The Weekly Check-Up Podcast

In his farewell address as president on January 17, 1961, Eisenhower warned his countrymen of what he called "the military-industrial complex," a huge and permanent armaments industry that had acquired great political and economic power. He was concerned about the possible conflict between public and private interests in the crucial area of national defense. The past decade has seen the...

You know them, you’ve seen them, you may even use them. They’re WMD-wearable medical devices like the FitBit, the Apple Watch, and the Aura ring, and the one-inch square discs affixed on people’s upper arms monitoring blood glucose or delivering medication. These are examples of an expanding array of wearable and implantable medical devices or BioMEMSs (biomedical microelectromechanical systems) t...

The eye's posterior chamber, from the back of the lens through the gel-like vitreous humor to the retina’s neural network and blood vessels, is a marvel of biologic engineering. It translates light into electrical impulses, enabling vision. Age and disease not only produce benign flashers and floaters but also the more serious vitreous and retinal detachment. They also contribute to macular de...

The innumerable songs of heartache by female artists that top the R&B, Rock and Country music charts tell of the emotional heartbreak of lost love. But the literal, physical broken heart is a profoundly underappreciated aspect of women’s health.  Heart disease is the number one cause of death for women in the U.S., more lethal than all forms of cancer combined. By 2050, heart disease will affe...

The roots of urgent care trace back to the industrial clinics of the early 20th century designed to treat injured workers quickly and minimize downtime. The urgent care model re-emerged in the 1970s as a response to overcrowded emergency departments and the inability of primary care offices to handle acute, non-life-threatening issues such as walk-ins or after-hours care. Initially met with skepti...

Most rashes are benign. If they are viral, they resolve spontaneously, and if they are bacterial they may require antibiotics. However, some rashes have been more elusive to understand and treat. These more chronic skin rashes are long-lasting, often inflammatory disorders requiring ongoing management to control symptoms like itching, redness, and pain. Common types include eczema, psoriasis, acne...

Cataracts, which are the age-related changes of the eye’s natural lens, are the leading cause of reversible blindness worldwide and among older adults in the U.S.  As proteins in the lens break down over time, they cause the lens to be less transparent and less able to change its shape. The lens can’t contract into a ball for near vision or flatten for distant; images become cloudy, blurry, less b...

The US rural healthcare crisis is a quiet emergency affecting roughly 60 million people — one-fifth of the population — who face higher mortality rates, systemic hospital closures, and severe specialist shortage. Over 700 rural hospitals (roughly 30% of the national total) are currently at risk of closing due to financial shortfalls. Since 2005, more than 190 rural hospitals have closed while anot...

The facts are staggering. Lung cancer remains the number one cancer killer of both men and women. 230,000 new lung cancer diagnoses are expected in the US this year.  The average annual cost of treating advanced or metastatic lung cancer is astronomical, often exceeding $200,000 per year. Lung cancer screening with low-dose CT scans is severely underused in the U.S. with less than 20% of the milli...

One hundred years ago, medical researchers noted that upper-body obesity was associated with high blood sugar (diabetes), high blood pressure (hypertension), and hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis.)  Fifty years later the term "metabolic syndrome" was coined. In 1988,  a prominent researcher introduced Syndrome X, in which he claimed that the underlying problem with obese, diabet...

The American healthcare system is in crisis characterized by high and rising costs, fragmentation, poor access to care, administrative complexity, and workforce shortages. Costs are passed on via ever rising premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket expenses for insured individuals. Meanwhile, factors like administrative burden, a fee-for-service model, and limited access to primary care contribute...

Among the many reasons I chose the specialty of medical oncology is that cancer can present anywhere in the body, manifest any symptom, affect anyone, and its clinical course often presents conundrums for our inner Sherlock Holmes or Dr. House. “The Weekly Check-Up” radio show launched the year I retired from my clinical practice. I didn't realize how important a role it would play in my conti...

Medical historians endlessly debate the greatest medical advancements. Among them are vaccination credited to Jenner in 1796; anesthesia credited to Crawford-Long in 1842; antibiotics with Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1928; and X-rays credited to the Curies and Roentgen in 1895. Then you have organ transplantation, public health improvements, insulin, the microscope, germ theory, and the d...

