Dr. Paul Han on Uncertainty in Medicine and Building Tolerance Through Adaptation

In this episode of The Girl Doc Survival Guide, Christine interviews Dr. Paul Han, an NIH Senior Scientist specializing in risk communication, medical decision-making, and uncertainty in healthcare, whose career shifted from general internal medicine and palliative care to research via an NCI cancer prevention fellowship. Han shares that persistent “gray zone” questions in primary and end-of-life care, plus personal circumstances like spousal support and financial stability, enabled his mid-career leap into the unknown. He explains uncertainty as two-sided: something healthcare tries to reduce but also a necessary source of curiosity for clinicians and hope for patients, especially in serious illness. Han connects uncertainty to cognitive biases as flawed attempts to regain certainty, and reframes “uncertainty tolerance” from merely enduring anxiety to situation-specific adaptation, emphasizing virtues such as humility, flexibility, and courage; he also notes his own recent prostate cancer diagnosis.

00:00 Meet Dr Paul Han

01:31 Midcareer Leap to Research

03:58 Drawn to Gray Zones

04:40 What Enables a Big Switch

06:48 Uncertainty as Friend and Foe

11:15 Why Uncertainty Feels Scary

13:48 Biases Born From Uncertainty

15:37 Rethinking Uncertainty Tolerance

18:32 Virtues for Adaptive Care

21:15 Letting Go of Outcomes

23:22 Closing Thoughts