Dr Ben and Friends

A pea plant grew inside a man’s lung, and that sentence is not a punchline.  Our friends kick things off with a round of Headline Or Hoax, putting two outrageous-sounding “medical headlines” in front of Marianna Barksdale and Herb Coleman and asking them to trust their gut, their brain, or both. You get to play along too, and the twist is a reminder that real life medicine can be stranger than any...

He chased quarterbacks for a living, then he switched careers and started protecting patients instead.  Herb Coleman joins us in Nashville to talk about the real work of an operating room tech, what it means to be a “patient champion,” and how an OR runs on trust, preparation, and tight teamwork long before the surgeon makes the first cut.  If you’re curious about behind-the-scenes healthcare jobs...

A lot of people hear medical jargon and instantly tune out, but we think the fastest path to understanding is laughter plus a great story.  We’re playing “What The Heck,” where our ER physician, Dr Domenic, brings real emergency medicine terms and our Nashville comedian, Kristan Barczak, takes her best shot at guessing what they mean before we translate them into plain English.  Expect mispronunci...

You’ve laughed at a comedy special and thought, “I could never do that.” We get it, and we also know there’s a real process behind the magic. Stand-up comedy looks effortless from the crowd, but the truth is messier, funnier, and way more human. From Nashville, we sit down with Kristan Barczak, a rising comedian and writer, plus Dr. Domenic, an emergency medicine physician and chief medical office...

How many “ailments” can you remove in 60 seconds without buzzing? We ran a surgical showdown with Kristen Barczak and a patient named Garth with a cowboy boot blister. What would your theme song be? Before the chaos, we go full operating-room theater with a surgical timeout, a named patient, and a procedure serious enough to deserve a chart but silly enough to spark instant jokes.  Meet Garth, who...

Medical jargon sounds harmless until you learn what it actually describes. We kick things off with a simple premise: hand a comedian a handful of real ER and cardiology terms, ask her to pronounce them, ask her to guess what they mean, then translate the truth in plain English. Comedian Kristan Barczak delivers! The result is a mix of laugh-out-loud wrong answers, surprisingly sharp instincts, and...

Internet nonsense? A headline about worm larvae in someone’s brain sounds like nonsense until you hear the details and realize it’s a real food safety story. We’re putting the “med in comedy” with a round of Headline Or Hoax, joined by Dr. Domenic (Chief Medical Officer, ER doc, DJ, pilot) and Kristan Barczak (mom, writer, comedian), and we invite YOU to guess right along with Team Dr Ben! Once th...

You know that feeling when a hospital shift (or a comedy set) starts with a plan and immediately turns lively? That’s the lane we live in today, and we brought the perfect guests for it.  Dr. Domenic joins us as an emergency medicine physician who’s now a Chief Medical Officer at a Level 1 Trauma Center in Nashville. He’s the doctor in the executive suite whose job is to keep the whole machine run...

JOIN US FOR DECODE THE DOCS WEEK!  We're revisiting our most popular episodes about medical word trivia.  This is when our pro comics do the heavy lifting.  Celebrate these heroes who keep you healthy and laughing with Team Dr Ben! Medical words can sound like spells, pasta dishes, or something a doctor invented on the spot and that confusion is exactly what we’re fixing today. We’re Dr. Ben...

JOIN US FOR DECODE THE DOCS WEEK!  We're revisiting our most popular episodes about medical word trivia.  This is when our pro comics do the heavy lifting.  Celebrate these heroes who keep you healthy and laughing with Team Dr Ben! A word can be funny until it’s on your chart. We’re turning the most intimidating oral and maxillofacial surgery terms into something you can actually understand,...

Join us for DECODE THE DOCS Week! Most people hear a word like “anastomosis” and instantly feel like they missed a semester of medical school. We get it, so we turned that confusion into a game.  We’re joined by Adam, a surgical first assistant who works beside surgeons in the operating room, and Dr. Ben Sawyer, a history professor and stand-up comedian who’s brave enough to pronounce OR jargon on...

Your gut can turn into a microbrewery, and that’s not a metaphor.  We kick things off with our “Headline or Hoax” challenge, then follow the truth to autobrewery syndrome, a real medical condition where gut microbes (often involving yeast) ferment carbohydrates and produce ethanol. That means someone can show up slurring their words, fail a breathalyzer, and still be telling the truth when they sa...

