66 | Dr. Amanda Hall on the American status quo, neurodiversity & emergency medicine

Born to a Jewish yenta from Brooklyn with aspirations to be the next Barbra Streisand, and a doctor from the suburbs with public service aspirations but accommodation of theatrical yearnings due to said yenta’s unparalleled sense of humour, Dr. Hall acknowledges the privileges she has been granted, with a keen eye on leveraging them for change.

A lifelong pursuit of critical self-reflection was born during one long hot high school summer cleaning M16 assault rifles for the Israeli Army, at the behest of her assimilated Jewish parents. If a young girl, with little understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict, could be enticed to send soldiers off to kill with sparkling clean weapons, what other global catastrophes might ensue with the help of hapless minds susceptible to demagoguery? And thus a university entrance essay was produced that gained her matriculation to the hallowed halls of Brown, then Harvard Universities.

With an honours degree in The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics and a Doctorate of Medicine, Dr. Hall built her career in the specialty of Emergency Medicine. Her work is fueled by a dedication to improving lives, grappling with inequities, and bearing witness to human suffering with humility and gratitude. Her calling to serve has taken her to the rural outposts of Haiti, the public hospitals of inner-city America and both Auckland and Middlemore Hospitals- with a side trip to climb Mt. Everest along the way. She is a lover of languages (determined not to let Google translate rob her of her pride in hard-earned fluency in Spanish, French and competence in Russian), a mum, and a fierce advocate for subverting the status quo.

Her involvement with The Observatory is the culmination of several decades of thought and work around what it means to actually care for a population’s health; something much more profound and complex than routine healthcare. It also marks her increasing transition into the realm of innovation around problems of inequity.

If she thought jumping out of rescue helicopters was scary, she’ll be the first to admit that changing the world for the neurodiverse, her own children included, is even more terrifying. Because nothing worth doing could be anything else.

In this episode, we discuss her journey into medicine from quantum mechanics, the inspirations she drew from her late father, Professor Rosenberg, linked in the episode description below. We also discuss comparisons in the state of education and healthcare between New Zealand and the United States, and her decision to move to New Zealand. We talk about parenting and a work-life balance in the setting of emergency medicine, and raising neurodiverse, foster children. Finally, we talk about what neurodiversity looks like in medicine, and her mahi in The Observatory.

Organisations mentioned:
www.theobservatory.foundation
www.brainbadge.org

Professor Rosenberg (Dr. Hall's father): 
The Rosenberg Annual Lecture: https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/events/2021-rosenberg-lecture-healthcare-quality