Teresa Lee
In the high-stakes world of pediatric heart transplantation, every saved life is inseparable from another family’s loss. In this episode, Dr. Teresa Lee reflects on the ethical and emotional dimensions of caring for children with heart failure and guiding families through transplant. Drawing inspiration from Maylis de Kerangal’s novel Réparer les vivants, she explores what it means to honor donor families, to sit at the threshold between life and death, and to “repair the living” in more ways than one.
A pediatric cardiologist and physician-scientist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Dr. Lee also discusses how her research on the genetic causes of cardiomyopathy is shaped directly by the patients she serves. From evolving her own emotional boundaries to finding rare moments of silence and reflection during her time as a Faculty Visitor at Reid Hall in Paris, she offers a meditation on medicine not only as science, but as a practice of care.
Atelier is produced by the Columbia Global Paris Center, a Columbia University initiative housed at Reid Hall.
Teresa Lee is an Assistant Professor of Pediatric Cardiology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She is board certified in pediatrics, pediatric cardiology with advanced training in heart failure/transplantation, and clinical genetics. As a physician-scientist, her research is focused on identifying novel genetic causes of cardiomyopathy in children. Her current research focus under the National Heart Lung Blood Institute K23 Award and Children’s Cardiomyopathy Foundation Research Grant has been on infantile cardiomyopathy. She is also involved in the Pediatric Cardiomyopathy Research and actively involved in its research efforts to understand the genetic causes of cardiomyopathy in the pediatric population.
