Medspectives

Today we're joined by one of my past professors, Dr. Jamie Dewitt, a toxicologist who has a focus on a particular group of environmental contaminants called PFAS. Consisting of more than 5,000 substances, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are found in all kinds of commercial products, including nonstick cookware, waterproof jackets, firefighting foams, food packaging, and more. However, studies have shown that PFAS is considered a "forever chemical" meaning it can take thousands of years to breakdown. This can cause it to buildup in the body, and there are studies that show that these substances are associated with reproductive harm, developmental effects, increased risk of certain cancers, and decreased immune function. Dr. DeWitt's research focuses on studying the effects of PFAS on the immune system. Dr. DeWitt also has extensive experience in increasing public awareness about PFAS. She's testified to Congress multiple times, and she even provided guidance in the creation of the PFAS episode of the John Oliver's Last Week Tonight. Dr. DeWitt truly is an expert in the field, and she talks about the fascinating history of PFAS, what it's like to testify in front of Congress as a scientist, and what we can do on an individual level to address PFAS contamination. You can find more information about PFAS and what you can do to stay safe here: https://pfas-exchange.org/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

I know it's been about a month since our last episode, but we're back with a super interesting talk about one of the biggest problems in medicine right now: the opioid crisis. Opioids, like hydrocodone and oxycodone, are used to treat patients with severe pain, whether it be post-surgery, cancer-related pain, and other similar instances. However, they trigger the release of endorphins, the brain's way of making you feel good, and this sensation can be highly addictive, leading to abuse of these drugs. Opioid abuse affects countless people across the world and costs the US hundreds of billions of dollars in costs associated with healthcare, criminal justice, and the foster system. One particularly dangerous type of abuse is consuming alcohol with opioids, which can cause respiratory distress, and ultimately death relatively quickly. While patients are advised not to take alcohol with opioids, 30-80 percent of them still do, and it is this issue that our guest Dr. Mike Presti hopes to address. Dr. Presti is a Mayo-clinic trained neurologist and CEO of SafeRx, a company using its unique alcohol-resistant opioids platform to reduce the risk of prescription opioid overdose. I don't want to give away too much in this intro, but I think this simple drug concept has the potential to revolutionize the field and prevent alcohol-related opioid abuse. It is currently in its early stages, and if you'd like to learn more or potentially be a part of the company, check it out at investinsaferx.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

