Fixing Healthcare Podcast

The Fixing Healthcare podcast welcomes back Ian Morrison , a globalist, futurist and popular returning guest who, in Season 1, taught us that “ every healthcare system sucks in its own unique way .” Now in Season 7, podcast cohosts Jeremy Corr and Dr. Robert Pearl are focused on breaking the unwritten rules that hold doctors (and the entire U.S. healthcare system) back. They asked Ian for practica...

After more than two years of Covid-19 restrictions, most parts of the country are dropping mask mandates per new CDC guidance . It seems government officials are more confident than ever that life is returning to normal. “With 75% of adult Americans fully vaccinated and hospitalizations down by 77%, most Americans can remove their masks, return to work, stay in the classroom, and move forward safe...

Welcome to the new Fixing Healthcare series, “Diving Deep,” which features a robust and probing discussion about some of healthcare’s most deep-seated problems. With cohosts Dr. Robert Pearl and Jeremy Corr , this series will be hard-hitting, honest and undoubtedly controversial. In this episode, Pearl and Corr talk about two areas of medicine where the existing “rules” seem out of date. It begins...

Research on 4,000 women over six months found that Covid-19 vaccines are linked to a small increase in menstrual cycle length. Such a delay is common when a woman’s body mounts an immune response, says cohost Dr. Robert Pearl. Other scientific studies have examined the link between vaccine status in pregnant mothers and relative immunity in their newborn children, as well as the link between vacci...

Some of medicine’s greatest breakthroughs began as seemingly crazy ideas. In the 1950s, for example, Dr. Emil Freireich hypothesized that the only way to cure childhood leukemia was to take young patients to the brink of death with combination chemotherapy. At first, Freireich’s colleagues called him a madman, a monster and possibly a Nazi doctor. Decades later, he is remembered as a trailbl...

When it comes to healthcare, the digital hands of Google reach far and wide. Medical school students and residents use Google Search to find obscure case reports and make difficult diagnoses. Before surgery, many physicians now go to YouTube, the Google-owned video platform, to watch world-leading surgeons perform and narrate complex operations. Meanwhile, applications like Google Maps, along with...

Drug makers Pfizer and Moderna are testing a new vaccine specific to the Omicron variant—with an ETA around summer 2022 or even later. The timing is important as scientists recognize the variant should be far less prevalent by then. So, why would Pfizer and Modern even bother? Hear the answer to that question at the 22:41 mark on this episode of Coronavirus: The Truth with Jeremy Corr and Dr. Robe...

These days, it seems just about every decision comes with risk: Should I invite friends or family over? Should I dine out? Can I safely return to work or school? To help people make safer, smarter decisions about their health, the federal government is now offering every American home four free at-home Covid-19 testing kits . It’s a step in the right direction, but many questions remain: Are these...

Greetings and happy-ish New Year. If you’re here for the latest information on Omicron, check out episode #53 or tune in for episode #55 on January 18, 2022. For now, this (shortly after) New Year’s episode of Coronavirus: The Truth features something slightly different. Jeremy Corr and Dr. Robert Pearl are zooming out for a more comprehensive look back at the year that was along with a look ahead...

This week’s guest is Fixing Healthcare alum David Feinberg . In August 2021, Dr. Feinberg was named CEO of Cerner , a leading provider of “electronic health records” or EHRs. Just four months after Feinberg became CEO, and a little more than 24 hours ago, Cerner was acquired by database giant Oracle for an estimated $28.3 billion. In this interview (which took place before the Cerner-Oracle news b...

CTT #53: How dangerous is Omicron, based on the latest data? Omicron, the mysterious new variant accounting for nearly 3 of every 4 new cases in the United States, is top of mind for Americans as 2021 draws to an end. The answers scientists seek about Omicron are slowly coming into clearer view. In this episode of Coronavirus: The Truth , hosts Jeremy Corr and Dr. Robert Pearl look at the most rec...

Medical professionals and budding entrepreneurs love to talk about the technologies that will someday revolutionize patient care. Our guest on Fixing Healthcare is already funding and fashioning those technologies to meet the needs of today’s patients. Our guest, Vinod Khosla , is an entrepreneur, investor, technologist and founder of Khosla Ventures, a firm with investments in hundreds of startup...

