Raise the Line

It's well known that COVID-19 has negative effects on the heart, but it was unknown until recently that one of those impacts, strain in the lower right chamber, seems to be the best predictor of death in patients with severe infections. Dr. Bijoy Khandheria, director of the Echocardiography Laboratory at Aurora Saint Luke Medical Center in Wisconsin, is one of the doctors who zeroed in on this phe...

Here's another casualty of the coronavirus: strategic planning. But even though anticipating what medical education and health careers will look like going forward might be unusually difficult at the moment, Dr. Ted Wendel, Senior VP for University Planning and Strategic Initiatives at A.T. Still University, is starting to see where career opportunities might emerge in COVID's wake. Check out this...

As the longest serving Secretary of Health and Human Services in American history, U.S. Representative Donna Shalala of Miami is well aware of the serious deficiencies in our healthcare system. That's why it might surprise you to know she thinks we could be heading for "the golden age of healthcare." Check out this interview with Dr. Rishi Desai to learn why, and for her take on the George Floyd p...

It isn't what you'd call a great start to a career. Dan Rosensweig, who went on to be a key leader at Yahoo and Guitar Hero, was laid off on the first day of his first job out of college. It set the pattern for a career full of unexpected setbacks and opportunities that led to driving a remarkable turnaround at the popular digital learning platform Chegg.com. In this engaging conversation with Shi...

It's now possible to do your own test for COVID-19 at home. It involves doing a simple nasal swab and mailing it to a pre-approved lab. Results are available in just a few days. These FDA authorized tests have the potential to make a big impact on detection and tracking of the disease, and Julia Cheek of Everlywell, one of just a few companies providing them, tells Shiv Gaglani the COVID crisis ha...

In the race to find an effective treatment for COVID-19, Artificial Intelligence may end up playing a big role because of its ability to quickly test drug combinations -- as in testing up to a trillion different combinations in a matter of weeks. Dr. Dean Ho, Director of the Institute for Digital Medicine at National University of Singapore, explains the fascinating capabilities of AI to to test a...

Maybe you can't pick-up your prescriptions because you can't afford to fix your car. Or maybe getting outside to exercise is a worry because your neighborhood isn't safe. Dhiren Patel and his colleagues at Pack Health, a digital health coaching company, realize there are many barriers to better health that go beyond what doctors have traditionally addressed, and that insight is built into their ef...

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If the U.S. healthcare system was a patient right now, you'd probably put it in the ICU. In the view of Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and host of the "Public Health On Call" podcast, the COVID crisis has exposed weaknesses in the way we finance healthcare and it could either derail existing efforts to reform the system, or it might spur cha...

We ask all of our guests what they think the COVID-19 crisis has revealed about the U.S. healthcare system. Dr. Lois Nora is the first to assert that "we do not have a healthcare system." As you'll hear in her conversation with Shiv Gaglani, Dr. Nora's background as a clinician, lawyer, and longtime academic leader grounds her unique perspective on what needs to be done to strengthen healthcare de...

“Science is the only thing that can get us out of it.” That’s the conclusion of Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who says finding a way to balance the needs of public health and economic recovery in the wake of COVID-19 must be guided by facts. After a long, admirable career tackling public health issues in the U.S. and abroad, including knotty problems like gun safety, Rosenberg says solving complex issues re...

Turns out there's nothing new about having a shortage of primary care physicians. In the late 1960's, the need to fill that gap led to the creation of physician assistants who have since expanded into nearly every medical speciality. As Mary Jo Bondy explains to host Shiv Gaglani, the broad-based training PAs receive makes them valuable players in meeting changing patient and workforce needs, as w...

It's not just K-12 and college students moving to online education these days. edX and other learning platforms have seen huge increases in enrollment over the past two months as millions of adults seek to learn new skills in a battered economy. As edX CEO Anant Agarwal explains to host Shiv Gaglani, part of edX's role now is teaching people how to learn, and teachers how to teach, using a format...

