For episode 50, the microphone gets turned around. Omkar Kulkarni, host, KidsX founder, and pediatric healthcare innovator, takes the guest seat as A Dose of Optimism celebrates its 50th episode milestone.

Omkar reflects on why he built this show, what drew him to children's healthcare, and where he believes technology and AI are taking us next. He shares his views on mental health support for kids, the importance of humility in healthcare innovation, what startups get right (and wrong), and why confidence might be the most underrated superpower we could give a child.

A milestone episode that's equal parts retrospective and forward-looking, and a reminder of why optimism still matters.

Episode Resources:

Akili Interactive

Navigating The Uncharted Risks Of AI Scribes In Clinical Practice

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KidsX Website

KidsX LinkedIn

Children's Hospital L.A. Website

Children's Hospital L.A. Instagram

Children's Hospital L.A. LinkedIn

Female athletes face risks that the science has historically been too slow to address, in part because much of what we know about sports injury and performance was derived from research on male athletes. In this second episode of the youth sports series, two experts share what they're doing about it.

Maya Hayes, associate head coach of the University of Minnesota women's soccer program and former World Cup champion, shares what she has observed across a career as both an elite athlete and a coach of elite young women: the pressure to specialize too early, the role of adults in pushing kids out of sports, the mental health support structures that are working at the collegiate level, and her vision for what female athletes need most: balance and better science designed for them.

Dr. Gregory Myer, Director of the Emory Sports Performance and Research Center (SPARC) at the Atlanta Falcons' headquarters, describes three decades of research into why female athletes sustain ACL injuries at two to ten times the rate of their male counterparts, and how technology, from 3D motion analysis to VR to computer vision on a smartphone, is making movement correction accessible at scale for the first time.

Episode Resources:

The Wu Sai Human Performance Alliance

Georgia Initiative for Virtuality and Education in Sport (GIVES)

Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation | Atlanta, Georgia

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Maya Hayes LinkedIn

Maya Hayes University of Minnesota

University of Minnesota Website

University of Minnesota LinkedIn

University of Minnesota Instagram

University of Minnesota Athletics Website

Golden Gopher soccer Instagram

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Dr. Gregory D. Myer SPARC

Dr. Gregory D. Myer LinkedIn

Sports Performance And Research Center (SPARC) Website

Sports Performance And Research Center (SPARC) Instagram

Sports Performance And Research Center (SPARC) LinkedIn

Emory University Website

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Children's Hospital L.A. Website

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Children's Hospital L.A. LinkedIn

Autism affects nearly 1 in 31 children in the United States, and yet in many ways, we are still in the early stages of understanding what it actually is, and what it takes to support the children and families living with it.

In this episode, two innovators share how they are advancing the science and the care of autism from very different angles.

Dr. Shafali Jeste, Professor and Mattel Executive Endowed Chair of Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, describes the emerging science of autism's genetic causes, how approximately 20% of autism cases now have an identifiable genetic cause, how that number is growing, and what it means for the possibility of precision treatments. She also discusses early detection, the power of parental instinct, and how brain differences can be observed in research settings as early as three months of age.

Pooja Shah, founder of Mindly, describes how she built a digital health platform to address fragmentation in autism care, connecting providers, educators, and parents on a single shared platform through AI-powered video analysis and automated documentation, so observations made in one setting don't stay trapped there.

Episode Resources:

Dr. Lorna Wing - the psychiatrist and autism researcher

Baby Sibs Research Consortium

Remote Infant Studies of Early Learning (RISE) Battery & Consortium

Research Studies | Stanford Autism Center

Simons Foundation

Learn more from the previous episodes:

Autism: Tools to help doctors and parents 

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Dr. Shafali Jeste LinkedIn

Dr. Shafali Jeste - UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Website

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA LinkedIn

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Instagram

UCLA Children's Discovery and Innovation Institute (CDI)

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Pooja Shah LinkedIn

Mindly Website

Mindly LinkedIn

Mindly Instagram

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KidsX Website

KidsX LinkedIn

Children's Hospital L.A. Website

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Children's Hospital L.A. LinkedIn

Youth sports are one of the most powerful forces for development in a child's life. They're also, when done wrong, one of the most reliable ways to injure a child, physically and mentally. In this first episode of a two-part series on youth sports, two experts share what they're seeing at the frontlines of pediatric sports medicine and concussion management.

