Episodes

Feb. 22, 2022

I am an ICU nurse. We are drowning.

"Tears and sweat drown my face as I try to rip off my PPE and exit the room. I didn’t want to leave him, but I couldn’t bear another second in that reality. A whirlwind of emotions crash over me, …

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Feb. 21, 2022

A milligram of understanding for the vaccine-hesitant

"The starting point is to do our best to approach discussing COVID and vaccination with the appropriate type of empathy and understanding. To understand that our patients don’t have access to the same level of data and research that we …

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Feb. 20, 2022

How to convert medical knowledge into digital assets that work for you

"Instead of trading up for a faster horse by drawing in the exam room, it felt like I’d just built a motor car. I created a new workflow around my digital assets. When patients checked in for a clinic visit, …

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Feb. 19, 2022

Guns, the Supreme Court, and physicians' voices

"When my patients asked me about losing weight, I would say, 'Eat less and exercise more.' I know that it is more complicated than that. There are psychological and socioeconomic factors. There is bariatric surgery and there are medications. But …

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Feb. 18, 2022

How to fix the CDC

"A resurgent CDC is necessary to recapture the vitality of U.S. medical science. A scientific researcher alone cannot do this work. This will also require heavy managerial work and restructuring and charting a different course altogether. CDC will...

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Feb. 17, 2022

A shout out to small hospitals

"I’m a small-time doc in a small town, and I work at a small hospital in the Midwest, and I’m proud of it. The huge university hospitals (like Cleveland Clinic) get all the glory (especially in society and in the …

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Feb. 16, 2022

Danielle Ofri, MD on sharing stories and the emotional epidemiology o…

"This last mile of the COVID pandemic—Omicron or not—is a painstaking one-on-one endeavor. As is most of primary care. Sadly, we now have to deal with political epidemiology as much as emotional and clinical epidemiology. We’ll sit with each of...

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Feb. 15, 2022

Medical-legal consulting as a side gig

"Medical-legal consulting is a great way to use your medical training in a non-clinical field that helps people. I started this field 14 years ago and have trained over 1,600 physicians to be medical-legal consultants. Most physicians do medical-legal...

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Feb. 14, 2022

Fund this: Policies can fill medical funding gaps for all

"Instead of trying to earn a spot on a talk show to help a person dealing with costly treatments for illness, perhaps it is best to lobby policymakers to pass legislation that impacts big numbers of patients dealing with the …

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Feb. 13, 2022

Autism spectrum disorder and the masks we wear

"In the ongoing saga of the pandemic, there is the debate whether to wear a mask or not. These are physical masks that temporarily hide our face, but we all wear another type of mask, a metaphorical mask. These are …

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Feb. 12, 2022

Why is Covaxin not in the FDA's toolbox?

"As a clinician who has received two Pfizer doses and a booster without any side effects, I wholeheartedly embrace vaccination to solve this pressing public health crisis. The key is for policymakers to identify the best tool for the job …

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Feb. 11, 2022

Physician informatics and the chief medical information officer

"At the beginning of my time as a CMIO, I needed to remain clinical to build camaraderie with my colleagues. This proved essential as the health system was going through a transition to a new EMR. The medical staff needed …

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Feb. 10, 2022

Never underestimate the self-flagellation of the physician

"Patients die. This is a tragic truism in the world of medicine. Usually, the patients who die are elderly. Patients die from diabetes and kidney disease, or from alcohol abuse and liver failure, or from heavy smoking and lung disease. …

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Feb. 9, 2022

Health care's goal is in peril

"The U.S. health care industry has large challenges that can be overcome if we remember why our systems and services exist. We are here to help patients, and we must obtain the needed staffing capacity to drive throughput so patients …

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Feb. 8, 2022

Can medicine transcend beyond the clinic walls?

"Absolutely, there are times when you need to be face-to-face with your patient. Yet looking at the broader picture, COVID-19 has shown us that in many instances, we can perform at an optimal level while remote. In my experience, I’m …

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Feb. 7, 2022

Innovation in a rural gastroenterology practice using a farm

"Gastroenterology clinics in rural areas have the unique opportunity to innovate the field by working with local community organizations and farms. Patients and physicians develop a deeper understanding of the root cause for chronic disease,...

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Feb. 6, 2022

Why and how to get a second opinion

"In the end, the patient-physician relationship is crucial to overall decision-making for any plan of care, treatment, or surgery. There are many variations in the reviewed studies in health care literature as to the cost-effectiveness of second...

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Feb. 5, 2022

What shared journeys to the afterlife teach about dying well and livi…

"The more I spoke with individuals who had experienced a shared crossing event, the more I also noticed repeating patterns. A woman in West Virginia and a woman in Australia with deeply similar experiences around the loss of a baby. …

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Feb. 4, 2022

Is Descovy really the better option?

"As individual patients, we often don’t think about these costs. In my Instagram poll, nearly everyone taking Descovy reported receiving the drug effectively for free, largely due to Gilead’s copay coupons. However, as with anything in life,...

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Feb. 3, 2022

Noah Kaufman, MD on the cryptocurrency market and educating physician…

Emergency physician and financial planner Noah Kaufman gives a general cryptocurrency market update. He discusses the state of Bitcoin and the impact of fiscal tightening by the Federal Reserve and also comments on Paul Krugman's recent New York Times...

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Feb. 2, 2022

Bringing the Hippocratic Oath into the venture capital world

"When I came into the business world, I saw a huge spectrum of ethics and am still shocked at how there aren’t any standards. Why must one be in a professional career only to have some guidelines and/or rules to …

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Feb. 1, 2022

Why lifestyle medicine is an urgent priority

"Lifestyle medicine’s foundational pillars include a specialized look into diet, physical activity, sleep, stress, mood, substance use, and relationships. Creating a patient-centered plan of care based on these areas are proven successful in...

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Jan. 31, 2022

Prioritizing physician wellness: Reducing burnout during the COVID-19…

"Ultimately, patients need doctors to help them be healthy, and need their doctors to be healthy to help them! Unless interventions are done now, our health care system risks a downward spiral. While the pandemic has brought increased levels of …

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Jan. 30, 2022

How physicians can play the hand they're dealt

"Anyone can win at poker when dealt a royal flush. But what can you do when the cards you are dealt don’t appear winning at all? My answer: Make the best of what you have. Recently I learned of a …

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