What happens when your first language is movement?

In this episode of The Last Zebra, Dr. Ugo Ezema sits down with Annelise Senkowski—a lifelong dancer turned medical device professional who’s helping push the conversation forward in lung cancer early detection. From starting dance at three years old, to leaving home at 14 for a rigorous arts boarding school, Annelise shares what it takes to dedicate your life to an art form that’s both breathtaking and brutal.

She opens up about the beauty of expressing emotion without words, the perfectionism ballet can demand, and the moment she realized injury can change everything. The conversation weaves through identity, discipline, creativity, and the pivot from dance dreams (including a near shot at Australia) to building a meaningful career in healthcare—without losing the part of herself that still needs a stage.

This is The Last Zebra—real stories, real people, and real purpose.

💬 Comment “ZEBRA” if her story resonates with you.

🎧 Watch or listen to the FULL conversation with Annelise Senkowski on The Last Zebra Podcast:

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What happens when the system meant to protect our most vulnerable ends up failing them?

In this powerful episode of The Last Zebra Podcast, Dr. Sebastian Del-Corral Winder - Clinical Psychologist and expert in infant and early childhood mental health - breaks down the realities of the U.S. foster care system with honesty, clarity, and compassion.

He explains how the system’s origins are rooted in racism, separation, and institutional mistrust… and how those roots still shape outcomes for families today. Most parents in foster care aren’t “bad parents,” he reveals - they’re people who were mistreated themselves, carrying trauma, addiction, and generational wounds they were never taught to heal.

Dr. Del-Corral Winder shares eye-opening truths, including the staggering fact that infants aged 0–2 make up the highest percentage of children entering foster care in the U.S. Many are taken from the hospital nursery within days of birth. And while the public often imagines teenagers and troubled youth, the reality is far more heartbreaking - and far more preventable.

Through his work in psychology, family therapy, and court testimony, Dr. Del-Corral Winder is fighting to change the narrative: healing doesn’t happen by punishing parents, but by understanding the systems that shaped them, restoring compassion, and rebuilding support.

He also opens up about the emotional toll of the work, the concept of moral injury in caregivers, and how play, connection, and cultural identity shape a child’s healing - even in the most chaotic circumstances.

This is The Last Zebra - real stories, real people, and real purpose.

💬 Comment “ZEBRA” if this conversation opened your eyes.

🎧 Watch or listen to the FULL episode with Dr. Sebastian Del-Corral Winder on The Last Zebra Podcast:

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Captivate: https://feeds.captivate.fm/the-last-zebra/

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Hosted by Dr. Ugo Ezema, The Last Zebra explores the stories at the intersection of medicine, justice, identity, and the human mind - reminding us that healing is not just individual, but systemic.

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What does it take to reclaim a dream you were told to abandon?

In this remarkable episode, Dr. Brittney Carman shares her decades-long journey from a 16-year-old who fell in love with medicine on a pediatric oncology floor to a mother, writer, professor, and finally a physician who started medical school at 42 years old.

Raised in a culture where higher education wasn’t encouraged and where religious leaders explicitly told her not to pursue medicine , Brittney followed the expected path - marriage, motherhood, and a career in teaching and creative writing. But the dream never left.

A single, unexpected moment - being asked as a contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" what she would do if she won - cracked everything open:

“I’d go to medical school.”

That answer became the turning point that brought her back to the life she once thought was impossible. Today, she’s a nearly 3rd-year Internal Medicine resident at Tulane, a mother of three daughters, and a living testament that timing doesn’t define destiny.

This episode is about ambition, loss, faith, motherhood, courage, and the quiet power of trusting yourself enough to begin again.

This is The Last Zebra - real stories, real people, and real purpose.

💬 Comment “ZEBRA” to learn more.

🎧 Listen to the FULL, unfiltered conversation with Dr. Brittney Carman on The Last Zebra Podcast:

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Hosted by Dr. Ugo Ezema, The Last Zebra uncovers the extraordinary journeys of people reshaping medicine and redefining what it means to choose a life of purpose — no matter when the journey begins.

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