Dr. Lisa Sanders

The Medical "Sherlock Holmes"

Director of the new Yale New Haven Long COVID Multidisciplinary Care Center

Millions of viewers around the world know Dr. Lisa Sanders’ from her hit Netflix show, Diagnosis, helping people with mysterious medical mysteries figure out their, well, diagnoses.

Lisa also pens a popular New York Times Magazine column and a new book by the same title. She was the inspiration and Technical Director of the hit TV series House M.D., starring Hugh Laurie. 

Dr. Lisa Sanders - New York Times columnist of Diagnosis and the Netflix hit series

Lisa is dedicated and passionate about inspiring global audiences to look beyond the obvious and set aside distractions to solve today’s most complex problems and come to the solution, or as she calls it, the diagnosis.

After a decade-long career in journalism, at the age of 36, Lisa Sanders went from asking questions to get to the bottom of a story to asking questions that save people’s lives. Similar to the medical field, in the corporate world, leaders need to understand how to ask a question as much as which questions to ask.

Dr. Lisa Sanders speaking to the Amazon Medical One CME Conference on November 15 2025

Dr. Lisa Sanders – Amazon One Medical CME Conference, Nov. 2025

They must learn to overcome their assumptions to filter through what is relevant, set aside what is not, and make a clear diagnosis to avoid wasting people, time, and resources.

Only then can a leader effectively communicate the company’s goal with a clear path to achieve success.

Dr. Lisa Sanders speaks to groups in the medical and corporate settings while sharing her unique insight to solving the most complex problems through actionable exercises and fascinating stories.

She is very much “outside of the box”.

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“Raising the Line”, with Shiv Gaglani and Dr. Rishi Desai, is about strengthening our global healthcare systems. To do this, we need to accomplish many things including training more healthcare professionals, and helping them stay in their professions longer. However, there's so much more we can accomplish together.
PODCAST: The Limitations of Medical Knowledge - Dr. Lisa Sanders
ARTICLE: How to Stay Informed About Long COVID News
In 2004, David Shore and Paul Attanasio, pitched the series to Fox as a CSI-style medical detective program, a hospital whodunit in which the doctors investigated symptoms and their causes. Attanasio was inspired by The New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis", written by physician Lisa Sanders.
Inspiration for the hit TV Series, "House".
Dr. Lisa Sanders crowdsources diagnoses for mysterious and rare medical conditions in a documentary series based on her New York Times Magazine column.
Netflix series: Diagnosis
A riveting exploration of the most difficult and important part of what doctors do, by Yale School of Medicine physician Dr. Lisa Sanders.
Every Patient Tells a Story
Diagnosis - Solving the Most Baffling Medical Mysteries
“Lisa was great! We are very pleased!”.
PUCPR

Sample Talks

When doctors talk about diagnosis they often focus on the key findings on the physical exam and tests that help them through the important steps of making a diagnosis. What they often leave out is how important the patient’s story is in this process. Yet studies have shown time and time again that the story the patient provides is the single most important data in guiding that process of diagnosis. 
 
Too often patients feel like they don’t know anything about medicine and so their story isn’t important. They couldn’t be more wrong. What patients know about what has happened to them cannot be obtained any other way. And it is essential for anyone who seeks to make a diagnosis. 
 
Some think that AI will replace doctors. And certainly Dr. Google, and possibly AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity can be helpful to both patients – and though they often wont admit it, doctors – human beings are still important. GROK can’t tell you what you feel, nor can Dr. Google. This is essential data that only the patient can provide. And I have the data to prove it.

 

Today, 30 million Americans suffer from rare diseases, and it takes an average of 6 years to unlock these diagnoses.

But Diagnosis Detective, Lisa Sanders, suggests that it’s not just rare diseases that we diagnose incorrectly.

Diagnostic error is a large scale problem that costs numerous lives each year. So what do we do about it? Lisa shares that increased training, feedback, and specialization in medicine are the keys to improving diagnostic accuracy.

She also looks to Sherlock Holmes for a new approach, suggesting that doctors should look at each new case through a detective’s lens – with all evidence in front of them – rather than making a decision based on familiarity. In doing so, we can improve diagnoses, provide accurate treatments, and save lives

 

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