In today's podcast, Tyler and I share stories from our short yet eventful time in medicine over the last couple of years. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Luke Shapiro, an Orthodontist in New York. Dr. Luke has always been fascinated by languages, and this led him to major in Spanish in college. He shares insight into how his skill in Spanish and other languages has enabled him to form deeper connections with his patients. Additionally Dr. Luke talks about some awesome innovations in dental technology, such as the smart mirror. We close out with some questions from you guys, and all in all, this was a great conversation. I hope you enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we switch it up a bit and I have a casual conversation with my friend Tyler about how the premed life is going right now for the both of us. We're both in the middle of applying to medical school, and we talk about how that's going, as well as reflect and give tips that we wish we knew in the past couple of years on our journeys. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Dheeban, a general surgeon in India. This conversation means a lot to me, as Dr. Dheeban is the physician who really sparked my passion for medicine. About 4 years ago, I shadowed him in his rural clinic in India for a couple of months. I watched him perform all kinds of different procedures including endoscopies, Cesarian sections, diabetic foot debridements, cyst removals, and even more. I was fascinated by the problem-solving aspect and uniqueness of each case and how each required its own strategy for treatment. I remember I was dead set on becoming a surgeon after shadowing him because of how much he impacted me, and while I'm not so sure about that resolve now, I know that there is nothing else I would want to pursue other than medicine. In this conversation, we talk about his journey through medicine, how he used to play with syringes in stethoscopes in his grandfather's hospital as a kid, and how he became a general surgeon. We also talk about diabetes, and the widespread complications he sees in his patient populations. We close out talking about some of his most impactful cases, and all in all, I really enjoyed having this conversation to catch up with one of my mentors. I hope you enjoy it too. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Sarma Velamuri, the CEO and co-founder of Luminaire, a medical software company shedding light on dark data. During his time as a physician, he remembers seeing multiple inefficiencies in hospitals, primarily in sepsis. He describes sepsis through an interesting metaphor during our talk: think of a bull in a china shop. Now poke that bull with a stick, and watch the bull blow this tiny stimulus out of proportion and destroy everything in the China shop. Essentially that's what happens in the body - a compromised immune system enables even a small infection to be fatal. He wanted to make a solution to this issue and turned to software to develop a program that can predict when patients are at risk for sepsis, effectively preventing the issue from even happening. Sarma and I also talk about the increased digitization of medicine, and how much potential technology has in revolutionizing how healthcare can be provided. I learned a lot from Sarma during our talk, and I hope you enjoy. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Dr. Parisis talks about just how many subspecialties there are in radiology. We also talked about one of my greatest fascinations: tech in healthcare! Dr. Parisis talks about his experience as a premed working with a medical scribing startup that used Google Glass - the smart glasses with a camera and microphone built in - to enable physicians to focus more on the patient and allow remote scribes to take care of the documentation. He also discusses how radiology enables him to integrate tech into patient care. Going into the future, he shares how artificial intelligence will develop in radiology, but that misconceptions that AI will take over the field are unwarranted. I honestly didn't know much about radiology before this, and this was a really eye-opening conversation! I hope you enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Josh Morrison, the co-founder and President of 1DaySooner. 1DaySooner is an organization that advocates for people who want to participate in high-impact medical trials, and their work with COVID-19 challenge trials really came into the limelight this past year. In essence, a challenge trial is a clinical trial in which the participant is not only exposed to a treatment ie vaccine or placebo but is also directly exposed to the condition that is being tested - in this case, COVID-19. To some, the idea of voluntarily being exposed to COVID can sound absolutely insane, but about 40,000 people, myself included, volunteered to be participants in these challenge trials before we had our initial vaccines. The truth is, albeit risky, this kind of study can greatly speed up the time required for a clinical trial, and ultimately save countless lives. Josh talks about his reasons for founding the organization, as well as the amazing progress they've made in pushing the frontier of challenge trials. With challenge trials already taking place in the UK, the future of them is exciting, and as Josh says, if they can speed up the development of future vaccines even 1 day sooner, it would all be worth it. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Mittal, a family medicine physician in Southern California. I talked with Dr. Mittal about diabetes - and being a family medicine doc it is a condition he knows all too well. A diabetes diagnosis is never happy news, and Dr. Mittal runs us through how exactly he explains diabetes to his patients, to not only ensure they understand it but also to ensure that they will follow through with a treatment plan. He talks about how nuanced this process can be - and how important it is to be aware of a person's background and culture when making a treatment plan for them. I think diabetes is a truly fascinating disease, and I hope you enjoy. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today, we're joined by my friend Tyler Owens and we decided to take it back to talk about healthcare professionals from history that have revolutionized the field in some way. I'm not a big history person, but in this conversation with Tyler, I realized just how crazy it is to understand how far we've come in medicine over 1000s of years. We go back in time all the way to the 1st century AD to look at Galen who provided a MASSIVE amount of knowledge into medicine. Apparently, Galen's procedure to treat cataracts is actually similar to how it is done in modern-day, 2000 years later which is insane. We then move into the 1800s to look at Clara Barton, who is often called the Florence Nightingale of the US for saving countless lives on the battlefield and is also known for founding the Red Cross. I don't want to spoil too much of the episode, but we also talked about the famous epidemiologist John Snow, as well as talked about Alexander Fleming and how he saved hundreds of millions of lives from his accidental discovery. I hope you enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Mr. Christian Essman, the senior director of admissions at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and host of the All Access: Med School Admissions podcast where he interviews admissions faculty from across the nation. With med school applications right around the corner for a lot of us, I think this conversation with Mr. Essman was really needed to try to understand how admissions are affected by the pandemic. As he notes, this year of applicants will be the first to have been affected by COVID for over a year, and these effects will be reflected in the applications. Mr. Essman shares a lot of really valuable insight in this episode - including details on what exactly happens to your application when you submit it, tips to writing your personal statement, advice on getting recommendations even if you've only met the person virtually, how med school applications increased 17% this past year, and much much more. At the end of the day, Mr. Essman urges us to just trust the process, and that everything will be okay. