Bearing Witness with Shaili Jain, MD
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Who is Dr. Shaili Jain and what is her background in psychiatry?
This episode of The Nocturnous is sponsored by Chart Note. Medical documentation is one of the main contributors to burnout, and ChartNote is the productivity tool created to bring back the joy of practicing medicine. Dictate your notes using next generation AI voice recognition and access thousands of templates to complete your notes faster. Download the app or visit chartnote.com to create a free account. Support for the Nocturnist comes from the California Medical Association.
At the Nocturinous, we are careful to ensure that all stories comply with healthcare privacy laws. Details may have been changed to ensure patient confidentiality. All views expressed are those of the person speaking and not their employer.
We all come from somewhere. We have parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and other ancestors that extend backward in time. How do our family stories affect our lives today? What do we carry forward and how might our histories inform our perspectives and even our careers in healthcare? You're listening to the Nocturnists, stories from the world of medicine. I'm Emily Silverman. Today I speak with Shelley Jane. Shelley is a psychiatrist and PTSD specialist at the VA Palo Alto Healthcare System and a clinical associate professor affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She's the author of The Unspeakable Mind, stories of trauma and healing from the frontlines of PTSD science.
And her essays and commentaries on trauma and PTSD have been presented by the BBC, CNN, New York Times, Stat Newsweek, The LA Times, and others. But before I speak with Shelly, we'll hear the story that she told live at the Nocturnus in San Francisco in January 2020. Here's Shelley.
It's two thousand seven. There's five of us in a minivan on a road trip. My husband's driving. I'm next to him in the passenger seat. In the back is our four and a half year old son. And my parents who are visiting from England, that's where I was born and raised. We're celebrating. My dad's seventieth birthday with this road trip across the United States. This morning we're leaving New York City. We left early in the morning to beat the traffic. Our son is already fast asleep. My mom has started to doze and I want a nap. I'm exhausted. I'm seven months pregnant. I really want to sleep. But then my dad starts talking. And he starts talking about nineteen forty seven. I knew the nuts and bolts of this story. Найтін форти сев.
The partition of British India. Horrific intercommunal violence. Millions were killed. Many, many millions were forced to flee. I knew the nuts and bolts of this story, I knew how it had impacted our family. My dad had been orphaned at the age of ten. He'd been a refugee forced to work as a child labourer. But I had been born and raised in England and I'd really been disconnected from this story. We didn't have any family photographs, we didn't have any family heirlooms. Our trips back home were scant and non existent. So growing up this story felt anonymous, it felt distant. But in the mini van, as my dad is talking. I'm hearing details that I've never heard before, new details. Like about his sister, his youngest sister, who at the age of two contracted smallpox and she died in nineteen forty seven.
I'm learning about my grandmother, his mother, a woman who was this accomplished cook. She played the harmonium beautifully, she spoke English. But after her youngest daughter died, she took to her bed and kind of withered away. And she died too in nineteen forty seven. And then I hear about my paternal grandfather, my dad's dad, a man who rejected his traditional clan and embraced modern education so much that he'd paid for his eldest son to go to medical school. And my grandfather, this senior civil servant, who on his days off would don judge paws and go horse raiding. And later at home with his kids, he'd make them this really tasty sweet treat called Anjir Barfi, this rich fudge of Figs and pistachio and nuts and cream.
Growing up, when I would hear about nineteen forty seven, it was usually bits of information just plopped in at really inopportune moments.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
Who is Dr. Shaili Jain and what is her background in psychiatry?
0:00–10:04
2
What happened on the 2007 road‑trip that sparked the father’s story?
10:04–15:02
3
How did Dr. Jain’s dad describe the 1947 Partition and its impact on his family?
15:02–39:27
4
What was the “slow dawning” moment for Dr. Jain and how did it change her view of patients?
39:27–40:43