Obesity is a disease that patients “wear” on the outside of their bodies, making it unlike most other medical conditions. And…Physicians could never have imagined a time when patients came into the office asking them for medications. Shockingly... the era of weight loss medications (GLP1s, semaglutide, tirzepatide) has ushered in one of the biggest philosophical shifts in medicine, with both patients and physicians, completely changing their approach to weight management.  

In this culturally-relevant episode of HeART of Medicine, Drs. Kohli and Jazaeri discuss how this class of medications called GLP-1RAs has revolutionized medicine, creating an identity shift in how we think about prevention and medical care. In addition, they also discuss the impacts of GLP1s on the patient-doctor relationship, the impacts of these medications (which over 40% of the country qualifies for) on the healthcare system, their impact on cardiovascular outcomes and even on the culture and perception of obesity.

This is definitely an episode of HeART of Medicine that almost all of us can relate to as we have all been front-row witnesses to the rise of the era of weight-loss medications, a shift that has changed medicine forever and will go down in the history books.

We go to medical school and learn the science of illnesses. We learn how to diagnose and treat diseases, how to take a clinical history and do a physical examination on our patients. But no one teaches doctors and healthcare providers about how the environment in which we practice medicine is so heavily influenced by health policy and politicians, and how it could change overnight!

The Big Beautiful Bill is clearly going to have many ripple effects on healthcare and it’s definitely here to stay!  So, it behooves us, providers and patients alike, all to learn about its impact on the practice and utilization of medicine. In the episode of HeART of Medicine, Drs. Kohli and Jazaeri discuss all the nuts and bolts about the new bill, what it means for the practice of medicine and how we can all prepare ourselves for the changes it might bring. They even discuss why it’s so “beautiful”! This is definitely a health policy episode of HeART of Medicine you will not want to miss!

As doctors, we feel we are omnipotent. We bring people back from cardiac arrests, car accidents, we stop their heart for open heart surgery and then start it again. We play God. And yet, there is one disease that always humbles us… stroke. It’s an outcome that some fear worse than death. Yet, it’s something that is rising in prevalence yet the science is not keeping up as fast as it should.

In this episode of HeART of Medicine, Dr. Payal Kohli and  Dr. Omid Jazaeri discuss their own emotions about when they treated their very first stroke patient during medical school. They talk about the emotions physicians face everyday when dealing with stroke patients - sadness, empathy, frustration and guilt. Because a stroke changes the very core of everything that defines us - our autonomy, independence, our personality, our very being, it’s unlike any other disease.

But hope is not lost! Drs. Kohli and Jazaeri review the systematic increases in educational efforts, awareness, resources and preventive efforts and how that could change the landscape of stroke medicine.

This episode, in honor of May which is Stroke Awareness Month, leaves you uplifted and empowered to tackle and push the limits of medicine with a disease that can affect any of us or our loved ones!

In this episode of HeART of Medicine, hear Dr. Kohli and Dr. Jazaeri both discuss their own struggles with being patients recently and even joke about how doctors are hypocrites when it comes to following doctor’s orders. This heartfelt episode explores how the “role reversal” of doctors becoming patients impacts both physicians and their patients.  Does it make them better doctors? Should being a patient be taught in medical school? Does it make the system realize that doctors are human and not superhuman?

The physicians talk honestly all aspects of being a patient… from their own loss of control to the “knowing too much” problem to their anxiety and humility and how it has shifted their perspective as physicians. They even cover the challenges of navigating the health system and important lessons learned about medicine that were never taught in medical school.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone who has heard the expression “doctors are the worst patients” and for any doctor who has been a patient or any patient who has wondered whether his/her doctor knows what he/she is experiencing.

What if a single infusion could result in lifelong lowering of your cholesterol and reduction of heart disease? What if this infusion could “turn off” a single cholesterol gene through gene editing that didn’t affect any other functions? Sounds like a good sci-fi movie, doesn’t it? Well… it’s the future of medicine and we are a LOT closer than you think.

In this incredibly inspiring episode of HeART of Medicine, Cardiologist, TV personality and host of the show Dr. Payal Kohli is joined by Vascular Surgeon Dr. Omid Jazaeri. They both sit down for a “heart to heart” with Dr. Sek Kathiresan, who is the co-founder and CEO of Verve Therapeutics, which is pioneering gene editing technology in Cardiology. Dr. Kathiresan shares the details about the inception of the idea, how he left the “ivory tower” of academic medicine at Harvard Medical School and his challenges and struggles along the way. This episode will change your thinking in so many ways and show you how thinking outside the box can change your life while also changing the world!

