Podcasts about mgh

Emotional Anger After Stroke: Trisha Winski’s Story of a Carotid Web, Aphasia, and Learning to Slow Down Trisha Winski was 46 years old, working as a corporate finance director, with no high blood pressure, no diabetes, and no smoking history. By every conventional measure, she was not a stroke candidate. Then one morning, she stood up from the bathroom, collapsed, and couldn’t speak. Her ex-husband, sleeping on her couch by chance the night before, found her and called 911. The cause was a carotid web, a rare congenital condition she never knew she had. Three years and three months later, she’s living with aphasia, rebuilding her sense of self, and navigating something that doesn’t get nearly enough airtime in stroke conversations: emotional anger after stroke. What Is a Carotid Web — and Why Does It Matter? A carotid web is a rare shelf-like membrane in the internal carotid artery that disrupts blood flow, causing stagnation and clot formation. It is a form of intimal fibromuscular dysplasia and affects approximately 1.2% of the population. Most people never know they have it. Unlike the more commonly cited stroke risk factors, such as hypertension, diabetes, smoking, and obesity, a carotid web is congenital. You are born with it. There is no lifestyle adjustment that would have prevented Trisha’s stroke. That distinction matters enormously when you are trying to make sense of what happened to you. “I have nothing that could cause it,” Trisha says. “No blood pressure, no diabetes. It’s hard.” The treating hospital, MGH in Boston, caught the carotid web, something Trisha was later told many hospitals would have missed. It is a reminder of how much diagnosis still depends on the right clinician, the right technology, and a degree of luck.   Why Am I So Angry After My Stroke? One of the most underexplored dimensions of stroke recovery is emotional anger, not just grief, not just fear, but a specific kind of rage that has no clean target. “Why me? Why did I have to have it? It’s frustrating. It’s so frustrating,” Trisha says. “I’m just mad. I don’t know who I’m mad at.” This is a clinically recognized phenomenon. Emotional dysregulation after stroke can have both neurological and psychological origins. The brain regions that govern emotional control may be directly affected by the injury. At the same time, the psychological weight of sudden, unearned loss of function, of identity, of a future you thought you understood is enough to generate profound anger in anyone. For people like Trisha, who had no risk factors and no warning, the anger is compounded. There is no behaviour to regret, no choice to unwind. The stroke simply happened. That can make the anger feel even more directionless and, paradoxically, even more consuming. “Why me? Why did I have to have it? It’s frustrating. It’s so frustrating.” Bill’s gentle reframe in the conversation is worth noting here: “Why not me? Who are you to go through life completely unscathed?” It’s not a dismissal, it’s an invitation to move from the question that has no answer to the one that might.   Aphasia: The Deficit That Hurts the Most Trisha’s stroke affected her left hemisphere, producing aphasia, a language processing difficulty that affects word retrieval, word substitution, and speaking speed. Her numbers remained largely intact, which helped her return to her finance role. But the aphasia has been, in her own words, the hardest part. “If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be normal, but I could be normal,” she says. “The aphasia kills me.” One of the quieter consequences of aphasia that Trisha describes is self-censoring, stopping herself from communicating in public because she fears taking too long, disrupting the flow of conversation, or being misunderstood. She has developed a workaround: telling people upfront she has had a stroke, so they give her the time she needs to get her words out. The frustration-aphasia loop is well documented: the more stressed or frustrated a person becomes, the worse the aphasia tends to get. The therapeutic implication is significant. Managing emotional anger after a stroke is not just a well-being issue for someone with aphasia; it is directly tied to their ability to communicate. “Whenever I’m not stressed, I can get it out. When I get nervous, I can’t,” Trisha explains.   The Trauma Ripple: It’s Not Just About You One of the most striking moments in this episode is when Trisha reflects on her son Zach and ex-husband Jason, both of whom were visibly distraught in the days after her stroke. “I had a stroke. Why are they traumatized?” she says and then catches herself. “I forgot to look at it from their perspective. They watched me have a stroke.” This is something stroke survivors frequently underestimate. The people around them, partners, children, friends, even ex-partners like Jason, carry their own version of the trauma. They watched helplessly. They made decisions under panic. They grieved a version of the person they knew, even as that person survived. Acknowledging this doesn’t diminish the stroke survivor’s experience. It widens the frame of recovery to include the whole system and opens the door to conversations about collective healing.   Neuroplasticity Is Real — Give It Time Three years and three months after her stroke, Trisha’s message to people in the early stages of recovery is grounded and honest. “Neuroplasticity really does exist. My brain finds places to find the words I never had before. It takes longer, but it gets there. Just give yourself time.” She also reflects candidly on going back to work too early, returning before she was medically cleared, crying every day, and unable to follow her own cognitive processes. “I should have waited,” she says. “But I did it. It taught me that if I ever had it again, I won’t do that.” Recovery after stroke is non-linear, unglamorous, and deeply personal. But the brain is adapting, always. Trisha’s story is evidence of that and a reminder that emotional anger after a stroke, however consuming it feels, is not the end of the story.   Read Bill’s book on stroke recovery: recoveryafterstroke.com/book | Support the show: patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke  DisclaimerThis blog is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult your doctor before making any changes to your health or recovery plan. Why Me? Navigating Emotional Anger After Stroke When You Did Nothing Wrong No risk factors. No warning. Just a carotid web she never knew about — and three years of emotional anger, aphasia, and finding her way back. Tiktok Instagram Facebook Highlights: 00:00 Introduction – Emotional anger after stroke 01:36 The Day of the Stroke 07:05 Post-Stroke Challenges and Rehabilitation 13:06 Ongoing Health Concerns and Medical Appointments 22:40 Navigating Health Challenges and Medical Support 30:20 Acceptance and Coping with Mortality 38:36 Communication Challenges and Aphasia 42:09 The Journey of Recovery and Self-Discovery 51:51 Facing the Aftermath of Stroke 59:22 Emotional Impact on Loved Ones 01:04:57 Navigating Life Changes 01:13:25 Finding Joy in New Passions 01:25:12 Trisha’s Journey: Emotional Anger After Stroke Transcript: Introduction – Emotional anger after stroke Trisha Lyn Winski (00:00) I don’t have anything that could cause it. I have nothing that, no blood pressure, no diabetes, It’s hard. It’s hard. don’t… It makes me mad. Really mad. Really, really mad that I to stroke. And like, everyone that has it… Bill Gasiamis (00:07) Yeah. Trisha Lyn Winski (00:21) or every dozen. I’m like, why me? Why did I have to have it? It’s frustrating. It’s so frustrating. Bill Gasiamis (00:28) Yeah, mad at who? Trisha Lyn Winski (00:30) I don’t know. I’m just mad. Like, I don’t know who I’m mad at. Bill Gasiamis (00:35) Before we get into Trisha’s story, and this is a raw, honest, and really important one, I wanna share a tool I’ve been using that I think can genuinely help stroke survivors get better answers faster. It’s called Turn2.ai. It’s an AI health sidekick that helps you deep dive into any burning question you have about your recovery. It searches across over 500,000 sources related to stroke, new research, expert discussions, patient stories and resources, and then keeps you updated on what matters each week. I use it myself and it’s my favorite tool of 2026 for staying current with what’s happening in stroke recovery. It’s low cost and completely patient first. Try it free and when you’re ready to subscribe, use my code, Bill10 at slash sidekick slash stroke to get a discount. I earn a small commission if you use that link at no extra cost to you. And that helps keep this podcast going. Also my book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened is available at recoveryafterstroke.com/book. And if you’d like to support the show on Patreon and my goal of reaching a thousand episodes, you can do that by going to patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke. Links are in the show notes. Right, Trisha Winsky was 46 years old, healthy, had no risk factors and then a carotid web. She never knew she had changed everything. Let’s get into it. Bill Gasiamis (02:06) Trisha Winski, welcome to the podcast. Trisha Lyn Winski (02:09) Thank you. Bill Gasiamis (02:10) Also thank you for joining me so late. I really appreciate people hanging around till the late hours of the evening to join me on the podcast. I know it’s difficult for us to make the hours that suit us both. I’m in the daytime here in Australia and you’re in the nighttime there. Trisha Lyn Winski (02:27) Yeah. Yeah. It’s okay. I can come to you later. Yeah, it’s late. Bill Gasiamis (02:34) As a stroke survivor, is it too late? Trisha Lyn Winski (02:36) No, no, not at all. Bill Gasiamis (02:38) Okay, cool. Tell me a little bit about what you used to get up to. What was life like before the stroke? Trisha Lyn Winski (02:45) I just get up and get to work. deal with it all day, come home, I’d go to the restaurant, the bars, my friends, and then like I had a stroke and everything changed. Everything changed in an instant. Bill Gasiamis (03:00) How old were you in the district? Trisha Lyn Winski (03:02) I was 46. Bill Gasiamis (03:04) And before that, were you in a family, married, do you have kids, any of that stuff? Trisha Lyn Winski (03:08) I have a kid. Now he’s 28. He was 25 when I had it. I was married before, but like a long time ago. Actually, my ex found me when I had a serve. So he’s the one who found me. But so yeah, that’s all I have here. My mom passed away in November. So it’s been challenging. Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (03:30) Dramatic, ⁓ Sorry to hear that. how many years ago was a stroke? Trisha Lyn Winski (03:37) ⁓ It’s three years and three months. Bill Gasiamis (03:41) Yeah. What were you focused on back then? What were the main goals in your life? Was it just working hard? Was it getting to a certain time in your career? What was the main goal? Trisha Lyn Winski (03:50) I think I working hard, but I just wanted to get to a good place in my career. And I think I was in a good place. Now I second guess at all time because I’ve had strokes now, it doesn’t matter what happens. I’m always second guessing it. But I was in a good place. I just felt like I needed to make them better. And the stroke happened and I so didn’t. Bill Gasiamis (04:17) What kind of work did you do? Trisha Lyn Winski (04:18) I was the corporate finance director for an auto group. Bill Gasiamis (04:22) A lot of hours was it like crazy hours or was just regular hours. Trisha Lyn Winski (04:26) No, I worked a lot of hours, but in the end he wanted me work like 40, 50 hours a week. I couldn’t do that. 50 hours a week was killing me, but 40 was enough. Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (04:37) Yeah. Were, did you consider yourself healthy? Was there any signs that you were unwell, that there was a stroke kind of on the horizon? Trisha Lyn Winski (04:46) No, nothing, The day before this, had, my eye was like, I want to say it’s twitching, but it wasn’t twitching. It was doing something like odd. And I didn’t realize that until I had a TIA recently, but I realized it then. It’s, how can I explain it? It’s like a clear, a blonde shape in my eye. it, when I move, it goes with me. And I try to see around it, I can’t see around it. And I said to Gary, I worked with him, was like, I’m gonna have to go to hospital. This continues. can’t see.” And then it went away. And that’s the only symptom I had. Only symptom. And he said, no, I should told you that you might be having a stroke. like, even if you told me that, I never believed him. Never. Bill Gasiamis (05:23) Hello? Yeah. When you’re, and it went away and you didn’t have a chance to go see anyone about it. Trisha Lyn Winski (05:37) Yeah, it went away in like, honestly, like five minutes. So I didn’t see anybody, but I thought it was okay. I mean, I guess now that I’m looking back at it, it’s kind of odd. It’s one eye, but I felt like it was gone. I don’t know. yeah. No, you don’t. Bill Gasiamis (05:55) Yeah. How could you know? mean, no one knows these things. And, and then on the day of the stroke, what happened? Was there any kind of lead up? Did you notice not feeling well during that day? And then the stroke, what was it like? Trisha Lyn Winski (06:09) No, so I get up like every other day to go to work. I went in the bathroom and the night before that Jason said Jason’s ex-ad he stayed at my house because he needed need a place to stay because he couldn’t go out Zach again. I was like okay we’ll sleep in my couch I’m gonna go to work tomorrow but you can sleep here. So he was there and I think if he wasn’t there I would have died. Post-Stroke Challenges and Rehabilitation Makes me sad. Um, anyway, so when I woke up I went to bathroom and I stood up from the toilet and I like I fell over and I I didn’t even realize it. So I fresh my face in like five places when I fell and I didn’t even I didn’t even know it my whole side was numb. So I didn’t feel it. And Jason, you know, helped me to bed. I thought he helped me to bed. He didn’t he like drug me to bed. He got in the bed and then I… He came back in like five minutes later, are you okay? Like he knew something was wrong. And I couldn’t articulate to him. So I said, I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m gonna go to work. So he put the phone in my hand to call my boss. And he came back in like five minutes later and I… He put it in my right hand so I didn’t call anybody. And he said, my God, I’ll never forget this. He said, my God, you’re having a stroke. And I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t talk. I just… Yeah, I could hear him say that, but I couldn’t talk to him. It’s… It’s really scary. Like, even talking right now, like… It upsets me. Bill Gasiamis (07:37) but you can hear him say that. This is really raw for you, isn’t it? Yeah, understand. went through very similar things like trying to speak about it and getting it out of my self and trying to, you know, bring it into the world and get it off my shoulders. Like often brought me to tears and made it really difficult for me to have a meaningful conversation with anyone about it. Trisha Lyn Winski (08:07) It does. Bill Gasiamis (08:09) There’s small blessings there with you, okay? All happened when for whatever reason your ex was in the house and was able to attend you. It’s an amazing thing that that is even possible ⁓ considering how some breakups go and how possible. Yeah. Yeah. And so he called 911 and got you to hospital. Is that how you ended up in hospital? Trisha Lyn Winski (08:15) I know. We’re good friends, it was a challenge. Yes. So they ended up taking me to MGH, it’s a hospital right down the street from me. ⁓ But he’s not from here, he’s from Pennsylvania. he didn’t know where to me, like, just has to go to the hospital. So they knew when they came up. So MGH is like known for their strokes, they’re like really good at strokes. ⁓ And so that’s where they plan on taking me. Bill Gasiamis (09:01) Yeah. And do you get a sense of what happened when you were in the hospital? Do you have any kind of recollection of what was going on? Trisha Lyn Winski (09:11) I honestly, in the first week, no. I remember seeing, in the first day, I saw Zach, my son, and Zach, his brother Connor was in there too, and Jason, they all were there with me when I woke up. But I saw them, and I saw my friend Matt, and then that’s all I remember seeing. I remember seeing my mom on the third day. I’m in jail on this third day, but that’s about it. Bill Gasiamis (09:41) Yeah. And then did you have deficits? couldn’t feel one of your sides? Did that come back, whole problem, that whole challenge? Trisha Lyn Winski (09:50) So the right side, it came back, but it came back like sporadically. So I just kind of want to come back. So the first day I saw Matt and I put up my arm to talk to him and I couldn’t like put my arm out. So I just like tap my arm. ⁓ Now I can move my arm fully, but I can’t, I don’t have the dexterity in my arm. So I can’t like. I can’t flip an egg with this hand. it’s like this and then this is like that. I can’t do this. ⁓ And my right foot has spasticity in it. then the three toes on the side, I could curl them up all the time. Bill Gasiamis (10:36) Okay, next. Trisha Lyn Winski (10:37) and I did botox for it, nothing helps. Bill Gasiamis (10:40) huh. Okay. Have you heard of cryo-neuralysis? Trisha Lyn Winski (10:42) yeah, yeah, I got that back. Bill Gasiamis (10:45) You got cryo-neuralysis? Trisha Lyn Winski (10:47) No, what are you saying? Bill Gasiamis (10:49) That’s spasticity treatment. Cryo-neurolosis, it’s a real weird long word. There’s a dude in Canada that ⁓ started a procedure to help freeze a nerve and it expands the ⁓ tendons or something around that and it decreases spasticity and it lasts longer than Botox. Trisha Lyn Winski (10:50) ⁓ no. Okay. ⁓ yeah, you need to give me his name. We’re gonna talk. That’s I went twice to have it done. ⁓ it didn’t help at all. And I met, I met the guy, ⁓ the diarist, diarist ⁓ at the hospital. And he said, I didn’t think it was, it was going to work. I’m like, it’s the first I saw you. And he was like, I saw you and you had the shirt. I’m like, okay. I saw a million people that we can’t, I don’t remember who they are. Bill Gasiamis (11:20) Okay. Yeah. All right. So I’m going to put a link to the details for cryo-neuralysis in the show notes. ⁓ you and I will communicate after the podcast episode is done. And I’ll send you the details because there’s this amazing new procedure that people are raving about that seems to provide more relief than Botox in a lot of cases, and it lasts longer. And it’s basically done by freezing the nerve or doing something like that to the nerve. in an injection kind of format and then it releases the spasticity makes it improve. ⁓ well worth you looking into it, especially if you’re in the United States and it’s in Canada. ⁓ I know that doctor is training people in the United States and around the world. So there might be some people closer to you than Canada that you can go and chat about. Yeah. And how long did you spend in hospital in the end? Trisha Lyn Winski (12:28) Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I love it. four weeks. Yeah. So the first, the first week I was at MGH, ⁓ they kept me for longer in the ICU because I had hemorrhagic conversion, transformation, whatever it’s called. I, you know what that is? Well, that went from the, I can’t think of what I was trying to say. Bill Gasiamis (12:40) for weeks. Ongoing Health Concerns and Medical Appointments Trisha Lyn Winski (13:05) It went from the aneurysm to the, not the aneurysm, the. Bill Gasiamis (13:09) The carotid artery. The clot, ⁓ Trisha Lyn Winski (13:11) ⁓ yes. Yeah, carotid artery and went to my brain. So I my brain bleed for a couple of days, but not like