Episodes

April 11, 2022

How the pandemic affected teen mental health and substance abuse

"Two issues drive teen substance use: drug availability and perception of risk. Availability: Today’s teens know that obtaining substances is far too easy. For example, 70 percent of high school seniors say marijuana is either “fairly easy” or...

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April 10, 2022

Incredible true stories of pioneer patients

"It was probably in early 1803, as Jenner’s fame swelled and more doctors were adopting vaccination, when Bell met a farmer with a curious story. The farmer’s name was Benjamin Jesty, from the Downshay farm in a nearby village. Seeing …

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April 9, 2022

Am I a doctor or a contingency plan?

"I suspect that some of the nearly 20 percent of physicians who have quit their jobs during this pandemic needed to feel this relief, too. They needed to feel the relief of having no plan. No 'if this, then that.' …

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April 8, 2022

New strategies are needed for mental health treatment

"Reducing the occurrence of comorbid mental and physical disorders will require an integrated model combining medical and behavioral health care services. The window of opportunity is open for health insurers and employers to invest in employee...

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April 7, 2022

Primary care should be the center of gravity in health care

"If we want a more effective health care system, it needs to be re-engineered to revolve around the true center of gravity – the patient. We must involve patients early and often in the design of health policy, health technology, …

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April 6, 2022

How a legal injustice changed this physician's career

"I do not hesitate to share what I endured. I recognize that there is a code of silence that must be broken when one is involved in legal action. It is imperative that we speak out to patients, legislators, and …

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April 5, 2022

Nurses are in need of racial healing

"Now more than ever, our profession needs to move toward racial healing. There is an urgent need for nursing to acknowledge its history of racism, boldly confront racism wherever it shows up, and address the racism that nurses witness when …

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April 4, 2022

Physicians and the weight of expectations

"What exactly is my obligation to medicine? Am I supposed to practice medicine forever? Is it my duty? Do I have to continue serving my patients, the hospital, and society because of these expectations? The answer is simple: You get …

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April 3, 2022

Can patients just say no to treatment?

"Deeming individuals 'non-decisional' for misinformed beliefs that are not representative of a psychiatric illness is inappropriate, unfairly medicalizes the narrative and incurs a risk of further public distrust of the health care system. It is not...

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April 2, 2022

Asking for and receiving help is a sign of courageous leadership

"Far from signaling weakness, asking for and receiving help is not only a sign of strength, but a sign of courageous leadership. And so, I ask you to put on your own oxygen mask, and then to reach out and …

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April 1, 2022

To treat future COVID variants, we need more than vaccines

"With government and industry working hand in hand, we can develop and stockpile monoclonal antibody therapeutics in anticipation of variants to come. We need to be thinking several moves ahead to keep ahead of variants so that stockpiles of therapies...

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March 31, 2022

I risked my career to save my life

"I have spent years in silence about my career decisions, nervous that my inability to take call and inability to thrive while sleep-deprived could be seen as weaknesses. Being afraid to admit I was advocating for my mental health and …

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March 30, 2022

Inside the race to conquer the COVID-19 pandemic

"That year, 2020, Uğur told the crowd, would be the year BioNTech proved the doubters wrong. There was no time to lose. Soon after he’d finished his talk, Uğur hopped on a plane to Seattle, where he met with a …

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March 29, 2022

Support desperate health care workers now, before your life counts on…

"America’s health care workers are on the brink of collapse. If we want them to hold on and be there for us when we are too sick to walk, stand or breathe, we must act now. Cast aside political opinions. …

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March 28, 2022

How to close gaps in social determinants of health

"As a doctor, it is pretty humbling to reflect on the fairly minimal impact our health care system has on individuals’ overall health. One study I find particularly intriguing shows that socioeconomic factors (e.g., education and income), and...

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March 27, 2022

A physician's new rules of time management

"Pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist, woman, mother, wife, friend, mentor. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t trying to “work smarter, not harder” to get it all done and feel good about myself, only to begin climbing the mountain with a...

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March 26, 2022

Health care and the Latinx experience

"Knowing that an important number of Latinx are not yet fully vaccinated and understanding the health care gaps and social disparities that affect this group, it is reasonable to assume that the Latinx community will be disproportionately affected by...

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March 25, 2022

Patients need palliative care to manage the pain of sickle cell disea…

"Sickle cell disease (SCD) affects about 100,000 Americans as an inherited genetic disorder with intermittent exacerbations requiring hospitalization. SCD is also a painful and complicated disease with no single physician specialist that can provide...

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March 24, 2022

We're failing people with opioid use disorder

"We know regulators can move quickly to confront a health crisis because we have seen it in action. During COVID, the nation eased regulatory burdens at all levels of government to help health systems and doctors leverage technology and change …

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March 23, 2022

A body part that fills me with a roller coaster of emotion

"Their absence makes me feel sad, I look around at my peers, envious and curious, Obsessing over when they will show up. When they do, they never seem to live up to expectations, Too small, too uneven, but what’s sure …

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March 22, 2022

To my patient who is going to lose her hair from chemotherapy

"I understand that the biggest fear you have about going through chemotherapy is losing your hair. I just want to tell you. You will be fine. Trust me. I know it’s barbaric. Why don’t we have medicines to treat cancer …

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March 21, 2022

Changing how we think about "difficult" patients

"Our patients go through some very predictable fears and responses to illness and injury. In turn, medical students and residents also think and respond with some thought distortions and misunderstandings about their patients and themselves. Armed...

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March 20, 2022

Family medicine and the fight for the soul of health care

"Overall, the health system in the United States is still not tilting its axes in favor of either primary care or family doctor. What is worse, family doctors as a collective are more balkanized and less cohesive than ever. There …

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March 19, 2022

Kids are not OK: Health care is failing them

"Our children are not OK. Our pediatricians are not OK. Please, let us not further ignore and jeopardize the future health of our society. Pediatrics needs a transformational change to direct primary care and other models that transition from...

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