Our guest is Khiara Bridges, JD, PhD, professor of law and anthropology at Boston university, and reproductive rights expert. We discuss the experience of low-income, pregnant Black women in NYC as they seek prenatal care -- their experience with the healthcare system, navigating imposed rules and restrictions as recipients of public insurance. We also discuss maternal mortality disparities in the broader context of race and racism in the U.S., and her future projects.

This episode’s topic is pipeline efforts in medicine. Max chats with Drs Darin Latimore and Joan Reed, respectively deans of diversity, inclusion and community engagement at Yale School of Medicine and Harvard School of Medicine. They have both built successful pipeline programs, and share insights in terms of why they matter, the impact they can have on efforts of diversity in medicine and addressing health disparities.

Max meets up with Dr. Marcella Nuñez-Smith, a physician and health equity researcher at Yale University and a native of Saint Thomas. They discuss the after-math of hurricanes Irma and Maria in the Virgin Islands and the rest of the Eastern Caribbean, challenges the region faces due to healthcare policies affecting the 5 U.S. territories, and a path models in which medical education has a role in disaster preparedness/relief efforts.

In light of the 1 year anniversary of hurricane Maria, We are doing a 2-part series on the U.S. territories affected by last year's hurricanes Maria and Irma. For Part 1, Max chats with Dr Marietta Vazquez, a Yale pediatric infectious disease specialist and Boricua, about the hurricane aftermath from the Puerto-rican diaspora’s perspective: the medical relief efforts that took place, hurricane season preparation in Puerto Rico, and the role of disaster preparedness education for physicians in this era of climate change.

Max discusses with Dr. Marco Ramos, a psychiatry resident and historian of medicine at Yale, about the activist role psychiatrists played in Argentina during the authoritarian regime through their therapeutic relationships with patients who faced state violence, some outcome of this movement, and lessons to be learned for today's medical trainees interested in advocacy.

Max meets up with Dr. Benjamin Oldfield, a primary care physician at Yale. They talk about harm reduction: the concept, current efforts, barriers and patient engagement strategies, as we face the current drug epidemic, and work towards improving our health systems' effectiveness.

Max talks with Dr. Helena Hansen, a psychiatrist and anthropologist at NYU, about opioids and other addictive substances: drug marketing, federal and state policies, overdose epidemics, public reaction and the racialization of it all, having led to the creation of a 2-tiered system when it comes to addiction interventions, primarily on the basis of race. They take a deeper dive into elements of harm reduction, and the barriers some patients in her clinical practice face due to race and class.

Max meets up with Dr. Akshay Pendyal, a cardiologist & fellow in the national clinician scholars program at Yale, and they discuss his recent piece in KevinMD, calling physicians to action about using their power to address structural racism. They take a closer look at a particular issue impacted by structural racism: housing insecurity, and this creates for patients with heart failure when seeking relief.

Max's guest is Dr. Carolyn Roberts, an assistant professor of history of science and medicine at Yale University. Max and Carolyn discuss the role physicians had in the British transatlantic slave trade, from the coast of Africa to the Americas, as well as the burgeoning of the pharmaceutical industry then; and what lessons we can learn from this history in order to continue improving the nature of medicine and its role in the lives of historically marginalized populations.

Want to hear more about the gaps in health outcomes between different groups in our society? Ever wonder why your zip-code is such a strong predictor of health? Flip The Script’s goal to shine a light on issues related to health disparities nationally and globally, and discussing potential solutions with our guest-experts. We’ll interview healthcare, public health, health humanities/science professionals who dedicate their careers to contributing to achieving health equity.