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Ahmad Shahin, a first-year medical student at the Mayo Clinic with over 30,000 subscribers on YouTube. I've been watching Ahmad's videos for almost a year now and reached out to him on a whim because he's a really inspiring guy and I'm sure anyone familiar with him would say the same. He immediately said he was down and that he actually remembered me from my comments on his videos! We talk for about an hour about what it's like being a med school YouTuber as well as how medical school is going during a pandemic, and Ahmad also shares tips for anyone aspiring to become a doctor. He shares his struggles and failures with full transparency, and I really learned a lot from talking with Ahmad. In the spirit of YouTube, you can also find this conversation with exact timestamps of everything we talked about on my YouTube channel - just look up Arvind Rajan on YouTube and you should see it! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Carling Matejka, a veterinarian in Canada. I want Medspectives to capture all facets of medicine and veterinary medicine is something that I knew nothing about before I talked to Dr. Carling. While in human medicine you just need to focus on humans, for veterinary medicine you need to be able to understand all kinds of different animals, from dogs to cows to snakes to tarantulas. While there are some similarities, there are also a good number of differences, and Dr. Carling discusses her experience from treating dogs in her clinic to treating cows out on the farm. We talk about the concept of euthanasia and draw parallels in human medicine to physician-assisted suicide, and Dr. Carling shares some interesting stories from her time in practice. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Farhan Alami, a geriatrician in Singapore. Geriatrics is a field that is seeing unprecedented importance with the growing elderly population, however, the number of people that choose to pursue this field is not increasing even close to as much. Dr. Farhan explains how by 2030, there will be 1 million elderly people in Singapore, and as of now, there are only around 100 geriatricians in the country. Even in the US, the elderly aren't given the care they need, especially because of how expensive these costs can be. Dr. Farhan talks about the issues facing geriatrics, and the growing importance of it. She also shares some interesting stories - my favorite of which is a 90-year-old dementia patient that climbs a tree whenever it bears fruit. I hope you enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Arjun Aggarwal! Dr. Aggarwal is a second-year internal medicine resident in Austin, Texas, who aspires to become a cardiologist. I actually talked to him the day Texas lifted the mask mandate, and he clearly was not a big fan of the decision. We also talk about his time as an internal medicine resident, his interest in cardiology, and his thoughts on social media as free-open-access medical education. He discusses the concept of risk-and-benefit when it comes to treatment - and how physicians need to be able to make difficult decisions. While medication could present some degree of risk, it could also present a large degree of benefit - so how do you decide whether to administer it or not? Dr. Aggarwal illustrates this point through a case of a heart attack during the Texas snowstorm in February. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Ray Boyapati, a gastroenterologist in Australia. As much as I wanted to dedicate this whole episode to asking him for medical advice for my terrible gut problems, I decided it wouldn't be in your best interests. Instead, we talked about how well Australia handled COVID, which, spoiler, actually wearing masks helped a lot! as well as how social media has become a major source of free medical knowledge for everyone, especially during the pandemic. Dr. Ray also advises premeds/medical students and shares priceless advice in the episode. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Damaris Raymondi, an optometrist in New York City. She is extremely passionate about her field, and during our conversation, she shares her story into optometry, the real importance of a yearly eye exam, medical conditions you can see through the eye, and more. Known as @newyorkeyedoc online, Dr. Damaris extends this passion for medical education as she spreads her knowledge about the eye through her platform, and she actually also has a podcast called Eyes Up, where she invites guests from all kind of different backgrounds to discuss the field of optometry. This was a really fun conversation, and I hope you enjoy it! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today I've got my friend Tyler Owens on the podcast again sharing the rather interesting stories of healthcare professionals from history. I don't want to spoil anything, but if you're a fan of medical oddities and rare cases, you're gonna love this episode. Just a brief overview, we talk about a man who gets very intoxicated every time he has a meal, a railroad worker who survived an iron pole through the skull, and a young researcher who seems to have somehow gotten his member downstairs stuck in a bottle. Odd stories indeed, but what's medicine without at least a little bit of craziness? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Wanted to try something new on the show, so I reached out to my friend Tyler who is also a fellow pre-med I went to school with. I remember we met volunteering at a science fair and just started talking about surgery and medicine so I was like he'd be awesome on the podcast. Today we talk about arguably the greatest scientific and medical innovation ever: CRISPR. For those who aren't familiar with it, CRISPR is basically a tool that lets you edit people's genes. You can basically treat any condition from sickle cell to maybe one day diabetes by just cutting out and replacing the right genes. Now it's in its very early stages right now, but one day in the not so distant future we will be able to edit these conditions. Tyler did research with CRISPR and knows way more than I do about it, and he shares the countless applications of it, including self-repairing concrete, ending hunger, making antibiotics, and more. We also talk about the ethical considerations, for which there are many. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

