A short episode commenting on a recent piece in Medscape by Arthur L. Caplan, one of the most influential bioethicists of the last 40 years.   LINKS: Arthur Caplan.  “No, Patients Are NOT Consumers, and MDs Are NOT Providers,” Commentary in Medscape, April 2019 Tom Koch. Thieves of Virtue.  MIT Press 2012 RELATED EPISODE: Episode 50. Thieves of…

If ‘health’ is an elusive concept, how much harder it must be to articulate what a healthy community should be.  But that should not stop us from grappling with foundational ideas and from sketching a forward-looking vision for a better society.  Our guest on this episode is Pritpal Tamber, a physician who has devoted his career…

Does the vaccine debate have to be polarized according to “Pro-Vaxx” or “Anti-Vaxx” camps?  Is it possible to have a reasonable discussion about harms and benefits of vaccines?  Are public health concerns about unvaccinated children sufficient to trump individual liberty? Exploring the question with us is Dr. Niran Al-Agba, a board-certified pediatrician in private practice…

Is there a conservative path to universal healthcare? Our guest certainly believes so.  Avik Roy is one of the most influential conservative voices in healthcare.  A graduate from MIT and Yale Medical School, Avik spent many years with the investment firm Bain Capital.  In 2009, in response to the debates leading up to Obamacare, Avik…

Should a pass-fail exam designed to determine a student’s competence to practice medicine be scored numerically and used for residency selection?  Every year, thousands of students sink an increasingly large number of hours and dollars to prepare for “Step 1” of the US Medical Licensing Examination, a task which seems to be disproportionate to the…

Despite its many scientific and therapeutic advances, the field of psychiatry remains lacking in coherence or cohesiveness as compared to other areas of medicine.  Part of the issue undoubtedly has to do with the intractable mind-body problem, but part of it may also be due to the effort of standardization of diagnosis set in motion…

Mention the phrase “industry-sponsored clinical trial” and many eyes will immediately roll back.  But is the reaction justified?  Are academic leaders who participate in phase 3 trials simply figureheads hired to rubber-stamp protocols designed by Pharma and spin the results in a positive way? Our guest on this show has strong opinions on this question. …

A massive push to increase the number of nurse practitioners and physician assistants and to extend their scope of practice is under way.  The stated goal is to address a real or perceived shortage of primary care physicians. This effort worries many doctors who are concerned that patients are getting short-changed in the process.  But…

Effective pharmacological treatment for opioid dependence was introduced more than 15 years ago, yet the opioid epidemic continues to ravage our country and there are still important barriers that prevent patients from receiving the care that they need.  The expansion of health insurance does not seem to mitigate this problem and, in fact, health insurance…

The lure of physician employment seems irresistible and, on the surface, the arguments to justify it are also compelling.  But are physicians selling themselves short? Are they really better off if they become employees of the hospital?  Do they become more efficient?  Are they putting themselves in ethical quandaries?  And what is the way forward…