Translating discovery into care
In this episode of the Imagine A World podcast, host Sydney Hunt (2023 cohort) interviews fellow host Anson Zhou (2024 cohort) alongside special guest host Katherine Hu (2022 cohort). Anson imagines a world where all medical discoveries successfully translate into patient care. He discusses how his experiences in research, consulting, and clinical rotations deepened his commitment to addressing the “translation gap” in medicine—ensuring that innovations reach the patients who need them most.
Guest
Anson Zhou, from Medford, New York, is pursuing an MD at Stanford School of Medicine and an MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering. Anson aspires to bridge engineering, business, and medicine to catalyze translation of healthcare and life science innovations.
At Johns Hopkins, he conducted research in biomaterials for regenerative medicine at the Institute for NanoBioTechnology. This led to him co-founding Innerva, where he developed devices to treat peripheral nerve injuries. He interned at Health Advances and Schrödinger, building strategies for therapeutics adoption and computational drug discovery. Anson also worked as a fellow at Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures and NeuroTech Harbor to support funding efforts across the life sciences. Since graduating, he has worked as an associate consultant at Bain & Company in its private equity practice. He received a Lemelson-MIT Student Prize.
Imagine A World team
Imagine A World's theme music was composed and recorded by Taylor Goss (2021 cohort). The podcast was originally conceived and led by Briana Mullen (2020 cohort), Taylor Goss, and Willie Thompson (2022 cohort), along with Daniel Gajardo (2020 cohort) and Jordan Conger (2020 cohort).
Knight-Hennessy scholars represent a vast array of cultures, perspectives, and experiences. While we as an organization are committed to elevating their voices, the views expressed are those of the scholars, and not necessarily those of KHS.
Full transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated by machine and lightly edited by humans. They may contain errors.
Anson Zhou:
In the beginning of the year, you learn some of the basic procedures, suturing, Foley catheters, IVs, EKG, so on and so forth, and they have you, just throw you in the ringer, and they're like, "All right, go work a shift in the ER." And I was feeling quirky, so I was like, "Let me sign up for a weekend, midnight shift."
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my gosh.
Anson Zhou:
Sort of like a 10:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. shift.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah.
Anson Zhou:
It was so much. I actually ended up staying later, until like 5:30, because there was just so much going on. Hi, my name is Anson. I'm in the 2024 cohort of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program. I'm an MD MBA student at the School of Medicine and the Graduate School of Business. I imagine a world where all medical discoveries successfully translate into patient care.
Sydney Hunt:
Welcome to the Imagine A World podcast from Knight-Hennessy Scholars. We are here to give you a glimpse into the Knight-Hennessy Scholar community of graduate students, all seven Stanford schools, including Business, Education, Engineering, Humanities, Law, Medicine, and Sustainability. In each episode, we talk with scholars about the world they imagine and what they are doing to bring it to life. My name is Sydney and today we'll be chatting with Anson, a second year MD MBA student who envisions a world where all medical discoveries successfully translate into patient care. This is a very special episode because not only are we interviewing Anson, one of our Imagine A World co-hosts.
Our guest co-host is Kathy. Kathy is a 2021 Knight-Hennessy Scholar who mentored Anson in undergrad when he was a freshman and she was a senior on the same biomedical engineering design team at Johns Hopkins University. Stay tuned for the story on how Anson discovered his passions across science, medicine, and business, some rapid fire questions from his best friend in medical school, and as always, his favorite improbable fact and advice for those applying to Knight-Hennessy.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Imagine A World. My name is Sydney and I am a third year PhD candidate in electrical engineering and part of the 2023 Knight-Hennessy Scholars cohort. Today I am really, really excited for this episode because, one, we get to interview my fellow friend and co-host Anson, but two, we have a super special guest co-host who you'll hear later in this episode why they're so special to Anson and why we are so excited to have them on this podcast. So without further ado, my second, my other co-host, do you want to go ahead and please introduce yourself?
Kathy Hu:
Yes. Thank you so much for having me, Sydney, and Anson too. I'm super, super excited to be here. My name is Kathy. I'm part of the 2022 Knight-Hennessy Scholars cohort and I'm also MD MBA student. I've completed three years of my MD here already and just recently started the first year of my MBA.
Sydney Hunt:
Perfect. Okay. Well, we're excited to have you, Kathy, here bright and early this morning. This will go on record, the earliest podcast I think we'll probably ever do. We left our building at 6:00 a.m., and it's absolutely worth it, and life of trying to interview a medical student, right?
Kathy Hu:
Yeah. Two medical students.
Sydney Hunt:
Two medical students. Exactly.
Kathy Hu:
And an engineering [inaudible 00:03:32].
Sydney Hunt:
Both in scrubs right now.
Kathy Hu:
Exactly.
Anson Zhou:
Yes.
Sydney Hunt:
They're superficial. All right. Anson, welcome to the pod. How does it feel to be on the other side?
Anson Zhou:
It's a little weird to be on the other side, but I'm psyched for it, so I'm excited.
Sydney Hunt:
You're going to do great. I can't wait. I can't wait. Okay, so first step, before we talk about your Imagine A World statement, can you explain to the audience how you know Kathy and why it's so special that she gets to be your co-host here today?
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. Well, I think it's pretty obvious just from our intros that we have a lot in similar or a lot that's similar, but even more than that, she actually knew me when I was a freshman in college.
Kathy Hu:
Oh my God.
Sydney Hunt:
A wee little freshman.
Anson Zhou:
A very small freshman. How many years ago?
Kathy Hu:
Many, many years ago.
Anson Zhou:
Was this like six, seven years ago?
Sydney Hunt:
Wow.
Anson Zhou:
Oh geez.
Kathy Hu:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, six years ago.
Anson Zhou:
But I was a freshman, she was a senior and we actually studied the same major in college.
Sydney Hunt:
Wow.
Anson Zhou:
And at Hopkins they have a really cool design team program that they allow freshmen to participate in, and Kathy serendipitously, who was my team lead, and she recruited me onto her team, and I will give her credit that that experience really set me on a path that I'm in right now and allowed me to uncover a lot of the interests I didn't know that I had. So it's really nice and full circle that more than half a decade later, we can have her come on as a co-host to sort of tell that story, so I think this is going to be so fun.
Kathy Hu:
Yeah. I remember I was the leader of this design team and it was kind of my senior year. It was kind of my capstone experience in a sense, and I was really excited but also nervous about how my team would come together, and we hand-picked Anson-
Sydney Hunt:
Wow.
Kathy Hu:
... from the crowd of excited freshmen. I remember being really impressed by how excited he was and just the energy and the personality that he brought to the team and it has been so heartwarming and meaningful to me to see his growth all this time from someone who was excited about everything and then ultimately figuring out where his passions were. And now we're literally here six years later, other side of the country, but also together. I'm really looking forward to seeing him grow as a MD student here, and also when he gets to the MBA, he's going to tell me about that, too, so it's good time.
