support. Absolutely. I mean, even just in ways of, you know, if you had your local chapter, you know, just even helping out in material ways.
Hey, we got a student coming. They need a place to stay for a bit. They need to do the rotation. Just kind of taking down the financial side effects. Exactly, yes. Of a medical and scientific training career. 'cause they are. Substantial, right? So trying to incorporate that as more of an esprit to core and esprit to community.
One of the things I'm doing later today is I'm actually going to our council of chapter representatives looking at, 'cause we are thinking, trying to, how can we work more creatively like [00:32:00] that? So if you're watching this podcast or listening to it and you have not yet looked up, whether your state has a chapter or there's a state or local area, please join it and kind of join both locally and being active nationally.
You're both very important. But I love that idea of having our state and local chapters be kind of repositories of energy and wisdom and on the ground savvy for maintaining science everywhere. And I love that example of support you gave too, right? Mm-hmm. The support of the scientists in these very little, but very IPA individual, but very impactful ways as well.
Yeah, I mean, I think we have to think about, we want our scientists to reflect our entire globe and community and the. Cost of a scientific education is very real. Right. I remember how important it was to actually that a, someone actually bought me my stethoscope for med school because that was 200 bucks and I didn't have that kinda money when I was trying to, you know, get by as a med student.
So I think all those things just starting to be like, okay, brass T tax, where in this chain can we. Support the next generation, [00:33:00] and then everyone can kind of try to be a link. Right? You don't have to solve the entire funding crisis at the NIH. You can just put your little grain of sand on the scale.
Exactly. I love that. Yeah. I want a yes and that point. Mm-hmm. Because, or, or, or double down on it because I think it's really important. It can feel, I. You know, a a a moment like this can feel so big and it can be, it is overwhelming sometimes, right? I mean, I, I allow myself to spiral no more than three times a week.
But, but that's, you're doing better than me. Well, I mean, you know maybe it's more than that and I just in denial about the others that's possible. But, but that's that like. It's normal to feel overwhelmed, but at the same time, I think it's also important to make sure that everybody hears exactly what you've both just said, that those little things aren't so little, like the impact is a, is a big one.
And if that's. You know, if, if, if that's what you got, that matters, do that. If, if what you got [00:34:00] is having a conversation about, you know, why this is worrying to you with somebody who isn't paying as close attention to, you know, all the things that are going on that we've been talking about for the last little bit.
That's great. Do that. Like that, that all matters, right? No, you don't have to be, tackling all of the things, all of the time. And there isn't just one way of, of responding and engaging and, and pushing back that counts. They all count. And we need all of 'em. And, and it, it's, you know, that's why things like the state and local chapter engagement are so meaningful is that that is that's, you know, this one and this one and this one, and this one and this one, and then you put it all together.
Suddenly you've got a lot of people. You know, you, you're, you're here with, you know, 14,000 of your closest friends and that starts to sound like a group that could get something done. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I also wanna be respectful of [00:35:00] everyone's time since this is a very busy meeting for both of you, I'm sure.
But is there anything else you wanna add? So I wanted to emphasize that. This is a community and I speak on that very frequently. That's one of my strengths, I think is collaboration and I love it. And that's part of the reason why I absolutely love the American Thoracic Society. This is a place of, of strong collaboration and it's a place of strong support and especially for early career folks.
This is where you get to make those new connections when you're as, as a medical student and a resident and a new fellow, and you make friends that are actually lifelong and you make career decisions that are lifelong as well. The, the American Thoracic Society has allowed me to, think broadly and pivot in important ways.[00:36:00]
And so I am very, very grateful to be a part of this, but those folks that feel like they're in the woods and feel that they are. Abandoned by the structures, the power structures that we've used in the past. Know that this is a place to feel encouraged. This is a place to feel supported, and this is a place to really fight back.
I wouldn't pretend to add anything to that, except that I'm glad to be doing this with you. Oh, I'm so, so happy to do this with you. Well, I wanna thank you guys so much for all you have done for science and for helping the world breathe. And thanks for being here and I hope you have a wonderful conference.
Thank you. You too. Oh, thank you, you too.
Thank you for joining us today. To learn more, visit our website@thoracic.org. Find more ATS Breathe Easy [00:37:00] Podcasts on transistor, YouTube, apple podcasts and Spotify. Don't forget to like, comment. And subscribe so you never miss a show.