Raise the Line

Today, we’re excited to bring you the first episode in a special Raise the Line series that Osmosis from Elsevier has created in partnership with the Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illnesses (CoRE) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. PAIS: Root Causes, Drivers, and Actionable Solutions is a ten-part examination of a range of post-acute infection syndromes such as long COVID, tick-borne illness, chronic fatigue syndrome, and connective tissue disorders. Your host, Dr. Raven Baxter, a molecular biologist and Director of Science Communication at CoRE, will be joined by an impressive array of specialists in the field to explore causes, symptoms, diagnoses and treatments, as well as the devastating impact on patients who often struggle for many months or even years with a troubling span of symptoms affecting everything from muscle movement to mental health. As you’ll learn in the series, diagnostic protocols are lacking for many of these conditions, leading to delayed treatment and prolonged suffering for patients. In this inaugural episode, Dr. Baxter is joined by microbiologist Dr. Amy Proal, CEO of the PolyBio Research Foundation; Yale University Professor of Immunobiology, Dr. Akiko Iwasaki; and Dr. Edward Breitschwerdt, Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine who will discuss the Building Blocks of PAIS.

Mentioned in this episode: 

Mount Sinai Health System 

Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation 

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

For those proponents of psychedelic-assisted therapy concerned that demand for therapists will outstrip supply in the coming years, you may be reassured by today’s conversation with Dr. Ingmar Gorman and Dr. Elizabeth Nielson, psychologists who have been involved in FDA-approved clinical trials of MDMA and psilocybin, and the co-founders of a company called Fluence Training which is working to scale education for this purpose. As they explain to host Shiv Gaglani, they see their task, broadly speaking, as serving three categories of people: those with general interest in the field; all types of clinicians who want to be able to have informed conversations with patients wishing to discuss their current and/or future use; and those who want to become therapists in this modality. Fluence is especially well-positioned for that last group because of Gorman’s and Nielson’s involvement in designing therapy protocols in clinical trials, but also because of their work developing therapy manuals for drug companies. “If and when their drugs go to market, we’ll be able to train clinicians in the community who will be working with those compounds,” says Gorman. One bottom line message in this richly-informed discussion is that the field needs all comers and they hope people aren’t dissuaded by misconceptions about what’s required. “We hear all the time, 'I want to be involved, but I’d have to go back to school and get all these years of clinical experience' when the reality is there's just so many ways now to get involved,” says Nielson. This is a great overview of the status of training, the potential pitfalls awaiting the field, the importance of managing patient expectations, and much more.

Mentioned in this episode: https://www.fluencetraining.com/

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

Part of why we love bringing Raise the Line to you is we get to introduce you to creative, committed people who see challenges in the healthcare system as opportunities to improve it.  Today’s guest, radiation oncologist Dr. David Grew, is a perfect example. In the depths of COVID when his patients had to meet with him unaccompanied by a support person, he realized his ability to help people understand the complexities of their care was more important than ever, so he doubled-down on his practice of making simple drawings for them on whatever piece of paper was handy. When patients told them they were bringing the papers home so they could explain things to family members, he realized he needed to up his game. “That’s when the light bulb went off. I need to digitize these drawings so that we can scale this educational moment between a doctor and a patient,” he tells host Michael Carrese. Armed with a laptop and basic educational software, Dr. Grew founded the company PRIMR and started building a library of short, animated videos containing the most common explanations he would give patients. When clinical trial managers noticed what he was doing, they wanted in and so a major focus of PRIMR is educating potential trial participants as well. “I'm on a mission to make sure that patients have an easy way to understand clinical trials.” Listen in to find out about a major medical and societal benefit to better education about these trials and to learn how Dr. Grew thinks PRIMR can help with the crisis of physician burnout.

