The Michigan Daily sat down Wednesday morning with Dr. Sanjay Gupta — practicing neurosurgeon, Emmy Award–winning chief medical correspondent for CNN and two-time University of Michigan alum — to discuss his time as a student in Ann Arbor and his career at the intersection of medicine and media. Gupta, a Novi native, earned his bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences at the University and his doctorate from Michigan Medicine. He went on to cover global health crises while continuing to operate and teach at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also a bestselling author, former White House fellow and regular contributor to the CBS show “60 Minutes.” This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The Michigan Daily: You grew up in Novi, studied biomedical sciences, wrote for The Michigan Daily and earned your doctor of medicine from Michigan Medicine — few people represent the full spectrum of the University quite like you. Which part of the University experience still shapes your decision-making today — either in the operating room or on air?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta: The early years at Michigan probably were the most transformative. I did a program called Inteflex, which was an integrated premedical-medical program, so I had this really great group of colleagues, friends and fellow students. We all got admitted together and were all figuring things out together, and I think coming from a small town and then suddenly being on campus with all that it has to offer was the most transformative. It gave me a sense of what was possible. I like to say, it’s kind of like going from the microscope to the telescope. I was looking at everything from a much smaller aperture and I think those first few years at the University really widened that aperture and made me want to try new things. I think that’s shaped everything I’ve done since then.
TMD: If someone spotted you at the University back when you were a student, what would they have seen? Where were you eating, studying, hanging out?
SG: I was a big runner, so I ran through campus all the time. I would run really early in the mornings to the athletic campus and then run around that parking lot outside the stadium. There was this one time when it was snowing and it was dark still because it was really early in the morning and all the parking lights were sort of shining. There was a photographer from The Daily who just happened to be hanging out and asked if they could take my picture, and they did. I don’t think my name was even on the thing, but it was just a beautiful shot because you saw the stadium in the background. I think this was in the 1988 timeframe. I think just in constant movement is probably what they would have seen. I was a total explorer of the campus, so if I wasn’t running I was always moving from point A to point B. I studied hard and had a lot of good friends so we went out a lot, but I think just that sort of almost constant exploration was probably what they would have seen from me.
TMD: You’ve covered war zones, natural disasters and pandemics. How do you personally process the trauma and intensity of the stories that you cover?
SG: I think it’s really hard. I think there are some people that are frankly much better at it than I am, but it’s one of those things where I have a very close family so I have great support when I get home. My wife’s a U-M grad as well, but I think at the same time, you don’t necessarily want to share a lot of the more tragic stories which you’ve experienced in those places because you don’t want to burden people with it. A lot of it is talking to my colleagues that were on the ground with me and making sure I stay connected to them and that we sort of take care of each other. I think the idea of continuously leaning into it can be a little dangerous. I think that might be something that starts to define you, but making sure you take stock of yourself, that you’re really honest with yourself about how much some things affected you and then talk to your colleagues about it — people who really understand from being on the ground there.
TMD: In an age of misinformation, especially around health, what’s one story you wish every American understood correctly?
SG: The story of the scientific process and how we actually grow our knowledge as humans is one of the greatest stories. The idea of someone saying, “Okay I have an idea on something: Here’s my hypothesis. I’m gonna figure out a way to test it, to replicate it, to draw conclusions from it.” I think it’s just an amazing story of ingenuity, of innovation. I think a lot of times people expect health science and medical science to be like math — two plus two is four — to be these sort of fixed things, but I think the story of how we continuously grow our knowledge, that we know so much more than we knew 10 years ago and far more than we knew 100 years ago and how we evolve as a society, is a great story. I think a lot of times people read a headline — new therapeutic for pancreatic cancer, new medication to treat pain — but I like to really dig into how they arrived at these grand headlines and breakthroughs. So the why behind the what. I’ll give an example: There’s a new pain medication that was approved in January of this year. It actually came about because these researchers found this group of circus performers in Pakistan who seemed to have no pain. They studied them and they learned that they had a gene in common and that gene actually protected them against pain, and then they replicated what that gene does with this new medication. I think if you explain how something was developed, maybe it makes it less frightening, maybe more accessible.