Sydney Hunt:
I can't wait. That's so beautiful. And I think it's also very special because Anson was a freshman when COVID hit, and so to be able to have that long-lasting friendship, not just between you two, but I heard your group chat is still active between-
Anson Zhou:
It's still active.
Sydney Hunt:
... your design team.
Anson Zhou:
Yes. Pedia feed. Will shout out.
Kathy Hu:
Heck yes. Pedia feed. Check us out.
Sydney Hunt:
That's awesome. Yeah. Very, very impressive. Okay, so now we know we have two MD MBA students and both here now in KH and also at Stanford, three years apart, and seems like there's a lot of similarities, but as cool as that is, today is about Anson, our star, our shining light. Before we talk about the world you imagine, let's talk about the world you were born into and have experienced thus far. Where are you from and what was your journey here?
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. I'm originally from New York, and I love to talk about this because I put on my Instagram bio, New York, California, and I feel like those are the two best states in the country and I feel like-
Sydney Hunt:
They are. As a fellow New Yorker, I can agree.
Anson Zhou:
... it's such a flex, exactly, to tell people, "Yeah, I live in California now, but I'm from New York." It feels so good to say it. But that's where I was born, and then lived there for a couple of years and actually moved to China when I was around four or five. This was right before the recession. I think a lot of companies were trying to grow in China, and then obviously my dad spoke Chinese, so they had him go over there to help with some of the expansion in China, so I actually ended up for a little over two years at international school there and that ended up being a super interesting experience. And my family's Cantonese, so I actually knew zero Mandarin when I moved to... I lived in Suzhou, China, which is a little bit south of Shanghai, and it was just really interesting meeting people from all over the world. It was like low-key super bougie, which I was not used to coming from. It's like regular old suburban Long Island.
And then eventually we left to come back because our entire family is in New York, having immigrated there a couple of decades prior. And then just spent the next 13 years, 12 years growing up on Long Island in the burbs and then ended up going to Hopkins for undergrad, studied biomedical engineering where I met Kathy. I think one thing to point out is actually I'm a twin, my twin brother named Justin.
Sydney Hunt:
Who's older? Who's older?
Anson Zhou:
He's older by four minutes, if that counts.
Sydney Hunt:
Four minutes. Okay. It doesn't count.
Anson Zhou:
I don't know if it counts, but yeah, it was very funny. We were always not super similar, but I mean, when you're twins growing up, it's just like you get compared. He was a valedictorian. I was not. It was just this whole thing. But anyway, we ended up both going to Hopkins together, both studied biomedical engineering, but we actually ended up making our own friends. And honestly, there were days even when we lived together that I wouldn't see them for three days at a time. And I think that was a good thing, because I don't know if you know, in elementary schools and middle schools, they deliberately tried to separate twins-
Sydney Hunt:
Twins? Oh, okay.
Anson Zhou:
... to encourage social growth because I think there's a tendency for them to be attached. I think going to college, I had a little bit of that fear, but I ended up working out and even though we were in a lot of the classes together, we sort of went our own paths. I say that knowing what I'm going to say next, which is after graduating we both moved to D.C. to become consultants.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my gosh. Did you talk about that or did that just happen?
Anson Zhou:
It just happened. Honestly, he was interested in going to business first a lot earlier than me. It was something I discovered a little bit later in part talking to Kathy and hearing about her route through consulting.
Kathy Hu:
Well, it was really interesting because I remember when you guys both came to Hopkins and it was kind of like the senior design team leaders looking at the freshmen and all that and seeing who'd we pick. I remember seeing you both and you guys actually had distinct personalities and distinct I think interests and talents at that time. And I think Justin ended up being on my best friend's design team.
Anson Zhou:
Oh, yeah, Maya.
Kathy Hu:
We actually got to know him pretty well, too.
Sydney Hunt:
Small world.
Kathy Hu:
It's a really small world.
Anson Zhou:
Oh, actually I think it was, so they had these awards at the end of freshman year for best freshmen like XYZ, I think, what are you, like project manager or something?
Kathy Hu:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anson Zhou:
And then me and him ended up winning that.
Sydney Hunt:
Really?
Kathy Hu:
They're like the dynamic duo, but I feel like were together but also apart. So I think you saw that in college that you guys developed really pretty distinct paths, but like you said, coalesced maybe a little bit after college.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. But it was nice. I think it's good to have a support system, especially how tough, I had a really tough time in college, I think especially in the beginning, and then the transition out of college is also hard. So it was nice for the first year for us to both be in, we're in the D.C. area, living in Arlington, to have that. So actually for the first time when I started med school, it's like the first time we were not in the same area in the 23 years of life.
Sydney Hunt:
Is he still in D.C. right now?
Anson Zhou:
He's still in D.C. right now. Maybe he will move out to California. He's been talking about it. So we'll see what the future has in store, but that'd be pretty funny.
Kathy Hu:
Yeah. Do you miss him?
Anson Zhou:
No, I'm kidding. A little bit. But we do like texts fairly frequently.
Kathy Hu:
You guys are opposite sides of the country right now.
Anson Zhou:
We do keep each other updated, so it's good. It's good.
Kathy Hu:
So Anson, I wanted to learn a little bit more about, you said you studied biomedical engineering when you went into college, but at that point you had some undifferentiated that sort of got a little bit more clear as you went throughout college. Could you say maybe a little bit more about what sparked this initial interest in biomedical engineering, like why that at first and then how did it sort of change throughout undergrad?
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. I think when I was applying to colleges in high school, in the back of my head I'm like, "I'm never doing engineering. I'm never doing it." Because I honestly struggled a lot with math. I think I was a pretty good student in high school and everything came pretty easy to me except for math. I was bad at math in part because I think I always missed a lot of the little details, which probably doesn't sound very good for a aspiring clinician.
Sydney Hunt:
No. Hey, this is high school version of Anson, okay?
Anson Zhou:
This is high school version of me. But that was sort of something, an issue I always ran into. My dad studied engineering when he was in undergrad and then actually transitioned later in his career into more sales and business development. So he always had this idea, he's like, "Oh yeah, you guys should be engineers, you should, and then do business afterwards." I was like, "Nah, I don't want to do..." No one wants to really do what their parents do, I think, in a lot of cases, so I sort of was turned off by that idea. But obviously I think for people who want to do biomedical engineering, Hopkins is really known for their program and I was an aspiring pre med, so obviously I was going to apply to Hopkins and I was like, "Why the heck not? Let me apply to BME." Because I think for pragmatic reasons, you can get in as a freshman and then if you don't want to do it anymore, you can leave and transfer to another program. But once you get admitted, you can't transfer into BME. That's sort one of the quirks about the program.
