PeerSpectrum | Journeys in Medicine

In January of 2018, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos and Jamie Dimon announced the creation of a new, co-venture, to tackle the rising costs of healthcare for their company’s employees. They immediately picked famous writer and surgeon, Atul Gawande to lead it. Short on details but big on promise, just the simple announcement of this venture sent shock waves through the media and the markets. Billions o...

Today we have Dr. Lloyd Minor with us on the show. He's an ENT surgeon, scientist, innovator and currently dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine. We covered his early career path, a surgical treatment he actually developed and his new book, “Discovering Precision Health,” released just this month in March, 2020. As the leader of one of the nation's top medical schools, located right i...

This was a brief conversation between Colin and Keith regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. It was recorded on March, 24th 2020. For all of you on medicine's front lines, we're thinking about you every day, and we're deeply grateful for all you are doing, for all of us. Stay safe and take care.

All right, welcome back. If you're still around in the year 2061, two things will be true. You'll enjoy seeing the next passing of Halley's Comet, and your life insurance company will enjoy having collected four more decades of your life insurance premiums, without a payout. Standing there that day you and your insurance company can be grateful for the work of one man, the exact same man that come...

It's no mystery to most of you that poor health behaviors such as smoking, substance abuse, poor nutrition, lack of exercise and patient non-compliance account for a substantial portion of the disease burden, not to mention costs, in the US. Some recent estimates by the CDC and other researchers suggest behaviors account for 40-50% of increased risk associated with deaths before age 75. The proble...

Nullius in verba. Understanding uncertainty with statistician, Sir David Speigelhalter, PhD by Keith Mankin, MD & Colin Miller

We've all heard the bad news about rural hospitals in the U.S. 60 million of our fellow citizens rely on these small hospitals, often known by their designation as critical access facilities. According to a recent analysis conducted by the consulting firm, Navigant, 21% of rural hospitals today are at a severe risk of closure. That includes 430 hospitals across 43 states, representing 21,000 staff...

Today we're heading to the front-lines of research testing and challenging one of the most basic truths of the human experience...we all get older and we all eventually die. Today's guest doesn't buy this. In fact, he actually views aging as a diagnosable disease, a disease that can be managed today, and one day fully treated. Now, before you start rolling your eyes, let's meet today' guest. David...

All right welcome back. Here's a quick trivia question, which group of US patients are constitutionally guaranteed access to free medical care? And no this is not a trick question. The answer...prisoners. Today we're jumping into an area of medicine few, if any of us, know much about. Let's be honest, how many of you out there have even seen the inside of a prison of jail? Not many, we guess. Crim...

All right welcome back. If you could pick the ideal patient population, armed with the best knowledge, fluent in medical jargon, generally healthy and willing to comply with recommended treatments, who would you pick? How about doctors? Doctors may not be perfect patients but at least they should outperform similar non-clinicians, right? Surprisingly, little to no research has actually been done c...

As you heard last time, Dr. Gale (a bone marrow transplant specialist from UCLA) rose to international prominence after being the first American physician invited by the Soviet Union to treat patients suffering acute radiation trauma, only days after the horrific incident at Chernobyl. Our journey continues as Dr. Gale is flown in by helicopter to personally survey the Chernobyl nuclear power-plan...

Thirty three years after the worst nuclear disaster in human history, the name Chernobyl rings ominously, and continues to inspire fear, outrage, debate and grim curiously. It's a captivating story now being re-told dramatically, though not completely accurately, through HBO's new and very popular mini-series. We've had some pretty unique people on this program but perhaps today's guest is more un...

Today's guest is Dr. Devi Shetty, a cardiac surgeon, entrepreneur and one of the most famous physicians in India. What's he famous for? Well, he performed the very first neonatal heart surgery in India, and actually served as Mother Teresa's personal physician after operating on her following a heart attack. Obviously, we weren't missing the opportunity to explore these unusual stories, but they a...

