Kym Mcnicholas On Innovation

On this episode of The Heart of Innovation, we sit down with Dr. Jean Chen, a diabetes educator and retired podiatrist whose lifelong commitment to medicine was shaped by service, resilience, and lived experience. Dr. Chen knew she wanted to be a doctor by the age of five. Raised in Taiwan by a pediatrician father and a nurse mother who often cared for patients unable to pay, she learned early that medicine was about people first. After immigrating to the United States, growing up in Ohio, and studying at Cornell, her career took her through oncology before she found her calling in limb preservation through podiatry. Then her own path changed. Following a serious car accident, spinal cord injury, and surgical delays during COVID, Dr. Chen was left partially paralyzed, bringing her career as a practicing podiatrist to an unexpected end. At the same time, she was navigating her own journey with type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and a heart catheterization. Rather than stepping away from care, Dr. Chen changed how