In the high-stakes world of pediatric heart transplantation, every saved life is inseparable from another family’s loss. In this episode, Dr. Teresa Lee reflects on the ethical and emotional dimensions of caring for children with heart failure and guiding families through transplant. Drawing inspiration from Maylis de Kerangal’s novel Réparer les vivants, she explores what it means to honor donor families, to sit at the threshold between life and death, and to “repair the living” in more ways than one.
A pediatric cardiologist and physician-scientist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Dr. Lee also discusses how her research on the genetic causes of cardiomyopathy is shaped directly by the patients she serves. From evolving her own emotional boundaries to finding rare moments of silence and reflection during her time as a Faculty Visitor at Reid Hall in Paris, she offers a meditation on medicine not only as science, but as a practice of care.
Further reading:
https://healthmatters.nyp.org/amazing-things-jenna-skeete/
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/nyregion/nyc-nurses-strike-patients-children.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/well/90-minutes-to-give-baby-luna-a-new-heart.html
Website - globalcenters.columbia.edu/paris
Newsletter - globalcenters.columbia.edu/content/paris-newsletters
Instagram - instagram.com/cgcparis
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/cgcparis
YouTube - youtube.com/@CGCParis
Host: Marie Doezema
Production: Marie Doezema, James Allen, Charlotte Force, and Anthony Valette
Editing: Theo Albaric
Music: Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne performed by Magdalena Baczewska and Sasha He
With thanks to the Nadia and Lili Boulanger International Centre in Paris
The Columbia Global Paris Center is part of a network of 11 global centers of Columbia University in the City of New York, one of the world's leading academic institutions. The centers serve as knowledge hubs that aim to educate and inspire through research, dialogue, and action. They advance understanding, facilitate partnerships, and build the bridges necessary to tackle our changing world.
Columbia Global brings together the Columbia Global Centers, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.
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