Research on excess body weight and obesity has long been predicated on the fundamental assumption that weight is gained based on a 'calories in, calories out' equation. If you consume more calories than you expend, you gain weight, right? Science reporter Gary Taubes and reader-turned-friend Nick Gulino are among a growing faction that says it might not be so simple. As Gulino himself has experienced, this conventional paradigm often leads to a culture of fat-shaming and blame for heavy individu...
Sep 22, 2021•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast The country is in a climate crisis, but it isn't an issue that can be left to the climate scientists — every disaster has consequences that reverberate through the health care system, often acutely affecting people of color, and particularly pregnant people and newborns. This week, flood disaster coordinator Emily Mediate and OB/GYN physician Neel Shah discuss how climate change will continue to wreak its worst havoc on our country's most vulnerable populations.
Sep 15, 2021•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Alicia Zhou's son Davi was an early five years old when the pandemic started. Now, he's six and a half, entering the first grade. He's adjusted well to pandemic living as a young child, but Zhou says she's still worried sending him to in-person school. Luckily, as a chief science officer at a health technology company, she happens to be particularly qualified to advise schools on how that can happen safely. Zhou breaks down the risks and best precautions for this back-to-school season.
Sep 08, 2021•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast When the inventors of the iron lung wheeled their contraption into the hospital for the first time, they likely had one thing on their minds: saving the lives of children with polio. And they did. But there exists a darker side of these machines and their successors: people with persistent critical illnesses — like those with Covid-19 today — tethered to ventilators for weeks, if not longer, living in a "twilight existence" of being kept alive by a machine. This week, intensive care physician Ha...
Sep 01, 2021•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Bertrand Might was born with a rare disease that had never before been diagnosed, an odyssey that took four grueling years. He was 12 years old when he died last year — almost a decade older than physicians predicted he would live. This week on the First Opinion Podcast, Bertrand’s father, computer scientist Matthew Might, talks about how he used his coding skills to try to extend his son’s life, and how daring research projects could save lives across the country and around the world if the Bid...
Aug 25, 2021•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, physician Frank Lin discusses with former patient Anne Madison how difficult it can be for seniors to access care for hearing loss and hearing aids. "When you move into a community with older people, you get on two mailing lists: the hearing aids mailing list and the cemetery lots mailing list," Madison said. But the price tag is sky-high.
Aug 18, 2021•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Stephen Tourjee shares his experience contracting a breakthrough case of Covid-19, months after he thought he was safe thanks to the vaccine. Céline Gounder provides expert context on just how worried we should — or shouldn't — be about these breakthrough cases.
Aug 11, 2021•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, writer and philosopher Adam Hayden opens up about what it's like to be in the minority of glioblastoma patients that have survived the harrowing brain cancer. Around 93% of patients with the disease will die before 5 years — as long as Hayden has survived so far. As the pandemic began, Hayden knew there were lessons for physicians and the public to learn from his experience.
Aug 04, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode 25: A journalist on what the Vietnam war taught us about addiction by STAT
Jul 28, 2021•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Are health care workers more obligated than others to get a Covid-19 vaccine? In this week's episode, physician and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel argues that hospitals and healthcare facilities nationwide need to issue vaccine mandates for all employees in order to prevent further deaths from Covid-19.
Jul 21, 2021•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Why do more women die in and after childbirth in the U.S. than any other industrialized nation? In this week's episode of the "First Opinion Podcast," physician Alissa Erogbogbo argues that the only way the country can change the maternal mortality rates is through addressing the inherent biases and inequities of traditional health care.
Jul 14, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast What if every time we went to the bathroom, we could say we contributed to a local public health initiative? In this week's episode of the "First Opinion Podcast," biostatistician Aparna Keshaviah digs into the benefits of wastewater testing as a public health measure.
Jul 07, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this week's episode of the "First Opinion Podcast," Lizzy Feliciano talks about her brother, Louis, who died after years of suffering from depression, anxiety, and alcohol abuse. She struggled to help him find a program that could treat all of his issues holistically, not just one at a time. In a cruel twist of fate, just hours after moving into a facility, Louis Feliciano died of natural causes at age 51. Joining the conversation is Chuck Ingoglia, the president and CEO of the National Counc...
Jun 30, 2021•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Priscilla Chan, co-founder and CEO of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, talks about the urgent need for more single-cell research in pediatrics. Chan broke down the science and reflected on how becoming a parent to two young children has intersected with her professional interests. "Over the course of Covid, I've also asked myself, would I enroll them in a Covid study?" she said. "And I think for me the answer is yes."
Jun 23, 2021•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week is a special two-part episode focusing on last week’s controversial — some say inflammatory — decision to approve aducanumab, a new Alzheimer’s drug. In these episodes, I talk with two Alzheimer’s experts with vastly different viewpoints on the news. Second up: Jason Karlawish, an Alzheimer’s physician who wrote a First Opinion in May about how he would not prescribe the drug, were it to be approved.
Jun 16, 2021•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week is a special two-part episode focusing on last week’s controversial — some say inflammatory — decision to approve aducanumab, a new Alzheimer’s drug. In these episodes, I talk with two Alzheimer’s experts with vastly different viewpoints on the news. First up: Dennis J. Selkoe, a physician and scientist whose research is at the core of how Aduhelm works.
