What is your job/position?
I'm an academic physician at the Stanford Cancer Center. I write, podcast, teach, and care for patients with cancer.
Describe the path that took you from your American Studies degree to your current career or life situation.
I knew coming back from my mission in 2001 that I wanted to enter a field where I could help people and see that help directly as a result of what I did. Doctoring seemed like a good option. I also knew I wanted to ground my life in a liberal arts education that I probably could not get as an aspiring physician—unless it was part of my undergraduate degree. American Studies turned out to be the perfect major because it allowed me the perfect degree of flexibility to study the liberal arts while also preparing for medical school.
After graduating from BYU, I attended the University of Pennsylvania for medical school and then came to Stanford University to complete my internal medicine and oncology training. I joined the faculty of the Stanford School of Medicine in 2016 upon completion of my training.
I currently write widely about religion, culture, medicine, and ethics. I am on the editorial boards of both Wayfare and BYU Studies and co-host the podcast "The Doctor's Art," which is one of the most listened to medical podcasts in the world. I am one of the primary faculty members for both medical students and oncology fellows at the medical school.
What are the specific competencies you cultivated as an American Studies student that you now use in your professional life and that set you apart from your colleagues?
Increasingly, I am defining my career precisely by my ability to analyze, interpret, and synthesize a wide variety of cultural and medical sources. My writing evinces this unusual approach to being a doctor and my podcast, arguably, even more so. On the podcast, I engage with a wide variety of guests, and my ability to discuss issues ranging from religion to ethics to cultural history to literature is the only thing that allows the podcast to be what it is. American Studies has also allowed me to remain an engaged citizen who attempts to affect the world around him for good.
What do you wish you had known as an American Studies student? What advice would you share with current students?
American Studies can be a fantastic foundation for becoming just about anything you want (short of pursuing a job that requires a specific, technical degree, like engineering). Having said that, an American Studies major is as an American Studies major does. I don't know the details of the requirements for graduating with an American Studies degree now, but in the past they were purposefully flexible. If that remains the case, it means that you could use the flexibility to skim over the content and do the least work possible. Or, you can use this as a grounding in the liberal arts to launch a lifetime of rigorous study and intellectual engagement.
*You can contact Tyler with questions about his American Studies story at tylerpjohnson@gmail.com.