Straight Talk MD

Strange Daze is a bi-weekly podcast from the creators of Straight Talk MD, hosted by anesthesiologist Frank Sweeny. Each episode fuses narrative storytelling with science as our host examines a real case of a surgery or a procedure that went terribly wrong and dissects out why. Even the best doctors practicing at the best medical institutions make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes have serious consequences. And sometimes, even when you do everything right, things can still go terribly wrong. The most cynical surgeons depict anesthesiology as 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror. Strange Daze is about the 1%.

The care for back pain in the U.S. has been called "the poster child of medical waste." Today I talk with Dr. Richard Deyo, author of "Watch Your Back," about the various treatments for back pain and what the evidence shows works and what doesn't.

Today I talk with Tim Caulfield about his two national bestsellers: "The Cure for Everything: Untangling the Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness and Happiness" and "Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything? When Celebrity Culture and Science Clash." Tim talks about what the evidence really tells us is good for our health, and deconstructs the misinformation, myths, and bogus claims coming from the pseudoscientists and some celebrities. Tim is also the host of the popular Canadian documentary TV series: "A User's Guide to Cheating Death."

Today's show is a conversation about the Dark Side of ten amazing medical firsts. In each case, the doctor's desire to be first, whether for fame or money, clouded their judgment and put them in direct conflict with their ethical duty as medical scientists. Bioethicist Greg Pence and I countdown these ten amazing medical firsts, and discuss the ethical questions surrounding them. Case #1 is the first human heart transplant to coincide with the 50th anniversary of that event.

In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I have distinguished breast surgeon, Dr. Michele Carpenter, in the studio to answer your questions on breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Today, Dr. William Elliott III discusses his book, "The Real College Debt Crisis: How Student Borrowing Threatens Financial Well-Being and Erodes the American Dream." Dr. Elliot has a novel prescription for an entirely new paradigm to solve the student loan debt problem, and restore equitable access to higher education and The American Dream.

Today's show is a remix of a show I did last January with Ron Howrigon, before Trump took office. As Trump was running on Repeal and Replace Obamacare, we talked extensively about what that would mean for healthcare. We also discussed Ron's new book, "Flatlining: How HealthCare could kill the US Economy" and what was likely to happen to the U.S. economy & healthcare system if we don't make some extraordinary changes soon. I hope you enjoy the show—it's more relevant today than it was last January.

Since our earlier show on this subject, a lot has happened… More than 63,600 mental health professionals have signed a petition warning that Donald Trump is suffering from a grave emotional instability that makes him incapable of safely executing his duties as the President of the United States. On October 14th, the "Duty to Warn" organization will have town hall meetings throughout the United States to make their case for why he should be removed using the 25th Amendment of the Constitution. Today, I interview the creator of that petition to explore why he (and 63,600 other mental health professionals) believe Trump is mentally unfit to serve as President and should be removed. If you listened to the earlier version of this show, there's a lot of new material and a lot of changes in this remix. This is the "producer's cut."

Julie Lythcott-Haims discusses her NY Times Best Seller: HOW TO RAISE AN ADULT: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success.

In honor of the 21st anniversary of the birth of Dolly (the first cloned mammal), and the series finale of Orphan Black (a series that explores the ethics & science of human cloning), I had a far-reaching conversation about human cloning with Gregory Pence about the science, the ethics, the pop culture portrayal of cloning, and the popular misconceptions about what it would really be like to clone humans.