The Dose

As a physician, researcher, and educator, Dr. Cheryl R. Clark wants her students to understand what vision, love, and equity can bring to health care if we prioritize them — and why she believes doing so is critical to advancing health equity.     In the latest episode of The Dose podcast, host Joel Bervell talks with Clark about how she brings health equity to life, taking medical residents to Mi...

In medical school, students learning about illness, pathology, and disease are trained almost exclusively on images of white patients. Even materials on illnesses that predominantly affect Black people, like sickle cell disease, and textbooks used in medical schools in countries where most people are Black, are filled with illustrations of white bodies and white skin. This leaves doctors underprep...

Montgomery, Alabama's capital, is known as the birthplace of gynecology. It's a brutal history, as the field's "founding father," J. Marion Sims, advanced his work through the experimentation on enslaved women and babies. Artist and health care activist Michelle Browder has forced a reckoning with this legacy with one clear goal — we need to talk about the mothers. On the newest episode of  The Do...

This year in the United States, an estimated 2 million people will receive a new cancer diagnosis, and a growing proportion will be younger adults and people of color. Many of these cases could be prevented — nearly 60 percent of colorectal cancers, for example, could be avoided with early detection. Physician and UCLA researcher Dr. Folasade May is trying to understand why cancer screening rates...

Overtreatment is a big problem in American health care. The proliferation of unnecessary medical tests and procedures not only harms patients but costs the United States billions of dollars every year. Between 2019 and 2021, Medicare spent as much as $2.4 billion on unnecessary coronary stents alone. At some hospitals, it's estimated that more than half of all stents are unwarranted. For this week...

Health care is a $4.3 trillion business in the United States, accounting for 18 percent of the nation's economy. It should come as no surprise then that the industry has become attractive to private investors, who promise cost savings, expanded use of technology, and streamlined operations. But according to Yale University's Howard Forman, M.D., "most private equity money does seem to be making ma...

Nearly one in five Americans has medical debt. Black households are disproportionately affected, carrying higher amounts of debt at higher rates. Berneta Haynes, senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, describes Black Americans' medical debt burden as a continual cycle fed by higher rates of chronic illness and lower rates of wealth. As a result, many are left without savings or fam...

Forty-four percent of U.S. women now live with some form of heart disease, a number that's been climbing steadily over the past decade. And although it's the leading cause of death among women, just 14 percent of cardiologists are women. This week on The Dose podcast, host Joel Bervell interviews cardiologist Martha Gulati, M.D., associate director of the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center at C...

Even though the U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed country, federal programs that have been proven to improve maternal health outcomes are often the target of budget cuts. This week on The Dose podcast, guest host Rachel Bervell speaks with Dr. Jamila Taylor, president and CEO of the National WIC Association, the nonprofit voice of the federal program that provides nutri...

Research shows that Black women and other women of color experience the worst health outcomes of any group in the United States — regardless of income level. On The Dose podcast this week, host Joel Bervell talks to public health innovator Ashlee Wisdom, founder of a digital platform that connects women of color to culturally competent health care providers. Black people make up 13 percent of the...

This week on The Dose podcast, host Joel Bervell talks to Michelle Morse, New York City's first-ever chief medical officer. Starting in her role at the height of the COVID pandemic, Dr. Morse quickly understood the importance of establishing strong connections between the health department and the city's health care providers to help close gaps in equity, choose where to focus resources, and coord...

On this week's episode of The Dose,  host Joel Bervell talks with   Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford about obesity: its history, including the racist origins of the body mass index (BMI), as well as the flawed science, misperceptions, and stigma that people with obesity encounter. Stanford, who's based at Massachusetts General Hospital, calls obesity "a really complex, multifactorial, relapsing, remitting...

On this week's episode of The Dose, host Joel Bervell speaks with Dr. Ziad Obermeyer, from the University of California Berkeley's School of Public Health, about the potential of AI in informing health outcomes — for better and for worse. Obermeyer is the author of groundbreaking research on algorithms, which are used on a massive scale in health care systems — for instance, to predict who is like...

On this special season of The Dose, guest host Joel Bervell is hosting a series of conversations with experts and leaders in health equity. In examining how we can uproot racism in our healthcare system, we are starting at the beginning of many healthcare careers: medical school. Naomi Nkinsi was one of the few Black students in her cohort at University of Washington School of Medicine. She notice...

Joel Bervell joins The Dose to host a special season examining equity in health care.  Joel has garnered hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram debunking medical myths and dissecting racism in health care. This season, he'll host a series of compelling conversations with emerging and established leaders working to transform the health care system's approach to equity. The first...

The maternal mortality rate in the United States is more than double that of our peers – and it's especially high among Black birthing people. Why? The Commonwealth Fund collaborated with Lemonada Media to create Uncared For , a six-part podcast series, hosted by award-winning journalist SuChin Pak (Add to Cart, MTV News) to take a personal and wide-ranging look at maternal health care around the...

What people eat, where they live, and how much they earn can impact their overall health more than the medical care they receive — sometimes much more. Now, for the first time, federal policymakers are trying to measure and screen for what are known as the drivers of health.  On this week's episode of  The Dose , Shanoor Seervai talks with Alice Chen, M.D., chief medical officer at Covered Califor...

In post- Roe  America, many women seeking abortions are treading on landmines, particularly in states where access is banned or severely restricted. On the latest episode of  The Dose , host Shanoor Seervai talks to Raegan McDonald-Mosley, M.D., about a tool that makes it easier for people to determine what the laws are in their state and where they can get care. Mosley, the CEO of Power to Decide...

The midterm elections are around the corner, and health care is likely to be a major factor in how Americans vote. Abortion and reproductive health access will motivate many people, as will inflation (which impacts the cost of care). On the latest episode of  The Dose , host Shanoor Seervai talks about the most pressing health care battles to watch with Katie Keith, director of the Health Policy a...

Bills targeting the rights of LGBTQ+ people are under consideration in state legislatures across the country. Many aim to make it more difficult for transgender people to get health care — something that's already a challenge for many, particularly trans youth. On the latest episode of The Dose , host Shanoor Seervai interviews Austin Johnson, an assistant professor of sociology at Kenyon College...

Earlier this week, President Biden declared the pandemic over. This tracks with public opinion: most Americans have long abandoned their masks, and federal funds may soon dry up for testing, treatment, and even vaccines. Of course, this doesn't mean the virus has disappeared. In fact, hundreds of Americans are still dying each day from COVID-19, and thousands more are suffering from long COVID, a...

Among other things, the Inflation Reduction Act is being hailed as a potential breakthrough in making health care more affordable. But what does this landmark legislation, enacted last month, really mean for Americans – now and in the future? To open the new season of The Dose , host Shanoor Seervai interviews Stacie Dusetzina, an associate professor in health policy and cancer research at Vanderb...

Social programs like Medicaid are supposed to help people, but often they reproduce racial inequities — and sometimes actually create them. That's because even well-intentioned policymakers can't always see the disproportionate impact their decisions have on people of color. But what if there were a tool to help legislators and government officials identify when and how they should be thinking abo...

Climate change can have a devastating impact on our health. When people are injured or exposed to disease related to floods or fires, it's up to health systems to pick up the pieces. But health care itself is one of the world's most carbon-intensive industries, responsible for 4.5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. What can health systems do to address climate change? In the United Kingdom,...

The Dose will be taking a short summer break while our team works on brand-new episodes for the next season. Listen to our season finale, in which we highlight some of the accomplishments of our guests. Join us in the fall, for new conversations with health policy experts as they share ideas about how the U.S. can improve health care for everyone. Episodes Mentioned: Priti Krishtel on "For Global...