Arianna Huffington learned about burnout the hard way. Two years after starting the Huffington Post, she collapsed from overwork. She turned that moment of personal crisis into a movement to help people learn how to develop a healthier work-life balance and effectively manage stress. In this episode of Raise the Line, host Shiv Gaglani explores with Arianna how her company, Thrive Global, works wi...

After seeing Italy confront the grim reality of ventilator rationing, emergency medicine specialist Dr. Sarah Farris wanted to spare physicians and patients in the U.S. the same agonizing choices. Creating a splitting device that would allow one ventilator to serve two patients seemed like a good solution, and in a remarkable sequence of events, thousands of those devices were manufactured and rea...

Pediatric nurse, global force in fighting AIDS, professor of nursing, academic leader -- Adele Webb has played many roles in her career by following her passion. As she reveals to host Rishi Desai in this episode of Raise the Line, allowing yourself the opportunity to follow that passion, and having the courage to do so, can be the key to a meaningful career. If you like this podcast, please share...

Half of all nurses in the U.S. are graduates of two-year programs when they first start practicing, and while a national push is on to encourage RN's to get bachelor's degrees, an associate's degree remains a critical path into the profession. Donna Meyer, who runs the only organization that advocates for these two-year programs, joins host Shiv Gaglani to explore the realities facing early-career...

Why are young patients with COVID 19 having strokes? Why are ventilators not as effective as expected? Why do some patients have the symptoms of altitude sickness? One explanation for these mysteries is the disease keeps adapting and changing. But the other is that our understanding of it is catching up to what might be the truth: COVID 19 is not primarily a lung disease but rather a disease of th...

Quick, accurate testing for COVID-19 is critically important as states begin to loosen up social distancing. Enter Biomeme, a Pennsylvania-based biotech firm, with a system that allows sophisticated DNA testing to be done in virtually any location using a smartphone and a piece of lab equipment small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Non-professionals can be quickly trained to use it, and re...

Imagine this: college students back on campus, but older professors teaching from home. That's one of the scenarios Coursera CEO Jeff Maggioncalda says might play out this fall as higher education regroups in response to COVID-19. What he knows for certain is his online education company, which already had 46 million learners and 200 university partners, has seen explosive growth in the past few m...

Dr. Abdirahman Mahamud of the World Health Organization was among the first to see reports out of China last December about a mysterious pneumonia-like illness that we all now know as COVID-19. He tells host Dr. Rishi Desai that preparedness, widespread testing, and aggressive action to deal with those infected explains why many countries in Asia have fared better than parts of Europe and the U.S....

"Your calling is sacred." That's the message Dr. Conrad Fischer has for people entering health professions, especially in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. He took a few moments out from treating COVID-19 patients, twenty of whom had died in his Brooklyn hospital the previous day, to describe the fear, frustration, dedication and humanity of his colleagues who are doing their best in unpreceden...

The Coronavirus crisis has presented unprecedented challenges for physicians. Retired doctors are back in their white coats helping on the frontlines while medical students are being allowed to practice before graduation, and community physicians are struggling to hold on to their practices as people avoid getting routine care. Keeping a sharp eye on all of it is Dr. Patrice Harris, president of t...

Only a handful of people have as much responsibility for overseeing U.S. response to COVID-19 as Dr. Anne Schuchat, Principal Deputy Director at U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and few can match her three decades at the CDC fighting infectious diseases, from AIDS, to Swine Flu, to Ebola. In this insightful interview with Dr. Rishi Desai, she cautions about the accuracy of antibody tests, support...

Combining the perspectives of physician, New York City hospital leader, and high ranking government official, Dr. David Shulkin shares unique insights with host Dr. Rishi Desai on how the coronavirus crisis will impact how we provide healthcare for generations to come. One of the most significant changes could be permanently altering how frequently telemedicine is used. If you like this podcast, p...