So I think I just decided, I did some BME related research when I was in high school, kind of liked it. I was like, "Why not? Let's do it." And ended up getting admitted. And I think it's hard to say no once you're in it. There's sort of this golden handcuffs moment, because they treat you pretty well. There's a lot of really cool opportunities that you have access to. So that's how I got locked into engineering even though initially I was like, "I would never do it." But what happened was I ended up joining a lab pretty early. In high school I mentioned I was doing some bioengineering related research more in the material science side. Really liked it, so I ended up joining this lab, the [inaudible 00:13:29] lab in the material science and biomedical engineering departments that did a lot of really cool stuff sort of across the gamut. It's like tissue regeneration, drug delivery, all of that.
And started pretty early as a freshman because I knew what I wanted to do, but that I think was where I initially started developing interest on the business and translation side of things, and that really got catalyzed when I started design team starting around the spring semester at Hopkins. Just to give a little bit of background, the lab that I worked in, very translation oriented. I would think a lot of the research was almost productized engineering focused. So a lot of the things that we thought about I felt like weren't common in some of my previous research experiences. So what would the target product profile look like? How do we think about usability, like storage, all those different considerations for something to actually become a utilized product.
And on top of that, we had a lot of industry collaborations with startups and larger companies that would have their teams collaborate with us, give us funding, and of course those considerations became even more emphasized in those types of partnerships. And on top of that, there's a couple startups that spun out of the lab as well. I think some of them are actually in inhuman clinical trials now, which is super exciting.
Sydney Hunt:
It's impressive, yeah.
Anson Zhou:
So simultaneous to that, when I started design team, a huge part is doing business plan competitions and getting funding so that you could continue on your work, and like Kathy and some of the other older members on the team who had some experience in that really mentored me and helped me learn about what is a CAGR, like how do you calculate a market size? And I was immediately super drawn to that. And even pitching, teaching me how to pitch compellingly was I think an extremely big skill that I was able to carry through all of undergrad.
Kathy Hu:
Why do you think you were so interested in particularly the business side of these things? I feel like a lot of times when we talk to scientists or engineers, they're really excited about developing the product or translating an idea to a prototype. But I think you have a lot of really interesting and unique experience translational side. How do you get a product to actually market or how do you make the entire world know about it? So can you tell us a little about that?
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. I think initially when I foraying into these areas, it was much more like a gut feeling. I was just like, "This is interesting. Let me do it." But I think in retrospect having gone through a couple different experiences that intersect those two areas, it made me realize how big of an issue it is. When you talk to, I actually had this argument a lot with some of my lab members when we're working on research projects, they would only focus on the technical aspect. And I'm like, that's probably fine to optimize for that if you're doing discovery or something like that. But if you're trying to build a product for someone to use someday, you have to start thinking about that from the very beginning, because it's very hard to achieve this profile and then backtrack and start pulling things away. That's actually very unoptimized, right, where you start removing. You have to build from the bottom up with those considerations in hand, and I think that kind of idea became even more prominent when I started doing internships.
So I interned at the same healthcare consulting company that Kathy interned at a couple years ago.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my god.
Kathy Hu:
Yeah.
Sydney Hunt:
So cute.
Kathy Hu:
He's following in my footsteps.
Anson Zhou:
I know. Just like following her footsteps.
Sydney Hunt:
That's so cute.
Anson Zhou:
And there's actually a fairly big alumni pool in KH from that-
Sydney Hunt:
Really? No way.
Anson Zhou:
... really way from that very, very small firm. There's another person in my year, Isha, who is also interned the same year as I did.
Kathy Hu:
Yeah. Shout out-
Sydney Hunt:
Wow.
Kathy Hu:
... health advance.
Anson Zhou:
The health advances, a super awesome experience. I think really the first time I rigorously was pursuing those two things simultaneously. I remember working on a project, I'll keep it vague, but it just became extremely obvious that even though they passed through all the regulatory hurdles, their team had no clinicians and no scientists on it, their go-to-market team, and it was clear that there was this almost siloing between the teams that are trying to bring this to patients. And because of that, their entire adoption got delayed by years, and they lost-
Sydney Hunt:
Years. Okay, wow.
Anson Zhou:
... millions and millions of dollars. They had to think about how they're going to sell their product to another buyer because they were running out of cash to use. So it just became a whole mess. And I actually knew patients personally who would've benefited from a therapeutic like that, but because of the fact that it took so many years for it to come out, even though it had passed all the technical hurdles, they weren't able to use it unfortunately. And I think that type of thing, I saw time and time again where it almost was an afterthought. Translation was an afterthought, but it needs to be something that's in the beginning. And that's a really hard problem, right, because if you're a scientist, you want to focus on the science. If you're a business person, you're not really going to be brought in until the business part is directly relevant and you have something that's past these early preclinical stages of development.
But I think what I realized is how do we change the paradigm where we have people who have a fluency across those different disciplines, be involved from the very early stages so you don't make those mistakes or you at least reduce the frequency of those mistakes from the onset. And I think with that type of interdisciplinary thinking can really increase the success rate of translation. We see this number thrown around all the time that the vast majority of therapeutics fail and part of it's technical, right, it doesn't pass through, like preclinical assays maybe doesn't pass through clinical trials, but a huge part is adoption as well. And a big thing that comes to mind is all this hype about all this Alzheimer's drugs that were in the last couple years and analysts were throwing these crazy projections of these blockbuster drugs, but for a lot of different reasons. It just like-
Sydney Hunt:
It doesn't happen.
Anson Zhou:
... flopped. Doesn't work. So I think those are examples where we want those drugs and those therapeutics to succeed, but if you don't think about it in the right way from early onset, you have these situations where you have high expectations that are eventually not met.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And it sounds like you have some really formative experiences through mentorship or just actually seeing this in real life of things, not being able to reach their full potential. And it makes sense, right, why this is your imaginal world statement.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, totally.
Sydney Hunt:
But my next question is how does a clinical side fit in? Like why MD plus MBA?
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. In my head, and I sort of wrote about this in my KH essay actually, is I think the three pillars of medical and healthcare innovation is a science and engineering aspect, the business translation and the clinical aspect, and the clinical aspect is that key differentiator I think between all other industries. I think if you think tech or any of other startups or innovation, I think science and business are really the two key pillars and then the users are going to be any spread of the gamut, right, like the typical consumer or an enterprise use. But I think because of the complexity of healthcare, the perspective is so important and I think the psychology of whether a clinician is going to use something is dependent on so many factors that it's just impossible for simply interviewing a couple doctors to get the full picture.
There's considerations from the reimbursement side because a lot of times doctors have to substantiate why they're doing a test, why they're prescribing something also not going to get reimbursed and the patient's going to have to pay for it. We also think about how competitive the industry is in terms of there's so many drugs out there. There's so many potential contraindications, every single patient is different. How do they go through that thinking process to determine which option they're going to use given all these different options available? And then obviously region to region clinicians have completely different training and that also dictates how they think about it. So other experiences I've seen is even if you create a great product passes all the safety checks, passes clinical trials, FDA says yes, you still have to pass a hurdle of getting to the doctors, getting to the payers and having them actually use them on their patients.