Dr. Bianca Edison, sports medicine and orthopedic physician at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, makes the case for movement, variety, and play, and describes what happens when kids specialize too early, train too hard, and sacrifice sleep, mental health, and other sources of joy in pursuit of a scholarship or a starting spot. She also shares her vision for a preventive sports medicine clinic where kids come to learn how they move, not just to fix what's broken.

Harrison Brown, CEO and co-founder of HEADCHECK Health, explains why the concussion problem in youth sports isn't primarily a test problem, but a compliance problem. His platform serves 6,000 organizations and 150,000 athletes by digitizing concussion protocols end-to-end, making it possible for administrators, coaches, and medical staff to actually follow the policies they're legally required to have.

Episode Resources:

Positive Coaching Alliance

Jackie and Gene Autry Orthopedic Center at CHLA

Sport-Specific Injury Mechanisms and Situational Patterns of ACL Injuries: A Comprehensive Systematic Review

Where Does Research Happen? Behind the Scenes of the Motion and Sports Analysis Lab

What Are the Barriers to Access to Pediatric Gait Analysis?

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Dr. Bianca Edison CHLA

Dr. Bianca Edison LinkedIn

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Harrison Brown LinkedIn

HEADCHECK Health Website

HEADCHECK Health LinkedIn

HEADCHECK Health Instagram

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KidsX Website

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Children's Hospital L.A. Website

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Children's Hospital L.A. LinkedIn

What does it cost when a patient can't understand their discharge instructions? What does it cost when a healthcare system hasn't adapted its business models to the tools now available?

In this episode, two very different conversations shed light on where healthcare is losing people, and what's being done about it.

Julie Wilner and Joe Corkery of Jaide Health, recently acquired by AMN Healthcare, share how their AI-driven medical interpretation and translation platform is closing one of the most consequential and underaddressed gaps in healthcare equity: the failure to communicate with patients in their own language. A discharge summary that used to take 90 minutes for a language services team member to produce at CHLA now takes five minutes to review and finalize. And as regulatory requirements under the ACA push hospitals toward translated written materials, AI is becoming not just valuable, but necessary.

Nikhil Krishnan, founder of Out-Of-Pocket and one of healthcare's most distinctive voices for making the business of healthcare understandable, shares his perspective on pediatric healthcare as a business, the next wave of AI in clinical workflows, the emerging tension between patients who trust AI more than their providers, and why prevention remains the most underfunded opportunity in the entire system.

Episode Resources:

AMN Healthcare

Affordable Care Act (ACA)

Tribeca Pediatrics: We Care for Your Kids in NYC

ACA Section 1557: Ensuring Meaningful Access for Individuals with Limited English Proficiency

Connect with Julie Wilner & Joe Corkery:

Julie Wilner LinkedIn

Joe Corkery LinkedIn

Jaide Health Website

Jaide Health LinkedIn

Jaide Health Instagram

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Nikhil Krishnan LinkedIn

Nikhil Krishnan X

Out-Of-Pocket Website

Out-Of-Pocket LinkedIn

Out-Of-Pocket Instagram

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Children's Hospital L.A. Website

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Before a child can learn, they need to be able to see. And before a nurse can care for a complex pediatric patient, they need to have experienced something close to it. In this episode, two leaders at the intersection of innovation and workforce development share how they are closing two very different but equally foundational gaps.

Dr. James Dickhoner, Chief Medical Officer of Vision to Learn and Associate Director of Digital Health at CHLA, describes how a mobile clinic model is providing free eye exams and glasses to between two and four million children across the United States who need vision correction and can't get it, and the surprisingly apolitical case for why every school district should want this.

