Infectious Diseases

Host: Joshua Sharfstein, MD

Host: Stephanie Desmon

Guest: Kathleen Day, MBA, MS

As officials consider how and when to scale back social distancing restrictions, a big question is: When the economy reopens, will there be anywhere to go? Financial crises expert and author Kathleen Day returns to talk with Stephanie Desmon about the millions of Americans filing for unemployment, whether our current crisis will rival the Great Depression, and how we could start to dig our way out.

Published April 29, 2020

Host: Joshua Sharfstein, MD

Guest: Matt Hornbeck

Schools are scrambling to figure out education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Matt Hornbeck, Principal of the top-rated Hampstead Hill Academy—a Pre-k-8 public school in southeast Baltimore city—says instruction is only part of the challenge: technology gaps, trying to reach vulnerable students, and the trauma of a sudden separation from friends and teachers are unprecedented issues to address. Hornbeck talks to Dr. Josh Sharfstein about how Hampstead Hill is trying to take care of its school community and how they’re preparing for the next period of uncertainty.

Published May 5, 2020

Host: Joshua Sharfstein, MD

Guest: Kevin Lindamood, MSW

Guest: Adrienne Trustman, MD

Guest: Barbara DiPietro, PhD

Homelessness is already a public health emergency in the US. COVID-19 now adds to the unique challenges facing individuals without homes. So how are the homeless and their caregivers responding? Kevin Lindamood and Dr. Adrienne Trustman of Baltimore’s Health Care for the Homeless and Barbara DiPietro of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about homelessness amid a pandemic.

Published May 4, 2020

Host: Joshua Sharfstein, MD

Guest: Lauren M. Sauer, MS

What makes this virus different from hundreds of other similar viruses? What happens if parents don’t take their children for routine immunizations? Does prone body positioning help ICU patients? Does coronavirus spread best in wet or dry environments? What are randomized control trials and why is everyone talking about them? Is it possible to give someone a tattoo from six feet away? Lauren Sauer, Director of Operations with the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR) and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine, addresses these questions.

Published May 1, 2020

Host: Joshua Sharfstein, MD

Guest: Karen C. Carroll, MD

In March, Johns Hopkins Hospital began making its own COVID-19 tests. The lab now has the capacity to run 600 tests per day but is limited by shortages in the supply of reagents: the chemicals needed to process the tests. Dr. Karen Carroll, Director of the Division of Medical Microbiology at Johns Hopkins Hospital talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about what it takes to develop a working COVID-19 test, why labs across the US are struggling with shortages, and what needs to happen to fix access to testing.

Published May 1, 2020

Host: Joshua Sharfstein, MD

Guest: Yngvild K. Olsen, MD, MPH, DFASAM

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the opioid epidemic disappeared from headlines but not from reality. Dr. Josh Sharfstein talks to Dr. Yngvild Olsen, the medical director of an addiction treatment program in Baltimore and the Vice President of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, about how her clinic had to pivot to stay open while protecting both patients and staff, how federal regulations have shifted, and what the status of the epidemic is and might be post-COVID-19.

Disclosure: Medical school classmates, Dr. Sharfstein and Dr. Olsen are married.

Published April 30, 2020

Host: Joshua Sharfstein, MD

Host: Colleen L. Barry, PhD

Guest: Brendan Nyhan, PhD

Misinformation about COVID-19 can have real human costs in the forms of physical harm and “straining the fabric of democracy.” But where does misinformation come from, and how can it be prevented when so much is still unknown about the virus?

Guest host Dr. Colleen Barry, Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management, talks with Dr. Brendan Nyhan, an expert in the politics of misinformation about health, about why people might believe false claims, the role of politics, and how to keep science at the center of the discussion.

Published April 30, 2020

Host: Joshua Sharfstein, MD

Guest: Emily S. Gurley, PhD

Guest: Brooke Jarrett

It might be too late to halt transmission of COVID-19, but contract tracing could help bring the outbreak under control. Dr. Emily Gurley and PhD candidate Brooke Jarrett break down contact tracing and what it would take to get “an army” off the ground in US cities.

Published April 29, 2020

Host: Joshua Sharfstein, MD

Host: Stephanie Desmon

Guest: Dorry Segev, MD, PhD

With organ transplants on pause in the US to free up needed hospital resources, Americans with kidney failure are forced to assume the risks of going to crowded dialysis centers three times a week. Kidney transplant surgeon Dr. Dorry Segev talks with Stephanie Desmon about how the organ transplant community can rethink ways to resume transplants, assess which patients might fare better with risky transplants, and if COVID-19 patients can be organ donors.

Published April 28, 2020

Host: Joshua Sharfstein, MD

Host: Stephanie Desmon

Guest: Maximilian Konig, MD

Guest: Chetan Bettegowda, MD, PhD

For the subset of people who become critically ill from the novel coronavirus, cytokine storms could be to blame. This severe inflammatory disease happens when the immune system goes haywire in response to a novel threat. Rheumatology fellow Dr. Max Konig and neurosurgeon Dr. Chetan Bettegowda talk with Stephanie Desmon about the vital role of cytokine in immune responses, how to identify who might be at risk, and how research is looking into stopping the storms before they start.

Published April 28, 2020