One of my favorite parts of running this podcast is making connections and friends with people all around the world. From this conversation with Dr. Khalid, we discovered a mutual love for videography, and we talk about the power of storytelling in film. Dr. Khalid shares how film is what kept him sane in medical school, and how this interest led him to making short films as a med student. He has continued this passion into his practice and now makes educational medical YouTube content. We talk about the National Health Service in the UK and how exactly it works, and the importance of personalized medical care for patients. In his free time, Dr. Khalid also enjoys tying medicine with humor on TikTok, and has a large following on the platform. This was a fun conversation, and I hope you enjoy :) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

We're joined by Ariel, an ICU nurse in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She talks about her unique background in medicine, and how she actually got her bachelor's degree in Hospitality Management before deciding to go to nursing school. We also talk about the Anti-Asian bias that has spiked due to the pandemic, and her personal experiences dealing with it. Ariel is passionate about advocacy on her platform on Instagram; we talk in particular about her advocacy for Black Lives Matter, and she shares how important it is for different minority groups to come together to support each other in the fight against racism. All in all, this was a really interesting conversation and it really showed me how intertwined social justice and medicine really are. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Bodalia, a junior doctor working in the UK. Morale among healthcare workers during COVID has been especially low and seeing this Dr. Bodalia had a plan to help address it. What started with his idea of DJ'ing in his kitchen on Instagram Live while whipping up breakfast, evolved into now internationally-renown NHSessions, a showcase of different artists like himself through which Dr. Bodalia's ultimate goal is to celebrate the work of frontline workers, while also boosting the spirits of anyone in isolation. Music truly is therapy, and Dr. Bodalia shares how much music shapes his life, as well as his experiences working in medicine during the pandemic. The pandemic was actually his FIRST year working as a junior doctor, and he shares his crazy experiences on the podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Cedric Bright, the Associate Dean of Diversity and Inclusion at the Brody School of Medicine. Dr. Bright talks about his 30 years in medicine, and how it started with majoring in film as an undergrad. He talks about going from selling solar panels in the 80s to retaking the MCAT and getting into medical school after a lot of work. He also talks about his work in health equity and the importance of diversity in medicine. I met Dr. Bright at a premed talk, and I, alongside my fellow premedical students, see him as a role model, and a mentor to talk to with any of our concerns in becoming a physician. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Welcome to Medspectives, the podcast about health professionals, the stories of their practice, and their diverse perspectives into the world around us. I'm your host, Arvind Rajan, and today we're joined by Tiffany Thompson, a paramedic in Pitt County, North Carolina. Paramedics tell some of the best stories about medicine, and Tiffany was no exception. She shares stories from her practice, but also talks about the profession of paramedics as a whole. I think paramedics can often be really underappreciated in the sense that a lot of people don't realize just how much schooling and experience is required to work in this career - the ambulance is much more of a portable hospital than a glorified taxi and paramedics are required to have an immensely wide array of skills, which Tiffany discusses in detail in this episode. This conversation was a lot of fun and we talk about potentially starting a new series on the podcast focused solely on EMS stories. Let me know what you think :) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Welcome to Medspectives, the podcast about health professionals, the stories of their practice, and their diverse perspectives into the world around us. I'm your host, Arvind Rajan, and today we're joined by Dr. Antonio Webb. Dr. Webb is a spine surgeon who overcame countless odds in his journey through medicine. He grew up in one of the most dangerous cities, lost his brother to cancer, suffered from PTSD from his time serving in Iraq, and despite all this, he stayed committed to his dreams and is today a physician. He wrote a book about his journey into medicine, called Overcoming the Odds and it is truly an inspirational book for anyone, whether or not you're considering medicine. Today, Dr. Webb runs a YouTube channel with over 200,000 subscribers and is an inspiration for premeds around the world. We chat about his journey, as well as his amazing plans for how he's continuing to change the world. Thank you so much Dr. Webb for this amazing opportunity and I hope you enjoy. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Anupam Mittal, a family medicine physician. Dr. Mittal describes the field of family medicine in detail while dispelling common misconceptions. Definitely stick on till the end where he talks about a case of a healthy 14-year-old who suffered from a heart attack that was related to a simple fever she had years prior - you won't want to miss that story. We also talk about his journey through training and the art of gaining trust from your patients. On broader terms, we talk about how the growth of Gen Z into medicine and the expansion of medicine into social media platforms like TikTok, is changing the field profoundly. All in all, this was a long one, but definitely was one of my favorite conversations I've had and I thank Dr. Mittal for his time. I hope you enjoy. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Hudson Garrett. Dr. Garrett has an extremely diverse background, as he not only works as a paramedic, but also has a Ph.D. in healthcare administration, and is an assistant professor of infectious disease at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. These diverse perspectives enable Dr. Garrett to understand medicine from not only a clinical viewpoint but also a policy standpoint. He shares updates regarding COVID, including the issue of vaccine hesitancy that will arise in the next couple of months. Dr. Garrett has an entrepreneurial spirit and shares his time as the CEO and founder of the Community Health Associates as well as his non-profit Infection Prevention Institute. He discusses stories from his years working in EMS, and all around, Dr. Garrett shares a lot of other insight into healthcare. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Rhianna Ferial, a nurse anesthetist. I find Rhianna's story particularly interesting because she is not only dedicated to helping her patients, but runs a YouTube channel with over 30,000 subscribers, where she makes videos sharing her experiences. She covers every part of the career, and is an inspiration for anyone considering a career in medicine. We talk about the basics of anesthesia, and the high levels of accountability that are required in the field, as well as her experiences in nursing, from her time working in the ICU, as a travel nurse, and currently as a nurse anesthetist, complete with stories from her practice. I hope you enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Claudia Goettler, a trauma surgeon at Vidant Medical Center. Trauma surgery is a field we hear a lot about in movies and tv shows, and I wanted to talk to Dr. Goettler about what the realities of the field are. Dr. Goettler and I chat about this, and the field of trauma surgery in broad, and she offers insight into her experiences in the career, including a couple of cases, as well as how COVID has affected trauma surgery. I hope you enjoy. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

