Eric Topol

There's a couple of things there I want to pick up on.

Physician scientists, as you know, are a rarefied species.

You have actually so nicely told the story about when you have a physician scientist, you're caring for the patients that you're researching, which is so most of the time we have scientists, nothing wrong with them, of course.

But you have this hinge point, which is really important because you're really hearing the stories and experiencing the patients.

And as you say, communicating about the likelihood of being able to come up with a treatment or the progress.

What are we going to do to get more physician scientists?

Because this is a huge problem.

It has been for decades, but the numbers just keep going lower and lower.

Well, you outline some really nice strategies and plans.

It's a formidable challenge, of course, and we'd like to see billions of dollars to support this, and maybe someday we will.

Because as you say, if we could relieve the financial concerns of people who have curiosity-driven ideas,

Exactly.

We could do a lot to replenish and build a big physician-scientist workforce.

Now, the last thing I want to get to is you have great communication skills.

Obviously, anybody who is listening or watching this, which is another really important part of being a scientist, no less a physician or the hybrid of the two.

But I wanted to just go to the backstory, because your TED Talk, which has been watched by hundreds of thousands of people, and I'm sure there's hundreds of thousands more that will watch it, but the TED organization is famous for making people come to the place a week ahead, this is like Vancouver, used to be in LA, Los Angeles area, and making them rehearse the talk.

Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

And which seems crazy.

I mean, you could train people there to how to give a talk.

Did you have to go through that?