Daniel Kim
Episode 173

Narrator: Welcome, friends, to another episode of the Story & Experience Podcast. Join your host, Japhet De Oliveira with his guest today, and discover the moments that shape us, our families and communities.

Japhet De Oliveira: Hey, welcome friends to another episode of the Story & Experience Podcast. I'm delighted to be able to introduce you to a brand new guest today. If you're brand new to the podcast, we have 100 questions. They become more vulnerable, more open, the closer they get to 100, and they're about stories and experiences that shaped this leader into who they are today. So I'm going to ask the first 10 and then I'm going to hand over to them to choose the numbers where they want to go. And let me begin straight away with, could you tell us your name? Does anybody ever mispronounce it?

Daniel Kim: Yes. My name is Daniel Kim. I go by Dan and no, it's a fairly common and straightforward name, so no issues there.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's great. That's great. Hey Dan, could you tell us what you do for work?

Daniel Kim: Yeah. So I'm a radiation oncologist here at Adventist Health White Memorial. I'm the medical director for the cancer center, the Cecilia Gonzalez De La Hoya Cancer Center here at White Memorial.

Japhet De Oliveira: All right, so you're a medical director as well. What does medical director mean?

Daniel Kim: It's an administrative role, so I have some oversight over the clinical aspects and operations of the clinic. Not my favorite part of the job, but certainly something that comes with the territory.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, but you know how to do it well.

Daniel Kim: At least somebody thinks so.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's great, that's great. So tell me about the favorite part of your job. What's the favorite part for you?

Daniel Kim: So certainly it's why I went into medicine. It's the face-to-face, the interactions with patients and their families and that's why I do what I do.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah. But this is a hard field you're in. I mean, cancer's growing nationally everywhere.

Daniel Kim: Yeah, certainly. It's always a tough subject, certainly for the patient. And certainly it's something that affects entire families as well too. And as I age, as most of us age, we just seem to hear about it more as our parents get older, family members, friends. It's certainly something that just becomes more and more common to hear about such and such coming down with this or somebody coming down with that.

Japhet De Oliveira: And Dr. Kim, there are lots of places, I mean, lots of fields that you could choose to work in medicine. Why did you choose this one?

Daniel Kim: Yeah, so in terms of my background early on before going into medicine, I'd always had an interest in biochemistry, cell biology, molecular biology. And so when I decided to go into medicine, certainly I wanted to kind of still pursue that academic interest, intellectual interest along with clinical practice. So I was always fascinated with the field of cancer biology and the mechanisms of cancer and cancer treatment. And it just naturally kind of blended those two worlds together for me.

Japhet De Oliveira: Now you're in the world of radiation, so you're the one who puts on the Spider-Man mask on people and all that kind of fun stuff.

Daniel Kim: Yes, yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: You're very precise about what you do.

Daniel Kim: Yeah, it's a very precision, and I would say tailor-made. Every single treatment we do is custom-made for the patient because everybody's body and anatomy is different, moves differently, has organs in slightly different places. So all of our treatments are really tailored-made to the patients themselves.

Japhet De Oliveira: Now, technology changes in some fields all the time quickly. Does technology change in this area a lot?

Daniel Kim: It does, it does. Radiation is always radiation. The physics of how radiation works doesn't change, but certainly our ability to aim it precisely advances with technological advances and our understanding of cancer biology has evolved over time as well too. And so by merging the technological advances with better understanding of the underpinnings of cancer development, progression, and treatment, I think we're able to constantly evolve as our understanding of the field evolves as well too.

Japhet De Oliveira: Hey, that's great. So where do you learn, I mean, how do you balance between your work life, family life, and everything else and learning new technology all the time? Where do you find the time to do that?

Daniel Kim: It's like having two or three full-time jobs sometimes. So the learning's not the problem, I think it's the balance. I think many professionals, I think would be in a similar boat.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, all right. Now let me ask you a practical question then, Dr. Kim, are you an early riser or late night owl?

Daniel Kim: Kind of both.