Mentioned in this episode: https://www.primrmed.com/

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“Maybe we think we’re just students and we’re just learning, but you can have an impact as a medical student,” says Dr. Desiree Franco Lugo, who has acted on that insight throughout her recently completed journey at Anáhuac University, Mexico and during her participation in the Osmosis Medical Education Fellowship, where she has served as a Regional Lead for the past two years. Des, as we’ve come to know her, has happily embraced one of the most important roles Regional Leads play: being a mentor to fellow med students. “I love talking to them and seeing how they develop and follow their own dreams. I literally feel like a proud mom with them,” she tells host Hillary Acer. Speaking of which, Hillary, as leader of the OMEF program, has the same pride in all that Des has done to support her peers through hosting events, writing blogs, conducting research and so much more. Beyond Osmosis, Des has developed a global footprint in medical education through internships and being selected to participate in prestigious international conferences. All of those experiences have stoked a previously unknown passion for medical education, and given her confidence to pursue other passions for entrepreneurship and leadership. This is an invigorating conversation in our NextGen Journeys series that underscores what can come from jumping at opportunities, or as Des puts it, having an attitude of ‘less fear and more go for it.’

Mentioned in this episode: 
Osmosis Health Leadership Initiative https://www.osmosis.org/community

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

Promising research, a growing respect for the patient voice and innovative ways of using technology to support patients might be adding up to a new reality of Alzheimer’s and other dementias being experienced as chronic diseases like some cancers are now considered to be. We’re going to learn about that trend and other positive developments in the space on this special episode of Raise the Line with the leaders of CaringKind - one of the nation’s premier organizations focused on Alzheimer’s and dementia caregiving - who took time out from preparing for its annual gala on June 3 for an in-depth discussion of what’s new, what’s coming and what’s most important for the individuals and families affected by dementia. One welcome theme is that the voices of those with lived experience are being given more weight. “We're going to see more grassroots-driven change where people living with dementia are not just participants in research, but they are partners in research, and they’re actually pushing policy change," says Chief Innovation Officer Stephani Shivers. Tune in as host Michael Carrese explores advancements in diagnostics and research with CaringKind adviser Dr. Anne Kenney; gets briefed on a new Medicare pilot program from Stephani; and learns about the “Forget-Me-Not” gala -- which includes dancing robots -- from CEO Eleonora Tornatore-Mikesh. “For the gala, we're really excited about weaving in the work that we're diving into in the next couple of years to ‘connect to living’ -- to culture and music, people, science and services. Being able to utilize technology to bring joy and socialization back to your life is part of that.” This is a revealing look at the current and future state of caregiving for diseases that are affecting a rapidly growing number of Americans and their families. 

Mentioned in this episode: https://www.caringkindnyc.org/gala/

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

“There is a revolution at hand in which, after years of struggling to locate a new source of organs, there may finally be an answer and to everyone's surprise it is animal organs. Pigs may save the day,” says Dr. Andrew Cameron, chief of the Division of Transplantation at Johns Hopkins Medicine. While he’s encouraged by recent progress in using genetically-modified pig organs in humans, Cameron points to other ways of addressing this chronic shortage which include creative use of social media to raise awareness of the need, and even compensating people for donations. But, as you’ll learn on this episode of Raise the Line with host Shiv Gaglani, running the transplant program is just one of the hats Cameron wears. As director of the Department of Surgery and surgeon-in-chief, he has a hand in overseeing all surgical subspecialties, so Shiv also explores his thoughts on the role of robotics and other technologies in both performing operations and in training surgeons. And in what is perhaps an unexpected turn, Cameron expresses his excitement about non-surgical developments to improve health such as the new class of weight loss drugs. “We're not here for me to do fancy surgeries. We're here to take care of sick people, so if there is a non-operative solution that’s better for the patient, we're all in on that, too.” It’s an expansive and fascinating conversation you won’t want to miss.