Can you believe that the  election is under 2 months away? Have you thought about what the most controversial healthcare related topics will be and where you stand on them? 

In this election-focused episode of HeART of Medicine, Cardiologist and TV personality Dr. Payal Kohli and Vascular Surgeon Dr. Omid Jazaeri discuss the hottest and most polarizing public health topics in the upcoming election, including reproductive rights for women, gun control, climate change and healthcare for migrants. They share where the candidates stand on each of these issues and debate whether some of these issues are medical issues or policy issues. Dr. Kohli and Dr. Jazaeri even disagree on whether states should have their own rules for abortion or these should be regulated uniformly under federal law. (Have you thought about YOUR take on this?)

For anyone getting ready to cast their vote in November, this episode perfectly crystallizes some critical public health controversies and will definitely get you  thinking… not just about where the candidates stand on these issues, but more importantly… where YOU stand! Don’t miss this episode!

The whole world has an opinion on whether President Biden (or any older Presidential candidate) should be required to have mandatory cognitive testing… what’s yours?

In this episode of HeART of Medicine, Dr. Payal Kohli and special guest Dr. Scott Humphreys, who is a psychiatrist and a medical director at Colorado Physician Health Program, debate whether doctors should have mandatory, scheduled cognitive testing to be allowed to practice medicine. After all, being a doctor is also a profession where (literally) another person’s life is in your hands!

They also debate the pros and the cons of mandatory retirement, “quitting while you’re up” and whether doctors should be held to a different standard than other professions. For example, it may be ok for someone who works at a desk job, but would it ok for a surgeon to have “normal” age-related left-right confusion? Or slower response times? They discuss the challenges (and the hefty price tag) of comprehensive cognitive testing and implementation in medicine and how medicine creates an environment where cognitive issues are exacerbated. Finally, they touch on what happens when someone fails the cognitive test - how do you take away their ability to practice medicine while still preserving their identity as a doctor?

This episode humanizes the figure in the white coat and asks “Is Mandatory Retirement Just What The Doctor Ordered?”

You won’t want to miss the extra “spicy” episode of HeART of Medicine, where Dr. Payal Kohli and Dr. Omid Jazaeri discuss “cancel culture” and “feedback ninjas” in medicine.

Has fear of “cancel culture” created an environment where doctors are afraid to speak up when trainees need feedback to grow and most people just end up looking the other way? Is the feedback process being “weaponized” by medical trainees and is this a generational issue? And does being fearful of giving open feedback whether to trainees or hospital systems cause harm to our patients? Have we taken it too far?

In this heated episode, Dr. Payal Kohli shares her personal experience and both doctors discuss how “cancel culture” in medicine could pose a serious harm to the care of patients, to communication and to the growth of medical trainees.

The last time you went to the emergency room or to a doctor’s office, were you surprised to be seen by a Nurse Practitioner or Physician Assistants/Associate only rather than a physician or a team of people? Does it seem like there are more and more of these types of encounters in medicine, where the doctor isn’t even part of the visit? Historically, the role of a NP and PA had been developed to improve access to healthcare and offload physicians from more of the straightforward patient care tasks in medicine. However, more recently the role of these types of providers, called APPs, has evolved into becoming specialists, addressing new problems independently, managing complex patients and even performing complicated surgical procedures. The APPs can even switch specialities without having to train the way a physician would to switch and in many states, don’t need physician supervision to practice.

So where does this leave us… Has this has impacted the care of patients? The trust patients have in the medical system? The cost of care? The access to care? And, is this “fair” to our APPs to expect them to take on so much more their training allowed for - to literally, throw them in the deep end with a “sink or swim” mentality?

In this episode, Dr. Kohli and Dr. Jazaeri tackle these difficult question and many more. And… spoiler alert… they even discuss the question at the end of “Why would anyone want to be a physician rather than an NP or PA?” 

This is HeART of Medicine episode you won’t want to miss!

In this emotionally-charged episode, Dr. Payal Kohli discusses the latest medical-legal-political decisions with her recurring guest Dr. Jazaeri. 

Whether it is banning abortions, classifying embryos as children or the safety and efficacy of masking and the COVID vaccines, a series of recent health policy issues have changed the way physicians practice at the bedside. These stones have been thrown into the pond of medicine by politicians and lawyers. But the ripples that have been created have impacted doctors and patients everywhere. Most shocking of all is how these ripples may actually be compromising the credibility of the physician. Dr. Kohli asks the difficult question “When It Comes to Health Policy…Are Doctors Irrelevant?”