The Health Crossroad with Dr. Doug Elwood and Dr. Tom Elwood

John Mack is one of the most well-known voices on the pharmaceutical industry. Known as "pharmaguy" on Twitter, John has several outlets through which he provides "constructive criticism" on the industry, and a wide fan base who follows his insightful commentary. Celebrating 20 years of online writing this year, John has cemented himself as an authority on the industry through podcasts, newsletters, and other venues such as the Pharma Marketing Blog and Pharma Marketing News. In addition to helping us all stay abreast of the industry, John is also an experienced executive with a background in interactive technologies, medical privacy, and pharmaceutical marketing, and is now Chief Pundit at pharmaguy.com. In this interview, John provides great insights into the pharma industry and discusses key opportunities for system improvement.

Dr. Randy Schekman is a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2013, he shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his role in revealing the machinery that regulates the transport and secretion of proteins in human cells. A former editor-in-chief of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he currently serves as editor-in-chief of the open-access journal eLife, which publishes the most important advances in the life and biomedical sciences. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and his prestigious honors include receiving the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. Dr. Schekman obtained his doctorate from Stanford University where he worked with Dr. Arthur Kornberg, another Nobel laureate. Along with his tremendous achievements in the realm of science, Dr. Schekman is a strong advocate of the importance of public research universities and public education. As a result, he donated his Nobel Prize money to the Berkeley campus in order to create an endowed chair in the life sciences. In this interview, Dr. Schekman discusses his amazing story of getting his first grant "trashed" but then finding his way to researching baker's yeast and moving into genetics and protein exporting mechanisms. Other topics include translational medicine and the NIH, how his research led to insulin production and hepatitis surface antigen, and George Palade, another Nobel laureate.

This Topic Update focuses on the mental health within the United States and the litany of challenges patients, caregivers, researchers, and clinicians face. In our discussion, we explore multiple topics that are at the forefront of our conversations with our guests, including schizophrenia, mental health workforce, research, and stigmatization of mental health in both cultural and clinical environments.

Dr. Alex Moroz is a physician, an educator, and a national leader in integrative medicine. Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Moroz created the Integrative Sports Medicine Program at the World-renowned Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation where he currently serves as the Director of Residency Training and Medical Education at Rusk as well as the Director of the Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Unit. An experienced educator in the field of rehabilitation and disability, Dr. Moroz has spearheaded multiple efforts at improving the knowledge and awareness of disability, receiving multiple awards for his work. He is certified in acupuncture, active in national board certification processes, and continues to add to his impressive list of peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Moroz received his MD degree from the NYU School of Medicine. In this interview, Dr. Moroz discusses integrative medicine, disability, and education.

For the past several decades, Dr. Daniel Callahan has been involved in addressing a wide range of fundamental ethical issues that include: care and decision-making at the end of life, public health priorities, and new and emerging technologies. He is the president emeritus of the Hastings Center and a co-director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy. Dr Callahan has served as a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Medical School. Along with a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard, he has been awarded several honorary doctorates. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences. Additional honors include being the recipient of the 1996 Freedom and Scientific Responsibility Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the author or editor of 41 books and his articles have graced the pages of many distinguished periodicals, such as Daedalus, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Health Affairs. In this interview, Mr. Callahan discusses serious problems facing Medicare, the difference between medicine and health, obesity and social pressure, and the "health care pyramid", among others.

Dr. Peter Klatsky is an Infertility Specialist, is board certified in both Obstetrics and Gyencology and Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility. Dr. Klatsky graduated from The Mount Sinai School of Medicine where he was inducted into to the alpha omega alpha honors society. He completed his residency training at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and his Infertility fellowship at Brown University. He received an MPH from Columbia University.Dr. Klatsky’s scientific accomplishments include clinical research on infertility treatments, as well as cutting edge research in molecular genetics. He has given numerous invited presentations and published in national and international medical journals. In addition to his scientific and academic achievements, he remains passionate about making health and justice available to more people. In addition to caring for couples with infertility in New York, he spends much of his time working on public health programs for women in Africa and the developing world. Dr. Klatsky currently works at The Montefiore Medical Center, where he sees patients and is an Assistant Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In addition to caring for infertile couples in the United States, he is an active social entrepreneur in Global Reproductive Health. His work in east Africa was recently recognized with grants from The World Bank and Vitol Foundation to develop and pilot an innovative application “Fuel For Life” that will provide emergency communication, transportation, and reimbursement service that connects patients and providers at rural health centers to referral hospitals by leveraging existing transportation and telecom assets.

