Cardiologist Dr. Jaya Mallidi: "The Trust I Had With the Universe Lay Broken"

"How can a child be taken away from the mother?" When cardiologist Dr. Jaya Mallidi lost her daughter, Saachi, at 19 weeks, the trust she'd always had with the universe "lay broken like a vase in an empty room."In this deeply honest conversation, Dr. Jaya Mallidi joins host Dr. David Spiro to explore the human side of medicine from the other side of the bed. She shares surviving a rare, life-threatening hemothorax from thoracic endometriosis, leaving the interventional cardiology she loved, enduring nine cycles of IVF, and grieving a pregnancy loss while a profession built on duty pulled her back to work a week later. She also shares how she slowly rebuilt her faith — through the Japanese image of Jizo, a practice of "forgiving the universe," and a hard-won belief that in medicine, presence matters more than any prescription.A conversation about grief, resilience, womanhood in medicine, and learning that it's okay to take up space.Dr. Jaya Mallidi is a Professor of Clinical Medicine and cardiologist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where she serves as Director of Clinical Cardiology and Site Director for the UCSF Cardiology Fellowship. Her JAMA "A Piece of My Mind" essay reflects on the loss of her daughter and how medicine and society recognize — or fail to recognize — the grief of pregnancy loss.In this episode:00:00 "My trust with the universe lay broken"03:40 Becoming the patient: a rare, dangerous hemothorax06:10 Thoracic endometriosis and two lung surgeries08:54 Leaving interventional cardiology and finding new purpose11:11 Losing Saachi at 19 weeks16:09 Why doctors return to work too soon19:14 Medicine's missing backup system22:24 The IVF journey: hope, failure, and nine cycles28:36 When social media makes grief worse30:48 A spiritual reckoning: finding a mental model37:03 Jizo: the image that finally gave her peace39:00 "Forgiving the universe"41:09 How grief changed her as a teacher and clinician45:07 A marathon, not a sprint47:47 Presence over prescriptions in the age of AIHuMed unveils the human side of medicine — new conversations every week. If this episode moved you, share it with a colleague, and please follow and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other clinicians find the show.