Wayne Jonas, MD, former head of the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine talks with co-producer Liz Seegert about our dependence on prescription drugs, alternative and complementary medicine, and how the health system should focus more on healing, not just curing.

This episode of Healthcetera welcomes listeners on a tour at the intersection of health, heart, and art in Philadelphia with special guide, Dr. Sunny Hallowell. Sunny is a pediatric nurse practitioner at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Professor of Nursing at Villanova University, University of Pennsylvania graduate, and an avid follower of health-involved art history.

Talking about gun violence in the U.S. is difficult. Personal feelings run high, and the environment for conversation degrades quickly.

This edition of HealthConnections advocates no political position. It does not argue for more or fewer firearms restrictions. Instead, this conversation backs a step up to tell us what we know about the human toll of gun violence in the United States and in Tennessee. It is predominantly carried out by men. Men are also typically the victims. Most firearms incidents happen at home. Mass shootings grab the headlines, but make up a small portion of gun incidents each year. And shooters often have a history of domestic violence.

"The portrait we try to paint...of gun violence victims, is not a single portrait," UT's Dr. Carole Myers says. "Therefore, there's not a single solution. This is something that maybe we could come together as Americans, and make sure we understand the problem, then...find solutions without making it a political issue."

It’s been over two months since the Children's Health Insurance Program, CHIP funding has expired.

States are now preparing for the possible end of funding for CHIP, which covers more than 9 million American children. In Colorado, where CHIP covers 167,00 children, there's enough funding to get them through the end of January. They will be sending letters to those families to let them know what their options would be if the program actually ran out of money.

This week, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) helped push a tax bill through the Senate that will cost about $1 trillion. At the same time, he lamented the difficulties of finding the money to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which costs about $14 billion a year — a program Hatch helped create.

Senior Fellow Kristi Westphaln, RN MSN PNP-PC, a San Diego based Nurse Practitioner and co-producer of HealthCetera weighs in on the potential impact on the health and welfare of our children if we CHIP funding is not reauthorized.

This HealthCetera in the Catskills program addresses federal efforts to undermine women's reproductive rights. Host Diana Mason, PhD, RN, interviews Lisa David, CEO of Public Health Solutions, and Debra Marcus, CEO of Family Planing of South Central New York, about the potential impact of these changes on women in the nation and how women in New York have state guarantees for respecting women's reproductive choices.

Since WWII, Americans have been sold the idea […]

HealthCetera Producer Kristi Westphaln shares a personal […]

Producer Kristi Westphaln was interviewing at the University of California Los Angeles, it was during a lunch break, and she was sitting alone running through her social media feed. She made a gut wrenching discovery: Someone she knew who is sweet, amazing, and with an adventurous spirit. Someone with two young children and a loving family. Someone who loves country music and went to a concert, in Las Vegas, on the wrong day at the wrong time….

Fifty-nine people are dead and over five hundred people are wounded from the recent mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada. This tragedy is not the first of its kind. Mass shootings are on the rise in America and have infiltrated venues that were once considered safe: elementary schools, concert venues, nightclubs, and other community settings. As gun violence continues to kill over 30,000 Americans per year, conversations continue about how the government plans to respond to this epidemic.

While some talk, others act. Pediatrician and California Senator Richard Pan is interviewed by Healthcetera Senior Fellow Kristi Westphaln regarding the need for action in protecting Californians and all Americans from the gun violence epidemic. He highlights key tenets of managing gun violence from a public health perspective, speaks to how research represents an essential element to combating the gun violence epidemic, and offers hope for the future.

Westphaln reports that the wave of nausea still sits at the pit of her stomach. It hasn’t dissipated, and she doesn't want it to. Violence isn’t normal, nor should it be normalized. The great debate of how to make America great needs a new frame- how can we work together to make America safe?

As our population lives longer with more […]

In many ways, the state of Kentucky […]