Because the patients are the ones who are getting the treatment, but they're not the users. They're not the ones making the determination as whether or not they use this given product. And I think that's why you really need to have that clinical perspective, to have that nuance and you can imbue that into the early translation process. I think it's something that's changing a lot more now. I'm on LinkedIn very frequently and I see a lot of these clinicians scholar roles or even clinician AI roles where they're onboarding clinicians to become part of companies from early on, and I think in part to get their perspective, so that can be embedded in the way they design their product or think about marketing their drug. Because even as, like it doesn't sound great to think about, oh, there's all these other factors that are in consideration for developing things that are going to ultimately help patients, right? But that's just a reality of it, and if we're naive to that fact, you just end up having nothing at all.
And I think that's why through my struggles with deciding whether or not to pursue this very, very long path, I ultimately decide to go for it, and I think it's the best decision I've made because honestly, and this is to all the people who are considering medicine out there, a lot of people are going to tell you not to do it. A lot of people are going to say, "It's too long, it's too hard. If you could see yourself doing anything else, go do that." But-
Sydney Hunt:
Why did you do it if you got that advice?
Anson Zhou:
Because I think I realized you don't have to just pick one thing. If you really care about multiple things, you can find a way for them to all meld together, and I think Kathy is an inspiration to me. I think she showed me that that was possible, right? There was obviously a lot of trepidation during my gap year. For example, when I went to work at Bain as a consultant and I was like, "Oh, shoot." Like imagine when they look at my resume or my application. They're like, "Oh, this dude went in, became a consultant in D.C." I did no healthcare, by the way, for the duration of the time I was there. And this doesn't make sense. It's not compelling enough. Clearly very stratified interests. And that's what I heard from a lot of my mentors more on the business side as well. If you've got a knack for business, you should just go for it. The ceiling is endless. You can jump into it right away. But I think two things. One is what I said before. I just asked like, I can do whatever I want to do.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah, it's true.
Anson Zhou:
And if I care enough about it, then I think I can find a way for it to come together. And I think honestly, the experiences I had actually made me very convinced that there was a way for it to come together, even though it's not a super common thing to do.
Kathy Hu:
Yeah. I think what you're saying about this idea of integrating all these different interests I think is really inspiring, and to everyone out there, like you said, it's possible, and I think specifically here at Stanford and at Knight-Hennessy, we have a really special community where I feel like everyone on campus is doing something like interdisciplinary with different people who are subject matter experts, different departments, and it's a really special place for people to kind of develop their varied interests and also find ways to combine them and collaborate with other people. So I'm interested to hear, and so now that you're here at Stanford, how has the community here helped you foster your multi interdisciplinary interests, and how have your interests changed during your time here, too?
Anson Zhou:
I think that precise reason is probably a big reason why most of us chose to come to Stanford is beyond all the incredible things that Stanford offers is just this, and KH specifically, is this ethos of the multidisciplinary. I remember coming for immersion weekend and meeting all these different scholars who Kathy alluded to really are dipping both feet into very different lakes, and they do it in such a compelling way that it was so inspiring. I remember coming back to work the following Monday or Tuesday after immersion weekend. I was like, "Oh, that was actually one of the best weekends I've had really in a really long time."
Sydney Hunt:
Really? That's so good.
Anson Zhou:
I think, one, was so inspiring to see people combine these things that I never knew was possible, and two, actually it was sitting on a panel the other day for some of the admissions reviewers, and I said this very same thing, but just the quality of the questions and engagement that I got from people was something I'd never had before. I think it's very easy to yap at your friends and they're like, "Oh, cool," but there's like no follow up. I think that's fine, but I remember when I was telling people what I was interested in and vice versa, just the level and depth of the questions that they were able to ask, even though they had nothing to do with my field, which is incredible, and I think it pushed me to think harder from perspectives I never had before. So I think in a non-tangible way, that's one of the things I've noticed in terms of the work that I do now, like obviously AI in healthcare is a huge thing, and I think through my experiences I became really interested in this hyper growth.
So we think about startups, you really jump in the matter of months too exploding, and that phenomenon is so exciting to me and I think that's an area I'm starting to focus more on now. I'm working in a couple labs that look at language models and also computer vision for healthcare applications and how do we develop tools in a fair and a bias way and also think about deployment. Because from my imagine the world statement, I think the ability to translate is a key thing, and in the context of healthcare AI, I think deployment is sort of that key factor. And what's really exciting there compared to say pharmaceuticals and devices is that you get a couple chances and you can iterate. You can deploy something really quickly, beta test it, get feedback, and then fix it and then do it again. Obviously you don't want to do too many times you're going to start angering some people.
But that became really exciting to me that you can run little experiments on systems or on people in order to see what they like and what works and then change your product from there. And I think that's also sort of this nexus of all this interdisciplinary thinking from the business, from the engineering, from the clinical side, and I've seen that more than ever before here at Stanford, even amongst faculty, amongst other students, and I think through that I've been able to do some really cool work. Like I spent the last summer at Microsoft working on research strategy for them, thinking about medical AI moonshots, thinking about things from a venture capital perspective, and then even working with some of the AI institutes here and thinking about how can we do more to think about healthcare.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah. Yeah. Wow, you got your hands full, Anson. Very, very busy student. But I hear the passion in your voice and I think it's very... Just as you talking about Kathy being an inspiration, I feel like there are plenty of people, myself included, who definitely look up to you and have a lot of awe for the way that you're able to, one, find time for all of it, but two, I think approach things with such a genuine curiosity and resilience and just don't want to take no for an answer. I think similar to what you were saying within Knight-Hennessy, you find these people who combine what may initially sound like that's a weird combination. Like, why does that make sense? And then after just two minutes of a conversation, you're convinced that, yeah, actually, we definitely got to get more on this, and so that's really exciting.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah.
Sydney Hunt:
But it sounds like you're doing a lot as far as all this interdisciplinary between the MD and the MBA, but as part of the MD MBA program, you start out, right, with the first few years of medical school. How has the MD been so far? Do you have any experiences with patient interaction or translating to discoveries to patient care slash what's it like being a medical student in general? Anything you expected, unexpected?
Kathy Hu:
Tell us.
Anson Zhou:
Good questions.
Kathy Hu:
A day in the life.
Anson Zhou:
A day in the life.
Sydney Hunt:
A day in the life. Yes. That's what I want to know.
Anson Zhou:
Might have a little video coming out about that. Who knows?
Sydney Hunt:
Stay tuned.
