At left, Pauline (center) is welcomed home from her year at SYA France by her mom, sister Lena FR’87, and brother Michael — the beginning of stories that would travel far beyond that moment. At right, she visits with her French mom, Nicole Pruvost, one of SYA’s longest-serving host parents, during a return visit to the Pech Merle Caves last year — a reminder that the art of being human lives in the stories we carry, the people who shape us and the connections that endure across time and place.

The Enduring Power of Story 

Pauline Chen FR’82
SYA France  |  The Loomis Chaffee School

If artificial intelligence can aggregate information in seconds, generate language on demand and predict what comes next with startling precision, what then is our true (human) superpower?

Pauline would remind us that it is not speed. It is not scale. It is not even knowledge.

It is story.

And just as important — it is the willingness to listen.

In an age captivated by algorithms, Pauline’s life and work call us back to something older, deeper and profoundly human. A surgeon, author and lifelong student of mortality, she has stood at bedsides where no data set can substitute for presence. Her memoir, Final Exam: A Surgeon’s Reflections on Mortality, is not simply a book about medicine or end-of-life care; it is a lesson in listening — to patients, to families, to the quiet truths that surface when someone feels fully seen. It reminds us that to practice medicine, at its best, is to practice humanity.

When Pauline reflected on prehistoric cave paintings at her opening convocation talk at Loomis Chaffee, reprinted in the Loomis Chaffee Magazine article “Behind Every Brush Stroke,” she returned to a discovery that began much earlier — during her time as a student at SYA France, when she first encountered the ancient paintings of the Pech Merle Caves in Cabrerets.

Discovered just decades before Pauline and her classmates visited, the caves stand as a powerful reminder of how deeply rooted the human impulse to tell and receive stories truly is. Long before machines could compute, humans told stories on limestone walls. They listened around fires. They offered attention. To enter a cave shaped by ancient hands and then emerge into the living rhythms of modern France is to feel that same continuum of human connection — one that stretches from prehistoric artists to students discovering the world beyond their own.

At SYA, we see this every day. When students step into another culture, another language, another family’s dinner table, they are invited into stories not their own. They learn that fluency is not only about vocabulary — it is about patience. About observing. About listening to the meaning beneath words. They learn to tell their own stories with humility and authenticity, and to receive others’ stories with care.

In a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, studying abroad strengthens what cannot be automated: the capacity for empathy and the courage to connect human-to-human. Pauline’s journey — from SYA student to surgeon, writer and teacher — is a testament to the enduring power of these skills.

Being human is not a liability in the modern age.

It is our greatest gift.