Hear Me Now

Understanding heart disease in women. For years, heart disease was thought of as "a man's disease." But the truth is quite different and quite sobering: one-in-three women in America dies of heart disease. Symptoms go unnoticed, warning signs are often ignored, and delays in seeking care make heart disease the #1 killer of women in the U.S. On today's program, we talk with Dr. Lori Tam, a cardiologist at the Providence Heart Clinic in Portland, Ore., about the ways heart disease in women differs from heart disease in men and some of the particular warning signs women should be aware of.  Also, we talk with Kris Kleindienst, a small business owner in Missouri who had a heart attack a year ago. She tell us about her experience seeking care and the ways she's changing her life in recovery. Lori Tam, M.D. Providence Heart Clinic St. Vincent Medical Center Portland, Ore.   Kris Kleindienst Owner Left Bank Books Saint Louis, Mo.  

On today's program we explore life post-COVID with Dr. Jim Jackson, author of "Clearing the fog: From surviving to thriving with Long COVID — A practical guide" (Little Brown Spark, 2023).

On today's program, we are listening to nurses as they reflect on their experiences on the frontlines during the COVID-19 pandemic. These are stories of uncertainty and fear, of anger and resilience, dedication, recovery, and camaraderie. But most of all these are stories about caregiving. The readings that make up this episode are drawn from the book, Providence Nurses Inspire Hope through Healing: Reflections from the Frontlines of the COVID-19 Pandemic, edited by Hilary Alison, Katie Adams, Katie Grainger, and Hayley Pike. Our thanks to the editors and to all the nurse-contributors.

Host Seán Collins talks with Dr. Titilope Fasipe, co-director of the Sickle Cell and Thalasemis Program at Texas Children's Cancer and Hematology Center in Houston about advances in both the treatment of sickle cell disease and progress towards a cure.

Exploring the barriers to long-term care at home. We spoke with Drs. Lisa Iezzoni and Maureen Nash about the mental, emotional, physical, and financial challenges for people with disabilities or age-related issues who want to remain at home.

Coaching to quench the fires of burnout.  We talked to front-line healthcare professionals about their experiences with a pilot program that connects certified coach-physicians with medical staff who are feeling some degree of burnout. For more stories, information or resources, visit: Hear Me Now

One of the unforeseen consequences of the COVID pandemic has been increasing popular awareness of a nursing shortage that was already well in place. COVID just made it worse. Nurse turnover has cost healthcare organizations enormously — both in terms of dollars, but also in lost expertise and institutional memory. On today's program, host Seán Collins talks with two senior nurse leaders about a vision for how hospitals might be structured moving forward and the new models of care that will ensure nurses are able to focus on the tasks that require their training and expertise as well as their professional license. For more information and Hear Me Now stories, visit: Hear Me Now

The latest iteration of Russia's war on Ukraine has entered its second year prompting us to examine the issue of war trauma — especially the toll war takes on civilians. Russia's indiscriminate targeting of civilian housing, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure has not only made civilians witnesses of war, but victims of it. War-rape, which was only recognized as a crime against humanity following the war in the former Yugoslavia, is being used by Russian forces and paramilitaries as a means of terrorizing civilians. On today's program, four conversations about civilians during and after war. For more Hear Me Now stories, visit: Hear Me Now Stories

Do physicians engage in discrimination? On today's program, a conversation with Harvard's Lisa Iezzoni, M.D. — a researcher at the Health Policy Research Center at Mass. General Hospital. She has been studying healthcare for people with disability for a generation now and finds the attitudes of her fellow physicians alarming, even 30 years after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. For more Hear Me Now stories, visit: https://providence-institute-for-human-caring.simplecast.com/

There's growing evidence that the routine practice of meditation improves quality of life (including relief from anxiety, increased focus, and the mitigation of negative emotions) and that these benefits can be seen after as few as five sessions of meditation. But we didn't really need scientific journals to tell us that: practitioners of mindfulness meditation have been enjoying the benefits of this natural brain hack for millennia. For more information and resources, visit: instituteforhumancaring.org

If you take only one fact away from this podcast today, it should be this: more than 30 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, healthcare providers in the United States remain ill-equipped to meet the needs of deaf, deaf-blind, and hard of hearing people who come to them for care. On today's program, host Seán Collins talks with Drs. Poorna Kushalnagar and James Huang of Gallaudet University about the barriers that exist in the healthcare setting for people with hearing loss and some of the steps medicine can take to make the best care possible a reality for all patients. A transcript of this episode is available on our website: Hear Me Now