TMD: At any given time, you might be in the operating room performing a surgery or on air breaking down a global health crisis. How do you juggle those two lives — and how do you know which version of yourself needs to show up that day?
SG: I’ve been sort of living this bifurcated life now for 25 years. If there’s ever a decision that needs to be made, am I being a doctor, am I being a journalist? If there’s doctor duties, I’m a doctor first. So that has not been a huge challenge for me and I think everyone I work with understands that as well. There have been times when I’ve had to go into a story late. For example, the earthquake in Haiti happened on a Tuesday. I operated Monday, so everyone on my team realized I had come in as I was done operating after I made sure my patients were okay. The interesting thing is, many times in the field I’ve been asked to be a doctor as well. So I’ve in the moment had to juggle those responsibilities. But doctor first, journalism second. No one is going to die if I’m not on TV right away reporting a story.
TMD: What’s a book, podcast or film you wish every U-M student would engage with before graduating?
SG: I’m a big reader. A book that I highly recommend, even to my own daughter who is starting at the University, is called — it’s a weird one — “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.” It’s written by this evolutionary biologist, Robert Sapolsky. It’s a good sized read but I think the headline sort of says it all. A zebra, if it’s being chased by a predator, its stress levels are through the roof not surprisingly; but as soon as it is no longer being chased, it is happily grazing, not a care in the world. What do we learn from that? Stress I bring up because I’ve been talking to so many students lately, and anxiety is just something that comes up almost always within the first few minutes of the conversation. They say, “I don’t want stress,” and I say to them, “Stress is not the enemy.” Not only is it good, it’s necessary. It’s what gets you out of bed; it’s what makes you study for a test. The problem is the relentless nature of stress. Zebras have stress, it’s what keeps them alive, but then they’re happily grazing. So I think finding your happily grazing moments is one of the big lessons from that book and I would recommend everyone read that and sort of internalize some of those thoughts.
TMD: If you had to write one final column for The Daily — knowing it would be your last — what would it be about?
SG: I think the last column that I would write would be something that would be optimistic and inspirational. It would reflect the fact that, after traveling all over the world, more than 100 countries around the world, seeing what I’ve seen, I’d bet on mankind surviving and thriving and I’d bet on something known as reciprocal altruism. In fact, I might even title the column “Reciprocal altruism,” which basically is this idea that it feels good to do good, which is kind of a surprising thing because biologically, we always learn survival of the fittest and rugged individualism, and yet we all as humans have this gene that is part of our DNA where we feel good if you do something nice for somebody else. Why would that be if it was about rugged individualism? Why did we evolve that way as humans? I would explore that theme and I would tell stories from the field where people rose up in situations of tremendous challenge and remind people that when they were helping others, when they were philanthropic, when they were charitable, they not only helped that person and that person benefitted, but the giver, the philanthropic person, also felt good and they also benefitted. I’d explain this biological concept, explain why it makes me optimistic and use it as a rationale as to why I’m betting on mankind.
TMD: Your parents worked at Ford Motor Company, and you’ve always stayed close to your Michigan roots. Are you still a Ford guy? What do you drive now — and is there a dream car in the picture?
SG: Yup, I’m a Ford guy. We’re a Ford family. I drive a Ford Bronco. My mom was the first woman engineer hired at Ford Motor Company and we’re very proud of that. She was a refugee from the other side of the world and she became an engineer and then the first woman engineer at that. The roots run deep. I married a woman who’s also a U-M grad, whose father also worked for Ford Motor Company. For us, Michigan is not just a football team that we root for on Saturdays, it’s a way of life and it’s in our blood for sure. We’re true blue through and through.
TMD: If you had to take a random class at the University right now, no grades — what would it be?
SG: Anything related to artificial intelligence. I’m teaching myself a lot. There’s certain things that you guys get to learn right now that I wish I was in university learning. I end up self-learning a lot, but I think AI. And if there was a specific one about the impact of AI on health care, I would definitely take that.
Senior News Editor Emma Spring can be reached at sprinemm@umich.edu.