When I started Medspectives, I was focused kind of only on health professionals themselves, but I'm realizing how important it is to understand just how diverse health perspectives can be, coming from different people. Aurora is autistic and is also passionate about autism advocacy - I think she really presents a diverse health perspective that is universally known but actually poorly understood. Throughout her childhood, she knew she was different, but despite going to multiple health professionals, she could never put a finger on exactly why. She interestingly only found out she was autistic in her sophomore year of high school. Aurora and I talk about her life and autism as a whole, some common misconceptions with it, and the shortcomings of society in accommodating autistics. We also talk about the controversy with certain autism advocacy organizations as well as her own efforts to advocate through her role as the Vice President of the Autistic Students Alliance, an autism advocacy organization, for autistics by autistics. I really loved having this conversation, and I hope you enjoy it! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Today we're joined by Dr. Murugesan Thangaraju. This episode is a little different, as we aren't hearing specifically from someone actively practicing medicine, but instead from a clinical researcher with immense health implications. Dr. Thangaraju is a clinical researcher at Duke University studying smoking cessation therapies, and he played a key role in developing an instrumental technology called nicotine pyruvate, a much easier method for people to use to quit smoking. He also talks about the implications of smoking in youth, and the new wave of vaping related illnesses that may arise. He even founded an organization to combat tobacco addiction in his home town in India, where he discovered just how little people know about the ill consequences of smoking. There's a lot more that we talked about in the episode and I hope you enjoy it. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