What do we listen to when we need to take care of ourselves? "Self-care" became a common discussion topic at the start of the pandemic to the extent that it's now not unheard of for relative strangers to share their life-hacks with each other. So, as we come to the end of 2022, with all of the stress and craziness that come from turning the page of a calendar, we offer you a life-tested playlist for well-being: deep cuts our guests recommend for those moments when you want to pull back, recharge, take stock, reset, and find that special sweet spot between listening-and-hearing where you connect with your wellness and can be restored. For more information and resources, visit: instituteforhumancaring.org

A woman's place is in the operating room. Women outnumber men in American medical schools, but in the operating room it's still an "Old Boys' Club". Surgery remains a bastion of male privilege, prerogative, and power in American healthcare. But that is changing. On today's program, Sean talks with three surgeons who understand firsthand the challenges faced by the women who routinely suffer insults and aggressions in an antiquated system. For more information and resources, visit: instituteforhumancaring.org

Today we speak with Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, a NYT bestseller, about the history of autism and its future. For more information and resources, visit: instituteforhumancaring.org To learn more about author Steve Silberman, visit: stevesilberman.com

A mental-health dialogue between youth advocates. On today's program, two youth advocates for mental health – Billie Henderson and Kaiya Bates – discuss what they've experienced and how they've worked to make things better for other young people. For more information and resources: https://www.instituteforhumancaring.org/ For more Hear Me Now stories: https://www.hearmenowstories.org/

International partnership focuses on patient care in psycho-social context. Family Medicine residents from Seattle do some of their training at the Mangochi District Hospital in Malawi and some of the Family Medicine registrars from Malawi's Kamuzu University of Health Sciences travel to Seattle for training in the Swedish First Hill Family Medicine Residency. Splitting their time between the two locations are faculty members Anna McDonald M.D. and Jacob Nettleton M.D. The goal: to address global health inequity. We're taking a look from a macro view of what happens when there's a collaboration and a sharing of human resources, building bidirectional medical rotations, where learners are teachers and teachers are learners. For more information and resources, visit: https://www.instituteforhumancaring.org/

We talk with Dr. Honora Englander and Corey Davis about improving the standards of care for people with substance use disorders. Last year in the U.S., more than 100,000 people died of drug overdoses. It's a staggering statistic that was unthinkable just a few years ago.

Life lessons from real life. Taking a look back over the first two years of the Hear Me Now podcast and the lessons we've learned about being well.

Conversations with researchers and people living with Long COVID. On today's program, we talk with researchers studying the illnesses that people who have had COVID now are living with, including persistent fatigue, brain fog and other neurological problems, and vascular conditions. We also talk with a psychologist who is running support groups for patients who often feel their symptoms are ignored (or not understood) by clinicians, And we hear from four patients who describe their life beyond COVID.

Bullets do more damage than tearing through tissue. Recovery takes more than surgery and stitches. Bullet wounds go more than skin deep. LJ Punch, M.D., is a trauma surgeon and the founder of the BRIC, the Bullet-Related Injury Clinic in Saint Louis, Mo. BRIC is where shooting victims come for wound care and education, help with pain management, care for the emotional and social impact of being shot, and the acknowledgement that their bullet wound could likely have profound spiritual meaning for them, their families, and their communities. For more information and resources, visit: https://www.instituteforhumancaring.org/

Mental illness or a gift? We talk to Caroline Mazel-Carlton, who gave up antipsychotic meds to live with her voices. She's among those transforming understanding of voice-hearers & their experiences.

Monkeypox! What we know. What we need to know. For more information and resources, visit: https://www.instituteforhumancaring.org/

Despite substantial efforts, racial and ethnic disparities widen in treatment of substance use disorders.

A discussion of the accepted standard of care when assessing and treating pediatric patients whose gender expression is different from what was assigned at birth. In addition to clinicians and public health experts, we hear from parents of trans+ kids, others who love them, and trans+ kids themselves. For more on this topic and other resources, visit: https://www.instituteforhumancaring.org/

Does Other Work Experience Make A Difference? A small number of first year medical students each year are significantly older than the norm. They've come to medicine as a second or sometimes third career. Do those other work experiences make a difference in how they make their way through their training and, more importantly perhaps, do they make a difference in how the individuals practices medicine? Seán talks with four physicians who began their training later in life. They reflect on how it has had an impact on how they now practice medicine. instituteofhumancaring.org

In this episode of Hear Me Now, we discuss the therapeutic use of psychedelics.

Making palliative care available everywhere it's needed.

Bertalan Meskó, M.D., Ph.D., joins us from Budapest. The days of medical robots, scanners, and bots are upon us — but do not fear! — these tools of digital health may be exactly what the doctor ordered to regain the personalism that's at the heart of caring.

Ukraine's fight unites a global humanitarian response. In this episode, using a lens of whole person care, we talk with people reaching out to others in wartime, making connections, and countering the darkness with (in the words of W.H. Auden) "ironic points of light."

