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At Harborview Medical Center, it is not uncommon for people to work there for decades. Over time, these individuals whose passion for work is as unwavering as a religious devotion, shape how this massive institution runs. These are Harborview’s “lifers.” Dr. Eileen Bulger, Harborview’s Chief of Trauma, trained under one of these individuals. His name is Dr. Michael Copass. “He would carry a radio and he would listen into the medic calls. If he wasn’t happy with what they were doing, he would

Editor’s Note: This story contains detailed conversations about mental health. It’s about 8 ½ minutes long. Harborview Medical Center is a major treatment center for people with mental illness, including those who have been involuntarily committed to in-patient care. That population tends to have especially complex issues, and usually doesn’t want to be there. So it takes a special kind of person to connect with those patients and understand what it’s like to be in their position …a person,

Students of Professor Judd Walson often ask him for advice on their career paths and how he became a global health specialist. But Walson didn’t always know he wanted to be a doctor and says his career path was anything but straightforward. In fact, as a young boy he was a talented magician getting paid to perform around the country and even overseas in Sweden. When he graduated High School, he didn’t know what he wanted to do and so he left for Europe to become a street performer. Later in

This week we spend the hour with stories from Harborview Medical Center, the Level 1 Trauma Center covering four states and nearly 100,000 square miles. We hear the story of a tragic house fire in Alaska that gave rise to a world-class medevac system. We visit a clinic serving refugees, and a club where staff and patients blow off steam by laughing at nothing. We get to know psychiatric patients getting counsel from people who have been in their shoes, and meet a doctor whose life changed when

It’s midday on a Tuesday, and people are scattered around the green lawn of Harborview Park, having lunch. Amid their quiet murmurs and the drone of traffic on nearby I-5, comes a thundering sound: laughter. About a dozen people stand in a rough circle near the park’s center, red in the face, doubled over laughing. Welcome to Harborview’s laughter club. For nearly two decades this is where doctors, patients, staff and members of the community have come together twice a month to laugh at nothing.

Immigration attorneys have been busy meeting with migrants seeking asylum who are being held at the SeaTac Federal Detention Center. They were transferred there from Texas under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy against illegal immigration and are now awaiting so-called “credible fear” interviews with immigration officials.

Public-sector unions are bracing for a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that has the potential to hurt them financially. In Washington state, the case would affect almost 300,000 workers employed in the public sector, including teachers and other school staff represented by unions.

This story originally aired on September 9, 2017. Tricia Arcaro Turton’s career started with a big fat “no.” She says she was never one to be discouraged just because someone tells her she can’t do something. And at a young age, she was told that she couldn’t be a boxer. She decided to write off the sport all together. But later in life she would undergo grueling training, and eventually became a professional boxer. This, of course, came after she played elite rugby on the United States national

This story originally aired on September 9, 2017. When Meg Martin first moved to Olympia, Washington from Montana in 2007, she was recovering from a drug addiction and looking to start a new life. In Olympia, she threw herself into outreach work. She volunteered for a program that uses bicycles to deliver clean needles to people on the street who use injection drugs. Night after night, she’d encounter people who were homeless. Because these men and women were actively using drugs, they were not

This week on Sound Effect, we hear stories of people who refused to give up. Billy Idolator Michael Henreichsen developed a fascination with a particular musician: Billy Idol. Michael saw him live a few times, including a show at Tulalip Casino just north of Everett. And something about that show left kind of a sour taste in his mouth . That launched a quixotic two-year quest to get Billy Idol to come to Seattle, and play a live show at his birthday party. Blind Sailor Mohamed Farid took a class