Stop & Talk

Dr. Daniel “Dan” Calac is the Chief Medical Officer at the Indian Health Council. As a boy, he grew up on the Pauma Indian Reservation, the community he serves today. In this episode of Stop & Talk, Dan recalls waiting in the car while his mother, a nurse, performed exams for residents of the reservation before returning to the Indian Health Clinic. With a dad who was a community health representative and an uncle who was one of the last medicine men in the area – Dan had ample opportunity to understand the power, the connection, and how community health can vastly improve regional wellness. Dr. Calac also discusses how increasing the number of Native American doctors and how partnerships across the region enable IHC to be better connected and, as a result, more effective in their work.

Dr. Svasti Haricharan is a scientist at the Sanford Burnham Prebys in La Jolla. Her lab focuses on the role of DNA damage repair in inducing resistance to endocrine therapy in breast cancer. Early in her career, she would have to present her research over IPA beers in the UK. (She learned to love beer as she connected with her scientific community.) While completing her postdoctoral training in Texas, her boss asked her to help him write a grant application on cancer disparities and how race affects cancer outcome. At the time, she had no idea this was a thing because no one ever brought it up in her 12 years of training in cancer research. Over the years, she’s gone deep to study who gets studied, why, and how to ensure we get better outcomes in research that will help more people in the general population. Join Grant and Svasti for this conversation about diversity, science, changing the world, and what it means to be open to multiple viewpoints.

Stop and Talk is a new weekly, placed-based, podcast hosted by Grant Oliphant (CEO of the Conrad Prebys Foundation). A veteran of both podcasting and philanthropy – Grant invites us on a journey to explore building an intentional culture of deeper connection to advance wellness in the greater San Diego region. In this introductory teaser, Grant discusses how the foundation will use the podcast as a tool for learning, connection, and envisioning our shared future.