For millions of Americans, taking care of a loved one is a way of life. This "unofficial" family caregiving is hard work that often falls to an elderly spouse, or to adult children, or to an ad hoc network of friends & family.

The medical use of marijuana poses interesting issues, including its legal status: It's illegal at the Federal level and its legal in close to 40 of the States. We'll weed through the confusion in a conversation on Medical Cannabis. For more information on the advanced care planning or the Institute of Human Caring of Providence, visit: https://www.instituteforhumancaring.org/

Does advance care planning work? There's controversy swirling around the question, and we try to shed some light on it with two leading physicians with different views. For more information on the advanced care planning or the Institute of Human Caring of Providence, visit: https://www.instituteforhumancaring.org/

Two-plus years into a global pandemic, U.S. nursing is in a state of 911. Three nurse leaders unpack the economic, social and psychological impacts of demoralized nurses leaving the field en masse. For more information about the Providence Institute for Human Caring, visit here: https://www.instituteforhumancaring.org/

Entering the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we talk with three people about their view of COVID: a physician leading clinical care for a large healthcare system, a reporter in Washington, D.C., covering national health policy, and a frontline doc in a hospital in Los Angeles County. For more information about the Providence Institute for Human Caring, visit here: https://www.instituteforhumancaring.org/

An episode we planned to be about addiction and holiday stress turned into an episode about connection, community, and compassion. Listen for great strategies for us all as 2022 dawns. For more information about the Providence Institute for Human Caring visit here: https://www.instituteforhumancaring.org/

Twenty years ago, Dr. Rita Charon coined the phrase "narrative medicine." We talk with her and her former student, Dr. Kathy Kirkland, about their careers listening closely to the stories patients tell.

Three-quarters of a million people are missing from the Thanksgiving table this year, dead from COVID-19. Join us for a conversation with Chloe Zelkha, a co-founder of the Covid Grief Network, about outreach to young adults experiencing profound loss.

We present highlights from the 2021 conference that explored ways to prioritize the personal in healthcare while at the same time to better engage communities, improve health equity, boost patient outcomes, and save costs.

Today we discuss how poverty negatively impacts a person's health and wellbeing and how to mitigate this pervasive social determinant of health.

We discuss efforts to improve outcomes for patients in Intensive Care Units with Wes Ely, M.D., a longtime proponent of reducing ICU delirium. Once expected and accepted, ICU delirium is now seen as the best predictor of longer stays, greater costs, eventual dementias, and in-patient deaths of people cared for in ICUs.

With tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees coming to the United States, we discuss how healthcare providers can be mindful of traumas their patients have experienced in order to help them come to the fullness of health.

n this episode, we offer three snapshots of nursing with practitioners who spend more time in the community than they do in the clinic and how that interchange can enrich a nurse's job.

Some healthcare professionals are using social media to advocate for health equity and to build community. We hear from four who believe that meeting their patients where they are makes sense.

The Delta variant of Covid-19 is sickening un-vaccinated people – including record numbers of young people – filling ICUs, taxing caregivers, and stoking economic uncertainty. Today we explore the anger many feel with the anti-vax, anti-mask advocates through the lens of two clinicians, a New York Times editorial board member, and a therapist.

Ever wondered why your medical health insurance doesn't cover dental? Today we explore the confusing and convoluted relationship between dentistry and medicine as we hear why now might be the perfect time for a change.

Some of us wear our busyness like a badge of honor. But should we? Overwork is a crisis-level concern in healthcare, where more than half of frontline providers say they are burned out.* We talk about strategies for reclaiming time for friends, family, and even yourself.

We explore the poetics of medicine and the medicine in poetry with poet-physician Patrick Clary, M.D.; Redwing Keyssar, RN; and Ira Byock, M.D. "Poetry holds a mirror up to us. It helps us understand what has just happened," says Clary.

As many as a quarter of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. But that doesn't make it easy to talk about. On today's program, we explore early pregnancy loss, the way individuals often cope with the trauma alone, silently, and how the loss can persist for years -- sometimes, even a lifetime.

In this episode of Hear Me Now, we speak with Syl Trepanier, Chief Nursing Officer for Providence, about what the pandemic has taught us about the profession of nursing and what we still have to learn. It's become very clear, especially during the pandemic, how important it is to bring science to the bedside, and that role, more than any other, belongs to nurses.

In this episode of Hear Me Now, a conversation with Dr. Diane Meier, professor of geriatrics and palliative medicine at Mt. Sinaia School of Medicine, about increasing access to quality palliative care programs and the state of palliative care today.

In today's medical community, technology is a key element, but how do we keep medicine human? In this episode of Hear Me Now, we'll be discussing the intersection between technology and medicine.