In today's episode, we have Dr. PG Shelton a psychiatrist at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville North Carolina. Dr. Shelton and I chat about the field of psychiatry as a whole, as well as his passions for child psychiatry. We talk about the stigma around mental health treatment and their underlying causes. Dr. Shelton interestingly also worked in New Zealand's socialized healthcare system for a while, and we talk about key differences between the systems. Enjoy the episode! Music Credits: Malecon by Soyb & Amine Maxwell https://soundcloud.com/soybmusic https://soundcloud.com/aminemaxwell Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

In today's episode, we talk to Dr. Cassandra Bradby, the residency director for emergency medicine at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, North Carolina. She shares how medical education for emergency medicine residents in the hospital changed due to the pandemic, as well as the fear patients had of the virus, so much so that fewer patients were coming into the emergency room, despite the fact that the rates of fatal conditions like heart attack and stroke were unaffected. She also shares insight into the practice of emergency medicine as a whole. Dr. Bradby is a physician I've known for about 3 years now, and I remember the first time I met her, was a premed club meeting where she presented emergency medicine case studies. I remember how confident and passionate she was as she talked, which was ultimately what inspired me to reach out to her three years later. I hope you enjoy :) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

This last week, I had the opportunity to talk to Alvaro Sarria, a cardiovascular ICU nurse in Arizona, also known as @theICUMurse on Instagram. You might know Al from his post that went viral earlier in the pandemic - talking about the gruesome process and drugs that are administered during the intubation process, which is part of treatment for severe COVID, as a plea to encourage people to wear masks. Al and I talk not only about his profession and the stories of patients he's seen, which in and of itself were so eye-opening, but we also talk about how he's using his newfound platform on social media to advocate for issues like self-doubt in new nurses, as well as the social issues in today's society like black lives matter - and their implications in healthcare. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

In today's episode, we have Dr. Longshore, a pediatric surgeon at Vidant Medical Center. While I was talking with her, and I'm sure you'll feel this too, I could really sense like the amount she loved not only her profession but the children she treats. We talk about COVID, and how scary it is for children for not only the symptoms but the long term effects associated with being out of school, but we also take some time to talk about her stories in pediatric surgery and moments that really put the whole profession in perspective. Enjoy the episode! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

In this episode, we have Dr. Juan March, an emergency medicine physician at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, North Carolina. Dr. March shares his story of not only practicing in the emergency department during COVID and his eye-opening experiences but, also making difficult decisions with fellow EMS doctors in Pitt County to best handle the pandemic. He discusses nursing shortages, the issues with research published about COVID-19, the issues with COVID in rural populations, as well as the amount of distress the healthcare system can be placed under if a natural disaster like a hurricane were to strike during the pandemic. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message

Welcome to Medspectives a podcast that shares stories from health professionals around the world ranging from paramedics to physicians that will ultimately allow us to better understand their diverse perspectives. Now you might ask, what is the value of learning about these perspectives? And I think the situation we're in today with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic is really indicative of the consequences of the lack of understandings these perspectives. From day one we've heard doctors preach about the importance of social distancing, and wearing masks wherever we go. Despite this, it has taken governments months to actually enforce mandates on these practices, and society has suffered greatly due to it. There are health professionals that speak out, but it always seems like they aren't given the spotlight they deserve. Now, this podcast isn't going to be about doctors talking in abstract with complex medical jargon about what you should and shouldn't do. I'm a firm believer that the best way to understand someone is to listen to the stories that they tell about the experiences they've had. This podcast will aim to convey our guests' perspectives through their personal anecdotes in medicine, and the underlying reasons behind the things that they say and do. Whether you're someone in medicine or not, this podcast is for you. While we're based in the United States, we'll also talk with health professionals around the globe to understand how healthcare varies in different countries and the different issues that face them. For now, the podcast will be focused mostly on different perspectives concerning COVID-19. It's important that we continue to treat this pandemic with seriousness, and guests on the show will share their reasons why. Just a little information about myself, my name is Arvind Rajan, and I am currently a premedical student at East Carolina University. I absolutely love the art of storytelling and I think health professionals tell some of the most engaging stories about extremely interesting topics. I'm not a professional myself, but I think this puts me in an interesting position as this enables me to ensure the podcast is run in a way that is understandable and engaging for all audiences whether or not you have a background in medicine. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/medspectives/message