Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas discusses his own bout with COVID and the impact it had on his family, including his eight-month-old baby. His message for us, plus what he's doing to help stop the spread of COVID in his city.

Hospitals in the metro continue to feel the pressure of the COVID-19 surge. Add ventilators to the list of shortages that includes staffing and monoclonal antibodies along with growing stressors on emergency departments and EMS services. Doctors give an update on the availability of staffed ICU beds and testing, as well as mitigation efforts being deployed as this surge continues.

Chief medical officers and infectious disease physicians from the Kansas City area and across the state of Kansas share crisis communication about the impact of COVID on hospitals and health care in the most severe surge since the pandemic began. 

Dr. Steve Stites, our chief medical officer, returns with Dr. Rachel Liesman, director of microbiology in pathology, and Dr. Jessica Kalender-Rich, general and geriatric medicine. They'll be discussing the continual rise of COVID-19 cases in Kansas City. Additionally, they'll talk about what more can be done to protect our older population especially those in nursing and assisted care centers.

Guests include Dr. Chris Brown, a hospitalist at the health system, Grant Ogden, a respiratory therapist, and Caitlin Beatty, a nurse in a COVID intensive care unit. They join Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer and Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control, to discuss the impact of omicron and delta on healthcare workers.

Infectious disease doctors join to update what is being called a very steep increase in COVID admissions to hospitals across the metro.

Dr. Steve Stites talks with Dr. Barney Graham, the man many call the father of the COVID vaccine. He is former deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the NIH, and helped create many of the COVID vaccines we’re using today, which have saved millions of lives. He’s one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2021. He talks about how he made the discovery and what he is learning about the new omicron variant. Also, Dr. Robert Simari, executive vice chancellor at the University of Kansas Medical Center, joins to discuss the role academics and science have played in fighting the pandemic.

It can be difficult for those living and working in rural communities to access specialty and advanced medical care. We’ll show you how The University of Kansas Health System is leveling the field to help everyone get the right care at the right time regardless of geography.

Dr. Steven Simpson, pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine specialist, and Dr. Steven Lauer, pediatrician, are the guests for Open Mics with Dr. Steve Stites. The three Steve’s will react to a recent proclamation by the Kansas governor around another important health alert.

The intersection of faith and science is a common phrase heard on this show throughout this pandemic. The brother of one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People received a life-saving procedure doctors say could also be called a miracle. We hear from Chris Graham and his doctors, Dr. Koji Ebersole and Dr. Alan Reeves.