Dr. Liu led Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders as International President from 2013 to 2019, through Ebola in West Africa, the bombing of hospitals in Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen, and the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean. In this episode of Inspiring Women, Laurie McGraw asks her what those years taught her, how ready we are for the next pandemic after COVID-19, and why she wrote her new book, Ebola, Bombs, and Migrants: Humanitarian Crises in a Security-Obsessed World (House of Anansi Press, out 13 October 2026).
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
- The line from Camus's The Plague that sent a teenager into medicine: never trivialize death
- What leading the Ebola response in 2014 was really like, and why the world waited
- Why TIME named the Ebola fighters Person of the Year
- What happened in Kunduz, and why a hospital must never be a target
- Why the 2025 WHO Pandemic Agreement still leaves one big question open
- How fear and the "security agenda" shape who gets help, and who doesn't
- Why she tells every young ER patient: you have agency
- How Louise Arbour, now Governor General of Canada, became her sounding board for every hard decision
- Her advice to women: never apologise for being right
CHAPTERS
0:00 Trailer
0:50 Introduction
2:20 The book that sent her into medicine
3:40 Becoming a humanitarian doctor
5:15 Ebola, 2014
8:35 Kunduz: the hospital that was bombed
11:20 COVID-19 and the next pandemic
13:15 The pandemic agreement
15:20 A security-obsessed world
17:55 You have agency
18:50 Where are the leaders?
21:15 "Call me Louise": Louise Arbour
23:15 Why we need more women leaders
24:00 Advice to women
ABOUT THE GUEST
Dr. Joanne Liu is a paediatric emergency physician, a professor at McGill University's School of Population and Global Health, and director of its Pandemics and Emergency Readiness Lab. She was International President of Médecins Sans Frontières from 2013 to 2019, and TIME named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
ABOUT THE SHOW
Inspiring Women is hosted by Laurie McGraw. Each episode features women leaders in health, science and business sharing how they built their careers and what they learned along the way.
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