bleed, bleed, but it showed blood. So they kept me in it for longer. Bill Gasiamis (13:23) Okay. And then did you go straight home? Did you go to rehab? What was that like? Trisha Lyn Winski (13:29) I went to rehab for three weeks. And I sobbed my eyes out. So at that point I was like, I was good, but I wasn’t at all good, but I thought I was good. I said, I wanna go home, I wanna go home. My son can, he teach me all, do all this stuff, I gotta go home. Now that I’m past it, there’s no way he could tell me, no way. I couldn’t tie my shoes. Bill Gasiamis (13:34) three weeks. And when you came home, were people living with you? Trisha Lyn Winski (13:56) So he’s. No, nobody was living with but he had to come move in with me for three months. Bill Gasiamis (14:06) Yeah, your son, yeah. What was that like? Trisha Lyn Winski (14:07) Yeah. Here’s my proxid. I mean, honestly, at the time it was fine because I slept all the time. I slept like, God, I would go to bed like seven, 730 at night. And I was sleeping until like, at least, some sort of next day. I’d get up for a few hours, do what I had to do, and then fall back asleep. But just, I slept for a lot. So it was okay then. But come to the end of it, I’m like, okay, it’s time for you at your place. I need my space again, but yeah, he’s yeah, I need to have my own space. But at the time I know I need to rest. Yeah, I do. Yeah. ⁓ Bill Gasiamis (14:36) Yeah. and you need somebody around anyway. It’s important to have something near you if you’re unwell. Do they know what caused the stroke? Trisha Lyn Winski (14:53) ⁓ So I had a karate web. means that… ⁓ It’s really, it’s really rare. Only like 1.2 % of the whole population has it and I had it. It’s co-indentinob… co-ind… it’s… so I got it I was born. Bill Gasiamis (15:11) Yep, congenital. Trisha Lyn Winski (15:13) congenital, but they don’t know. I said that that would make it so much sense that they did a scan of your whole body at some point. I would have known that I had that years ago, but I didn’t know it. Bill Gasiamis (15:26) I don’t know what to look like, what to look for. The thing about scans, the whole body, my good friend of mine, the guy who helped me out when I was in hospital, he’s a radiographer and he does MRIs and all that kind of stuff. And he used to do my MRIs happened to be my friend happened to be working at the hospital that I was at. And he used to come and see me all the time. And I said to him, can we do a scan, you know, a preventative scan and check out, you know, my whole body? And he said, well, we can, but Trisha Lyn Winski (15:28) I know. Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (15:53) What are we looking for? I said, I don’t know anything. He said, well, we could, we could find a heap of things or we could find nothing. And if we don’t know what we’re looking for, we can’t set our scanners to the particular, settings to find the thing that you’re looking for. Because one scanner looks for hundreds of different things and the settings for to look for that thing has to be set into the scanner. And that’s only when people have a suspicion that you might have X thing. Trisha Lyn Winski (16:09) Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (16:23) then they set the scanner to find X thing and then they’ll look for it then they find it. He said, well, if we go in and do whole body scan, but we don’t even know what resolution to set it, how long to do the scan for. We don’t know what we’re looking for. So we don’t know what to do. And you have to be able to guide me and say, I want you to look for, in my case, a congenital arteriovenous malformation. In your case, carotid web. And in anyone else’s case is an aneurysm or whatever, but a general scan. Trisha Lyn Winski (16:38) Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (16:53) Like it’s such a hard thing to do for people. then, and then sometimes you said you find things that people do have unexpectedly because they go in for a different scan and then you discover something else. But now they’ve got more information about something that’s quite unquote wrong with them. And it’s like, what do you do with that information? Do I do a procedure to get rid of it? Do I, do I leave it there? Do I monitor it? Like, do I worry about it? Do I not worry about it? Trisha Lyn Winski (16:56) Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (17:21) is that it throws a big kind of curve ball out there and then no one knows how to react to it, how to respond. So it’s a big deal for somebody to say, can we have a whole body scan so we can work out what are all the things wrong with me? Trisha Lyn Winski (17:38) I it’s true, but I think that for me, most people have a carotid web. It’s obvious. know how old you are, it’s obvious. So then in that regard, like a carotid web, it looks a little indentured in the bloodstream. looks a little indentured in your artery. So I think that they would have seen it, but… ⁓ Bill Gasiamis (18:02) I love her. Trisha Lyn Winski (18:06) But then again, I don’t know. The hospital I went to, he said, you’re lucky you came here because most hospitals would have missed us. and I’m like, Bill Gasiamis (18:15) because they probably didn’t have the technology to find it. Trisha Lyn Winski (18:17) I don’t know. when I came to, it wasn’t months later, but I saw it on the scan. like, ⁓ it’s right there. ⁓ He said, yeah, but I thought it would be obvious, but it’s not so obvious. Bill Gasiamis (18:33) I just did a Google search for it and it says a carotid web is a rare shelf like membrane type narrowing in the internal carotid artery, specifically arising from the posterior wall of the carotid bulb. It is a form of intimal fibromuscular dysplasia that causes blood to stagnate forming clots that can lead to recurrent often severe ischemic strokes. Okay. So it causes blood to stay stagnant in that particular location causing clots. And you in the time we’ve been communicating, which is only in the last three or four weeks, you even sent me a message saying you just had an S you just had a TIA. ⁓ how come you’re still having clots? they not treating you or Trisha Lyn Winski (19:20) Yeah. No, I think they so they gave me um a scent in my re to kind of write that I don’t know why I had it cuz um, but my eye was like acting crazy again Just one eye and I I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I I don’t want the hospital at all for anything if I have if I don’t have to go I’m not going to hospital I Text Jason and Zach and they’re like no you have to go like I’ll wait a little while so Meanwhile, I was waiting a little while because I didn’t want to go and then I listened to ⁓ a red chat chat GBT He said no you have to go right now. Here’s why I’m like Now it’s like five hours later. I’m Sorry, so I went but and they said that I have ⁓ It’s likely I had a clot They don’t know where it came from though. So that’s that’s the thing is it’s confusing and by the way I think there’s something to be said about ⁓ I think if you have a stroke You can have one again easier than somebody who didn’t. I didn’t know that, but I learned it quickly. ⁓ So they said I had it, maybe went up in my eye, but it broke apart before it became an actual stroke. But I don’t know. Bill Gasiamis (20:41) thing. I love that you didn’t want to go and you ignored the male influences in your life, but you listen to chat. Trisha Lyn Winski (20:50) Thank you. I did, I did. They’re so smart. they say, I find on Google anyway. So that I listened to ChatGVT, it was like, I don’t know. And I know that like… Bill Gasiamis (21:05) You know that that’s kind of mental. Trisha Lyn Winski (21:08) It is actually, but I know that like my son is actually really smart and I think that they, but I didn’t listen him. I just listened to Chad Judy. Bill Gasiamis (21:18) Yeah. Anyhow, I love that you went in the end because, ⁓ and why don’t you want to go like, you just hate doctors and hospitals and that kind of thing? They saved you, didn’t they? Didn’t they save you? Didn’t they help you? Trisha Lyn Winski (21:29) There was? Yeah, but I don’t know. I think I spent so much time in there. ⁓ I don’t know. It’s in my head. I don’t like to sit in hospitals because of that. So after having the stroke, I stayed in hospital for month. I got out. I went back in like two weeks. I fell over twice. They thought that’s why. So when I was in hospital, something like they go Vegas something is pretty common. And I was like, okay, I did want to go then. I did want to go and then Zach made me. And then two months later, I went in to get the stint. And at that time I got a period. So it’s a long story. But I said to the doctor, I’m like, well, I’ll be okay. Does it do anything else because of this? He’s like, no, you should be fine. But if it gets bad, you have to go the hospital. he got bad. I almost died. I almost died from that. And that made me traumatized because I was awake and alive for all of it. I saw it all and passed out like six times in like three, I don’t know how many days, like five days. Yeah, but. Navigating Health Challenges and Medical Support Bill Gasiamis (22:46) Yeah. The challenge with something going wrong in hospital is that it’s less likely to be as dramatic as something going wrong at home. And that’s the thing, right? If you haven’t got help, then the chances that your stroke cause you way more deficits. That’s like so much worse. The best place for you to be is somewhere other than at home because you don’t want to risk being at home alone when something goes wrong and then you’re home alone. Trisha Lyn Winski (23:04) Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (23:15) when the blood flow has stopped to your head for a lot of hours. Like it could kill you, it make you more disabled and it could do all sorts of things. it’s like, but I get the whole, what is it like? It’s kind of like an anxiety about medical people and hospitals and stuff like that. Trisha Lyn Winski (23:20) Yeah. Yeah. I