The life of a clinical trialist involves juggling multiple demands.  Beyond the purely scientific questions are the clinical interests of the patient and the personal demands on the physician. Our guest on this episode is Ajay Kirtane, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York.  In this conversation with Anish…

One of the most fundamental questions that a doctor may be asked to answer is the following:  Is this man or is that woman dead?  And one would think that any substantial controversy regarding the determination of death would feature prominently in the medical curriculum and in basic medical textbooks.  Instead, such discussions and debates…

The arcane procedure patients must follow to file out-of-network claims is an important obstacle for a more widespread embrace of a third-party free medical practice.  Could that process be made less daunting? Our guest is Vatsal G. Thakkar, MD, Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine, as well as op-ed contributor…

In a matter of a couple of decades, the concepts of population health and population medicine have taken center-stage in healthcare, displacing the traditional aim of medicine and distorting the doctor-patient relationship. Our guest today is your co-host, Michel Accad, who highlights the errors of the population health theory as revealed in his recently published…

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, a sweeping report was recently published by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine detailing 30 years of research on the sexual harassment of women in academia.  In addition, reports of discrimination and evidence of a pervasive “pay gap” between men and women are also coming to…

Physician burnout has attained epidemic proportions.  It is highest among all professions and new research indicates that doctors commit suicide at a rate that is twice that of the general population, leading to a loss of approximately one physician per day.  And it’s not only doctors who are at risk.  Patients too may suffer the…

Can anyone question evidence-based medicine and not be considered some kind of fringe lunatic?  Fortunately it’s possible, as will be demonstrated by our guest, Mark Tonelli, professor of medicine from the University of Washington, and one of the earliest, most thoughtful, and most articulate academic critic of the EBM dogma. Dr. Tonelli holds a BA…

For most doctors, Hippocrates is a quaint figure of the past with hardly any relevance to the modern practice of medicine.  We may label him as the “father of medicine,” but we have no idea what really connects us to him.  We may occasionally and sanctimoniously proclaim “first, do no harm!”  but we ignore the…

Are doctors patsies for the medical device industry?  Are patients put in harm’s way for lack of tough standards on new device approvals?  We examine the question with Jeanne Lenzer, award-winning investigative journalist and author of The Danger Within Us: America’s Untested, Unregulated Medical Device Industry and One Man’s Battle to Survive It. GUEST: Jeanne Lenzer’s…

Coronary heart disease remains shrouded in mystery as to its causes and natural history.  Our guest is Dr. William Rothstein, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Maryland, who has just published The Coronary Heart Disease Pandemic of the Twentieth Century: Emergence and Decline in Advanced Countries.  This fresh look at the patterns of…