The healthcare system in the U.S. ranks last among peer countries for overall quality and costs, and medical providers and policy makers are calling for new models of care. Carolyn Morcom Rutledge (Old Dominion University) is a Family Nurse Practitioner and founding director of a new Doctor of Nursing Practice program. She says graduating nurses at the doctoral level—and training them in business, leadership, and policy—offers an innovative solution to America’s healthcare problems. Plus: Lily Hargrove is a physician who says taking health insurance out of the equation is better for both doctors and patients. And: Pulitzer Prize finalist Blake Bailey (Old Dominion University) is best known for his biographies of the likes of John Cheever and Richard Yates, and Philip Roth has chosen him to write his official biography. Now Blake is revealing his own dark upbringing in his new memoir The Splendid Things We Planned.

Also featured: An epidemic of over-consumption is sweeping the United States and the rest of the industrialized world. With Good Reason sat down with PBS documentary producer John De Graaf, among whose best-known shows is Affluenza, for an in-depth discussion of happiness and the economy and how the life/work balance got out of whack for American workers. Also featured: The story of life has a complex cast of characters, and Fred Singer (Radford University) says we’re losing many of them due to poor judgment and our own astounding biological success. Singer has interviewed Jane Goodall, Dan Jansen, and other renowned scientists for his new textbook on ecology.