Jun 16, 2021•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, two First Opinion contributors join Pat to talk about the toll that medicine can take on a professional's mental health, and how the pandemic has only exacerbated those consequences. Corey Feist co-wrote his essay with his wife Jennifer Breen Feist, the sister of Lorna Breen, who died by suicide last year after contracting Covid-19. Wendy Dean is a psychiatrist who wrote an iconic First Opinion in 2018 about the moral injury that physicians experience. Corey and Wendy joined Pat for a...
Jun 09, 2021•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Pat is joined by two members of the National Academy of Medicine’s Committee on the Future of Nursing. We discuss full practice authority, which gives advanced practice nurses the ability to diagnose, write prescriptions, and care independently for patients. It’s a contentious issue, but Regina Cunningham and Marshall Chin believe that with more autonomy, nurses are capable of dismantling the country’s health inequities.
Jun 02, 2021•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Danielle Ofri experienced the pandemic firsthand at Bellevue Hospital in New York. As a primary care physician, Ofri makes life-long connections with her patients. She talks about the importance of recognizing the emotion that comes when a patient dies, how her experiences as a medical resident during the AIDS crisis shaped her career, and how the Covid-19 pandemic will have a similar career-sculpting effect on today's trainees. The conversation starts with Ofri's First Opinion essay, "My ‘postm...
May 26, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Pat is joined by Chelsea Clinton, who recently wrote a First Opinion on the health dangers of fracking with two of her colleagues at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, Terry McGovern, and Micaela Martinez. The conversation covered global public health crises such as fracking, oxygen shortages, and the pandemic.
May 19, 2021•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Reporter and editor Kalpana Jain details how India got to today's crisis with Covid-19. Although some blame hypernationalism, she calls on her two decades of writing about health and health care for the Times of India to show that the real issue is neglect of the health sector during India’s growth and development. Having covered multiple pandemics and epidemics, Jain says that she's seen the toll it can take on families. In some ways, Covid-19 is different, she says. But in others it's heartbre...
May 12, 2021•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's easy to identify the physical manifestations of long Covid — severe fatigue, weakness, palpitations, brain fog, and more — but far trickier to understand what's causing them. Pat talks with critical care physician Adam Gaffney and philosopher Diane O'Leary about the blurred distinction between the direct effect of a viral infection and potential psychosomatic origins. The conversation jumps off from each guest's recent First Opinion: Gaffney's "We need to start thinking more critically — an...
May 05, 2021•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the First Opinion Podcast, Pat gets a history lesson on the deadly and disgusting diseases of the American Civil War and the important public health lessons to be learned from them, in a conversation with medical historian Jonathan S. Jones. Diseases like smallpox, measles, and dysentery killed two-thirds of the one million people who died in the Civil War. "Chronic diarrhea" plagued soldiers for decades after the war. And while we no longer depend on digging ditches for latri...
Apr 28, 2021•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Pat speaks with Baghdad-trained physician Lubab al-Quraishi about her disappointment with the medical licensing system in the United States. She worked for a decade as a pathologist in Iraq, but ended up working at Popeyes in the US because she could not afford the studying time or financial costs of the exams needed to transfer her license. The conversation is based off al-Quraishi's recent First Opinion, "Foreign-trained doctors like me were asked to help fight Covid-19. Now we’re being tossed...
Apr 21, 2021•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Pat speaks with two addiction doctors who have seen delirium first-hand, and wrote last week's First Opinion, "Excited delirium: valid clinical diagnosis or medicalized racism? Organized medicine needs to take a stand." Though the term was first used back in 1985, little evidence exists that the diagnosis of excited delirium is a valid one. Brody and Jordan break down the difference between delirium and "excited" delirium, contextualizing the racist systems of medicine and policing that created ...
Apr 14, 2021•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, the podcast takes on antimicrobial resistance and "superbugs," a topic that should be worrying all of us, but somehow isn't. Pat talks with David Hyun and Rachel Zetts, both with The Pew Charitable Trusts' antibiotic resistance project, about their recent First Opinion, "Many hospitalized Covid-19 patients are given antibiotics. That’s a problem."
Apr 07, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this week’s episode, Dr. Jason Karlawish and Richard Bartholomew, the husband and caretaker of one of his patients, share insight into the relationship between caregivers and clinicians when looking after someone with Alzheimer's. The conversation covers how diseases like Alzheimer's and Covid-19 ramify to affect more than just its patients, and how caregivers shouldn't be thought of as typical hospital visitors, but as essential members of the care team.
Mar 31, 2021•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Host Pat Skerrett talks with Kara Zivin, a physician, research scientist, and professor of psychiatry and of obstetrics and gynecology. She wrote a moving and informative First Opinion, "Meghan Markle gave voice to the despair I once felt during pregnancy," soon after Oprah Winfrey's interview with the Duchess of Sussex. In their conversation, Kara talks about her own struggles, as well as the balancing act between protecting one's privacy and advocating for changes in policy and stigma. A cauti...
Mar 24, 2021•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Host Pat Skerrett talks with emergency physician turned diversity consultant Uché Blackstock. Her First Opinion essay, “Why Black doctors like me are leaving faculty positions in academic medical centers,” published in January 2020, was a call to arms for many Black physicians. We also talked about a “green book” for prospective medical students, #DNRTulane, the strong current of medicine that runs through her family, and more.
Mar 17, 2021•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Host Pat Skerrett talks with Walter Isaacson, a journalist, historian, and author about his First Opinion, “CRISPR rivals put patents aside to help in the fight against Covid-19.” It was adapted from his latest book, “The Code Breaker,” about the revolutionary gene editing tool known as CRISPR and the transcontinental rivalry it spawned.
Mar 10, 2021•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