think that it’s mostly like I don’t like to stay there. I got a weird thing about this. I don’t like to stay there. I can stay anywhere I go, but the hospital really bothered me. I think that they were actually pretty good to me. So I’m not mad at them for that. ⁓ But I don’t want to see them now if I can possibly help it. Bill Gasiamis (23:54) Yeah, you’re done with them. Trisha Lyn Winski (23:56) I’m totally done. Bill Gasiamis (23:58) Yeah, I get it. I got, I got to that stage. My dramas were like three or four years worth of, you know, medical appointments, scans, surgery, rehab. Trisha Lyn Winski (24:07) Oh my god. Medical appointments. Medical appointments, forget it. They’re like, oh my god. I have so many of them, I can’t even say it. Bill Gasiamis (24:11) Yeah. I hear you. hear you. went through the same thing and then I got over it. now lately I’ve been going back to the hospital and seeing medical doctors for, um, not how I haven’t got heart issues, my, I’ve got high blood pressure and they don’t know what’s causing it. And, know, I’ve had my heart checked. I’ve had my arteries checked. I’ve had all these tests, blood tests, MRIs, the whole lot, and it’s getting a little bit old, you know, like I’m over it. But the truth is without them, I don’t. I don’t have a hope. Like if my blood pressure goes through the roof, you know, which had been, had been sitting at 170 over 120, 130. And I have a brain hemorrhage because of uh, high blood pressure. know what a brain hemorrhage is like, you know, I don’t want to have another one. So I’m like, I am going to, uh, I’m going to shut up, go through it and be grateful that I have medical support. Um, which, which Trisha Lyn Winski (24:55) Yeah. I know. Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (25:14) You know, a lot of people don’t get to have, it’s like, whatever, you know, I’ll cop it. I’ll cop it. I’ll go. And hopefully they can get ahead of it. So now they’re just changing my medication. I want to get to the bottom of it. Why have I got high blood pressure? The challenge with the medical system that I have is, is they just tell you, you have it and here’s something to stop it from being high. But I, they never say to you, we’re going to investigate why, like we’re going to try to get to the bottom of it. Trisha Lyn Winski (25:16) Yeah. Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (25:40) and I’ve been pushing them to investigate why do I have high blood pressure. Trisha Lyn Winski (25:44) sure. So I don’t have, I never had high blood pressure but speaking of I’ve, I don’t have a problem with my heart but they, so that when I had this for the first time they made me get out and have to, I had to wear a heart monitor for a month and I said like why am I wearing a heart monitor? There was something, they, I don’t know what it is. Bill Gasiamis (25:51) Yeah. Trisha Lyn Winski (26:13) Afib or something like that in there. And this time was the same thing. had heart bars over there right now. I had to send it back and they’re gonna send me new one. every time I’ve taken my heart test, and by the went for EKG just the other day. It was fine. But they found like something near my heart rate, it’s not like I need to be concerned about these. It’s nothing I need to be concerned about. So I was like, okay. They’re making you wear that for a month. Anyway. Bill Gasiamis (26:46) Yeah, just to go through things, just to check things, just to work some stuff out. Trisha Lyn Winski (26:47) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, this month I have ton, I have like seven appointments. Bill Gasiamis (26:56) Yeah, I used to forget my appointments all the time, even though I had him in my calendar, even though I had reminders, I just, even though I got reminded on the day, an hour before, two hours before, he meant nothing to me. I would just completely forget about him. Trisha Lyn Winski (26:59) me too. Me too. Same thing. I forgot all of it. And I had to share it with Zach and he could tell me, have an appointment. Like, okay. I forgot. He’s like, have an appointment. I’m like, fuck, I have to go. Bill Gasiamis (27:13) Yeah. How long did it take you to get back to work? Trisha Lyn Winski (27:28) I at least I went back to work. I went back to work before I was told I could go back to work. And I wrote them an email like, listen, I can’t sit at home and run one fucking freeze. I need to do something. So I went back to work. ⁓ And at first I went back to work part time. And honestly, like I cried. I left there crying every day. And not because I think that I. Not because of people. don’t think it was the people. I couldn’t understand. My head was like… I couldn’t focus and put all that work into my… I couldn’t put it into me. So I couldn’t understand what I was doing. And then you give them a month. Eventually I got it, but it was a struggle. I should have waited until October. And they said I should go back in October. Maybe I could go back in October. I should have waited until then. Bill Gasiamis (28:22) Yeah. Do you kind of like a nervous energy type of person? Do you can’t sit still or is it like, can’t spend a lot of time on your own with yourself? Like, is it? Trisha Lyn Winski (28:34) I can spend a lot of time by myself. don’t like to ⁓ here by myself. I can be by myself. I don’t like to be… I can’t think of… What did you say before? Bill Gasiamis (28:48) Is it just downtime? Is it the downtime? it too much? Did you have too much downtime? Trisha Lyn Winski (28:52) Yes, definitely too much downtime. But I couldn’t see I was sitting at home and Zach was there, whatever he was doing. was like, I can’t, I need to do something. So I went to work and in all reality, I should have walked around. should have, I didn’t do that. Bill Gasiamis (29:04) Yeah. Yeah. How did your colleagues find you when you went back? Did they kind of appreciate what you had been through? Was that easy to have those conversations? What was it like? Trisha Lyn Winski (29:21) Yeah, so I oversaw all the finances department. ⁓ They were actually like, honestly like rock stars. They were like really, really good to me. ⁓ That was helpful. because I love them anyway. it made me feel good to say that that’s what I’m doing. ⁓ But I still left there and cried. Not because like I think that I just couldn’t understand it. They were good to me. Everyone was good to me in theory, I couldn’t understand. Bill Gasiamis (29:56) you had trouble with the work, with doing your job because of your cognitive function. Trisha Lyn Winski (29:59) Yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s a other little things with that, it’s more or less the cognitive function is a problem to do the work. Bill Gasiamis (30:12) Yeah. Tiring. Like I mentioned, it’s really mentally draining and tiring. remember sitting in front of a computer trying to work out what was going on on the screen and it being completely just blank. Acceptance and Coping with Mortality Trisha Lyn Winski (30:22) And so that’s actually what probably got me the most was that what you’re saying. I’d be sitting there and look at my screen. I couldn’t remember what I was doing, but I remember like weird things. I remember how to do like Excel. I don’t know how I remember Excel, but I did. I was really good with numbers. And they said that I was going to have a problem with numbers and everything. So I have aphasia too. I don’t have a choice with that, but Bill Gasiamis (30:31) Yeah. Trisha Lyn Winski (30:49) That’s why I talk so weird. Bill Gasiamis (30:52) Okay, I didn’t notice. Trisha Lyn Winski (30:54) Oh, oh, I feel good. But yeah, I have aphasia. But I can do certain things. And the numbers was going to be, they said it going to, I couldn’t, that’s going to be a problem. And the numbers, I can do all day. But I can’t do other little things. Bill Gasiamis (31:11) I understand. So you went back to work. It was kind of helpful, probably too early to go back, but good to be out of the house. Good to be connecting with people again. And has that improved? Did you find that you’ve been able to kind of get better in front of a screen, better with the things that you struggled with, or is it still still a bit of a challenge? Trisha Lyn Winski (31:19) Yeah. Yeah. So two things, ⁓ I got fired eventually, and that’s another whole issue. Yeah, yeah, we’ll talk about that another time. but ⁓ so, but now that I’m here, I could look my computer and it’s fine. I can do it all day. But I really, it’s a long story. think that Warren, my boss, ⁓ Deb, but they definitely like hinder me. ⁓ Bill Gasiamis (31:39) Understand. another time. Yeah. Okay. I understand. Well, maybe we won’t talk about it, like, because of the complications with that, but that’s all good. I understand. So, ⁓ do you know, a lot of the times you hear about acceptance and you hear about, ⁓ like, Trisha Lyn Winski (32:07) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (32:23) When some, well, something goes through something serious, something difficult, you know, there has to be kind of this acceptance of where they’re at. And that’s kind of the first stage of healing recovery, overcoming. Where are you with all of this? you like, totally get that at 46. It’s a shock to have a stroke. You look perfectly fine, perfectly healthy. This thing that you didn’t know about that you’ve had for 46 years suddenly causes an issue. How do you deal with your mortality and knowing that things can go wrong, even though you’re not aware of, you you’re not doing anything to really make your situation worse. You look fit and healthy. Were you drinking, smoking, doing any of that kind of stuff? Trisha Lyn Winski (33:06) I drank occasionally, I wasn’t a drunk, I don’t smoke. Bill Gasiamis (33:11) yeah social smoke social drinker but not smoker Trisha Lyn Winski (33:15) Yeah, I don’t smoke. I don’t have anything that could cause it. I have nothing that, no blood pressure, no diabetes, It’s hard. Jason talks about it all the