Replay: Academic freedom under attack; viral case of an Oklahoma pre-med student's targets her transgender professor; Erika Kirk's terrible NYT interview; 

Our hosts investigate the alarming trend of politically-motivated complaints against university professors. From Indiana University to Texas A&M, faculty are experiencing acute cases of administrative panic when confronted with student outrage—often resulting in terminal employment outcomes.

• Here’s more about Samantha Fulnecky and the story at the University of Oklahoma
• Here’s more about the instructor (Jessica Adams) who was removed from teaching her class at Indiana University
• Here’s more about the instructor (Melissa McCoul) who was fired at Texas A&M and the findings of the faculty committee that reviewed what happened
• Jennifer Freyd’s DARVO concept - Deny-Attack-Reverse Victim and Offender

💊Take Two and Call Me In The Morning 💊

• Here’s one of Haley Dortch’s videos. You’re welcome!
• Somebody, Somewhere on HBO
• How I escaped MAGA! Critical thinking woke me up.
• Nurse Johnn on being unprofessional
• Here’s Jeff Hiller’s book Actress of a Certain Age

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Seattle’s Laurelhurst community vs. Seattle Children’s Hospital; Shingles Vaccine may reduce dementia; Hantavirus scare; American dialects; Zaffron Bloom restaurant

• NEJM article on hantavirus (no paywall)

Rich Folks Complain About Seattle Children’s Helicopters

• Seattle Children’s-Laurelhurst helicopter situation explained
• Laurelhurst “old money” Seattle neighborhood
• 1992 Complaint about “noisy neighbor”
• Satirical take on Laurelhurst
• Helicopter landing data
• Seattle Children’s Statement on Helipad Agreement

Shingles Vaccine and Dementia

• The three research articles mentioned: 
  • Nature
  • JAMA
  • Cell
• Herpes Zoster explainer video (Osmosis)

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Rick Aschmann’s North American English Dialect Map
• Matt Forrest’s reel about the map
• Zay (linguist) on Tik Tok
• Pop v Soda Map
• History of regional words for carbonated beverages
• New York Turk visits Zaffron Bloom

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

5th Circuit Mifepristone chaos heads to Supreme Court; Canadian judge let’s off doctor for SA; Clit art; Golden Tempo; and bee huts!

Hunter Peterson tries to launch Spirit 2.0

Passengers stranded after Spirit Airlines shut down

Mifepristone

• Fifth Circuit Decision Directs FDA to Restrict Mifepristone Access
• Supreme Court puts decision on hold, for now
• “Nuclear option” used to normalize requiring only simple majority to confirm judges - 2013 by Democrats and 2017 by Republicans.
• Personhood: The New Civil War Over Reproduction by Mary Ziegler
• Fetal personhood and access to contraception
• Louisiana law considers an embryo created during IVF to be a “juridical person.” This has been in place since 1986.
• More on Louisiana’s bills related to IVF
• Louisiana legislator’s attempt to protect IVF shelved
• Why Alabama’s bill was problematic
• Fact check: Louisiana law has considered an embryo to be a “juridical person” since 1986, restricting access to IVF in the state. Patients must ship their embryos out of state, yet this is not as restrictive as the law proposed in Alabama in 2024 that specifically referred to embryos as children.

Bedside Betrayal: Jeffrey Sloka Canadian physician

• Jeffrey Sloka was found not guilty
• Findings of the College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPSO) re: Sloka summarized
• CPSO report

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Sophia Wallace clitoris art
• Just Bee Hawai’i
• Golden Tempo wins Kentucky Derby
• Watch Cherie Devaux react to Golden Tempo’s win

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Surgeons need to know anatomy; Voting is good; SCOTUS conflicts of interest; pediatric society hosts unscientific panel on trans kids

• SCOTUS decision on the Voting Rights Act (Arghavan reacts)
• Lawsuit against John Roberts due to conflict of interest
• Slow Burn on Clarence Thomas

Death during surgery:

• Summary of “accidental” liver removal
• State medical board order suspending Shaknovsky’s license
• Investigation into the hospital/interviews of Shaknovsky and staff
• Arghavan’s video going over the anatomy
• Arghavan’s video going over the operative report

Unscientific Conference Panel:

• PAS hosts anti-trans panel
• Protests
• Scientific take down of HHS report

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Alyssa’s paper on conscientious objection
• Association for Surgical Education
• Dr. Gardner on the stage with her baby

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Where’s the bathroom?; digital sexual violence; Buck v. Bell turns 99; RFK Jr’s hearings; Bhattacharya is actually fine with censorship;

RFK Jr: Trump Math, glyphosate, “re-parenting,” wants to eliminate chronically ill people

Everyone Just Needs to Pee

• Trans Legislation Tracker
• Trans bathroom bills
• Nex Benedict (he/him/they/them)
• CA requires gender neutral bathrooms (Note: schools must have at least one such bathroom)
• Tawana Williams
• Refuge Restrooms
• InterAct’s guide to advocacy

Digital Sexual Violence

• CNN’s report on the “rape academy”
• Telegram channel
• Dominique Pelicot’s website relaunched
• Apple & Google help users find nudify apps.
• Collien Fernandes’s husband spread deepfakes of her
• The Tea App was removed after a data breach after being targeted by hackers.

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Merlin the Pig
• Margot’s Got Money Troubles (Book & on AppleTV)

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Pediatrician Dr. Lara Jones discusses advocating to free children from ICE detention facilities. Follow her @AskLaDoctora.