Anson Zhou:
Stay tuned. I think to context that a little bit, I was honestly really scared of coming to medical school in part because of what everyone was saying to me. But the other is that, and I think a lot of pre-meds might be able to relate to this, and I feel a little bad saying it, but honestly, my clinical experiences like volunteering and whatnot in undergrad were bad. I did not enjoy it at all. And I think in retrospect, I understood why it is more this feeling of helplessness, because there's really not much you can do as an undergrad and they just have you stand around and fold blankets or I don't know, whatever, depending on the hospital you're in. And I just really did not like it. There were these flashes of times when I would talk with a patient that I was like, "Okay, I do really enjoy this." But those were very far and few between because generally you don't interact that much with patients anyway.
So I was scared, and one of the mindsets I used to make decisions is, five to 10 years from now, am I going to regret not having done it? That's sort of my north star that I use. I think it's worked out for me pretty well so far. I think I fear regret more than anything else. So you just think about, even if it's really, really hard, it's going to be really, really tough, am I going to regret not having done it? And if the answer's probably yes, then I was like, "Okay, let's just do it." So I came to medical school and I was scared that I'll be like, "Oh my God, what did I just sign myself up for? Maybe I don't like it." But I feel very lucky to say that within the first week or two, the first, like even our fake simulated patient experiences, I fell in love with it and I really, really liked the clinical aspect. It was completely different than what I'd experienced in undergrad. I was telling you all about this before we hopped on recording, but I did my first ED shift over the weekend.
Kathy Hu:
Tell us about that.
Sydney Hunt:
[inaudible 00:31:47].
Anson Zhou:
And it was so fun. Yeah, overnight.
Sydney Hunt:
Well, first, what is ED? What is ED?
Anson Zhou:
Oh, ED. Emergency department.
Sydney Hunt:
Yes.
Anson Zhou:
So this is a part of the second year curriculum. In the beginning of the year, you learn some of the basic procedures, suturing, Foley catheters, IVs, EKG, so on and so forth, and they have you, just throw you in the ringer, and they're like, "All right, go work a shift in the ER." And I was feeling quirky, so I was like, "Let me sign up for a weekend, midnight shift."
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my gosh.
Anson Zhou:
Sort of like a 10:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. shift.
Kathy Hu:
Yeah.
Anson Zhou:
I actually ended up staying later, until like 5:30, because there was just so much going on. I was able to see two traumas, or Palo Alto traumas, I guess.
Kathy Hu:
Someone fell off their horse.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, someone fell off their bike, or something like that. Did a Foley catheter, a couple IVs, EKGs, an arthrocentesis splints.
Kathy Hu:
Wow. Already a natural. I got to do probably like one EKG my first emergency department shift.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, there was a lot going on.
Kathy Hu:
Anson's already going [inaudible 00:32:49].
Anson Zhou:
I still have a lot to learn, but it was really fun. I think really enlightening and I've sort of felt that throughout the entirety of medical school and I feel very, very lucky to say that I don't think for a second I regretted choosing to pursue medicine.
Sydney Hunt:
Nice.
Anson Zhou:
And I think there was a little bit in the back of my head before, especially with all these other interests I've had. It's like, hm, after medical school, do I want to pursue a clinical career? Because honestly at Stanford, that's a question that's asked because there's so many opportunities out there. I think particularly today, there's value for having pursued medical school to do something else. I think this has sort of reinvigorated my passion for medicine. I really want clinical practice to be a significant part of my career, and this goes back to honestly, I can do whatever I want to do. I used to be scared like, oh, I'm going to be so old when I finally become a doctor, but I just say, "Oh, I'd rather be 30 and a doctor than 30 and not a doctor." So it doesn't really matter. Time's going to pass, and it's not like the world stops when you're in training. In fact, I love medical school and I have so much time to pursue other things in addition to medicine, and I just really want to use as an opportunity to set myself up to continue pursuing everything I want to do.
Kathy Hu:
I think it's really cool and inspiring how, like you said, you're literally a med student, right? You're in your second year and even beyond that and you've had a lot of clinical experiences already and these experiences that have shown you, again, your passion for medicine, but then even apart from that, you've been able to do these cool summer internships, you've been able to do research as well and healthcare AI and all that on tying some of your other interests and business and translational medicine into clinical medicine. And I know you still have the MBA ahead of you, so tell us a little bit more about how that fits in. Like what are you excited about? I just started my first, I'm in my second week of the MBA right now and it's very, very different. So I'm curious to hear your thoughts on what you're expecting out of the MBA experience when you start in a few years.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. I think, well, one, I'm very excited for it. I think it'll be a huge change in pace. I don't know if I'm ready for it, but-
Kathy Hu:
You'll be ready. I have confidence in you.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. I think it'll be really fun. So I guess to give people a little bit of context, the structure, this is a question I think me and Kathy both get asked a lot when people hear that we're doing dual degree because schedule's a little funky. Usually what happens is you'll do your first two years of pre-clin. That's how it is at Stanford. So there's lecture based and small group based, and you build the fundamentals of medicine and then in your third year you start jumping into clerkships, which is clinical rotations. You'll start going through the wards and you'll do a rotation like emergency medicine, internal medicine, so on and so forth, and really hone in on those. Usually for the regular MD path. After that, you'll either do a research year, which sometimes people do or you'll continue finish in the four years and you'll do your electives, sub internships, and then apply to residency.
If you do the MBA, your fourth year is what they call a step out year and you end up stepping out of the MD and then doing a full year of MBA. And after you do that full year, your fifth year is sort of a mix. I think you do a little of the MBA, finish up your electives in your sub-Is, and then you graduate actually with your MBA cohort, and then usually with most of your MD cohort, too. Because for those of you who don't know, Stanford tends to really lengthen the MD degree.
Kathy Hu:
Definitely.
Anson Zhou:
Something like, I want to say three-quarters maybe of students end up taking more than four years to graduate. A lot of that is MD-PhD, dual degrees, research years, which I think is a good thing and I really love the flexibility there. I think one of the big things I'm looking forward to is taking all the experiences I've garnered in the first three years of medical school and starting to apply that through an innovation and startups lens. I think from the innovation side, that's something I'm trying to do already. I think one example that comes to mind is at Stanford we have something called the Cardinal Free Clinics, and it serves a dual purpose. Like, one, it helps to serve some of the uninsured population in the Bay Area. So we have a clinic in San Jose and we also have one in the Redwood City area.
I actually help to co-run the neurology clinic, so some of our patients that come in with neurological symptoms can be referred to the clinic, and then we're usually paired with a resident and an attending in neurology to help provide some immediate care and then also do some referrals if necessary and some prescriptions. And some of the work I'm doing from research is actually on computer vision for early diagnosis of various dementias. We're thinking about how can we use at-home tools using motor-based assessments for these really early indicators. Because oftentimes if you're coming in for cognitive tests, you already have signs of cognitive decline. And right now there are some drugs that are out there, and I think I mentioned this before, but they really only work if you intervene very early. So I think early intervention is more important than ever.
