Searching for Medicine’s Soul

On this episode, Aaron is joined by Dasha Kiper, author of Travelers to Unimaginable Lands: Stories of Dementia, the Caregiver, and the Human Brain and a clinical trainer at Renewal Memory Partners. Aaron and Dasha discuss the impact dementia has on caregivers. Through cultural pressures, family dynamics, and a lack of support, caregivers have become what Dasha calls “invisible victims.”

Episode description: On this episode, Aaron is joined by Dr. Marc-David Munk, author of Urgent Calls from Distant Places: An Emergency Doctor’s Notes about Life and Death on the Frontiers of East Africa. Dr. Munk discusses his travels to the Middle East and Africa, Christianity’s role as a trusted institution in places where government has failed, and how to bring the focus back to patients in the American healthcare system.

On this episode, Aaron is joined by Doron Gothelf, a professor of child psychiatry at Tel Aviv University and an integral member of the medical team involved in treating Israeli children hostages who have been released. Aaron and Doron discuss childhood trauma, how traumatic events affect the young, and Doron’s work with the victims of Hamas’ violence.

On this episode, Aaron is joined by Lewis Grossman, professor of law at American University and author of the book Choose Your Medicine, to discuss the history of drug regulation and medical freedom.

On this episode, Aaron talks with Dr. James O’Connell, author of Stories from the Shadows: Reflections of a Street Doctor.  Dr. O'Connell discusses his work providing medical care for the homeless in Boston, his experience working as a doctor for the homeless during the AIDS crisis, and the perverse incentives of the medical profession.

In this episode, Aaron is joined by psychiatrist and novelist Samuel Shem, who wrote the satirical novel House of God. Aaron and Samuel discuss Samuel’s latest and final novel in the House of God series, Our Hospital. The book serves as a reflection of the truth of medicine during COVID in which hospitals are driven by profit over humanity.

In this episode, Aaron is joined by Drs. Christopher Worsham and Anupam B. Jena, professors at Harvard Medical School and authors of Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health. The three discuss natural experiments and the biases and outside forces that impact doctors and health policy.

In this episode of Searching for Medicine’s Soul, Aaron was joined by Dr. Ronald Dworkin, a 30-year practicing anesthesiologist, professor of political philosophy at George Washington University, and author of Medical Catastrophe: Confessions of an Anesthesiologist. Aaron and Ronald discuss the importance of medical physicians having a liberal arts education and the consequences of a lack thereof. 

What we choose to measure can distort our organizations, impact our workforce, and hijack our attention and resources. In this episode shared from the Moral Matters podcast, Simon Talbot and Wendy Dean talk to Jerry Muller, professor emeritus of history at the Catholic University of America and the author of The Tyranny of Metrics, about how that happens and how to create metrics that matter.

Listen to more episodes from Simon and Wendy here.

In the second installment of a two-part conversation, Aaron is joined by Dr. Norman Doidge, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who served on the faculty at Columbia University's Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research and the University of Toronto's Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Doidge is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Brain that Changes Itself, and The Brain’s Way of Healing. Aaron and Norman turn their conversation to mainstream medicine, which in Dr. Doidge’s view, has neglected the human soul through the deification of science. They also discuss the corruption of the scientific method by industry and government overreach.