Kids in ICE Detention

• The 19th: These pediatrician moms have a shared message: Release all children in immigration detention
• Letter to DHS
• The Marshall Project April 2026: Data on child detention
• Families describe conditions at Dilley
• More on Drs. Jones, Patel and Cozzo
• Core Civic: the private prison company raking in cash running ICE detention facilities
• Find out if your representatives have taken cash from the companies fueling ICE’s mass deportation efforts
• Check out our previous episodes (E20 & E25)

Get kids out of ICE detention

• Call your representatives (202)-224-3121. Public pressure really works and has led to recent releases of children and congressional hearings on this issue! 
• Text “GO ESH” TO 50409 to send your congress members a letter telling them to end child detention
• Sign Ms Rachel's petition
• Find pre-written advocacy letters by the team on Chili to help organize collective action on child detention
• Donate to commissary funds for families in Dilley (Each Step Home)
• Talk to one person you know about this. Remain curious and center the children.
• Are you a local organizer? Bring your ideas to us let us know how we can support you locally in the community

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Dr. Jones goes on a walk with her toddler
• Dr. Burgart talks about seeing a Giant Sea Bass in Catalina - they can grow to up to 7.5 feet long and 560 lbs!

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Crossing our fingers to avoid nuclear war; Pentagon goes after the pope; Artemis sends back dope pictures of the moon and earth

Iran

• Trump violates international law, says unhinged stuff
• Iranian government offers citizen sacrifice
• 23% Americans support Trump on Iran
• US bombs Pasteur Institute, Sharif University
• Israel bombs Lebanon

Sampler of Bad Things

• Nazi Kanye West
• Grocery, fuel prices
• Insider trading
• Pentagon threatens Pope (Avignon Papacy)
• ICE denies/delays medical care
• JD Vance for Orban

Sampler of Good Stuff

• Dems call for impeachment/25th amendment
• Election wins
• Driscoll fights Hegseth
• Arghavan’s post with Jim Lovell’s comments and video of the Artemis II crew naming Carroll

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning

• Artemis II mobile wallpapers, Flickr
• Eddie is not a morning dog
• Unicorn Day

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

IOC resumes harmful sex gene testing; forced c-sections with zoom court rooms; The Lancet profiles our host!; A woman goes to the moon; Alyssa recommends bioethics books

The Lancet profiles Arghavan!

Sally Ride, 100 tampons (song)

IOC sex testing

• International Olympic Committee’s new policy 
• Andrew Sinclair’s essay 
• Tested podcast 
• Caster Semenya
• Imane Khelif
• Eero Mäntyranta
• Steven van de Velde allowed to compete in 2024
• Fact Check: The Namibian runner is Christine, not Christina, Mboma. Also, astronaut Victor Glover is the first Black person to reach the moon!

Forced C-sections

• Court ordered C-sections & hearings
• Rinat Dray
• Refusal of Medically Recommended Treatment During Pregnancy

Book recommendations

• Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography 
• Policing the Womb
• Medical Bondage
• Radical Reproductive Justice
• Fatal Invention 
• Killing the Black Body 
• Medical Apartheid

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Dogs
• Kit Kat heist
• Geese migration
• Steller Sea Lions

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Mayo medical student’s videos go viral in the bad way; medical misogyny; Match Day memories; ICE at the airports; husbands learn about pelvic exams

Mayo Medical Student:

• Dr. Chloe Nazra Lee on Nick Baumel and medical misogyny
• Gynogirl on DSM5
• Dr. Shannon Clark
• Dr. Jenn Lincoln
• Feminist Midwife on pelvic care
• Dr. Milhouse’s video
• Lindsey Shelton’s video
• Alyssa’s Ethics Consult
• Men trying to understand stirrups

ICE in America's Airports:

• SAVE America Act
• The Brennan Center puts the SAVE America act into context
• Longest TSA wait times in history
• Woman detained by ICE at SFO
• Project 2025
• Arghavan’s round-up on ICE at airports (including Steve Bannon’s comments)
• Tragic LaGuardia accident
• Travel tips in the ICE era
• ACLU’s summary of your rights dealing with ICE at the airport
• Information on our rights from the National Immigration Law Center
• Summary of changes to USPS that could affect mail-in voting
• Trump’s crusade against mail-in voting

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Druski’s Erika Kirk video
• Druski’s NASCAR/redneck video
• Unicorn Day origin story and what it’s like

Fact check: Michael Flynn is being paid $1.25 million, not $1.5 million

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

RFK loses ACIP lawsuit; Pediatricians fight ICE; Boy Boss Documentary disappoints us (Review of Inside the Manosphere); WNBA players get a raise

March madness: Women’s tournament, men’s tournament

Fire celebration: Chaharshanbe suri

• gatherings in Iran
• Persian New Year

Fact check: Arghavan misspoke when she said the name of one of the manfluencer/boy bosses. His name is Justin, not Jeremy. 

Peds vs. ICE; ACIP Lawsuit Victory:

• Pediatricians demand children be removed from ICE detentions
• Here is the letter Drs. Patel, COzzo, and Jones sent to Kristi Noem last month
• Judge blocks RFK Jr from scaling back childhood vaccines
• Judge Murphy’s order

Review of Inside the Manosphere

• Inside the Manosphere
• HS Tikky Tokky
• Myron Gaines
• Playing the feminist card

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• WNBA players reach new agreement
• Charity Ekezie on Africa
• Charity Ekezie on Egypt
• Women’s face coverings near the Straight of Hormouz
• SNL’s MAHAspital

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else.