Book Club

Host Dr. Maurice Pickard welcomes award-winning journalist Katy Butler. In her book, Knocking on Heaven's Door, she speaks for the twenty-four million Americans who are helping their parents through their final years. Ms. Butler's memoir and investigation reports on the modern complications of technology, medicine, and business toward the process of dying. Knocking on Heaven's Door helps encourage readers to have the difficult conversations with loved ones that are needed in order to discover paths toward a better way of death.

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Strange Medicine is an account of the practice of medicine throughout the ages that highlights the most bizarre treatments, medical blunders, and odd medical behavior that seem to do more harm than good. Author Nathan Belofsky joins host Dr. John Russell to discuss a variety of medical oddities across the timeline of history.

Have your patients shared with you paranormal experiences? Have there been unexplained medical mysteries resolved? Sharing case studies and analyses from respected medical journals, Dr. Robert Bobrow researches various instances that do not fit into the normal lexicon of medical diagnoses. He encourages health care providers to be aware of unexplainable phenomena in order to experience opportunities to advance science. Tune in to listen to host Dr. John Russell reviewing Dr. Bobrow's book, The Witch in the Waiting Room: A Physician Investigates Paranormal Phenomena in Medicine.

Dr. Bobrow has practiced general medicine for over thirty years and is currently a clinical associate professor at Stony Brook University. Dr. Bobrow's articles have been published in numerous journals such as American Family Physician, New York State Journal of Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine, and Psychology Today. He is the recipient of numerous teaching awards including Family Medicine Faculty Teacher of the Year 2003.

Host Dr. John Russell chats with author Thomas Goetz about his recent book, The Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest To Cure Tuberculosis. The book chronicles the lives of two men: Robert Koch, great German scientist, who convinced the world of the germ theory of disease; and Arthur Conan Doyle, trained physician and author of Sherlock Holmes stories. The Remedy traces the history of tuberculosis, the people who brought its diagnosis, etiology, and treatment approaches to light, and ways in which scientific discoveries evolved into everyday realities. Mr. Goetz is a writer, entrepreneur and health care innovator.

Host Dr. Maurice Pickard welcomes author, Richard Colgan, MD, Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. In this second interview, Dr. Colgan highlights the importance of developing the personal skill sets beyond the technical skills taught in medical school and residency, such as communicating with patients, having empathy, and being respectful.

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Ha! The Science of When We Laugh and Why wirtten by Scott Weems, PhD examines the internal process of how the brain and the mind operate in interpreting humor. Dr. Weems will also review humor as an exercise for the brain, the psychological and intellectual benefits of humor and what happens physiologically. Dr. Weems' career began as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, where he served as communications officer in Kodiak, Alaska. His travels then took him to New Orleans, Boston, Los Angeles, Annapolis, and Little Rock, where he earned graduate degrees in psychology, education, creative writing, and a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from UCLA along the way.

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The healing professions have an ancient and venerable tradition of service, honor, and humanism that is often communicated from teacher to student in anecdotes and bits of wisdom told quickly in passing. In his book, Advice to the Healer: On the Art of Caring, Dr. Richard Colgan, Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, expertly gathers together this type of valuable information in one place. Joining host Dr. Maurice Pickard, this discussion features biographies of historical luminaries in medicine, tales from everyday practice, inspirational quotes, and advice for new and veteran healers alike.

The healing professions have an ancient and venerable tradition of service, honor, and humanism that is often communicated from teacher to student in anecdotes and bits of wisdom told quickly in passing. In his book, Advice to the Healer: On the Art of Caring, Dr. Richard Colgan, Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, expertly gathers together this type of valuable information in one place. Joining host Dr. Maurice Pickard, this discussion features biographies of historical luminaries in medicine, tales from everyday practice, inspirational quotes, and advice for new and veteran healers alike.

Author and journalist Molly Caldwell Crosby joins host Dr. John Russell to discuss her second book, Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic that Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries. Asleep is another fascnating look into medical history. In the 1920s and '30s, a team of neurologists investigated a rare but disturbing group of patients spread across various hospitals and insane asylums to try to solve the worldwide epidemic of encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness.

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Host Dr. John Russell welcomes author and journalist Molly Caldwell Crosby to discuss her first book, THE AMERICAN PLAGUE: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History. The discussion focuses on one of history's most controversial human studies - the story of yellow fever and how it overshadowed this country, and in Africa, where even today it strikes thousands every year.

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