Keith and I have long considered doing an episode on meditation. What held us back was our goal (as it is with every episode) to answer these two questions: how would the episode specifically benefit you, the physicians and medical professionals in our audience, and how would we avoid simply rehashing a well worn topic explored elsewhere? As you know, we're not big on chasing trends here. So we ta...

Most of you know the quote, “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” It's often attributed, incorrectly, to the famous nineteenth century physicist, Lord Kelvin. Wherever it came from, it's sounds about right. Same goes for this familiar quote from a popular business book author, “What gets measured gets done.” Well, in today's episode were going to talk about what's getting measured and...

Today's episode is about money, specifically your money. Now, if we're going to take a break from interviewing astronauts, Navy SEAL's, NFL surgeons and cutting edge researchers to do an episode on investing, you can bet we we have a very specific reason for doing so. You can also bet we have a rare and unique guest. That guest is renowned Economist, Burton Malkiel. You can google him later but he...

Clinical research with Psychedelic compounds like psilocybin, LSD and MDMA have gotten a lot of press recently. Major institutions such as Johns Hopkins, UCLA and Yale are leading the charge with dramatic results in drug addiction, PTSD, end of life care, depression and other mental illness that is simply breathtaking. When we think back to the psychedelic sixties, it’s hard to imagine that legiti...

On this episode's release, we find ourselves in week 3 of the 2018 NFL season. So what could be a better time than now to talk with a surgeon who's spine practice has treated more NFL, and other professional athletes, than any in the world. Patients such as Dan Marino, Tony Romo, Peyton Manning, Wayne Gretzky, Reggie Jackson and Rob Gronkowski, just to name a few. If you like stats, check out this...

All right, welcome back. Steve Jobs once said,"If Henry Ford had asked his customers what they want, they would have said a faster horse...[you see, he said] It's not the customer's job to know what they want." When you create a trillion dollar company and the iPhone, you get to say stuff like that. How would your life be different if Steve Jobs designed your EHR? Could a dream team from Apple des...

Name: Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD Specialty: Pediatrician and public health advocate Location: Hurley Medical Center: Flint, MI Today it's our distinct privilege to have Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha on the show. Before her best selling book, her countless TV interviews, before Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world, "Dr. Mona" (as she is known) was just another pediatrici...

The opening you just heard was the actual footage of STS- 133, the final launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery, and the second to last launch of the US space shuttle program. One of the astronauts aboard that day was Dr. Michael Barratt: A career astronaut, a physician by training and today's guest on the podcast. I can't even begin to tell you how excited we were to do this interview. NASA gets l...

If you fly often, it's only a matter of time before you hear those not so welcome words over the intercom: "Is there a doctor or medical professional aboard?" So, do you hit your flight attendant button, or wait for someone else to do it first? When you're stuck at 30,000 feet, options are limited. You might even feel a little like our past guest, Dr. Gavin Francis, serving as the only doctor avai...

All right, welcome back for round two with former Navy SEAL, Dr. Robert Adams. If you missed part one, go back and check it out. In Part II we move forward to Bob's career as an army physician. We're going to learn what it's like being a physician attached to the Army's elite counter terrorism and hostage rescue unit, known as Delta Force. A unit so secretive that even family members of Delta oper...

Today we’ve got a pretty awesome guest for you. What was once a secret, and very much unknown group of elite US military soldiers, has now become a virtual household name inspiring countless books, news stories and even movies. While all of you have certainly heard of Navy SEAL’s, very few of you have likely met one. They’re a small, select and rare group. Even rarer are the handful of Navy Seals...

Welcome back. During our last episode we had an incredible conversation with the founders of Experiment.com, a very novel and exciting platform for crowd funding scientific research. If you missed this episode, definitely check it out. Keith and I came away so impressed with their venture, we decided to take a deeper look at some of the current research. One experiment really jumped out, so we inv...