This week, America has Omicron on the mind. Listeners flooded the CTT inbox with questions about the new variant. Among them: Is Omicron more transmissible or lethal than Delta? Are current vaccines effective against it? What is President Biden doing to control the new variant and what kinds of social restrictions should we expect in the months ahead? In this episode of Coronavirus: The Truth , Je...

Americans who’ve received two shots of Pfizer or Moderna, or the single-dose J&J vaccine, are considered “fully vaccinated” … for now . That could change, depending on the data, according to White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci. Already, some U.S. governors are pushing to update the definition to include boosters. Last week, CDC officials urged all adults to get a vaccine booste...

George Halverson was CEO of Health Partners in Minnesota for 18 years and CEO of Kaiser Permanente for 12. As a health-plan leader, he spent 30 years fixing healthcare. He was successful in large part because he rejected what most Americans believe about health insurance. Halvorson believes better and more affordable healthcare is possible when people stop blindly paying for it and start assuming...

There was time when Coronavirus: The Truth cohosts Jeremy Corr and Dr. Robert Pearl assumed the show would be irrelevant and retired by episode 20. This week, which marks the show’s 50th episode, the question must be asked: Is the coronavirus here to stay? Several news outlets have reported in recent weeks that the Covid-19 pandemic may become endemic , continuing to circulate among the popu...

In this episode of Coronavirus: The Truth , Jeremy Corr and Dr. Robert Pearl tackle more than a dozen timely and tricky Covid-19 questions. This week: What should listeners know about the upcoming holiday season and Covid travel restrictions? Has the Biden administration provided any clarity on the vaccine mandate for employers? How did Puerto Rico manage to out-vaccinate every American state? And...

Merck’s new oral antiviral medication (molnupiravir) has been labeled a “ huge, huge advance ” in the fight against Covid-19 by a Harvard Medical School virologist. The pill also has been called the “ holy grail of treatments ” by an executive director at the World Health Organization. Merck says it’s now seeking FDA authorization of the investigational medication after phase-three clinical trials...

Our guest today is Dr. Ernest Grant, president of the American Nurses Association (ANA). He is the first male president in the organization’s 125-year history. And his passion for nursing can be traced back to his upbringing in the South as one of seven children in a very poor family. “Even if I had won scholarships, I would not have enough to pay to complete undergrad and then go on to med school...

Data points, alone, never tell the whole story. Numbers are often used and misused to confirm our personal biases rather than to inform or reform our thinking. No matter how you view the pandemic or slice the data, it’s hard to see the latest set of Covid-19 figures as anything other than proof our nation remains embroiled in an avoidable and ongoing tragedy, one that has been unfolding for the be...

A listener wrote in about Ivermectin—a drug used to kill worms and parasitic infections—because her friends had recommended it for treating Covid-19. To date, 14 studies have concluded that Ivermectin is ineffective against Covid-19 and potentially dangerous. One study found the drug could kill the coronavirus in a laboratory setting, however, the dosage used would have been toxic and potentially...

Rick Pollack, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, envisions a future where the iconic “H” comes to symbolize much more than a building where people go for acute inpatient care. “I hope that in 10 years we have more of a focus on prevention,” he told Fixing Healthcare cohosts Dr. Robert Pearl and Jeremy Corr. “I hope we have more integrated delivery systems that are providing th...

A while back, Houston Methodist hospital gave its 26,000 employees an ultimatum: Get vaccinated or get a new job. All but 100 or so workers complied and, now, hospital leaders are reporting a nearly 100% vaccination rate. Clearly, the mandate worked for one hospital, but what about others institutions? Recent weeks have brought on several high-profile vaccine mandates from private employers like U...

“As you know my son starts kindergarten in a couple of weeks,” Jeremy Corr said to his cohost Dr. Robert Pearl in this episode of Coronavirus: The Truth . “I know this topic is causing anxiety for a lot of parents as they prepare for the school year. How’s the Delta variant affecting kids? Should we be more concerned than we were before? What advice do you have for parents with young children goin...

Goodbye, Marcus Welby, M.D., that lovable TV doctor from the early ‘70s whose humble private practice dealt with everything from impotence to Alzheimer’s disease. Hello to integrated, team-based, 21st-century medicine that enables doctors to work smarter, together, rather than harder (and less effectively), alone. That’s the vision of Don Crane, president and CEO of America’s Physician Groups (APG...