And one of the big focuses is how can we make sure that this tool is accessible for everybody? I think one of the really cool things about the free clinic is, one, obviously as a young medical student being able to work directly with these patients who are underserved, uninsured, but how directly it ties to the work I'm doing in AI tooling, right? Because I mentioned before, one of them is how to equate fair systems that can really serve people, and for early detection, a lot of this is going to be used at home by patients of all different backgrounds. And I think honestly interacting with them, not even... Obviously I'm not talking to them about my research. I'm just doing neuro exam and talking to them about how they can work on whatever ailments that they have. But just interacting with them gives me so much perspective on how do we design these tools to be as usable as possible. I feel like I have this whole new perspective of when we're doing design these user studies, I'm like, "Yeah, that's not going to work."
I think from just a couple experiences with these patients, like, "Oh, it's never going to work because of X, Y and Z," and I think this really feeds back to why, even if I wanted to be just an innovator and not do clinical medicine, having that clinical experience is so valuable because that nuance is just impossible to get otherwise. But there's just this intuition that I know clinicians build over decades of clinical practice that they can just imbue into designing things. And obviously there's merit to talking to patients as well, and I'm not saying that that's not important, but I think having both and being that person that has both is so critical and I'm really happy that I've been able to see that so early on, and I'm excited that especially having after done rotations in my third year, I can take those experiences into my MBA year and think about what are the really big problems I'm interested in and how can we solve that through business and innovation and maybe building something. But that's sort of in the works as I'm focusing on passing medical school and making sure I'm not sacrificing that aspect of my education as well because I really want to be good at both.
Kathy Hu:
Yeah. Well, Anson, you are inspiration. I would say me as your once mentor, I'm like, "Anson, please mentor me now." I think it's really, really cool how you've been able to combine all these different interests of yours and really do everything to such an impressive degree it seems like. I think in the future you are going to really make a big impact on this space and you are going to be one of the pioneers to help translate these innovations to the bedside. I think as a future clinician innovator, one thing I'm just curious about, can you tell me about Anson like 10, 15 years from now? How do you envision using your MD MBA in the future? What is your ideal practice scenario and is there a specific specialty you're interested in? Tell us a little bit about future.
Anson Zhou:
I think specialty-wise is a hard problem and you'll see a lot of med students stressing about that first year, second year, third year, fourth year.
Kathy Hu:
Honestly, still, me. Yeah.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, yeah. Still. Yeah, exactly. I think I've sort of tried to approach it in a pretty pragmatic way, because there's pros and cons to everything, right? Like If I pursue something really rigorous, that could be really exciting. For example, plastics research. I worked on that for several years in undergrad, like my lab, a lot of it was reconstructive surgery for peripheral nerves, and that was something that was sort of on my radar. I also really like emergency medicine. I think that was reinvigorated as well during my shift. But at the same time, as I mentioned, I want to do research. I want to do business. I want to do maybe startups and I don't want to be someone who's mediocre at both because I'm sacrificing so much of my time. So there's a bit of give and take. I think I've come to know about myself that I want to do something procedural. I really like working with my hands and that keeps me really excited and tangibility of it is so much fun in medicine.
So I think maybe a general surgery or emergency medicine is something I'm thinking about right now. I've always thought of myself as more of a generalist anyway, like I'm excited by so many different things and I think both those specialties give me the breath that I'm excited for. And then from a more pragmatic lens, and maybe this will help some of the other medical students that are out there thinking about this process and are interested in other things. I think I just realized if I wanted to do plastic surgery or neurosurgery, orthopedics, those are I think, one, very, very competitive. And two, I think because they're very, very competitive, you sort have to put 90% of everything you do towards that specialty, or at least that's sort of the sense that I'm getting. And I don't think I was interested in any of those enough that I'm like, "All my research is going to be focused on that. All my volunteering is going to be focused on that."
Because I think, unfortunately, there is a difference in what I'm interested from the research side and what I'm interested in clinically, and that doesn't work super well I think if you're trying to go for a really competitive specialty, and it worked out for me that I think, as a generalist, there are generalist specialties out there, at least on the onset, and I think they could be a really good fit for me as I pursue it. So I think 10, 15 years from now, I don't know the exact split, but I want clinical practice to be fairly significant. I think I want to work in academic medicine for a couple reasons. I think, one, I think very truly from my heart, especially now that academia is the nexus of innovation for our country, for this world, and investing in that both in our career and with funding is so, so important. And I want to be able to sit there, because one, all the exciting things are happening, but also two, I think that's where translation is the biggest thing. And you can think about all the incentives there. Why would a professor give up their tenure that they've worked decades for to go do a startup that might fail?
Sydney Hunt:
Exactly. Yeah.
Anson Zhou:
How can we build systems and infrastructure that maybe they don't have to sacrifice, that maybe there are other people who can step in and work closely with them to bring their discoveries to reality? Because when I was at Hopkins, I worked at the tech transfer office for a while, and a lot of it was focused on these types of problems, and what we found is the vast majority of these really cool breakthroughs and innovations just sit at. They publish a paper and maybe they'll do a patent, and that's kind of it.
Sydney Hunt:
That's it, yeah.
Anson Zhou:
There's a lot of work to take that next step, so how can we make that better? And I think that's one reason I want to be in academia. I think the second is just how much flexibility there really is because I want to do some clinical medicine because I want to do some research because I want to work with industry and maybe I want to be involved in startups. I don't think there's really any other role that exists out there beyond in academic medicine that you can do that. And there are faculty members here at Stanford and even physicians I've met at Microsoft who do all those different things simultaneously, and it's so incredible and it's so inspiring, and I know it's also a really, really tough path. But I think that's something hopefully I'm aiming towards. Yeah.
Sydney Hunt:
I like this goal. I'm very supportive. And I think similar to what Kathy said, you are going to, I have no doubt in my mind that you'll excel at whatever route that you do, whatever path you take.
Kathy Hu:
We will see Dr. Zhou's name-
Sydney Hunt:
In shining lights.
Kathy Hu:
... in the future, and I'll be like, "I knew him."
Sydney Hunt:
Remember us when you're famous. Okay. Well, Anson, I've loved hearing your story thus far. Very inspiring as we've said a hundred times in this episode. But as much as I would love to keep talking forever, we do have to think about starting to close up this episode. Not only time wise, but also you have to get to class, and so does Kathy. But okay. So the first thing that we're going to do for the listeners is we're going to start off with a rapid fire question section, and then we'll do our typical closing of improbable facts as well as advice for future applicants. I'm going to preface these questions that they all came from Anson's bestie Jackson Powell. Shut up. Do you want to say who is Jackson to you? Who is he? What is he? Just some random person?