Dr. Jennifer Baird, Associate Chief Nursing Officer for Professional Practice at CHLA, shares how the Pediatric Pathway Program is transforming how nursing students experience pediatric care, tripling and quadrupling clinical hours in pediatric settings, integrating simulation, and sending nurses into the workforce with a depth of preparation that the traditional generalist model simply doesn't provide.

Episode Resources:

Pediatric Pathway Program CHLA

RN Residency in Pediatrics CHLA

Las Madrinas Simulation Center CHLA

Eyeglasses for School Kids Boost Academic Performance, Study Finds

Dr. Megan Collins - Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Gifts You Can Give That Save Lives

Effect of a Randomized Interventional School-Based Vision Program on Academic Performance of Students in Grades 3 to 7 - A Cluster Randomized Clinical Trial

Vision To Learn DONATE

Connect with Dr. James Dickhoner:

James Dickhoner LinkedIn

James Dickhoner CHLA

Vision To Learn Website

Vision To Learn LinkedIn

Vision To Learn Instagram

Vision To Learn DONATE

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Dr. Jennifer Baird LinkedIn

Dr. Jennifer Baird CHLA

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KidsX Website

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Children's Hospital L.A. Website

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Healthcare treats the diagnosis, but what about everything else a family carries alongside it? In this episode, two innovators share their work on the parts of the care experience that clinical medicine often misses.

Dr. Megan Visser, hospital chaplain, sociologist, and postdoctoral research fellow at The Saban Research Institute at CHLA, describes what spiritual care looks like across the spectrum of pediatric illness, from the acute crisis of a terminal diagnosis to the long, quiet grief of learning to live with a chronic condition like diabetes. She shares what surprises her about families' resilience, what parental guilt looks like across conditions and cultures, and why naming grief is often the first step to processing it.

Aashish Mehta, CEO of TacnIQ, describes Backy™, a wearable device that uses tactile sensors to detect high-risk postures and movement patterns in real time, delivering vibrational feedback to the wearer. Currently deployed in hospital settings to support nurses, Backy™ is also being piloted in pregnancy-related back pain support and post-surgical recovery programs.

Episode Resources:

Diabetes Care & Education

SingHealth: Singapore Health Services

Connect with Dr. Megan Visser:

Dr. Megan Visser

Design with Adolescents and Young Adults for Self-Management and Health (DASH) Lab

Children's Hospital Los Angeles: The Saban Research Institute

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Aashish Mehta LinkedIn

TacnIQ.ai Website

TacnIQ.ai LinkedIn

Backy™ - a wearable developed by TacnIQ

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KidsX Website

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Children's Hospital L.A. Website

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Two things children need more of: someone who shows up for them, and food that doesn't harm them. In this episode, two innovators share their work on both sides of that equation.

Amy Braun, President and CEO of HealthCorps, describes how her organization deploys college-age mentors into middle and high schools across 12 states to deliver health and wellness programming, and why the near-peer relationship is the most powerful driver of real health behavior change in teenagers. 84% of students in HealthCorps make at least one measurable health behavior change. Students are 50% less likely to experience poor mental health days than their national peers. And 73% are more likely to connect with an adult on campus, meaning they stay more connected to school and more likely to graduate.

Dr. Michael Goran, Program Director for Nutrition and Obesity at CHLA and the Saban Research Institute at USC, shares findings from a recently published birth cohort study: children consuming higher amounts of ultra-processed foods from birth to age six show significantly smaller volumes in specific regions of the brain. He also shares striking research on infant formula, over half of which in the United States is now made with corn syrup rather than lactose, and what continuous glucose monitoring at six months of age reveals about how different formula compositions affect infant blood sugar stability.

