It’s a shame people won’t hear your charming British accent in this Q&A.
I’m really charmed by American accents. My favorites are the ones from the South.
I don’t believe you. I have a British friend, and whenever he wants to say something stupid, he affects an American accent.
That’s unfair. Southern accents are charming. I especially like when people have the drawl or a Mississippi twang. So if you could affect any of that, it would help the interview.
Before you came to the Morning News, you were a disease detective for the Centers for Disease Control. What’s a disease detective?
You get sent to far-flung places to stop outbreaks from spreading.
What was the most far-flung place you had to go to?
The inner depths of Arizona, places that a British person probably should not be going to. I investigated an outbreak of flesh-eating bacteria on the Navajo Nation reservation.
You started at the paper in May 2014, though they share you with UTD, where you’re a professor. With all your degrees, why would you, an actual doctor, come over to journalism?
My first-ever visit to a newsroom was at the Washington Post, in summer of 2013. They all just looked at me and said, “What are you doing? You’re a doctor. You can get a better job.” My question is, How can you be a doctor, how can you be a disease detective and not want to share those stories? It’s just ripe for storytelling. So journalism felt like a perfect fit.
You’re still a cub reporter in many ways. You’ve only been at it for a year. What has surprised you most about the job?
Ebola coming to Dallas. I had been feeling guilty about being a journalist while Ebola was unfolding in West Africa. I thought, “What am I doing? I should be there. My former colleagues are there. I am so useless.” We always knew that the outbreak would spread. I just thought it would be my hometown of London or Toronto or New York. The fact that it came to Dallas reaffirmed that it’s important to be here to tell those stories in a way that people really understand, to allay their anxieties and fears.
To what do you attribute the growing number of parents who are opting out of vaccines?
It’s fear. It’s people listening to ill-informed politicians and journalists who are spewing anti-science. It’s really frustrating. During Ebola, I heard of parents going to physicians and saying, “I want the Ebola vaccine for my kid.” It’s like, “There isn’t an Ebola vaccine, but I recommend that your kid get the flu shot.” “No, no. I don’t believe in that.” We have all of this evidence that the measles vaccine is safe and effective. But that one paper that came out in 1998—even though it was discredited, even though it was retracted and a physician lost his medical license—it did so much damage.
I understand you’re a registered yoga instructor. Do you have a class I can take?
I was doing one in the basement of the newsroom. The Morning News has a nice gym. But I had to cancel teaching that class because I got so busy reporting.
That’s a shame. This is my professional advice to you. I don’t think the journalism thing is going to work out. Scale that back. And focus more on yoga.
Thanks for your vote of confidence. The journalism thing is working out quite well. But, yes, I’ll always have yoga to fall back on, if not medicine.