Kathleen Megivern has served since 1998 as Executive Director of the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs, an organization based in Clearwater, Florida. Known by the acronym CAAHEP, it is the largest programmatic accreditor in the health sciences field. In collaboration with its Committees on Accreditation, CAAHEP reviews and accredits more than 2,000 educational programs in 23 health science occupations. Her previous positions include serving as Executive Director of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired and also as Staff Attorney and Legislative Specialist at the American Council of the Blind. She currently is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors (ASPA) where she also serves as Vice Chairperson. Her law degree is from the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America. In this interview, Kathleen discusses many aspects of the changing health environment specifically around accreditation.

Dr. Howard Umansky, a 1980 graduate of the New York College of Podiatric Medicine, is the founder of Mobile Health, a company that provides podiatry and wound care services to homebound patients throughout the state of Florida. He also developed the Diabetic Rural Outreach Project (DROP International), which utilizes telemedicine to remotely monitor patients with wounds in China, Barbados and the U.S. Dr. Umansky's current research involves innovations in prosthetics for amputees and computerized skin sensors to monitor peripheral blood flow. He practices in South Florida and specializes in non-healing diabetic wounds. In this interview, Dr. Umansky discusses the need of diabetic patients, who have a rate of 2-5% of amputations due to the disease, and how he has created a program to address wound care and help patients avoid unnecessary side effects by utilizing telemedicine. He also discusses inappropriate readmissions and outcomes based practice.

Dr. Lucinda Maine serves as Executive Vice President and CEO of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. She previously served as Senior Vice President for Policy, Planning and Communications with the American Pharmacists Association (APhA). She also served on the faculty at the University of Minnesota where she practiced in the field of geriatrics and was an associate professor and associate dean at the Samford University School of Pharmacy. Research includes projects on aging, pharmacy manpower, and pharmacy-based immunizations. Dr. Maine has been active in leadership roles in the profession. She currently is president of the Pharmacy Workforce Center (formerly the Pharmacy Manpower Project) and is a board member for Research! America. Her doctorate is from the University of Minnesota. In this interview, Dr. Maine discusses pharmacy workforce issues, a unique partnership with Walmart, Accountable Care Organizations, chronic disease management, care design, and models of care.

Dr. Jon Kirschner is a board certified specialist in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R), Sports Medicine and Electrodiagnostic Medicine. He is also a registered musculoskeletal sonographer (R-MSK).

He grew up in New York City and attending Cornell University where he graduated with honors with degrees in Nutrition and Human Biology Health and Society. He attended medical school and completed his internship in Internal Medicine at SUNY Downstate. He completed his Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Medicine training at the Kessler Institute of Rehabilitation and UMDNJ (now Rutgers) where he served as chief resident in his final year. He then completed subspecialty fellowship training in Sports Medicine and Interventional Pain Management at Orthopedic and Spine Specialists in York, PA. He received the Earl C. Elkins award for achieving the highest score in the nation on the PMR board examination. As a resident he received the James Mclean Resident As Teacher Award for teaching excellence.

Since finishing fellowship he has worked at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai where he is an assistant professor of Rehablitation Medicine and Associate fellowship director for the Sports Medicine Fellowship program. In June the residents named him Teacher of the Year. Dr. Kirschner’s goal is to restore function, reduce pain, and promote an active, healthy lifestyle using biomechanial assessments, physical therapy, diagnostic ultrasound, and selective injections using xray or ultrasound guidance when needed.

He lectures extensively and has written numerous peer reviewed journal articles and textbook chapters on the non-operative treatment of musculoskeletal disease. He has a book coming out in a few weeks entitled Atlas of Ultrasound Guided Musculoskeletal Injections. He was awarded the ERF Materson New Investigator Grant from the Foundation for PMR in 2012 and is currently studying the role of percutaneous needle tenotomy (PNT) versus PNT and platelet rich plasma for the treatment of chronic tendinosis. He also has interests in medical education and is working on projects developing resident teaching tools for systems based practice.