Straight Talk MD

COVID has returned with a vengeance. Dr. Paul Offit is back in the virtual studio for a COVID-19 update. We discuss the vaccine, new anti-viral therapeutics, herd immunity, the Barrington Declaration, and how to avoid another complete shutdown.

On the eve of the election, I perform a post-mortem on the second Presidential debate, and compile closing arguments from Joe Biden and Donald Trump discussing their healthcare plans, the COVID-19 response, and the pandemic looking forward. This is the final episode of the Healthcare 2020 Series.

The post-mortem on the Harris v. Pence debate is here! Mike Pence defends his COVID-19 record, the White House Super Spreader Event, and dodges questions on the Trump healthcare replacement plan. Before November 3rd, tune in for the full analysis of the candidates' claims, with fact checking, and the crucial backstory that the candidates left out.

In the third episode of our Healthcare 2020 series, I perform a post-mortem on the first Biden-Trump debate, the "worst Presidential Debate ever," on all healthcare-related issues. I present the clips, the commentary, and the analysis of what the candidates said, and failed to say. I also fact-check each candidate's claims, their misstatements, and their comments on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ron Howrigon is back in the virtual studio to analyze Donald Trump's 4200-word "doctrine" for a new healthcare system, created by Presidential Executive Orders [his words, not ours.]

We also look at Biden's "Strive for Five" healthcare tweaks to Obamacare and beyond.

Lastly, we discuss how both candidates may have to modify their healthcare platforms based on the fate of Obamacare in the Supreme Court.

In this episode, we lay out the two most likely scenarios…

Just five weeks out from the Presidential election, there are more questions than answers about both Presidential candidates' healthcare plans.

In this series, we examine each candidate's plan to reform healthcare, and how it will impact the rest of us. In this episode, we take a look back at how we got here, and get a glimpse of where we're headed.

In our haste to get a surgery started, sometimes we do things we shouldn't do. Other times, we don't do the things we should do. In the operating room, either error can have serious consequences.

Today's episode is about the real life consequences of skipping a single, seemingly insignificant, step in safety procedures.

Medical Reversal happens when doctors start using a medication, a procedure, or a diagnostic tool without solid evidence that it's effective. Then, after finding out the medication, procedure, or diagnostic tool doesn't work or even harms the patient, they eventually stop using it.

Today, I interview Dr. Adam Cifu, author of the highly acclaimed book "Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives." We discuss the most controversial current examples of medical reversal, why it happens, and why it takes so long to de-adopt ineffective medical procedures, treatments, and medications. He also shares his prescription for how to prevent it.

Medical reversal is far more common than we think, and causes far more harm than we admit.

With the COVID-19 shutdown leading to over 10% unemployment and adding 2 trillion dollars to the national debt (from the "stimulus package"), the U.S. has entered "uncharted economic waters."

No major country in the world has ever been this upside down on debt-to-income ratio. All metrics point to a fiscal disaster much larger than the 2008 mortgage crisis, and substantially worse than the "Great Depression" of 1929.

Today, health care economist, Ron Howrigon, author of Flatlining: How Healthcare Could Kill the US Economy, breaks it down by the numbers. Buckle up folks, winter is coming.

The most cynical surgeons describe anesthesiology as 99% boredom, and 1% sheer terror. Crepitus is about the 1%.

In this true story, a 57-year-old woman is administered general anesthesia for a "routine" knee arthroscopy, and the case rapidly devolved into the 1%. How can a routine knee arthroscopy go so wrong? In about a million and a half different ways. This is one of them.

Crepitus was originally released on our Strange Daze Podcast.