Anson Zhou:
He's a very, very good friend that met in medical school. And yeah, we just met each other very beginning, pre-orientation, I think hit it off right away, and we've just been very, very close since then. He knows an extraordinary amount about me, so I'm a little scared for what these questions might be because there's a pretty wide spectrum that they can come from.
Sydney Hunt:
He gave us 10.
Anson Zhou:
Oh my God.
Sydney Hunt:
There's a lot, and I don't know that we'll go through all of them, but I guess the first one, which was the first question that he sent us, so I'll do it in the order it says, so I know your Knight-Hennessy video interview was teaching a quick recipe for context. When you apply to KH, you do the written application, and then the second round you send a video interview where you have to teach something for two minutes and then you go into immersion weekend for finals weekend. So that's the context. But for the question, so I know your KH video interview was teaching a quick recipe. You also recently hosted a whole four course dinner party for friends. So can you give your favorite, one, quick meal to whip up, and two, favorite super elaborate fancy meal to cook?
Anson Zhou:
Quick shout out to my co-chef Hannah Lee, who is in my med school class as well. We put on a end of summer dinner party for our friends. And oh, maybe I could send you some pictures. Maybe that could be included.
Sydney Hunt:
I would love to. Yeah, please do.
Kathy Hu:
Can you cook for me?
Anson Zhou:
I can. Yeah. It was so much fun. But I think it took us maybe 15 hours of prep total.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my gosh.
Anson Zhou:
It was a lot of work because we wanted to make it each individual, like a multi-course thing. I guess I'll also give context is that Jackson and I eat a lot of meals together and we Uber eats a lot, so I actually don't end up cooking a lot, so this is a pretty funny question. But I think the first quick one, and I'm going to get clowned for this so hard, but this is what I actually made in my KH video, and I still do this, is microwaved steamed eggs.
Kathy Hu:
Whoa. Okay, okay.
Anson Zhou:
And basically what I do is I'll cut up some Napa cabbage, some mushrooms, put a little bit of water, stick that in the microwave, cook it down, and then scramble two eggs, pour it in, add a little bit of water, and then a little bit of chicken bouillon or something, and then I'll microwave that again until it sets and I eat it with rice. That's the video I did. It tastes really good.
Sydney Hunt:
Nice.
Anson Zhou:
I microwave a lot of things and I get clowned for it, but it's very efficient.
Sydney Hunt:
Hey, you're busy. Busy, efficient. Protein.
Anson Zhou:
And I think very quickly, the more elaborate one, I'll just talk about the dessert that we made. I really, really like mango sago. Jackson really likes it, too. But we ended up making a mango sago-inspired dessert, so blended frozen mango with coconut milk, and we whipped in some of the sago, which are tapioca pearls, and then we topped it with homemade mochi, toasted coconut flakes-
Kathy Hu:
Yum.
Sydney Hunt:
Yum.
Anson Zhou:
... diced golden kiwi. I think that was it. But yeah, we just put this, yeah, little sorbet situation. I think people liked it.
Sydney Hunt:
That sounds delicious. I'm sure I would love it. Yeah.
Kathy Hu:
Wow. So speaking of food, a little birdie told me that one morning at Denning you were seen to be combining boiled eggs and pickles, and pickles, from the snack fridge. That's a very interesting combination if I do say so myself. So could you tell us some other weird food combinations that you like?
Anson Zhou:
Oh, no. Actually, I will say there was cheese in there too.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh. Even worse.
Anson Zhou:
[inaudible 00:49:52].
Sydney Hunt:
We didn't even have that. Anson added that in.
Anson Zhou:
Let me think. Okay. This is not really a weird food craving, but there's something I eat a lot. It's like the sour gummy straws. I'll literally eat multiple bags of those, like the family, like the share size ones. How would I eat that combined together, though? Oh, okay. This I'm also going to get clowned for so hard. When I try to eat protein, I'll buy those frozen chicken strips from Trader Joe's and I'll literally take two out, put it in a bowl, microwave it, and put no salt, no nothing, and just eat it. And when I tell people about it, they're genuinely disgusted by that, but I'm like, "It doesn't taste that."
Sydney Hunt:
Hey, that's okay. That's okay. I support all the curiosity.
Anson Zhou:
Yes.
Sydney Hunt:
Yes. Okay. So on the topic of food, this would be our last food question.
Anson Zhou:
Yes.
Sydney Hunt:
So again, quote from Jackson. Anson really likes Cantonese food and is proud of his Cantonese culture. Do you have any recommendations for authentic Cantonese food in the Bay Area? You may have some spots, but I know he keeps some secrets so people don't start going there. LOL.
Kathy Hu:
Tell me.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, there's a place on El Camino called Hong Kong Restaurant.
Sydney Hunt:
Nice. Not sponsored.
Anson Zhou:
Not sponsored, but low-key, if you want to-
Sydney Hunt:
If you want to sponsor us.
Anson Zhou:
Also, we should have them cater for a KH event one day, for sure.
Sydney Hunt:
We should. I would love that, yeah.
Anson Zhou:
But I love Cantonese food, and honestly, it's kind of sad because I feel like not that many people like Cantonese food because Sichuan food I think is much more popular in America. But I think there's a delicateness to a lot of Cantonese food that the more people tried, I think they'd like it. But yeah, Jackson and I frequent that place fairly frequently.
Sydney Hunt:
Nice.
Anson Zhou:
Pun intended. And it's all Cantonese people, so sometimes if I'm feeling it, I'll whip out my Cantonese a little bit. And I have to say, I feel like sometimes when there's a long line and I throw in some Cantonese, we get through the line a little bit faster. So there's some utility to the Cantonese that I use sometimes. But yeah, it's on El Camino, for those of you who are there. I tend to go on Friday or Saturday night, so don't go then so you don't make the line long so I can get in faster.
Sydney Hunt:
That's fair. That's [inaudible 00:52:01] fair.
Kathy Hu:
One of the most important questions that we received, and I want you to answer this one very, very honestly, from the bottom of your heart. Are you ready?
Anson Zhou:
Let's do it.
Kathy Hu:
Is it true that Jackson Powell convinced you to apply to the podcast?
Anson Zhou:
Oh my God.
Kathy Hu:
Point blank.
Sydney Hunt:
That's quote. That is quote, verbatim. Subtext to that was just want to get that on record, was the follow-up.
Anson Zhou:
That's crazy. Okay. I'll be honest. So I was interested in the podcast initially, and Sydney was hosting an info session as I think we're having one fairly soon for the incoming scholars who are interested. And there were a lot of people there, and I was like, "I'm kind of interested." But you know how it is, especially in the beginning of med school, you're scared to sign up for too many commitments. I'm like, "This is really fun. I've always wanted to do it," but it made me feel a little guilty because I wasn't doing anything else like med school related. I was like, maybe I need focus on doing research. So when the form deadline was due to sign up, I didn't fill it out. And I told Jackson, I was like, "Probably not do it." And as he does, he's like, "You better fill it out."