time. It’s hard. don’t… It makes me mad. Really mad. Really, really mad that I to stroke. And like, everyone that has it… Bill Gasiamis (33:24) Yeah. Trisha Lyn Winski (33:41) or every dozen. I’m like, why me? Why did I have to have it? It’s frustrating. It’s so frustrating. Bill Gasiamis (33:48) Yeah, mad at who? Trisha Lyn Winski (33:50) I don’t know. I’m just mad. Like, I don’t know who I’m mad at. Bill Gasiamis (33:56) Yeah. The thing about the why me question, it’s a fair question. asked it too. I even ask it now sometimes, especially when, um, I’ve got to go back for more tests, more, uh, now I’ve got high blood pressure. Like, like I needed another thing to have, you know, like, and it’s like, the only thing that I come back with after why me is why not me? Like, who are you to go through life completely unscathed and get to 99 and then die from natural Bill Gasiamis (34:25) wanted to stop there for a second because that question, why me, is something I wrote about in my book. It’s one of the most common and most painful places stroke survivors get stuck. If you want to read about it and how I worked through it and what I found on the other side, the book is called The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened and it’s available at You’ll find the link in the show notes. And now let’s get back to Tricia. Bill Gasiamis (34:54) like Trisha Lyn Winski (34:54) Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (34:55) You’re normal. being normal, ⁓ normal things happen to people. Some of those things that are shit are strokes and heart attacks and stuff that you didn’t know that you were born with. ⁓ what’s really interesting though, is to live the life after stroke and to kind of wrap my head around what that looks like. My left side feels numb all the time. ⁓ tighter, ⁓ has spasticity, but nothing is curled. Like my fingers on my toes are not curled, but it’s tighter. ⁓ it hurts. ⁓ It’s colder, it’s ⁓ sensitive, I’ve got a, and I always have a comparison of the quote unquote normal side, the other side, it’s always. And the comparison I think is worse because it makes me notice my affected side and that noticing it. Trisha Lyn Winski (35:31) Yeah. or yeah. Bill Gasiamis (35:46) makes the reality happen again every day. Like it’s a new, I wake up in the morning, I get out of bed, my left side still sleepy. I have to be careful. If I’m not careful, I’ll lose my balance. I don’t want to fall over. And it’s like, I get to experience a different version of myself. And sometimes I want to be grateful for that. want to say, wow, what a cool, different thing to experience in a body. But then I’m trying to work out like, what’s the benefit of it? don’t know if there’s a benefit. ⁓ Trisha Lyn Winski (36:14) I don’t know either. Bill Gasiamis (36:15) to me, but, Trisha Lyn Winski (36:15) I don’t either. Bill Gasiamis (36:18) but here I am talking to you and, and, and 390 people before you, ⁓ about strike all over the world and we’re putting something out and it’s making a difference. And maybe that’s the benefit. I don’t know, but do know what I mean? Like, why not us? I hate asking that question too. Trisha Lyn Winski (36:34) I don’t know. You had ⁓ the podcast on YouTube and I stumbled upon it on the wise. I watched YouTube and then you came out there and I’m like, so before that I was looking at different, I watched every video, every video on strokes, every video I could possibly type but I watched. I did. ⁓ And then I stumbled upon your stuff and I watched that stuff too. And that’s why I wouldn’t have thought to call you or reach out to you. Bill Gasiamis (37:11) Was it helpful? Was it helpful? Trisha Lyn Winski (37:13) Yeah, it is helpful. But it doesn’t change the fact that I had a stroke. All the people that had it, I feel bad for them. Honestly, like, so when I was at the hospital, they had me join a bunch of groups on Facebook and Instagram that are like, they’re people who’ve gone through a stroke. most, I don’t comment on them. I don’t say, because most of the time it’s people bitching. Bill Gasiamis (37:19) Yeah. Yeah. Trisha Lyn Winski (37:43) But I really like, times I, trust me, I’m like ready to kill somebody. But I don’t like say it there. I only ask them questions that are really serious. But sometimes I read what they say. And there was a guy the other day, I don’t know what he wrote, but he had like all kinds of words that they were way jumbled. was like, his message just didn’t make sense. I thought to myself, God, if I was like that, I’d be so sad. Somebody, I do think that he’s worse than I could be, but you don’t know. Bill Gasiamis (38:19) Yeah. Communication Challenges and Aphasia Yeah. He, his words are more jumbled than yours. And you, if you, you, you’re thinking, if you were like that, you would be probably feeling more sad than you currently are. And you’re assuming that maybe that person is feeling sad, but maybe they’re not, maybe they just got the challenge and they’re taking on the challenge and they’re trying to heal and recover. don’t know. And maybe, maybe they’re getting help and support through that therapy and also maybe psychological help and all that kind of stuff. Have you ever had any counseling or anything like that to sort of try and wrap your head around what the hell’s going on in your life? Trisha Lyn Winski (38:54) So I did it once and actually like I think she was okay. I felt like I was always having to talk. I know that I’m so stocked but she wasn’t asking me a lot of questions and I felt like she needs to me more questions. I’ll have more answers but like but she didn’t. She just wanted me to talk so I just talked. But I stopped seeing her because I… So two reasons. I stopped seeing her because they when they fire me I… I didn’t know what I had to do. I knew I insured that I didn’t know how long it was going to be for me to have that. So I talked to her for a little bit and then I stopped talking to her because I just couldn’t deal with it. I think now I’m getting to the point where I’m going to do it. Bill Gasiamis (39:37) It was a bit early. I like that. I like what you said there. Cause sometimes it’s early. It’s too early to go through that and unwrap it. Right. And now a little bit of times past, you probably have more conscious awareness of, do need to talk about this and I need to go through and see a certain person. And now I’m going to take that action. It’s been three years and now I can take that action. like it. ⁓ and I like what you said about, you have to feel like you’re connected to that person or you have rapport or Trisha Lyn Winski (39:46) It is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (40:11) they get you and you’re not just, it’s not a one way conversation. That’s really important in choosing a counselor. I know my counselor, we, I didn’t do all the talking. was like you and me chatting now about stuff. had a conversation about things regularly. And therefore, ⁓ one of the good things that she was able to do was just ease my mind when I would go off on real negative tangents, you know, she would try to bring me back down just to calm and. Trisha Lyn Winski (40:35) Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (40:39) settle me down and offer me hope. Trisha Lyn Winski (40:42) I think my, honestly my biggest problem with this whole stroke and having it at all, I have aphasia and that 100 % kills me. Because I can’t like, I can talk like normal but I can’t talk like… I forget what I’m saying. So it’s in my brain, but I can’t spit it out. I get really frustrated at that point. people, I had a stroke, my left hemisphere and my right side went numb. My left hemisphere is all kinds of different, different things that I can’t do. The good news is my left means I can’t like, I can talk to people like this. But the other person and that guy I was talking about, he probably had the right side, his aphasia was. really bad, really bad. But I was a person who talked like really fast all the time, all the time. And now like, I think part of my brain goes so fast and I can’t spit it out. I get really, I get, it’s, yeah. Bill Gasiamis (41:38) Okay. as quickly as you can. Okay, so you know, I’ve spoken to a ton of people who have aphasia. And one of the things they say to me is when they have frustration, their aphasia is worse. So the skill is to learn to be less frustrated with oneself, which means that’s like a personal love thing. That’s self love, that’s supporting yourself, you know, and going. Trisha Lyn Winski (42:00) It is. The Journey of Recovery and Self-Discovery Yeah, that’s a point. That’s a good point. Bill Gasiamis (42:13) And it’s going like, well, you know, you’re trying your best. It’s all good. You know, don’t get frustrated with yourself. Don’t hate yourself. Don’t give yourself a hard time about it. ⁓ and try and decrease the frustration. Then the aphasia gets less impactful, but, ⁓ and then maybe, you know, this part of learning the new you is bring the old Trisha with you, but maybe the nutrition needs to be a little bit more slow, a little more measured, a little more calm. And it’s a skill because for 46 years, you were the regular. Trisha Lyn Winski (42:36) Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (42:42) Tricia, the one that you always knew, but now you’ve got to adjust things a little bit. It’s like people going into midlife, right? Like us, you know, in our fifties and then, um, or, know, sort of approaching 50 on and beyond and then go, I’m going to keep eating, uh, fast food that I ate when I was 21 and 20, know, McDonald’s or sodas or whatever. You can’t do it anymore. You have to make adjustments, even though that’s been your habit for the longest time, your body’s going, I can’t deal with this stuff anymore. Trisha Lyn Winski (43:03) Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (43:12) Take it out, you know, let’s simplify things. And it’s kind of like how to approach. I stroke recoveries things need to kind of get paid back