Japhet De Oliveira: Oh, are you?

Daniel Kim: Kind of both.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay. I don't know. Okay. You mean as the cases require it?

Daniel Kim: Yeah, I mean, I think by necessity, I think I just tend to get up earlier. It's, I think ingrained in a lot of physicians, if you know the ins and outs of our training from med school to our internship and residency, we're up in the wee hours in the morning rounding on patients and getting things ready for the day. So I think most of us just naturally develop an early bird kind of mentality. But like I said, I still want to spend time with my family or watch the latest episode of whatever it might be on Netflix or whatever. So that's where-

Japhet De Oliveira: You got to tell us-

Daniel Kim: The night owl comes in because I still want to do all of those things as well.

Japhet De Oliveira: All right, you've got to tell us, what is your latest show that you're watching right now?

Daniel Kim: I recently started watching Slow Horses on Apple TV.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daniel Kim: The whole spy genre, kind of British MI6-

Japhet De Oliveira: Great choice.

Daniel Kim: That's always been my... Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, that's great. All right. This morning when you woke up, first thing that went through your mind?

Daniel Kim: I have to do this podcast.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay, all right. Fair enough. Fair enough. And then do you have coffee, tea, liquid green smoothie? What's your first drink of the day?

Daniel Kim: First drink of the day is usually water. Not for any particular health reason, but I tended to be a very, very kind habitual coffee drinker. And over the last maybe two or three years or so, I've kind of cut back a little bit for no particular reason apart from maybe it is a little bit expensive. So there is certainly that. And I think in its place I do occasionally have a cup of tea in the morning.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah. Hey, that's great. That's great. If people were to describe your personality, Dan, would they say you are an extrovert or an introvert and would you agree?

Daniel Kim: I guess it depends on who you ask. I myself would consider myself an introvert.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay. All right.

Daniel Kim: But certainly in having to be in front of patients and families and different social settings at any given time, certainly us introverts, we learn how to-

Japhet De Oliveira: Navigate the world.

Daniel Kim: Behave appropriately in certain-

Japhet De Oliveira: Behave appropriately. I like that.

Daniel Kim: Situations. So I guess you could say I could turn it on. Which I think is still in line with the introvert type of personality. In my mind, the definition of the, kind dividing line between an introvert and an extrovert is an extrovert gains energy and fuels off of these kind of social interactions where for my part, at the end of it, I'm kind of drained. So it does take more out of me rather than kind of fueling me on.

Japhet De Oliveira: All right, all right. Hey, that's good. Hey, just an interesting insight inside you. Where were you born?

Daniel Kim: I was born in Los Angeles.

Japhet De Oliveira: Los Angeles. So did you grow up in LA?

Daniel Kim: I did.

Japhet De Oliveira: And so when you grew up in LA-

Daniel Kim: The LA area. LA is a big city, but yes, in the LA area.

Japhet De Oliveira: And then as a child growing up in LA, what did you imagine you wouldn't grow up to be? Radiation?

Daniel Kim: Yeah, no, I have small children now, not so small, my oldest is in middle school, but I've learned that a child's world is very small. It's confined to the circle that they're surrounded with, which for the first five, six, seven years of their life is their family, their parents. And then within school they have their teachers, they have their classmates, they have coaches, instructors, whatever it might be. So I remember when I would ask my kids, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Say, "I want to be a teacher. Or I want to be a dance instructor. I want to be a music instructor." And I realize sometimes they say doctor every once in a while. And I realized in their mind the possible professions or maybe three or four based on the people they encounter.

So my experience was similar. I think certainly being in school for your entire childhood, being an educator was certainly on my mind. And I did a lot of sports growing up. So any young boy or girl in youth sports with some measure of talent has-

Japhet De Oliveira: A dream.

Daniel Kim: I can say this now, delusions of grandeur as an extrapolation of your future career as a professional in whatever sport it might be. So I did not imagine myself here in medicine more so maybe a LA Dodger.

