Raise the Line

As researchers continue to explore therapeutic applications of existing psychedelic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin, there's been a parallel effort to create new compounds that produce the same beneficial effects, but that come without the lengthy protocols and regulatory obstacles attached to those currently criminalized substances. "If you could develop new molecules that were more targeted and...

Distance learning continues to grow in popularity with most college students in the U.S. now taking at least some classes online offered by hundreds of brick-and-mortar and exclusively online institutions. We’re going to learn about one of the highest ranked programs in the space today with Geordie Hyland, president and CEO of the American College of Education. One way ACE sets itself apart in a c...

Chronic stress can be at the root of everything from mental health struggles to digestive problems to heart disease.  Today on Raise the Line , we’re going to learn about a wearable device made by Apollo Neuroscience that uses gentle vibrations to help the body adjust to stress. “Apollo is based on all the same principles that music is based on. It's wearable music for your body,” explains the com...

You may have seen today’s guest, Dr. Raj Dasgupta, on Chasing the Cure , The Doctors , CNN or ABC News and if so, you’ll understand why he is an award-winning medical educator and a force in the field. His irrepressible enthusiasm for patient care and teaching pours out in every moment of this fun and illuminating conversation with host Shiv Gaglani. “I really have this desire to make my teaching...

Something as complicated as starting a medical school is bound to include unanticipated obstacles, but few schools can match the roller coaster ride of the American Canadian School of Medicine in the Commonwealth of Dominica which just welcomed its first class of students. Our Raise the Line guest, Dr. Ramin Ahmadi, along with colleagues from Yale and Penn State medical schools, had worked for yea...

Of the many hopeful developments in psychedelic research in recent years, perhaps the most important is that FDA approval of MDMA-assisted therapy for treating post-traumatic stress disorder appears likely within the next year. That prospect is due in no small part to our Raise the Line guest, Dr. Michael Mithoefer, who has spearheaded clinical trials of MDMA-assisted therapy for more than twenty...

On this episode of Raise the Line , we’ll introduce you to a relatively new company in the digital health space focused on treatment-resistant mental health patients, which constitute about 30% of people in the US with a mental health diagnosis. Our guest is Jimmy Qian, the co-founder and president of Osmind, who believes mental health practitioners could benefit from a more data-driven approach....

If you were to name one thing that could simultaneously increase patient satisfaction and reduce provider burnout, would empathy come to mind? Well, based on research published in peer-reviewed journals, it should, as we’ll learn from our Raise the Line guest Dr. Helen Riess, a clinical professor at Harvard Medical School and author of the book, The Empathy Effect . Trained as a psychiatrist, Ries...

The value of early detection is perhaps greater for cancer than many other diseases because it remains the second leading cause of death worldwide. On this episode of Raise the Line we're going to learn about a new testing approach that leverages genomic technology and machine learning to detect signals circulating in the blood across more than 50 types of cancers -- far beyond the number currentl...

On this episode of Raise the Line , we have the privilege of hearing from one of the nation's top healthcare leaders, Dr. Joshua Gordon, who is the director of the National Institute of Mental Health. In that role, he oversees an extensive portfolio of basic and clinical research that seeks to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses, paving the way for prevention, recovery an...

The Crucial Role of Psychedelic Therapy Guides - Mary Cosimano, Former Director of Guide and Facilitator Services at The Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research All of the promising research into the potential benefits of psychedelics in mental health treatment depends on having skilled professionals who can create a therapeutic alliance with participants and guide the sess...

“We're really heading to a cliff when it comes to those expressing interest in healthcare careers,” cautions today’s Raise the Line guest Geoffrey Roche, director of Workforce Development in North America for Siemens Healthineers. Unfortunately, this drop-off in interest is happening as statistics on the current and future shortage of healthcare workers seemingly get worse by the day. One strategy...

Active and fun are rarely the first words associated with medical education, but today’s Raise the Line guest, Dr. Amin Azzam, contends learners get the most value when they can engage with their education rather than passively receive knowledge. As Azzam relates to host Hillary Acer, the vice president of Strategic Operations at Osmosis, he remembers first seeing the power of active learning whil...

“When we say ‘treatment for menopause,’ it implies that menopause is a disease, when really it’s a normal and expected time of life,” says Dr. Anna Barbieri, an integrative medicine physician and specialist in menopause certified by the North American Menopause Society. That attentiveness to word choice is reflective of a new perspective that’s driving Dr. Barbieri and her peers to see menopause m...

We've been careful on Raise the Line  to use the term psychedelic-assisted therapy because, as we've heard from previous guests, these compounds are best administered in the context of a therapeutic relationship in a safe, controlled setting. Today, we're going to focus on the therapy part of the equation with Dr. Mary “Bit” Yaden, an assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Jo...

“I really have challenged the students that have graduated from Duke the last couple of years to consider being ambassadors for science and for communication of what is good science,” says Dr. Mary Klotman, executive vice president for Health Affairs and dean of the School of Medicine at Duke University.  She notes that the stakes of disinformation are too high to do otherwise, as up to 300,000 CO...

Instead of fretting about AI replacing jobs humans currently do, Dr. Nigam Shah is urging people to adopt a perspective about the technology that echoes President John Kennedy’s famous charge in his inaugural address: ‘ask not what this technology can do to you, ask what you can do with this technology.’ “If medicine simply automated everything we were doing 200 years ago, we’d have a machine that...

“What's really exciting and scary in medical education right now is we're seeing large language models enter the scene,” says today’s Raise the Line guest Dr. Adam Rodman, who is well-placed to make such an assessment. As co-director of the Innovations in Media and Education Delivery Initiative (iMED) at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Rodman is witnessing, and influencing, how new techn...

When Munjal Shah and his colleagues chose to use Hippocratic in the name of their new AI-based company, it wasn’t just about signaling their product was involved with healthcare, it was also intended to leverage the ‘do no harm’ philosophy associated with the term. After all, formerly fanciful fears of ‘robots’ replacing doctors have become more realistic since the advent of generative AI last yea...

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“I have coaching involved in all of my programs. It's just done wonders not only for the work I do, but for me personally,” says Dr. Rachel Salas, a professor of Neurology at Johns Hopkins University and certified strength and life coach. It wasn’t always this way. Salas was well into her career as a sleep specialist and clerkship director before being introduced to a strengths-based approach to p...

You’re going to hear something in this episode of Raise the Line  that you most likely have never heard before: what DNA sounds like.  Our guests today all had an interest in musically representing DNA for different reasons, and have come together to pursue this theme as a way to raise awareness for rare diseases. Dr. Aditi Kantipuly had used the arts once before to achieve that goal by writing th...

“I see health systems being systematically disintermediated by certain payers and some tech companies who are eager to take the easy stuff and leave health systems with really complex, sick and often very poor patients,” says veteran healthcare executive Dr. Marc Harrison. “I need a speedboat to change that.” He’s building that speedboat in partnership with venture capital firm General Catalyst, a...

While it’s encouraging that efforts to provide culturally competent care have gained a foothold in the wake of COVID, today’s Raise the Line guest says it is time to expand the conversation to encompass the concepts of cultural safety - which involves awareness of historical power dynamics -- and cultural humility -- which requires an inward look. “Are you reflecting on your own values, beliefs, a...

Our focus on the renaissance in research into psychedelics continues on this episode of Raise the Line , but instead of looking at their potential therapeutic applications, we're going to hear about using them as a tool for learning how the brain works. “We don't have a great idea about the neural basis of self-conception, and psychedelics make us question so many of our fundamental assumptions ab...