General Medicine and Primary Care

Host Brian McDonough talks with Dr. Joel Nitzkin, preventive medicine physician and senior fellow in tobacco policy for the R Street Institute. The two discuss their respective priorities for reducing tobacco-attributable illnesses and death.

Dr. Brian McDonough chats with physician and nutrition expert Dr. Cass Ingram, author of The Wild Turmeric Cure, about the various reported health benefits of wild turmeric as a disease-preventing spice.

After sitting at the feet of Martin Luther King at the University of Michigan in 1963, Larry Brilliant was swept up into the civil rights movement, marching and protesting across America and Europe. As a radical young doctor he followed the hippie trail from London over the Khyber Pass with his wife Girija, Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm commune to India. There, he found himself in a Himalayan ashram wondering whether he had stumbled into a cult. Instead, one of India’s greatest spiritual teachers, Neem Karoli Baba, opened Larry’s heart and told him his destiny was to work for the World Health Organization to help eradicate killer smallpox. He would never have believed he would become a key player in eliminating a 10,000-year-old disease that killed more than half a billion people in the 20th century alone.

Host Dr. John Russell sits down with Dr. Larry Brilliant to discuss his book, Sometimes Brilliant and talk about his amazing journey from Detroit to counter-culture San Francisco to an ashram in India and beyond.

Dr. Brian McDonough chats with cardiologist Dr. Andrew Waxler about the life and career lessons he learned from his unique family upbringing as the nephew of celebrity comedian Joan Rivers. He then draws on these lessons to describe important steps people can take to live healthy lifestyles for best cardiac outcomes.

In this session of Beyond the Data carrying forward ideas discussed at CDC's Public Health Grand Rounds, Dr. Phoebe Thorpe speaks with Dr. Bobbi Pritt, Director of the Clinical Parasitology Laboratory and Co-Director of Vector-borne Diseases Laboratory Services at the Mayo Clinic. The two expand on Dr. Pritt's lecture focusing on advances in diagnosing tickborne diseases.

Polycystic Ovary Syndrom (PCOS) afflicts 10 to 15% of women worldwide, yet physicians often don't recognize the symptoms associated with this disease.

Host Dr. Brian McDonough chats with Dr. Fiona McCulloch, a Toronto-based naturopath and author of the book 8 Steps to Reverse Your PCOS, about different approaches to managing PCOS and how dietary changes can make huge impacts for women dealing with PCOS.

The burden of deciding end-of-life care often falls on family and friends when patients are no longer able to make decisions regarding their own care. What do physicians need to know when guiding families through these tough situations?

Host Dr. Jennifer Caudle is joined by Dr. Marianne Holler, Medical Director of Hospice and Palliative Programs for the VNA Health Group of New Jersey. They talk about what physicians can do to aid families when faced with end-of-life decisions.

Dr. Brian McDonough chats with Deadly Prescription author Dr. Robert Marx, Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Miami School of Medicine. The two discuss powerful impacts that corporate conflicts of interest from pharmaceutical companies can have on patient health.

Host Dr. Andrew Wilner explores different opportunities to combine medicine with outside interests when off call.

Today, he talks with Dr. John Kihm, an internist in private practice in Durham, NC. who fell in love with North Carolina's Outer Banks and Ocracoke Island off Cape Hatteras while a 4th year medical student. He has found a way to combine his passion for volunteer medical work with his passion for flying by commuting to Ocracoke one weekend a month to conduct his special "house call" practice.

A physician’s career has more flexibility than ever to extend beyond patient care. Health care providers can also use their medical backgrounds to pursue jobs in healthcare management, public policy, education, research and other career paths not directly related to clinical practice. But how do doctors find these nonclinical opportunities?

Joining Dr. Jennifer Caudle is Dr. Heidi Moawad, a neurologist and adjunct professor at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Moawad is creator of the website, nonclinicaldoctors.com, and author of the book, Careers Beyond Clinical Medicine. They talk about the many nonclinical jobs available to doctors and how to find them.