Japhet De Oliveira: LA Dodger, okay. All right. Let's be honest. All right, that's fine. Hey, that's great. That's good. All right, listen, just a leadership question here. Are you a backseat driver?

Daniel Kim: I try not to be. I think in terms of, certainly there is a aspect or a philosophy that I try to espouse of leading by example, and some of that means leading in the front and sometimes leading in the back. And so I try not to pigeonhole myself too much, but certainly I allow room for people in certain jobs with certain responsibilities to exercise their strengths and execute tasks, projects in the way that they feel is most effective. I don't think there's only one solution, one right solution to a problem. I think there are many ways to approach it. And there's nothing that says that my approach is better than another's. It's just different and I'm open to that.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, that's great. That's great. All right, sir, it is open. The floor is open. Where would you like to go? What number?

Daniel Kim: Oh boy.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, I know.

Daniel Kim: I'm going to give myself a little softball first. Let's start at-

Japhet De Oliveira: A softball, very... Okay.

Daniel Kim: 15.

Japhet De Oliveira: 15, all right. What's the one thing that you misplace all the time? I love the look on your face right now. You're like, "I do not misplace anything."

Daniel Kim: What do I misplace all the time? One item that I always misplace on a daily basis is probably my pen.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay.

Daniel Kim: It's something that I should I have on me at all times.

Japhet De Oliveira: Is it a special pen?

Daniel Kim: As a physician, they come into your office, they have you sign this or that. I'm always looking for my pen. I check my pocket, it's never there. And I start rumbling around my desk. It's not any special pen in particular, but there never seems to be a pen around when I need it.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay. That's good, Dan. I like that. All right, where do you want to go next after 15?

Daniel Kim: 20.

Japhet De Oliveira: 20, all right. Oh, tell us something, Dan, that you would give 10 out of 10.

Daniel Kim: I would say the 2024 World Series.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay.

Daniel Kim: I think in terms of the drama, the moments, the storyline, the match up, certainly this comes with the bias, a la native and a Dodger fan. But the last series that I can recall that brought me that much excitement was one of my earliest childhood memories. And if you're a Dodger fan, it's the 1988 World Series where there was a similar storyline. Game one, Kirk Gibson game-winning home run against the Oakland Athletic. That's one of my early core memories. Something I still remember. The couch I was sitting on with my dad next to me and just going crazy.

Japhet De Oliveira: Wow.

Daniel Kim: And fast-forward almost 20 years later, actually, oh my goodness, not 20 years, almost 40 years later, and I'm sitting in my living room with my son on the couch. It was just a surreal moment just knowing that my son has now almost a shared core memory as I had growing up.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's great. That's beautiful.

Daniel Kim: So that's a 10 out of 10 moment for me.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, yeah. I love the way you frame that as well. That's great. Good. All right, that was 20. Where next?

Daniel Kim: I'm feeling a little adventurous. Let's jump up to 57.

Japhet De Oliveira: 57, okay. If you had to endorse a brand, what would it be and why?

Daniel Kim: I guess if I had to endorse a brand, it would be a clothing brand. It would be Vuori.

Japhet De Oliveira: Oh, yeah.

Daniel Kim: Yeah. It's a company in that kind of athleisure space. But I find that kind of my go-to at home for all seasons.

Japhet De Oliveira: It is great. They know what they're doing.

Daniel Kim: They…kind of lounge around the house to just a quick run somewhere to the market or you can even dress it up a little bit and kind have a night out depending on the location. But I would say Vuori.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, yeah, that's good. I'm going to have to reach out to them, because you just endorsed them. All right.

Daniel Kim: Yeah, that certainly was on the back of my mind too this.

Japhet De Oliveira: They should sponsor this episode.

Daniel Kim: They're fairly expensive.

Japhet De Oliveira: They are. All right, where next?

Daniel Kim: Let's go to 79.

Japhet De Oliveira: 79, all right. Oh, share with us if you would, a painful memory you wish you could forget.