Episode Resources:

Ultra-Processed Foods Linked to Brain Differences in Young Children

The UN Decade of Nutrition, the NOVA food classification and the trouble with ultra-processing

New US dietary guidelines call for more protein, less processed food

Diabetes & Obesity Research Institute (DORI)

USC & Children’s Hospital LA Team Up with Eat Real to Study How Real Food Fuels Student Success

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America

Connect with Amy Braun:

Amy Braun LinkedIn

HealthCorps Website

HealthCorps LinkedIn

HealthCorps Instagram

Connect with Dr. Michael Goran:

Dr. Michael Goran CHLA

Dr. Michael Goran LinkedIn

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KidsX Website

KidsX LinkedIn

Children's Hospital L.A. Website

Children's Hospital L.A. Instagram

Children's Hospital L.A. LinkedIn

What happens to the patients the system never quite finds? In this episode, two teams share how they are using technology to reach children who have been invisible to specialist care, whether because of geography, or because the signs of their rare disease didn't add up to a referral.

Dr. Carl Rosen, Alaska's only board-certified oculoplastic and neuro-ophthalmology surgeon, describes how he built MyEyesAI, a teleophthalmology platform that uses AI-assisted triage, image capture on consumer devices, and video consultation to extend specialist eye care to patients across a state with virtually no ophthalmology subspecialists outside Anchorage. Having already seen more than 300 patients through the platform, he believes it will change the model of how eye care is delivered in remote and underserved settings.

Ivan Terekhov and Alexandre White-Brown of Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario share the story of ThinkRare, an algorithm that scans their active patient population daily, identifies children who are likely to have an undiagnosed rare disease, and alerts the most responsible provider so the patient can be referred to genetics before years of diagnostic odyssey accumulate. With a diagnostic yield of 70% (compared to 35% for standard genetics referrals) and patients now being identified as young as two months old, ThinkRare is beginning to scale across Canada.

Episode Resources:

CHEO Research Institute’s breakthrough ThinkRare algorithm launches national expansion

MyEyesAI - Instant Ophthalmology Expertise – Anywhere, Anytime

The Global Commission to End the Diagnostic Odyssey recommendation

Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA)

Olleyes Virtual Visual Field

Connect with Dr. Carl Rosen:

Carl Eli Rosen, M.D.

Ophthalmic Associates Website

Ophthalmic Associates Facebook

Connect with Ivan Terekhov and Alexandre White-Brown:

Ivan Terekhov LinkedIn

Alexandre White-Brown LinkedIn

CHEO Research Institute Website

CHEO Research Institute LinkedIn

CHEO Research Institute Facebook

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KidsX Website

KidsX LinkedIn

Children's Hospital L.A. Website

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Children's Hospital L.A. LinkedIn

Healthcare workers are facing a crisis that rarely makes headlines, and it's getting worse. In this episode, three innovators share what's really happening to nurses and other frontline clinical staff, and what's being done about it.

Sandy Hall, Executive Director, PCS Quality, Safety, and Patient-Centered Services at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, describes the landscape of workplace violence in pediatric settings, from verbal harassment by families under stress to physical injury from neurodivergent and behavioral health patients who can't control their actions. She explains why pediatric settings have a particular underreporting problem (the "pediatric pass") and why the behavioral health crisis is making conditions for frontline staff dramatically more difficult.

John Bracaglia, CEO and co-founder of Marvin, shares how his company is working to address the $70 billion healthcare workforce crisis by providing mental health support specifically designed for healthcare workers, through counselors who understand clinical culture, an opt-out model that removes the stigma of asking for help, and outcomes data showing a 94.5% retention rate among nurses who engage with the program, compared to a national baseline of 79%.

Ali Al Jabry, CEO of Kwema, describes a deceptively simple solution to one of the most urgent safety needs in healthcare: a smart badge reel with a silent panic button that lets a nurse or clinician call for help without escalating a dangerous situation, and that integrates with existing hospital IT infrastructure to geolocate the person in need in real time.

Episode Resources:

AHA Workplace Violence Resources

Connect with Sandy Hall:

Sandy Hall LinkedIn

Connect with John Bracaglia:

John Bracaglia LinkedIn

Marvin Website

Marvin LinkedIn

Marvin Instagram

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Ali Al Jabry LinkedIn

Kwema Website

Kwema LinkedIn

Kwema Instagram

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Children's Hospital L.A. Website

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