When Kara Dupuy-McCauley, MD, FCCP, sat down at a keyboard during the inaugural CHEST After Hours event at CHEST 2022, she had no idea just how much it would affect her life. Trained as a musician from her youth to her mid-20s, Dr. Dupuy-McCauley had to abandon music during her medical training so she could focus on a demanding career path that led to becoming a pulmonologist and sleep medicine specialist at The Mayo Clinic. Reconnecting with music and recommitting to hours of practice for this live performance became a means of recapturing part of her identity she thought she’d lost.
But what surprised and delighted her the most from that performance, Dr. Dupuy-McCauley said, was the reaction she received from her colleagues in the audience.
“There were so many people I didn’t know who came up to me and said things like, ‘I used to paint, and I really want to get back to that—I’m inspired!’” she recalled.
This kind of discovery—about oneself and shared with others—is one of the main goals of After Hours, an innovative performance series that Dr. Dupuy-McCauley and others have grown and spun into a highlight event that will continue at CHEST 2025 in Chicago. This year’s storytellers will include Christopher Carroll, MD, FCCP; Ana Chavez Velasquez, MD; Joey Gee, PA-C; and Erika MacIntyre, MD.
A storytelling speakeasy
The initial idea for After Hours took shape in the runup to CHEST 2022.
Teresa Rodriguez-Aviles, CHEST Senior Manager for Education Learning Events, described the initial goal as creating a space that was “intimate, like a speakeasy for stories that had nothing to do with medicine but would highlight the human side of the clinicians we work with.” We recognize that they are more than medical professionals treating patients and that they have whole lives outside of that, she said.
Spearheaded that first year in Nashville by Gabriel Bosslet, MD, FCCP; Rana Awdish, MD, FCCP; and Dr. Dupuy-McCauley, After Hours continued at CHEST 2023 in Hawai‘i and then expanded at CHEST 2024 in Boston, launching a partnership with the professional storytelling group The Nocturnists Satellites Program to prepare and coach After Hours speakers ahead of the event.
Lakshman Swamy, MD, FCCP, performed during this 2024 After Hours event and joins Dr. Dupuy-McCauley as a co-organizer for the 2025 event. He said the collaboration with The Nocturnists enabled clinician-performers like himself to inject an original story full of spirit so that it became “honed and sharpened and made into something very powerful” as a live stage presentation.
Among peers
But part of what makes the event so special, Drs. Dupuy-McCauley and Swamy said, is having the ideal audience.
“I think a big part of it is the spirit of the society, of the membership, of the people who come together and who have these shared experiences,” said Dr. Swamy, a pulmonary and critical care physician with faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. “People come together and sit in that auditorium, then someone goes up there and starts telling their story directly out of their heart, and that story will resonate because these are your people up there. There is a connection you have with the others just walking in the room. I think that’s the magic of After Hours, and it sort of builds on the magic of what CHEST is in the first place… what makes CHEST so different from other societies and other gatherings and meetings.”
“The clinical and the research presentations at CHEST are very important. But this adds something different,” Dr. Dupuy-McCauley said. “This is acknowledging that we are not just doctors but whole people. I think we are better doctors when we are nurturing our whole selves. Instead of detracting from being a doctor, sometimes nurturing other parts of your life can make you a better doctor.”
“Just sitting in that room is a powerful experience,” Dr. Swamy added. “It’s far from just being an entertaining experience or a touchy-feely experience—it’s profound and it can really alter you and change you from that day on. It can change the way you approach the bedside, your colleagues, your career—everything.”
Advice From the Stage
Checking in with 2024 presenter Christina Barbera, CPNP
CHEST: Can you tell us about your process for preparing your story? What techniques did you integrate that made a significant difference when it came time to give your talk?
Christina Barbera, CPNP (CB): Meeting with my mentor helped shape things immensely. We had started with a different story arc than what we ended with. As I spoke this story out loud, we were able to both feel what resonated and things that had not felt as significant seemed to have much more meaning when speaking with my mentor. I found that instead of explaining an emotional situation, what worked better was using details to describe the environment, allowing readers to feel as though they were present in the moment as well.
CHEST: At what moment did you realize that giving your talk was worth all the time you had to take away from your practice and personal life to prepare it?
CB: The moment I applied for selection. I had hoped so badly to be chosen, to be able to use my voice to show health care providers how much what we do at work really matters to patients once they leave the hospital. It is rare to find yourself both a patient and a provider, and that perspective can be so important to share if you are willing to be vulnerable about your experiences.
CHEST: Looking back on the event, what insights did you gain about the value of this type of collective storytelling in general and among colleagues in the medical community in particular?
CB: I had not been expecting that this event would bring all the storytellers together so closely. We had all met just that day and had not known each other beforehand. I found myself listening to their stories, crying in my chair, laughing at their humor, and balling my fists in my seat while hoping for the best for them at the end of their stories.
CHEST: What is your top advice to future presenters?
CB: You are the only one who can share this story, and that makes it special. People want to hear what you have to say. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable; tell your story with grace and true emotion, and people will be waiting for you with love.
After After Hours
Past presentations create lasting impact
Presenting at After Hours can be a life-changing experience, according to past presenters as well as this year’s organizers, Kara Dupuy-McCauley, MD, FCCP, and Lakshman Swamy, MD, FCCP.
Both former presenters have continued pursuing the interests they shared with CHEST audiences at After Hours.
Dr. Dupuy-McCauley’s recent electropop project can be sampled at enemyinthesky.com. You can also find her group’s synthwave tunes on Spotify under their name “Enemy in the Sky.”
You can delve into Dr. Swamy’s medical-themed board game at criticalcaregame.com. Initially funded on Kickstarter in 2021, it closed out final pledges in late October 2024 and continues distribution. You can also find several playthroughs at leading online game review YouTube channels such as “Before You Play,” “Rules Girl,” and “One Stop Co-op Shop,” whose reviewer said the game “balances the weightiness of the subject” with game mechanics and “a lot of fun at the table.”
It Takes a Team
Professional, volunteer coaches lend expertise
The Nocturnist Satellites Program provided professional storytellers who helped CHEST storytellers perfect their 2025 After Hours presentations. To read more about The Nocturnists and listen to some of their in-house podcast stories, visit thenocturnists.org.
A group of CHEST volunteer coaches were also available to help prepare this year’s storytellers. That team included Rana Awdish, MD, FCCP; Gabriel Bosslet, MD, FCCP; Avraham Cooper, MD; Kara Dupuy-McCauley, MD, FCCP; Lilit Sargsyan, MD, FCCP; Lakshman Swamy, MD, FCCP; and Teresa Rodriguez-Aviles.
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