Daniel Kim: I think I could speak for most, if not all of us in the medical profession, but the early 2020s at the very start of the COVID pandemic, a lot of people forget how things were and I think as a means of perhaps self-preservation, how difficult and uncertain those times were. But I recall me and some of my other physician friends who still went out every day to the hospital to work, not knowing for a lot of our loved ones, my wife included, "Can he come home? Is he going to be okay when he comes home? What's going on?" There's so much uncertainty and I think there's a collective trauma, I think for many of us in society that now that kind of wave has passed, it feels like a distant memory. And I think in many ways we don't want to remember that.

But that is certainly a time where a lot of us in the medical profession just really didn't know what to do. That's not a good feeling for a doctor. We spend years in education and training to prepare for situations, to have contingency plans, backup plans. And if we're confronted with something that was kind of difficult or out of left field, we have the tools to be able to pivot or adjust or kind of bring in knowledge from other sources to kind of figure out what to do. But this is a situation where things were so novel, nobody really knew what was going on.

And so I think it just put us all in a very vulnerable position. It's something that I've tried to forget. Every once in a while I'm on my phone and then Facebook or Instagram will pop up like, this day-

Japhet De Oliveira: A reminder.

Daniel Kim: This day four years ago and there will be a picture that pops up that the algorithm thinks I want to see, but I really don't because it reminds me of this time or that time, or the whole family's in masks. And it's triggering to think about that sometimes. So I think that's a time that was very scary for a lot of us, for myself included, that I'd rather didn't happen.

Japhet De Oliveira: Now counter that with me and give me an example during that time, because I know it was hard, hard, but there was some amazing magical moments of hope or heroism or something. Do you have a memory like that as well during the whole pandemic?

Daniel Kim: Yeah. So certainly as a radiation oncologist, the way that our treatments are scheduled or sequenced is it's a daily treatment for most patients coming in Monday through Friday over the course of weeks. And there's a reason why the treatments have to be done in a continuous day after day, sequential fashion. Putting an extended treatment break in the middle of a patient's treatment course can have detrimental effects in terms of the efficacy of the radiation treatment. And if you think about this, these are patients coming in, sometimes dozens or 100 patients or more, coming into a clinic, interacting with other patients, therapists, kind of in very, very close quarters. And so there were tremendous kind of protocols put in place, protective equipment.

Physicians, but certainly more on the front lines, the radiation therapist in direct interaction with the patients at very, very close quarters, really putting themselves on the line to make sure that patients were able to receive life-saving treatment. And that was certainly, it's not just in radiation therapy, nurses, other people on the front lines, there were countless acts of heroism and rightly so. There were many outpourings of support. Every night in New York City going out their balconies and just applauding and being pots and pans. And I think that certainly was an appreciation for what many recognized to be the sacrifices that a lot of frontline health workers made for the sake of others, the selflessness of medicine here.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, beautiful. Good reminder as well in the midst of the pain.

Daniel Kim: Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's good. All right, that was 79, so where next?

Daniel Kim: Let's dial it back a little bit.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay. Sure.

Daniel Kim: Let's go to 17.

Japhet De Oliveira: 17, all right. Oh, look at your calendar and you think about the entire calendar share one day in the entire year that's just like, this is special to you and why?

Daniel Kim: I think for me, I always look forward January 1st.

Japhet De Oliveira: Oh really?

Daniel Kim: It's coming up.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay.

Daniel Kim: New Year's Day. There's just something about, you kind of talked about core memories before, but something about waking up in the morning, turning on the TV, seeing the Rose Parade. And now that I live kind of closer to Pasadena, although I haven't been having the opportunity maybe to actually see it in person, and there's just so much tradition that surrounds that day. Beginning of the new year, I spend the next few weeks kind of messing up my dates, because you have to add an extra year to updating your signature or something.

Japhet De Oliveira: All of us do. All of us do.

