Anti-Asian Racism in Healthcare
May is Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Heritage Month. 8.5% of healthcare workers are AAPI, compared to 6.8% of the U.S. population, making the AAPI population overrepresented in the healthcare field. While Americans of Asian and Pacific Island descent have made many contributions to our healthcare system, they are facing increased discrimination at work and in their communities.
In this episode, Dr. Esther Choo discusses the racism faced by AAPI healthcare workers, and what we can do about it.
Getting Dysentery, for Science
Jake Eberts went viral from live tweeting his experience participating in a 11-day clinical trial for a dysentery vaccine. He told story in an incredibly humorous way on Twitter, and I just needed to know more. In this episode, Jake shares all the details from drinking the "shigella smoothie" to his thoughts on clinical trial ethics.
Unpacking The Nursing Crisis
It’s National Nurses Week! As the most trusted profession for the last 20 years, nurses make up the highest percentage of the US healthcare workforce and serve as the primary providers of patient care. But we’re facing a nursing crisis and looming shortage.
In this episode, McKinsey Partner and former nurse Gretchen Berlin shares the challenges the profession is facing, and what’s needed to turn things around (not a parade).
How E-Cigarette Makers Target Youth
Public health efforts to curb teen smoking had made quite a bit of progress, until Juul and other e-cigarette brands came on the market in 2015. With a discreet form factor and tasty artificial names like “gummy bear” and “cool cucumber”, vaping has become extremely attractive to young people. In fact, research has found that between 10%-24% of high school students are addicted to nicotine. In this episode, Dr. Susan Walley, Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine at Children's National Hospital, discusses her work developing effective healthcare and school-based interventions to reduce youth tobacco use.
Appreciating Neurodiversity
Just because a computer isn’t running a Windows operating system doesn’t mean it’s broken, it’s just different. Same goes for people who are “neurodivergent”, a term used to describe any kind of divergence from dominant cultural norms of neurocognitive functioning. This can include people living with autism, ADHD, OCD, epilepsy, synesthesia, dyslexia, and more. In this episode, special guest host Marissa Pittard (who is neurodivergent herself, and the co-founder of Beaming Health) interviews actor Major Dodson about life on the spectrum.
Fighting for Survivors of Forced Sterilization
The United States has a long—and continuing—practice of forcibly sterilizing women of color, taking away their basic human right to become a parent. It’s happening in prisons and immigration detention centers, where doctors are performing unwarranted hysterectomies and bilateral tubal ligation without proper consent. Last year, California announced it would pay out millions of dollars to living survivors of the state’s forced sterilization efforts thanks to today’s guest who co-sponsor the bill. In this episode, Laura Jimenez, Executive Director of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, discusses the racist, classist, ableist history of forced sterilization and why it’s still happening today.
Saving Primary Care
The number of Americans with a primary care physician is declining along with the number of medical school graduates wanting to go into primary care. A big reason for this is how, and how much, they are paid. Can replacing our fee-for-service model with value-based care save our healthcare system? In this episode, Dr. Farzad Mostashari, former National Coordinator for Health IT at HHS and current Co-Founder and CEO of Aledade, dives into the what, why, and how of value-based care solutions.
Fighting The Fentanyl Crisis That Took Her Son
Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death in 18-45 year olds in the US, claiming more lives than car crashes and gun violence combined. After Dr. Beth Weinstock lost her son last year to what she calls “the most devastating health crisis this generation has ever seen,” she decided to do something about it. In this episode, we discuss a harm-reduction approach to protecting young people from accidental fentanyl poisoning.
Healthcare Doesn’t Stop When Bombs Start Falling
Healthcare doesn’t stop when bombs start falling. It's a painful paradox that in times of greatest need, the availability of healthcare is at its lowest. In this episode, we’ll share a quick overview of the situation in Ukraine from a healthcare perspective, and how you can help.
How Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions
March is National Nutrition Month. In this episode, Pulitzer Prize-Winning investigative journalist Michael Moss discusses how the Big Food industry uses science and marketing schemes to get us addicted to their unhealthy food products, then turns around and sells us diet fads that don't work. Michael Moss is the author of Salt Sugar Fat and Hooked, and was formerly an investigative journalist for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
Helping Others Heal
Born Lenard McKelvey, Charlamagne Tha God is a multimedia mogul, Radio Hall of Fame inductee, bestselling author, and one of the most influential thought leaders in modern culture.
He is the outspoken, well-informed, and charismatic co-host of the radio show. The Breakfast Club, heard by over 4.5 million listeners daily. Charlamagne also hosts Tha God’s Honest Truth, a late night show on Comedy Central co-created with Stephen Colbert, where he takes on social issues and topics permeating politics and culture.
Charlamagne is also the author of The New York Times bestseller Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It and Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me, which launched him to become one of the world’s leading voices in the mental health discussion.
With a deeply personal vision to help address the unmet and underserved emotional needs of Black people worldwide, Charlamagne founded the Mental Wealth Alliance (MWA), his forward-thinking foundation created to destigmatize, accelerate, and center state-of-the-art mental health outreach and care across the U.S. while building an unprecedented long-term system of generational support for Black communities.
Is Cancer Preventable?
February is Cancer Prevention Month. Nearly 40% of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lifetimes. The good news is that continued advancements in medical research has led to more people surviving cancer. But what if we could prevent cancer altogether? Is it possible? In this episode, Jody Hoyos, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Prevent Cancer Foundation, discusses cancer prevention and early detection.
How Generic Drugs Became A National Security Issue
How Generic Drugs Became a National Security Issue