Lifespan: Stories of Illness, Accident, and Recovery

Debbie and Doug have been married for more than 40 years. In this episode of Lifespan, Doug talks candidly about his addiction to alcohol and his ongoing recovery. Debbie describes the meaning and effect of co-dependence, and the invaluable help she received from Al-Anon. Doug is now a substance abuse counselor, so his description of his recovery offers professional as well as deeply personal insight into the disease of alcoholism.

In the last 16 years, Bernhard Debatin has had three different types of cancer. Physicians in Germany treated his first cancer successfully; physicians in the United States successfully treated the other two. In this episode of Lifespan, Bernhard describes patients’ experience of cancer and its aftermath, and reflects on how culture, healthcare systems, and even language shape our experience and view of illness, treatment, and recovery.

While members of the medical community concede that at 32% of births obstetricians are performing too many cesareans, cesarean sections can also be life-saving. That is why listening to, and learning from, women’s experiences can benefit both the mothers who might be helped by a timely cesarean, as well as the mothers who can probably avoid the surgery if they are allowed to go into labor spontaneously, or permitted to labor a little longer. In this episode of Lifespan, Robin, Amanda, and Jacinda tell their stories.

We all know how sick we feel when our stomach is upset. We’ve all experienced nausea, diarrhea, and stomach pain—among the most uncomfortable symptoms we can have when we’re sick. But chronic gastro-intestinal disease and serious episodic gastro-intestinal disease take stomach discomfort to an entirely different level. On this episode of Lifespan, Matt Johnson discusses his experience with bouts of diverticulitis, and Katlyn Allen describes living with Crohn’s disease. Dr. Brian Torski, a physician specializing in gastroenterology, offers some commentary.

Last month, Jackie Wolf talked to three women, Lauren, Stacy, and Cora, who were pregnant for the first time. On this month’s episode of Lifespan, Jackie talks to them again—this time about their births. It turns out that the medical treatment and advice they received during their pregnancies set the agenda for how their babies were born. And the three births ended up representing the range of American women’s birth experiences today—a failed induction ending in cesarean surgery; an induced labor with epidural anesthesia ending in a vaginal birth; and a natural birth.

On this episode of Lifespan, Jackie Wolf talks to three women who will soon give birth for the first time. Their experiences during pregnancy have differed because each woman received a different medical label. Doctors identified Lauren, at age 36, as “a geriatric pregnancy.” Stacy struggled with infertility before becoming pregnant. And Cora, despite a “normal” pregnancy, suffered medically induced worries after doctors insisted on conducting multiple tests over many weeks only to find no problems. Lauren’s, Stacy’s, and Cora’s stories help us understand why our healthcare system is the costliest in the world, with worse outcomes, particularly for mothers and newborns, than in other wealthy countries. In the next episode of Lifespan we’ll follow up with Lauren, Stacy, and Cora to hear about their babies’ births.

Medical students of color shoulder a double burden. They are medical students, expected to do all the hard work that goes with being a medical student. And each day they also must cope with, and find ways to respond to, racism in the classroom and the clinic. They don’t have the luxury of simply being medical students. On this episode of Lifespan, four medical students of color, Alyssa Gerth, Andrew Williams, Aichetou Waiga, and Sami Nandyal) describe their backgrounds, and talk about their experiences in the classroom and the clinic. Berkeley Franz, a medical sociologist in the Department of Social Medicine at Ohio University, provides commentary.

One deceased organ donor can save up to 8 lives. Yet, on average, 20 people on the United Network for Organ Sharing waiting list die each day because so few organs are available. On this episode of Lifespan, we hear from Kelly Nottingham, who donated a kidney to her mother; David Burke, who received a liver from a deceased donor; and Cynthia Tindongan, who donated a kidney to a stranger.

Burns are among the most difficult injuries for physicians to treat. Our skin isn’t just our appearance to the world, skin helps to regulate body temperature, prevent infection, and ensure that fluids move smoothly from one part of our body to the other. When our skin is severely damaged, especially if the damage is widespread third- and fourth-degree burns, treatment is exceedingly complex. In this episode of Lifespan, Heather Salazar, a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Ohio University and a burn victim, shares her story.

https://www.milbank.org/quarterly/articles/the-lake-wobegon-effect-are-all-cancer-patients-above-average/