The Life Medical

In this latest episode of The Life Medical podcast, I spoke with the great Todd Berland, Professor of Vascular Surgery at NYU. His interviewing prowess teased out my neurosurgery origin story and predictions for the future of the field, as well as a deep dive into the passion project that is Discogen. A pilot clinical study at Columbia began this year to test the treatment our company has develope...

This week, we kick off an exciting new segment, Anatomy of a Case, where doctors share their most difficult and unusual clinical challenges.  We begin with Dr. Katherine Teter, a vascular surgeon at NYU, describing her first night on-call as an attending. She was asked to manage an uncontrolled hemorrhage resulting from another doctor’s procedural complication. We hear the initial details in her...

Frank Veith has had a remarkable seventy-year career in vascular surgery, pioneering techniques that transformed the field from open to endovascular procedures. His book, The Medical Jungle, details the genesis of these innovations, while candidly describing his battles with an establishment that sought to either block or take credit for his progress.  His story will motivate anyone who has faced...

Neurosurgeon Nicholas Theodore opens the episode by taking us through the decision calculus of spinal cord decompression surgery. We then inaugurate our Life Medical Book Club with two distinguished physician authors. The first is Malcolm Ogborn, whose book Sudden Leadership is subtitled A Survival Guide for Physicians. Then Michael Zema, the author of Modern Healthcare Delivery - Deliverance or...

Last week, the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency. For perspective, we talk with Dr. Mario Ramirez, an emergency room physician whose varied career has included a stint as Acting Director of the Office of Pandemics and Emerging Threats at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We also revisit the caselog of our friend, neurosurgeon Dr...

Imagine you’re a medical student choosing between a career in medicine or surgery. Your teachers and mentors can be crucial to your choice. In this episode, we highlight two fine exemplars of both disciplines. Internist Danielle Ofri describes the journey that led her to become an attending at Bellevue Hospital, a widely-published author who writes movingly about the doctor-patient relationship, a...

This week, we take an epic deep dive into the life and work of Dr. Adam Gazzaley, professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. Adam is helping usher in a future where video games will be prescribed like medicine, the Star Trek holodeck will be across the threshold, and psychedelic agents will help treat depression, addiction and other mental illnesses, at less cost and wi...

The Dr. Death case exposed faults in the medical system that have yet to be repaired. We conclude our special two-part episode of The Life Medical podcast by meeting a group of medicolegal advocates who were instrumental in helping to convict Christopher Duntsch, and continue to address the institutional loopholes that enabled him to inflict his neurosurgical malpractice. This expert panel also re...

We begin a special two-part episode of The Life Medical by examining the case of Christopher Duntsch, a.k.a. Dr. Death, the subject of the wildly popular podcast and recent docudrama on the Peacock streaming service. In less than two years of neurosurgical practice in Dallas, Duntsch amassed an 87% complication rate, meaning that 9 out of 10 of the patients he operated on were either maimed, paral...

On this episode of The Life Medical, we see the pandemic’s effect on medical care through the eyes of “emergentologist” Dr. Calvin Sun, as he works shifts in emergency rooms and urgent care centers across New York City. He discovers anti-vaxers getting vaccinated in secret, discusses the future of emergency medicine, and describes the travels that have taken him to over 190 countries in the last d...

In this double-length episode, we follow Dr. Yasmin Meah on her home visits in East Harlem NYC from the height of the pandemic to the present. Her experience is raw, unfiltered, and intensely personal. We also reconnect with Dr. Paul Lynch, an anesthesiologist from Arizona who served on the front line at Bellevue Hospital during the brutal first wave of the pandemic, treating COVID patients day an...

The Life Medical marks National Nurses' Month by speaking with two nurses who have served in intensive care units since the start of the pandemic. Their emotional stories highlight the personal cost of this demanding work. We are then taken step-by-step through a harrowing brain surgery case, through the eyes of the operating neurosurgeon. Finally, we kick off a recurring segment on scientists exp...

In March of 2020, The Life Medical Podcast began recording Season One with doctors, nurses, and hospitals across the East Coast of the United States. It just so happened that this was also the moment that COVID-19 hit America. The virus landed in New York City, and The Life Medical was there recording real audio during the first wave. Meet brain surgeon and show host Dr. Peter Zahos as he introduc...

In March of 2020, The Life Medical Podcast began recording with medical professionals in hospitals across the East Coast of the United States. It just so happened that this was also the moment COVID-19 hit America. When the virus landed in New York City, The Life Medical had audio devices in the hands of doctors and nurses on the front line. The first season of The Life Medical follows eight worki...