and simplified. And it has to start with self love. And you have to acknowledge how much effort you’ve already put in for the last three years to get you to the position that you are now, which is far better than you were three years ago when the stroke happened. And you have to celebrate. how much your body is trying to support you heal your brain. Your body’s trying to get you over the line and your mindset is getting frustrated with itself, which is making things worse. Tweak that and things will get a bit better maybe. I don’t know. Trisha Lyn Winski (43:55) It does. You’re 100 % right. ⁓ So whenever I’m not stressed, so two things. I think when I talk to people I don’t know, I always get like nervous about that. ⁓ Bill Gasiamis (44:10) You think they’re thinking about things that you’re not they’re not really Trisha Lyn Winski (44:13) Yeah, but then who knows what they’re thinking of. that’s just how I get, whenever I get like, I went to a concert like a couple of years ago and I was like, I believe I couldn’t, I could hear that the music is so loud in my brain. Like I gotta get out of here. So I left. I’ve gotten better since then, but there’s something about, I have to do things slower. I have to do things over. I’ve realized that like recently, like in the last like maybe month, I have to do things very slow. I have to. And maybe this is God’s way of like, tell me like slow the f down, you’re going too fast. But that’s how I live my whole life. And then all of a sudden, now you’re not going to get up. Yeah, it’s a huge testament. So I can do it right. Not always right. Bill Gasiamis (45:01) Yeah, there’s an adjustment. Yeah, adjustment. Yeah. Trisha Lyn Winski (45:09) because again, it’s isophagia, it’s gonna be hair mess, if I go slower, much slower, I can get it all out. But, ugh. Bill Gasiamis (45:22) It’s a lot of work, man. It doesn’t end here. You know, the work just as just beginning, you know, this getting to understand yourself, to know yourself, to support yourself, to be your biggest advocate. ⁓ and then to fail and then to try and be the person that, ⁓ picks themselves up and goes again and tries again without getting frustrated. I know exactly what you mean. Like so many people listening will know what you mean. Trisha Lyn Winski (45:22) It’s a pain. It’s a pain! Bill Gasiamis (45:51) And with time, you’ll get better and better because I know that three years seems like a long time, but it’s early in the recovery phase. The recovery is still going to continue. Year four, five, six, seven will be better and better and better. I’m, I’m 12 years post brain surgery and 14 years post first incident. So it’s like, things are still improving and getting better for me. Trisha Lyn Winski (46:17) Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (46:18) And one of the things is the way that my body responds to physical exercise. went for a bike ride a little while ago, a couple of weeks ago. And when I used to go for a bike ride at the beginning, um, man, I would be wiped out for the entire day. Uh, and I used to do a morning bike ride about like 10, 30, 11 o’clock and I’d be wiped out for the rest of the day. Trisha Lyn Winski (46:32) Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (46:39) Whereas now I can go for a bike ride and just be wiped out like a regular person, you know, about an hour or two, and then I’m back on board with doing other tasks. So it takes so much time for the brain to heal. Nobody can give you a timeline and you’ve got heaps more healing to go. Trisha Lyn Winski (46:57) So I looked at my stuff on YouTube, how long it takes to recover from a stroke. I’ve looked at that everywhere. Everywhere I can find. I’ve looked at that. It’s so funny. Like everybody says that it’s, everybody’s story is different. Everybody. It doesn’t matter how long you were in hospital for, doesn’t how long. But that like, it’s crazy. have no like timetable of when I’m going to get better. None. I have to deal with it. Bill Gasiamis (47:27) Yeah. It’s such a hard thing. It’s not a broken bone, know, like six weeks, stay off it, do a little bit of rehab and then you’re back to normal. Trisha Lyn Winski (47:28) It sucks, but. I had two years before this or maybe a year before that, had a rotator cuff surgery. I look back at that and I’m like, that was so bad. And that was like night and day. The stroke definitely like, the stroke killed me. Not the stroke. I don’t want to say the stroke. I think having aphasia killed me. I do, the stroke is, get me wrong. I don’t like it either, but ⁓ the aphasia kills me. If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be normal, but I can be normal. But the aphasia. Bill Gasiamis (48:00) Okay. Yeah. But, but what, but that word killed me is a real heavy word, right? maybe you should consider changing that word, but also like, didn’t pick that you had aphasia and I, and I speak to stroke survivors all the time. Like I didn’t pick it. I, I just assumed that was the way you process your words and that’s how you get things out. Like it didn’t, I didn’t notice it at all. Trisha Lyn Winski (48:26) I know, I know, it’s funny that said Yeah, that’s actually good. That’s really good. But I know it’s it. I definitely know it’s it. I could talk like a mile a minute and now like. Bill Gasiamis (48:47) Yeah. Trisha Lyn Winski (48:52) I mean… Bill Gasiamis (48:52) Maybe it was maybe maybe now it’s more about ⁓ quality rather than quantity, Trisha. Trisha Lyn Winski (49:00) Apparently it is. Bill Gasiamis (49:01) I’m not saying that you didn’t have quality in that I didn’t know you so I’m not kind of yeah but you know what I mean like Trisha Lyn Winski (49:03) Yeah. No, it’s okay. Trust me, it’s okay. But yeah, it just frustrates me. I can’t get out what I want to get out. And so at that time, just give me a little time, I’ll get it out. But I can’t say that to people when I’m out. I can’t say this to So I just, I don’t say it at all. Bill Gasiamis (49:22) Yeah. so you stop yourself from communicating because you think you’re taking too long and it’s interrupting the flow of the conversation. Yeah. I think you’re doing that to yourself. I don’t think that’s true. We’ve had a fantastic conversation here and I’ve never picked it. Trisha Lyn Winski (49:34) Yeah. all day. But so you’re somebody who’s had a stroke before. It’s kind of different for me because you had. But if you didn’t have a stroke, will be… Well, I don’t know. Maybe not. Maybe one-on-one I’m okay. No, think I… No, it’s because you had a stroke. I think of all the people I’ve talked to and they’re one-on-one. I don’t do well with them. But I think that you’ve had a stroke so I just… I know how to communicate with you. Bill Gasiamis (49:54) I understand. And maybe you’re more at ease about it. Less feeling, judged. I understand. Yeah. Trisha Lyn Winski (50:20) Yes, all day. Even that guy I told you about that that said that on Facebook God like I Really like my heart goes out to him But then that there’s the people that are fishing a plane I’m like I want to say my heart goes out to them, it really, it goes to certain people. I think that. He’s like going through it. Bill Gasiamis (50:45) Yeah. One of the problems with going to Facebook to bitch and moan about it, especially when you’re going through it is that you get an abundance of people who also are there to bitch and moan about it. And, and that makes it worse. think you should do bitching and moaning on your own. Like when there’s no one watching or listening. Cause then that way there’s not a loop of bitching and moaning that happens. That makes it dramatically worse for everybody. Trisha Lyn Winski (51:01) Yeah, I do it myself. Bill Gasiamis (51:09) ⁓ and that’s why I don’t hang around on Facebook, Instagram, social media, or anything like that for those types of conversations. If I’m not sharing a little bit of wisdom or somebody’s story or, ⁓ asking a question, like a genuine question, one of the questions might be, did you struggle driving and did you have to pull over and go to sleep in the middle of the road? If you had a big trip ahead of you in the car, I’ve done that. Like if, if I’m not asking a question like that, I don’t want to be, ⁓ on social media saying. life sucks, this sucks, that sucks. Like forget about it. What’s the point of that? That’s why I started the podcast so I can have my own conversations about it that were positive based on what we’re overcoming rather than all the shit we’re dealing with. And that way ⁓ we take off that spiral, the negative downward spiral. trying to make it an upward spiral. You know, where things are. Trisha Lyn Winski (51:41) Yeah. Facing the Aftermath of Stroke Bill Gasiamis (52:05) I don’t know, we’re seeing the glass half full perhaps, or we’re seeing the positive that came out of it. If something like, I know there’s some positive stuff that came out of stroke for you. Day one, you definitely didn’t think that maybe three years down the track. Maybe if it wasn’t for this, well, then that wouldn’t have happened for me. Like I’ve been on TV. I’ve been at the stroke foundation. I’ve been on radio. I’ve been, I’ve presented. I’ve got a podcast. wrote a book. Like it’s taken years and years for all those good things to come, but they never would have happened if I didn’t have a stroke. So I wanted to have those types of conversations, you know, what are the positive things we can turn this into? Because dude, then there’s just enough shit to deal with that. We don’t have to deal with every other version of it, you know? ⁓ and I think it’s better to have your me personally, my negative moments alone, cause I don’t want to get into a competition with somebody. Trisha Lyn Winski (52:42) That’s good. Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (53:05) who I say, I didn’t sleep well, my left side hurts, it feels like pins and needles. And then they say to me, ⁓ you think that’s bad? Well, you know, forget about it. I don’t want to be that that guy on the other end of a conversation like that, you know. Trisha Lyn Winski (53:13) Yeah. ⁓ So you said your left side, ⁓ you see you have pin the needles, is always like that? So I’m sorry, had hemorrhagic stroke? Okay. I know the difference between two, ⁓ why did you have hemorrhagic stroke? Bill Gasiamis (53:27) Always, yeah, never goes away. Yeah, Brain blade. I was born with a blood vessel that was malformed. So it was like really weak one. I was really like, uh, was kind of like, uh, uh, it wasn’t created properly in my brain when I was born and it’s called an arteriovenous malformation. then they sit idle, they sit idle and they do nothing for a lot of people. And then sometimes they burst. Trisha Lyn Winski (53:58) Mm-hmm. ⁓ I heard it. Bill Gasiamis (54:08) And people sometimes have them all over their body. They don’t have to have them in their head. They can have them on the skin, ⁓ in, in an arm on a leg, wherever. And on an arm and a leg, they, they decrease the blood flow and they create real big lesions of skin damage on the surface in a brain. They leak into the brain and they cause a stroke. ⁓ so the challenge with it is like you, there was no signs and symptoms. for any of my life until it started bleeding. And when I took action, eventually, I was like, yo, I didn’t want to go to the doctor. I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I want to do any of that. It took seven days for me to go to the hospital. When I finally got there, they found the scan, found the blood in my head. And then they thought it would stop bleeding and it didn’t. And then it bled again and they wanted to monitor it to see if it stops bleeding. They wanted to try to avoid surgery. And then a bled a third time. And then after they bled the third time, they said, we have to have surgery. We’ve got to take it out because it’s too dangerous. And when it bled the second time, I didn’

Send us a textNavigating Childhood Tics and Tourette Syndrome: Expert Insights with Dr. GreenbergIn this  episode, we sit down with Dr. Greenberg, director of the pediatric psychiatry OCD and Tic disorders program in Boston, to discuss the complexities of childhood tics and Tourette Syndrome. Dr. Greenberg shares his extensive expertise and personal experiences to help parents understand what tics are, how they manifest, and their natural progression. He provides insights on effective treatments such as CBIT therapy and when medication might be necessary. Additionally, Dr. Greenberg emphasizes the importance of differentiating between normal tics and those that may indicate other co-occurring conditions like ADHD and OCD. This episode is a must-watch for parents seeking reassurance and practical advice on managing their child's tics.Erica Greenberg, M.D. is an assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a child/adolescent psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) where she is the Director of the Pediatric Psychiatry OCD and Tic Disorders Program. Dr. Greenberg is also a co-Director of the MGH Tourette Association of America (TAA) Center of Excellence and the co-president of the Medical Advisory Board of the TAA. Her interests include Tourette syndrome (TS), OCD, “Tourettic OCD,” ADHD, body-focused repetitive behavior disorders, and other Tourette syndrome spectrum conditions. She has authored several peer-reviewed manuscripts on TS, OCD, and related disorders, and has presented on these conditions nationally and internationally. Dr. Greenberg graduated from Weill Cornell Medical College with Alpha Omega Alpha honors, and completed her general psychiatry residency at Harvard Longwood and her child/adolescent fellowship training at MGH.Contact Dr Greenberg: MassGeneral Brigham; Massachusetts General Hospital for ChildrenPediatric Psychiatry OCD and Tic Disorders ProgramEmail: MGHPediOCDTics@partners.org617-643-2780Your Child is Normal is the trusted podcast for parents, pediatricians, and child health experts who want smart, nuanced conversations about raising healthy, resilient kids. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Hochman — a board-certified practicing pediatrician — the show combines evidence-based medicine, expert interviews, and real-world parenting advice to help listeners navigate everything from sleep struggles to mental health, nutrition, screen time, and more. Follow Dr Jessica Hochman:Instagram: @AskDrJessica and Tiktok @askdrjessicaYouTube channel: Ask Dr Jessica If you are interested in placing an ad on Your Child Is Normal click here or fill out our interest form.-For a plant-based, USDA Organic certified vitamin supplement, check out : Llama Naturals Vitamin and use discount code: DRJESSICA20-To test your child's microbiome and get recommendations, check out: Tiny Health using code: DRJESSICA The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditi...

Some of the biggest advances in women's health start with a simple question: why hasn't this been fixed yet? In this episode of BackTable OBGYN, Dr. Tess Kim, a minimally invasive gynecologic surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and the founder of Fruits of Labor, a women's health medical device innovation company, joins host Dr. Amy Park. --- SYNPOSIS Dr. Kim's educational journey began with medical school at Emory, followed by residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, and fellowship training at MGH. She discusses the founding of Fruits of Labor, which began with the Perry Peach—a warm compress device designed to reduce severe perineal tearing during childbirth and now acquired by Medicines360. Dr. Kim also talks about her creative process, the importance of addressing historically neglected areas in women's health, and the potential impact of her new project, Mellomallows, which aims to reduce discomfort during gynecological procedures such as IUD placement. The conversation concludes with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities in women's health innovation, the significance of supportive networks, and the role of passion and commitment in driving meaningful change. --- TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Introduction02:03 - The Birth of PeriPeach: Addressing Severe Tearing06:51 - New Medical Devices: Mellomallows08:41 - The Creation and Mechanism of PeriPeach 11:11 - Company Development: Mentorship and Resources17:37 - Pitching Practice and Experience 19:26 - Project Funding and Working with Medicines36021:51 - Advice for Aspiring Innovators23:52 - Concerns About AI in Healthcare26:48 - Innovations in Women's Health29:06 - Challenges in Academic Medicine32:01 - The Importance of Female Innovators34:00 - Forming a Startup in Women's Health36:10 - Parting Advice for Future Innovators37:37 - The Future of Women's Health Innovations40:10 - Conclusion --- RESOURCES Fruits of Labor website:https://www.fruitsoflabormed.com/home PeriPeach website:https://www.peripeach.com/

BUFFALO, NY — December 12, 2025 — A new #research paper was #published in Volume 17, Issue 11 of Aging-US on November 14, 2025, titled “Methylglyoxal-induced glycation stress promotes aortic stiffening: putative mechanistic roles of oxidative stress and cellular senescence.” The study was led by first authors Parminder Singh of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and Ravinandan Venkatasubramanian of the University of Colorado Boulder, with senior contributions from corresponding authors Pankaj Kapahi (Buck Institute for Research on Aging) and Zachary S. Clayton (University of Colorado Boulder and University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus). The researchers investigated how methylglyoxal (MGO), a toxic byproduct that builds up in blood vessels with age or metabolic dysfunction like diabetes, contributes to artery stiffening. Their findings are especially important to aging and diabetes-related cardiovascular risk. Aortic stiffening, which reduces the flexibility of the body's largest artery, is a key predictor of cardiovascular disease in older adults. The research team used young and aged mice to study how MGO affects vascular health. In young mice, chronic exposure to MGO increased aortic stiffness by 21%. However, when treated with Gly-Low, a supplement containing natural compounds such as nicotinamide and alpha-lipoic acid, this stiffening was completely prevented. Gly-Low also reduced the buildup of MGO and its harmful byproducts, particularly MGH-1, in both blood and tissue. “Aortic stiffness was assessed in vivo via pulse wave velocity (PWV) and ex vivo through elastic modulus.” The research showed that MGO's damage goes beyond structural changes. It also caused the endothelial cells that line blood vessels to enter senescence, a state in which cells stop dividing and begin releasing inflammatory signals. This led to lower levels of nitric oxide, a molecule essential for blood vessel relaxation. In human vascular cells in lab culture, Gly-Low reversed these aging-like changes and restored nitric oxide production. In older mice, which naturally develop stiffer arteries, Gly-Low treatment during four months significantly reduced stiffness and lowered MGO and MGH-1 levels. This suggests that Gly-Low may help slow or even reverse vascular aging by reducing glycation stress. The study also identified the glyoxalase-1 pathway as a critical mechanism. This is a natural detox system that helps clear harmful molecules like MGO. Gly-Low appeared to boost this pathway. When the pathway was chemically blocked, Gly-Low's protective effects disappeared, confirming its role in the process. Overall, the findings highlight glycation stress as a modifiable contributor to vascular aging. The results suggest that natural compound-based therapies, like Gly-Low, may offer a potential strategy to protect arteries from age- and diabetes-related damage. DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206335 Corresponding authors: Pankaj Kapahi - pkapahi@buckinstitute.org; Zachary S. Clayton - Zachary.Clayton@cuanschutz.edu Abstract video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_rtq8eIb8c Subscribe for free publication alerts from Aging - https://www.aging-us.com/subscribe-to-toc-alerts To learn more about the journal, please visit https://www.Aging-US.com​​ and connect with us on social media: Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/aging-us.bsky.social ResearchGate - https://www.researchgate.net/journal/Aging-1945-4589 X - https://twitter.com/AgingJrnl Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AgingUS/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/agingjrnl/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/aging/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/AgingUS/ Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/AgingUS/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@Aging-US Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1X4HQQgegjReaf6Mozn6Mc MEDIA@IMPACTJOURNALS.COM