Mentioned in this episode:

Johns Hopkins Department of Surgery: www.hopkinsmedicine.org/surgery

DONOR App: www.thedonorapp.com

TEDx Talk on Xenotransplantation

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

Today’s Raise the Line guest has a simple but powerful message for medical providers, born of a mother’s heartbreak. “It's going to be rare in your career to meet a zebra but the impact you can have is phenomenal. An early diagnosis could make the difference between life and death for these children,” says Bethan Keall who lost her young daughter Matilda (Tilly) in 2022 to neuroblastoma, a rare cancer most commonly found in children. Because some symptoms of the disease can be easily attributed to other causes, early diagnosis is difficult, particularly if providers are not on the lookout for it. Tilly’s diagnosis of an aggressive form of neuroblastoma introduced Bethan and her husband to the unfortunate realities of a lack of funding and coordination in the UK around pediatric oncology. “For childhood cancer you really need as much collaboration among doctors as possible to understand how treatments can get better because there are relatively few cases,” she explains to host Lindsey Smith. In coping with Tilly’s tragic death at the age of four, her parents have dedicated themselves to Neuroblastoma UK to support research efforts and have benefitted from the emotional and social support provided by a charity called Jak’s Den, founded by the family of a victim of childhood cancer. This is a wrenching, illuminating episode in our Year of the Zebra series offering important insights from a parent’s perspective for providers and policymakers alike. 

Mentioned in this episode: 
Jak’s Den https://www.teamjak.org.uk/
Neuroblastoma UK https://www.neuroblastoma.org.uk/

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

Today, we're continuing our close look at clerkships and residency programs and what students can do to be successful in them with Dr. Sharon Bord and Dr. Amelia Pousson, who are both physicians and assistant professors in emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins University, where, as most listeners know, Osmosis co-founder and Raise the Line host Shiv Gaglani is pursuing his third year of medical school. “I think one of the things that students really feel when they rotate in the ED is the team-based atmosphere. Emergency medicine providers help each other be the best versions of ourselves that we can in medicine. That is really unique,” explains Dr. Bord, who serves as the emergency medicine clerkship and sub-internship director. For her part, Dr. Pousson wants students to realize there are many paths to becoming a wonderful emergency physician. “There's lots of ways to sort of peel the orange and get it just right even if the path there looks a little bit different for each person,” she says.  Both agree that among the keys for success are rigorous honesty and self-reflection about your goals and limitations, and whether the specialty is a good fit. Tune in for an expansive conversation that provides valuable wisdom and fascinating insights into one of the most vital and challenging of medical specialties. 

Mentioned in this episode: Johns Hopkins Core Clerkship in Emergency Medicine

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

Medical school is so demanding that it’s always impressive to meet students who make time for other activities, and doubly impressive when what they devote their precious free time to is intended to improve healthcare.  That’s why we’re delighted to welcome Drs. Lawsen Parker, Rebecca Wolff and Stephanie Koplitz to Raise the Line today.  As they were wrapping up their terms as leaders of the Student Osteopathic Medical Association this Spring, they joined host Hillary Acer for an inspiring conversation about medical education, the role of students as advocates, and the future of healthcare. Lawsen, Rebecca and Stephanie also reflect on what being a medical student in the COVID era has been like and how it has shaped their perspectives on healthcare and leadership. Perhaps Lawsen sums it up best by telling Hillary that after his experience in SOMA, “I can’t imagine my career without being a leader, and an advocate for my colleagues, my patients and myself.” Don’t miss this opportunity to hear what is on the minds of these future leaders in healthcare. 

Mentioned in this episode: https://studentdo.org/

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

Today’s guest is a trailblazing surgeon who performed the first successful nerve allograft, among other important achievements, but that’s actually not what host Shiv Gaglani wanted to focus on in this interview with Dr. Susan Mackinnon. After seeing her speak recently at a Johns Hopkins Grand Rounds presentation, Shiv immediately asked her to be a guest on Raise the Line because of her passion to change the culture and climate in the medical profession, partly by reconnecting it with its core mission. “We need to get it to a point where you can take the Hippocratic oath, which says if I don't agree to look after the care for prince and slave alike, I should die. We need to get back to that.”  Mackinnon candidly details her own journey to being able to recognize and regulate her energy state so that she can perform at the highest level of creativity with colleagues and rise above the counterproductive “I win, you lose” mindset that often prevails in medicine. This free-flowing conversation is packed with insights gathered over a long career and offers much food for thought about how to find happiness and spur innovation at work, and the importance of self-care for providers. There’s also more book recommendations than in any other Raise the Line episode!

Mentioned in this episode: 
Energy Leadership by Bruce Schneider

Taking the Leap by Pema Chodron

Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast