Episode 32 features Leana S. Wen, who currently lives in Boston, MA. She was born in China and lived in Shanghai until she was 9,when her family moved to the United States.

Leana is a resident physician at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency at Brigham & Women’s/Massachusetts General Hospital. A Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Washington University School of Medicine, Dr. Wen has worked at WHO and has conducted research in the UK, Rwanda, South Africa, and China. She is deeply interested in public health and influencing world health policy.

From 2005 to 2006, Dr. Wen served as the national president of the American Medical Student Association, which has over 65,000 members. At that time, Leana recalls deeply reflecting on her stuttering. She had many public speaking challenges and worried if she had what it took to be a physician and president of the prestigious AMSA.

Listen in to an inspiring conversation about covert stuttering and confronting fear,and learning how to be a person who stutters. We also chat about focusing on fluency to the detriment of other things and why she sought speech therapy as an adult.

In spite of her accomplishments and her acceptance of stuttering, Leana honestly admits that it is very hard to show stuttering to her colleagues in medicine.

Besides being a wonderful speaker, Leana is also a dancer and a gifted writer. Check out this blog she co-wrote for the New York Times, Two For The Road. She also wrote about her stuttering journey for the National Stuttering Association’s May/June issue of Letting Go 2008. Leana’s article is on pages 4-5.

Credit for the podcast safe music clip “Echoed” goes to ccMixter.

Feel free to leave comments or questions for Leana. And for Pam – it is important for me to get feedback too!