The use of sound or acoustic energy in medicine has evolved from the ancient diagnostic method used by ⁠Hippocrates by placing his ear to the chest. However, we had to wait 2,000 years for the invention of the ⁠stethoscope⁠. Today, acoustic energy is used in diagnostic imaging called ultrasound that has revolutionized obstetrics and cardiology, while therapeutic applications of sound have resulted...

Great trauma systems do not prevent trauma; they limit the carnage, disability, and chaos that are its consequence. Preventing trauma is the work of public policy and organizations like the Georgia Trauma Foundation. Seat belt laws, helmet laws, and air bag requirements have saved literally millions of lives.  But technology, policy, education, and awareness have limits. Reckless driving, driving...

If you’ve ever gone with your gut to make a decision or felt butterflies in your stomach when nervous, you’re likely getting signals from an unexpected source: your second brain. Hidden in the walls of the digestive system, this brain in your gut is revolutionizing medicine’s understanding of the links between digestion, mood, behavior, health, and even the way you think. Add increased understandi...

The hormonal chaos women experience month after month from menarche through menopause is due to natural, fluctuating levels of hormones like estrogen and progesterone that can impact mood, energy, and even physical health. These hormonal shifts affect internal chemicals called neurotransmitters that can lead to mood swings, anxiety, brain fog, and fatigue. They may be a normal part of the female l...

The 2002 Verizon advertising campaign launched the slogan: Can you hear me now? The phrase resonated not only because of the universal experience of poor reception quality of cellular networks, but due to an emerging zeitgeist of disaffection with modernity, technology, impersonal communication, and isolation. Healthcare consumers embody this frustration, propelling them to call in to “The Weekly...

Heart failure has a long history in medicine. It began with the Greek physician Galen in 200 AD. In 1300, Ibn Nafis established the foundation upon which William Harvey made his revolutionary conclusion some 400 years later. Harvey noted that blood circulates continuously left to right through the lungs by the pumping or propelling action of the cardiac muscle, thus making the heart the center of...

The all-too-familiar topic of school shootings remains the focus of endless debate. While we all wring our hands at the perceived inability to stop this horror, there are folks focused on what can be done to limit the death and injury while the problem itself remains intractable, with more than 43,000 children exposed in 2022 alone. One such shooting occurred less than 60 miles from Dr. Feinberg’s...

Vision is the dominant of the five senses the body uses to interpret its surroundings. The organ of vision is the eye which is composed of a series of lenses and spaces that give focus to images, just as a camera does. It is composed of the cornea, lens, and the aqueous and vitreous humor, each of which contribute to perfecting the focus of the light received by the retina, analogous to the film o...

For centuries, family doctors delivered babies, cared for them as children, and managed them later as adults. Today, the human medical journey is most often managed by specialists, with children cared for by pediatricians.  From post-pandemic developmental delays, obesity, and declining rates of vaccination in younger children to mental health crises, and opioid and substance use in older children...

On this episode, we continue our exploration of the body’s circuitry moving from the heart and its circuitry disruptions causing arrhythmias to the brain where circuitry disruptions cause seizures. Maybe you’ve witnessed a seizure in a family member or friend, or you’ve seen them portrayed on TV or in a movie like the Paul Muni classic, “The Last Angry Man.” Whatever your exposure, your understand...

The complexity of the human body makes it perfect fodder for analogies and metaphors to explain its workings. The urinary tract removes liquid waste, gaining its analogy to plumbing and urologists as plumbers. The muscles and bones of the skeletal system are not unlike the beams and girders of a building, resulting in orthopedists being called carpenters.  All of which begs the question: Who are t...

The external human ear is a shell-shaped structure composed of cartilage covered by skin that lies on the lateral aspect of the head. Inside the head lie the middle and inner ear. All together they are the organ of hearing or audition and equilibrium or balance. When it comes to common disease associations, the outer ear is skin cancer, the middle ear is otitis media or earaches, and the inner ear...