General Medicine and Primary Care

Host: Brian P. McDonough, MD, FAAFP

Guest: Benjamin Levine, MD, FACC

Poor fitness in middle age is a strong predictor of a person’s future risk of heart failure. Prolonged exercise training, including a regular routine of high-intensity and moderate-intensity workouts, can forestall the effects of sedentary aging by preventing increased left ventricular stiffness.

Dr. Benjamin Levine joins host Dr. Brian McDonough to talk about how regular exercise training may provide protection against the sedentary aging of the heart by preventing an increase in cardiac stiffness.

Dr. Levine is a Professor of Internal Medicine at the UT Southwestern Medical Center and the Director of Autonomic Function and Cardiopulmonary Clinics at the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Host: Brian P. McDonough, MD, FAAFP

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection remains one of the most common sexually transmitted infections in both females and males, with about 9 in 10 people contracting HPV at some point in their lives.

Host Dr. Brian McDonough is joined by Samantha Gottlieb, medical anthropologist and author of Not Quite a Cancer Vaccine: Selling HPV and Cervical Cancer. They explore the history of Gardasil, a vaccine developed for HPV but marketed primarily as a cervical cancer vaccine, which became embroiled in sociopolitical debates about adolescent sexuality and pediatric vaccinations.

The two discuss these precedents alongside current controversies, such as whether vaccinating both males and females will induce herd immunity, and if the benefits outweigh the risks.

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD

Guest: Carl Hart, MD

Carl Hart, who grew up in one of Miami’s toughest neighborhoods, escaped a life of crime and drugs and avoided becoming one of the crack addicts he now helps treat as the Chair of the Department of Psychology at Columbia University. His landmark, controversial research is redefining our understanding of addiction and demonstrates how personal experience and scientific study can inform and validate each other for a deeper understanding of human behavior and addiction.

Host Dr. Maurice Pickard talks with Dr. Hart, author of the book High Price, about the relationship between drugs and pleasure, choice, and motivation, both in the brain and in society. They explore how his research sheds new light on common ideas about race, poverty, and drugs, and explain why current policies are failing.

Host: Jennifer Caudle, DO

Guest: Lisa Ipp, MD

Although most college students in the U.S. believe it is important to get an annual influenza vaccine, less than half say they typically get vaccinated, according to results from a new National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) survey. Motivating college students to get their annual flu vaccinations remains a public health challenge that many health care officials have struggled to overcome.

Host Dr. Jennifer Caudle chats with Dr. Lisa Ipp about the results and takeaways from this survey and what methods and strategies would be the most effective in encouraging more students to get vaccinated.

Dr. Ipp is a Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and Associate Director of Adolescent Medicine at New York-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital. She also serves as a board member for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID)

Host: John Russell, MD

Guest: Thomas Doyle, MD

About 40,000 babies are born with Congenital Heart Disease each year, making it one of the most common birth defects and causes of infant death in the US. CHD is usually present at birth but shows very few outward signs and, in most cases has no known cause or origin.

New and evolving surgical techniques, along with the dawn of pediatric heart transplant, are transforming the field of pediatric cardiology and offer new options for CHD patients.

Host Dr. John Russell talks with Dr. Thomas Doyle about how continued research, improved surgical treatments and, emerging technology have altered the course of treatment for CHD, resulting in approximately 69% of children with CHD now living to age 18.

Dr. Thomas Doyle is the Ann and Monroe Carell Jr. Family Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Doyle was a 2016 Project Heart CHD research grant recipient.

Host: Barnett Mennen, MD

Guest: Comron Saifi, MD

Spinal deformity places strain on the vertebrae and supporting muscles, tendons, ligaments, and tissues supporting the spinal column. The treatment and management of this condition becomes centrally important to maintain patient quality of life through functional mobility and activity levels.

Host, Dr. Barry Mennen and Dr. Comron Saifi discuss the leading assessment and treatment options for spinal deformity. Dr. Saifi is an Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery in the Division of Spine Surgery at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Host: Matt Birnholz, MD

New rules issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are providing physicians with a smoother transition to the Quality Payment Program, or QPP. One critical part of this support involves technical assistance programs, which provide information and resources to physicians during and after this transition.

Host Dr. Matt Birnholz talks with Dr. Edward Sobel and Ms. Temaka Williams about what technical assistance is available to physicians navigating the quality payment program. Dr. Sobel is the Medical Director at Quality Insights,which is based in Charleston, WV, while Miss Williams is a Health Information Technology Advisor at Telligen Oak Brook, Illinois.

Host: Matt Birnholz, MD

Guest: Richard Deem

With the advent of the Medicare Quality Payment Program, there are notable practice changes for clinicians. What do these changes mean for you and your practice?

To examine the issues and opportunities, host Dr. Matt Birnholz welcomes Richard Deem who is the Senior Vice President of Advocacy at AMA. Mr. Deem will explain how these changes affect small practices in particular, and what physicians in these practices need to know in order to succeed.

Host: Brian P. McDonough, MD, FAAFP

According to a report from the Trust for America’s Health, an estimated 1.6 million people could die from drugs, alcohol, and suicide in the next ten years. This is a 60% increase from the past decade.

Host Dr. Brian McDonough talks with John Templeton Jr, President of Footprints Beachside Recovery Center in Florida, about treating addiction and what doctors need to know about reducing opioid addiction risk in their pain medication management.

Guest: David S. Friedman, MD, PhD, MPH

Guest: Steven J. Gedde, MD

Guest: W. Daniel Stamer, PhD

THIS ACTIVITY IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE FOR CREDIT.

Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible vision loss worldwide and it is expected that the number of people affected by glaucoma will increase dramatically in coming decades due to the aging of the world’s population. Despite advances in ocular imaging and visual field testing, a substantial proportion of patients with glaucoma remain undiagnosed and present late in the course of their disease. At the same time, while several classes of drugs are used to manage patients with glaucoma, significant unmet needs persist in glaucoma care.

In this CME/CE-certified enduring activity, glaucoma experts will discuss new pharmacologic and surgical advances in primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and ocular hypertension. Expert faculty will discuss the unmet clinical needs in glaucoma management and will review recently approved therapies together with those in the pipeline that may influence clinical decision-making, and may result in optimum outcomes for non-compliant patients or those refractory to medical therapy alone. Through discussion of creative clinical case scenarios, faculty will also highlight important treatment strategies for glaucoma that ophthalmologists can readily incorporate into clinical practice. These may include reduced complications with MIGS stents and ocular inserts vs. definitive, invasive trabeculectomy; …