Daniel Kim: As a Korean American, certainly there are many cultural traditions that my family and I still follow in terms of Korean heritage and New Year plays a special role in Korean culture in that it's a time where we kind of pay respect to our elders and ancestors to a certain degree as well too. And it's, again, a time to reflect on the possibilities for the upcoming year. There are certain foods that are traditional during this time, certain ceremonies or traditions that we've done when we were children and we're passing along to our children as well too. And so it's a day that does hold a lot of meaning to me for those reasons.

Japhet De Oliveira: Hey, that's good. I like it. That's good. Right. That was 17. Where next?

Daniel Kim: Let's do 35.

Japhet De Oliveira: 35, all right. Oh, share a special interest or unique talent that you have other than the LA Dodgers.

Daniel Kim: Well, I mean, I wouldn't say that it's particularly unique, but certainly an interest of mine. You bring up the Dodgers, I played baseball for most of my childhood. One theme, I guess along those lines is I've always been drawn toward sports or activities that involve a stick and a ball. So I played baseball, I played golf when I was a child. I continue now. So there's another stick and ball. Tennis. Those are my three main sports, I think.

Japhet De Oliveira: And no cricket.

Daniel Kim: You know what? That's not really a, I would say-

Japhet De Oliveira: It's not a stick.

Daniel Kim: Not that I never had interest in cricket, I've actually watched quite a few cricket matches and it always intrigued me. Kind of funny story, I think I was playing in a charity softball with physicians and one of the physicians on the opposing team, he was a big cricketer. He's originally a South Asian, so he grew up playing cricket and I was pitching and just for fun, I'd seen it on YouTube, I've tried it out every once in a while. I just thought, "Hey, what if I try a little cricket pitch to throw things off a little bit." That was my only kind of foray into cricket. But that's certainly a sport that was always interesting to me. But no, I've never had much experience with it.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's good. All right. All right, we're next then.

Daniel Kim: Let's do number 50.

Japhet De Oliveira: 50, all right. Share about who's influenced you professionally.

Daniel Kim: It wasn't necessarily any one person, but certainly in medical school there were a number of kind of preceptors mentors, teachers that had a particular approach to medicine that I've always kind of espoused and to this day try to keep front of mind. If you think about the medical profession and somebody enters medical school, the first years of training is kind of building a vocabulary. You're almost learning a new language. Medicine is its own language, has its own jargon, abbreviations, kind of quirks. And it's useful because physicians need to have a common language to speak amongst themselves. But what these teachers taught me is that patients don't have that vocabulary. They don't have that knowledge of medical jargon. And so one very quick way to create a barrier or distance between the physician-patient relationship is to use words or phrases or terminology that the patient has no idea what it means.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay.

Daniel Kim: So something like otalgia, pretty sure that means ear pain. But if you're sitting with a patient and you say something like otalgia, from that point on, the patient's trying to figure out what does that mean? Is that important? It is my doctor trying to tell me something and I don't understand it? The next five minutes of whatever you said, the patient did not hear a thing because they're still trying to figure out what that word means. And so what my mentors taught me is that when you're approaching a patient, just remember that you're trying to communicate complex medical information to them. But it should be in a manner that would be understandable to somebody who did not go through four years of medical school, three to six years of subspecialty in medical training and residency. And so I think what I try to do and what I've learned from my mentors is that when you are counseling patients, use regular English. You've done great in medical school, learning all this terminology and vocabulary, but now-

Japhet De Oliveira: Translate it.

Daniel Kim: In the real world, let's bring it back a little bit and use your skills to translate that complex medical jargon into common day English that would be understandable to kind of the layperson or to the patient and family member. So I think that's a skill in and of itself.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, yeah. It is.

Daniel Kim: It's easy to just default to in certain terms or vocabulary that you're familiar with. It's harder to then try to synthesize that in your own mind, repackage it in a way that is able to communicate and convey the same meaning in a manner that the listener, patient in this case can understand and process on their own

Japhet De Oliveira: Well, and that makes the patient experience so much better.

Daniel Kim: Yes.

Japhet De Oliveira: All right, so give me an example, Dan, of a compliment that you received from a patient that just meant everything to you.