And if I remember correctly, he later, actually, I think you and Jackson somehow knew each other at that point already, and you guys had lunch and he told me afterwards, he's like, "I threw in like that you're really interested in co-hosting the podcast." I was like, "Oh my God."
Sydney Hunt:
He did. He did. That's true.
Anson Zhou:
And now I need to fill it out, so I ended up filling it out and one thing led to another and then I guess I'll give him, he drops it every couple of weeks. He's like, "You're welcome for the podcast. You're welcome for making me fill out the form for the podcast."
Sydney Hunt:
That's so funny.
Anson Zhou:
So okay, I'll give him a little bit of credit.
Sydney Hunt:
A little bit. 2%. 2%
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. He really cornered me here on the podcast-
Kathy Hu:
He did. He did. Yeah.
Anson Zhou:
... to say this so everyone can know, but yes, yeah, that is true.
Sydney Hunt:
That's funny. Okay, well, thank you so much Jackson, for all your rapid fire questions. They're much appreciated. And if you're curious what Jackson looks like, you should stay tuned for the reel that will come out soon. And also for context, Jackson's an MD PhD student here at Stanford, and so they met through med school. I don't know if that was said already, but okay. So our last two things we're going to talk about, one, some advice for any prospective applicants slash something maybe you wish you would've known either before you started Knight-Hennessy or before applying, and then the other things, if you want to share any improbable facts. You can choose which order to answer either one For context, when you apply to Knight-Hennessy, as part of the written application, we ask you to list eight improbable facts, and these are things that are true about you, but people may not necessarily know just by looking at you. And so Anson, our last two things with this episode, which one do you want to start with?
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, let's start with Improbable Facts and then we can end on a semi-inspiring note with the advice circle. I think one of the improbable facts that I like to share is about acapella, for those who... Honestly, I talk about the same five things over and over again, so you've probably heard it if you know me. Like I talk about working at Chipotle, I talk about... Anyway, so I did acapella in undergrad. I was in a group called Music Dynasty. Shout out to them. Oh, I just have to say this. The Music Dynasty to Stanford pipeline is crazy.
Sydney Hunt:
Really?
Anson Zhou:
Because there's four of us here right now.
Sydney Hunt:
No way.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, it's pretty funny, and we hung out recently. But my fun fact is that when I was growing up, I think in middle school when the film Pitch Perfect came out, I was secretly obsessed with that film. I watched so many times and I never did singing before besides a mandatory choral semester in elementary school. But it was something I always wanted to do. During COVID, it was just really lonely, and on the spur of the moment, I signed up and auditioned and joined the group, and it was honestly one of the best experiences of undergrad. And the fun fact is that if you know Pitch Perfect, they compete in a competition called ICCA, and I think it was a really full circle moment. During my junior year, we actually competed in that exact same competition. We made it to quarterfinals. I sang a solo for it.
Sydney Hunt:
Wow.
Kathy Hu:
Wow.
Sydney Hunt:
Okay.
Anson Zhou:
It was just crazy to see how it went from 10 years ago when I'd never sang watching the movie to actually competing in the competition.
Sydney Hunt:
That's amazing. So talented. Awesome. Do you want to share one last improbable fact or just go straight to advice? Up to you, because Kathy has to go in five minutes.
Anson Zhou:
Oh, yeah. Let's jump into some, not feedback, some advice. Some advice. I think this is not going to be super original, but I believe it with every ounce of my heart, and this ties into what I said before, but if you want to do something and in your head it makes sense to you, even if everybody tells you to do something different, not out of malice or anything, but just pragmatism. You don't have to be pragmatic. You don't have to do the realistic thing. I never imagined that I would be here being able to pursue these things. To be very candid, my freshman year was extremely tough. I told you I was bad at math, I was bad at math in freshman year, but I started to figure things out, right? I started to realize what worked for me. And there was a period where I was like, "Oh God, I maybe can't even get into medical school because school is so tough." But if you truly believe it makes sense in your head and it's something you think you're going to regret not having tried, it's never the wrong path to take. And I think that applies to your career graduate school. And I think for the context of KH, nobody applies thinking that they're going to get in.
Sydney Hunt:
Definitely not.
Anson Zhou:
Nobody applies think they're going to get in, but it's very cliche. If you don't try, it's going to be 0%. And in the context of everything, it's not really that much effort to do the application, given the potential benefits. Just beyond the scholarship and not having to pay for med school, which is really nice. But the incredible people I met, the community. Being in Denning House has been a transformative part of my experience. And if I hadn't done it, I would be hitting myself in the head. So TLDR, just do it. If you believe that it's something you want to do, even if you don't really believe in yourself, just do it. Because in the process you'll learn, and even if it doesn't happen this time, it'll really set you up in putting good habits for future to keep pursuing that next peak. I think that's how you stay really active in life and just continue pursuing goals throughout the entire duration of your career and even beyond that.
Kathy Hu:
Wow. I am inspired and just wanted to say, it really has been full circle and me kind of sitting here right in front of Anson interviewing him. I am beaming with pride at this freshman I met for the first time six to seven years ago, and now seeing your growth all this time and now just how passionate and eloquent you are about your story and all your multivaried interests, I think it's something very, very special. And I'm so happy to be sitting here and interviewing you. I have already learned so much about you, too, and I can't wait to see how much you grow next, but I'm so proud of you.
Anson Zhou:
Thank you so much.
Kathy Hu:
Yes.
Anson Zhou:
Thank you.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah. Well, thank you so much to both Kathy and Anson for the bright and early episode, sharing your wisdom, Anson. I think a lot of people are really going to enjoy this episode and find a lot of joy and inspiration. So thank you all to the listeners for making it to the end. We appreciate you and if you want to hear more of Anson, lucky for you, he's a co-host of the podcast.
Anson Zhou:
I'll be back. I'll be back.
Kathy Hu:
Smooth voice.
Sydney Hunt:
He'll be back, exactly, in the future. So thank you so much again, everyone. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
Anson Zhou:
Thank you everybody.
Kathy Hu:
Bye.
Anson Zhou:
Bye-bye.
Sydney Hunt:
Bye. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Imagine the World where we hear from inspiring members of the KHS community who are making significant contributions in their respective fields, challenging the status quo and pushing the boundaries of what is possible as they imagine the world they want to see.
Willie Thompson:
This podcast is sponsored by Knight-Hennessy Scholars at Stanford University, a multidisciplinary, multicultural graduate fellowship program providing scholars with financial support to pursue graduate studies at Stanford while helping equip them to be visionary, courageous, and collaborative leaders who address complex challenges facing the world. Follow us on social media at Knight-Hennessy and visit our website at kh.stanford.edu to learn more about the program and our community.
