Today, we are joined by Dr. Barbara Loeb, an internist, physician leader, coach, author, and poet.
Dr. Barbara Loeb, MD, is an internist and physician leader whose work explores the healing power of presence, reflection, and story. After more than four decades caring for patients and leading healthcare organizations, she turned increasingly toward helping clinicians reconnect with themselves through mindfulness, writing, and the humanities. She is the author of How to Save a Life: Healing Power of Poetry and co-founder of the Narrative and Humanity program for volunteer physicians with the MAVEN Project. Barbara reminds us that listening deeply to our patients, to one another, and to ourselves is fundamental to both healing and flourishing.
In this deeply reflective conversation, Dr. Loeb explores how childhood experiences with illness, caregiving, and uncertainty shaped her calling to medicine and her lifelong commitment to seeing the person behind the patient. She reflects on the dangers of premature judgment in clinical practice, the transformative power of deep listening, and how narrative medicine, mindfulness, poetry, and reflective writing have cultivated presence, resilience, and compassion. Drawing on stories from decades in primary care, she discusses the reciprocal healing in authentic physician-patient relationships, the privilege of accompanying patients through life’s final moments, and the restorative influence of creativity, nature, curiosity, and travel.
We also cover:
- Why medicine: childhood illness, caregiving, and the call to witness and alleviate suffering
- The dangers of premature judgment and the practice of curiosity: getting to know the person behind the distressing behavior or diagnosis
- Narrative medicine, poetry, mindfulness, and reflective writing as tools for cultivating presence, resilience, and reconnection to purpose
- The reciprocal healing of authentic relationships and the privilege of accompanying patients and families through their most vulnerable moments
- How creativity, travel, and nature sustain clinicians and restore the capacity to remain open, curious, and deeply human in medicine
Learn from Dr. Loeb’s decades of practice and her integration of narrative medicine, poetry, and mindfulness to understand how deep listening, curiosity, and attention to story transform both clinical care and clinician well-being.