Daniel Kim: I mean, there are a number of patient encounters where, and we've said this before, cancer is a complex disease for myriad reasons. And so what I try to do again is not just talk about my piece, which is the radiation piece, but I'll go over the natural history of the cancer, why we think this happened or that happened and what we can expect going forward. And I think patients appreciate that there's somebody that's sitting there with them that can take them through the journey to summarize what's been going on and characterize certain key events in ways that they can understand and piece together, "Well, that's why I had to do surgery first. Oh, that's why they're recommending chemotherapy. I never understood how those puzzle pieces fit together." So I think the greatest compliment that I could receive is that the patient leaves their visit with me with more knowledge and more understanding than they came in, because I think that should be the goal of every patient-physician encounter.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's good. Thank you, Dan. All right, we have time for two more final numbers. Where'd you want to go?

Daniel Kim: All right.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah.

Daniel Kim: All right, let's go to, let me kind of ease my way out of this now.

Japhet De Oliveira: I like this.

Daniel Kim: 33.

Japhet De Oliveira: 33. All right, here we go. Tell us about the best gift you've ever given someone else.

Daniel Kim: A little bit like tooting your own horn.

Japhet De Oliveira: You're welcome, Dan.

Daniel Kim: Which is not something I like to do.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, so that's why I'm asking you.

Daniel Kim: I mean, I don't know if this is a kind of an easy way out, but certainly in my day-to-day as an oncology specialist, having follow-up visits with patients after they've gone through a battery of tests, they've completed their treatments and they're in surveillance mode, they've gone through blood work imaging. For me to be able to come in and say, "Everything looks good, no evidence of disease." Every time I could say that, that is truly, it's a gift for me certainly to be able to do that. But I think it's also received, especially during this time coming into the holiday season, I think a lot of patients kind of receive that as a gift. And it's a two-way gift then.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, that's true. That's a good reminder, Dan. All right, last number. Where'd you want to go, Dr. Kim?

Daniel Kim: Good. All right, let's go to number 24.

Japhet De Oliveira: 24. All right, here we go, 24 then. Tell us about a time you were over or underdressed for an occasion.

Daniel Kim: I believe it was a wedding. This was many, many years ago. I was still in medical school at the time, but there was a wedding that I was going to attend and it was a busy time, so I didn't really, I've been to weddings, so it's on the calendar and I'll buy a gift from the registry and I'll just show up and then we do the normal wedding stuff. It wasn't until immediately before the day of where I actually took a closer look at the invitation and realized it was a black tie, which I'll admit, I had to look up what that meant. I was younger.

I realized, "Oh, I don't have a tuxedo and it's too late to really go out and kind of dress myself for the occasion." So I had to pick out things that I cobble together to create the semblance of a black tie attire. Fortunately, it was in the evening-

Japhet De Oliveira: A very dark night.

Daniel Kim: Outdoors under kind of string lights. So I think that certainly helped. But that's definitely a situation where I, not knowing what I was getting into at the last minute, tried to black tie myself on a shoestring budget and not enough time. It was still a great wedding. Beautiful.

Japhet De Oliveira: Hey, that's great.

Daniel Kim: But I certainly the entire time was very self-conscious about having the shiny shoes and the cummerbund or suspenders or whatever it might be, yes.

Japhet De Oliveira: Well, Dan, I'm glad you pulled it off.

Daniel Kim: Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: Hey, thank you so much. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your stories and really appreciate it and just want to encourage people to do the same thing that you and I just did now. Sit down with a friend, maybe over a cup of tea or some water and talk about stories and questions, because we learn a lot about each other and we are better people for it. But Dan, thank you again for your time. God bless you, and we'll connect with everybody else soon.

Daniel Kim: Thank you very much.

Narrator: Thank you for joining us for the Story & Experience Podcast. We invite you to read, watch, and submit your story and experience at adventisthealth.org/story. The Story & Experience Podcast was brought to you by Adventist Health through the Office of Culture.