Miriam Mutebi, Breast Surgical Oncologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at the Aga Khan University Hospital, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room… You just need a perspective the room doesn,t have.
Picture this:
Faculty from medicine, engineering, business, policy, and public health gathered in one room. They are not there to present their work, but to listen to yours.
That’s Grand Rounds at Stanford University. Standing at that podium, there’s a moment where you think: ‘Wait… they want to hear from me?’
What became clear quickly is that contribution matters more than credentials. My perspective was grounded in cancer care in Africa. In health systems that function despite constraints. In cervical cancer elimination, where women still die from a preventable disease, not because we lack tools, but because access remains uneven.
I spoke about:
- Implementation challenges that don’t show up in clinical trials
- Cultural contexts textbooks overlook
- Systems that survive through resilience, not resources
- Patients who teach us more than any dataset
The room leaned in. Real academic exchange is multidirectional. The questions sharpened my thinking. The frameworks shared expanded my own. The engineers saw problems differently, and so did I.
Teaching at Stanford reminded me that contribution moves conversations forward. And honestly? That’s what matters most.
Q: What’s a room where you brought a perspective others didn’t have? What did you learn?”
More posts featuring Miriam Mutebi.