Someone hands the surgeon the exact instrument they need at the exact second they need it, and most patients never even learn that person’s job title.  As our friend Professor Ben Sawyer walks into this medical podcast, we sit down with Adam, a certified surgical first assistant.  Adam explains what the role really is, how the OR team works, and what it feels like to manage pressure when the patie...

Some mental health terms sound like prank words until you learn they describe real experiences people live with every day. We bring you into a fast, goofy game where I quiz Dr. John Delony on hard-to-pronounce psychiatry vocabulary while Dr. Brian keeps us honest with the clinical meaning. The laughs are real, but so is the learning, and you end up with a mental health glossary that actually stick...

BONUS EPISODE: A single great dad joke can change the mood of an entire room, and we put that theory to the test with two guests who know a thing or two about people.  We hang out with child and adolescent psychiatric medicine physician Dr. Brian Bradford and mental health champion Dr. John Delony for a fast, funny run of clean comedy, puns, and family-friendly humor that will make you smile.  We...

Nicotine pouches that turn a noisy mind quiet in minutes sound like a miracle until you realize how fast “helpful” can become “hooked.” We’re joined by mental health expert Dr. John Delony and child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Brian for a candid, funny, and surprisingly practical talk about focus, anxiety, and the performance culture pushing people toward chemical shortcuts. Dr. Ben shares a p...

You think surgery looks simple until someone explains the sterile field, and suddenly you’re imagining a single sneeze ruining the whole day. We kick things off by pulling back the curtain on the operating room: what counts as “sterile,” why the drape and the instrument table are treated like sacred ground, and the tiny rules that keep patients safe. Along the way, we keep it light because we all...

A headline says certain childhood traumas are linked to fewer mental health problems in adolescence and our brains immediately split in two: curiosity and alarm. We start with a quick round of “Headline Or Hoax,” then unpack why a clean, counterintuitive claim can be both interesting and easy to misuse, especially when it gets reduced to a clickable takeaway instead of a careful conversation about...

Your kid isn’t “broken” because they’re anxious, shut down, or fighting every boundary you set and neither are you. From the Nashville skyline, we bring on national mental health rockstar Dr. John Delony alongside Dr. Brian, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, to talk about what’s really behind rising anxiety in teens, depression in kids, school refusal, and the kind of “acting out” that leaves f...

Medical words can sound like spells, and that confusion has a cost. When you don’t understand what a clinician just said, it’s harder to advocate for yourself, follow instructions, or spot a real emergency. So we built a game: we put everyday emergency medicine and toxicology terms in front of a stand-up comedian and let her take her best shot at pronunciation and meaning, then we translate everyt...

A headline claims a man regrew the tip of his finger with powder made from pig bladder. Another claims coffee can reduce phantom phone vibration syndrome by 23%. Both sound just believable enough to fool you, which is why we love playing Headline Or Hoax.  With comedian Paula Kosienski and healthcare hero Dr. Mike on the mic, we put our instincts on the line and then dig into what the real story a...

“Do not bring a live snake to the emergency room” is advice you never expect to hear. Our healthcare hero, Dr Mike, medical toxicologist and emergency room physician breaks down how poisoning, overdoses, and antidotes work in the real world. 🔴 Dr Ben and Friends  Comedian and true crime enthusiast Paula Kosienski keeps the laughs coming as we move from antifreeze and snake bites to myths, drug te...

A “whirly bird” in an operating room sounds like a joke, until you hear what it actually does to pull bone back into alignment. We kick off a fast, playful game where orthopedic traumatologist Dr. Kate shares real surgical instrument names and comedian Seth Hayes tries to pronounce them and guess their meaning, then we unpack the real-world trauma surgery behind the punchlines. Along the way, we t...

A medical headline about laughter curing an autoimmune spine disease sounds like the kind of internet nonsense we’re trained to ignore and that’s exactly why we put it on the whiteboard. We kick off with “Headline or Hoax,” make our guesses, and then unpack the real story behind Norman Cousins, ankylosing spondylitis, and the surprisingly practical question hiding underneath the punchline: what do...

A broken bone sounds simple until you learn what trauma surgeons actually manage around it: crushed soft tissue, infection risk, evolving wounds, and a hospital full of moving pieces that have to click into place fast. 🔴 Dr Ben and Friends We sit down in Nashville with Dr. Kate, an orthopedic trauma surgeon, and get the clearest explanation you will hear of what “bone doctor” work looks like when...