In this episode of More Than A Pretty Face, Dr. Azi talks with Dr. Omar Ibrahimi about the newest acne innovations, including 1726 nm lasers like AviClear and Acure, and why fractional resurfacing remains a top-value treatment. They compare laser technology to Accutane, discuss benefits for oily skin and sebaceous hyperplasia, and end with rapid-fire questions and insights on how deeply skin health affects confidence. Timeline of what was discussed: 00:00 – Intro 00:16 – How to submit questions 00:31 – Meet Dr. Omar Ibrahimi 01:07 – Conference impressions & background 01:42 – Best value treatment: fractional resurfacing 02:25 – How resurfacing boosts skin health 02:52 – Acne basics, gaps in treatment & scarring prevention 04:28 – Need for sebaceous-targeting tech 06:28 – Selective laser targeting explained 06:40 – Acne wavelengths (blue/red, 1064) 07:06 – How lasers affect bacteria, inflammation & oil 07:31 – 1726 nm lasers introduced 08:02 – Why 1726 nm targets sebum 08:17 – Comparison to Accutane 09:12 – Shrinking glands without systemic effects 09:41 – AviClear vs. Acure 10:00 – FDA clearance & features 10:17 – Acure temperature-tracking 11:21 – Ensuring proper heating 12:11 – Patient experience 12:50 – Uses beyond acne 13:28 – Sebum as a laser target 14:16 – Oil-control benefits 14:26 – Rapid-fire Q&A 16:00 – Quality-of-life impact 16:24 – Final remarks 16:31 – Dr. Azi's message 16:41 – Outro & gratitude 17:27 – Review + share reminders   ______________________________________________________________ Follow Omar Ibrahimi on Instagram: @ctskindoc Dr. Omar Ibrahimi is a board-certified, laser fellowship–trained dermatologist and the founding medical director of the Connecticut Skin Institute. With advanced training from Harvard, MGH, and the Wellman Center for Photomedicine, he is a nationally recognized expert in laser and energy-based devices, Mohs surgery, and acne innovation. He is known for his research-driven approach and commitment to safe, effective, patient-centered care. ______________________________________________________________ Submit your questions for the podcast to Dr. Azi on Instagram @morethanaprettyfacepodcast, @skinbydrazi, on YouTube, and TikTok @skinbydrazi. Email morethanaprettyfacepodcast@gmail.com. Shop skincare at https://azimdskincare.com and learn more about the practice at https://www.lajollalaserderm.com/ The content of this podcast is for entertainment, educational, and informational purposes and does not constitute formal medical advice. © Azadeh Shirazi, MD FAAD.  

Earlier this season, we visited the Ether Dome at the Massachusetts General Hospital to learn about the first public use of an anesthetic in surgery. On this bonus episode of The Object of History, we return to Mass General to visit the Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation. MHS Podcast Producer Sam Hurwitz joins the Director of the Museum, Sarah Alger, for a tour where they examine some of the museum's most significant items related to the history of medicine. Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-bonus-episode-Russell-Museum  Email us at podcast@masshist.org. Listen to Episode 3 Episode Special Guest: Sarah Alger is the George and Nancy Putnam Director of Mass General Hospital's Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation. She was a founding editor of Proto, a thought leadership publication that was sponsored by MGH for 17 years. This episode uses materials from: The Bond (Instrumental) by Chad Crouch (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International)        Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)        Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)

Listen to JCO's Art of Oncology article, "The Man at the Bow" by Dr. Alexis Drutchas, who is a palliative care physician at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. The article is followed by an interview with Drutchas and host Dr. Mikkael Sekeres. Dr. Drutchas shares the deep connection she had with a patient, a former barge captain, who often sailed the same route that her family's shipping container did when they moved overseas many times while she was growing up. She reflects on the nature of loss and dignity, and how oncologists might hold patients' humanity with more tenderness and care, especially at the end of life. TRANSCRIPT Narrator: The Man at the Bow, by Alexis Drutchas, MD  It was the kind of day that almost seemed made up—a clear, cerulean sky with sunlight bouncing off the gold dome of the State House. The contrast between this view and the drab hospital walls as I walked into my patient's room was jarring. My patient, whom I will call Suresh, sat in a recliner by the window. His lymphoma had relapsed, and palliative care was consulted to help with symptom management. The first thing I remember is that despite the havoc cancer had wreaked—sunken temples and a hospital gown slipping off his chest—Suresh had a warm, peaceful quality about him. Our conversation began with a discussion about his pain. Suresh told me how his bones ached and how his fatigue left him feeling hollow—a fraction of his former self. The way this drastic change in his physicality affected his sense of identity was palpable. There was loss, even if it was unspoken. After establishing a plan to help with his symptoms, I pivoted and asked Suresh how he used to spend his days. His face immediately lit up. He had been a barge captain—a dangerous and thrilling profession that took him across international waters to transport goods. Suresh's eyes glistened as he described his joy at sea. I was completely enraptured. He shared stories about mornings when he stood alone on the bow, feeling the salted breeze as the barge moved through Atlantic waves. He spoke of calm nights on the deck, looking at the stars through stunning darkness. He traveled all over the globe and witnessed Earth's topography from a perspective most of us will never see. The freedom Suresh exuded was profound. He loved these voyages so much that one summer, despite the hazards, he brought his wife and son to experience the journey with him. Having spent many years of my childhood living in Japan and Hong Kong, my family's entire home—every bed, sheet, towel, and kitchen utensil—was packed up and crossed the Atlantic on cargo ships four times. Maybe Suresh had captained one, I thought. Every winter, we hosted US Navy sailors docked in Hong Kong for the holidays. I have such fond memories of everyone going around the table and sharing stories of their adventures—who saw or ate what and where. I loved those times: the wild abandon of travel, the freedom of being somewhere new, and the way identity can shift and expand as experiences grow. When Suresh shared stories of the ocean, I was back there too, holding the multitude of my identity alongside him. I asked Suresh to tell me more about his voyages: what was it like to be out in severe weather, to ride over enormous swells? Did he ever get seasick, and did his crew always get along? But Suresh did not want to swim into these perilous stories with me. Although he worked a difficult and physically taxing job, this is not what he wanted to focus on. Instead, he always came back to the beauty and vitality he felt at sea—what it was like to stare out at the vastness of the open ocean. He often closed his eyes and motioned with his hands as he spoke as if he was not confined to these hospital walls. Instead, he was swaying on the water feeling the lightness of physical freedom, and the way a body can move with such ease that it is barely perceptible, like water flowing over sand. The resonances of Suresh's stories contained both the power and challenges laden in this work. Although I sat at his bedside, healthy, my body too contained memories of freedom that in all likelihood will one day dissipate with age or illness. The question of how I will be seen, compared to how I hoped to be seen, lingered in my mind. Years ago, before going to medical school, I moved to Vail, Colorado. I worked four different jobs just to make ends meet, but making it work meant that on my days off, I was only a chairlift ride away from Vail's backcountry. I have a picture of this vigor in my mind—my snowboard carving into fresh powder, the utter silence of the wilderness at that altitude, and the way it felt to graze the powdery snow against my glove. My face was windburned, and my body was sore, but my heart had never felt so buoyant. While talking with Suresh, I could so vividly picture him as the robust man he once was, standing tall on the bow of his ship. I could feel the freedom and joy he described—it echoed in my own body. In that moment, the full weight of what Suresh had lost hit me as forcefully as a cresting wave—not just the physical decline, but the profound shift in his identity. What is more, we all live, myself included, so precariously at this threshold. In this work, it is impossible not to wonder: what will it be like when it is me? Will I be seen as someone who has lived a full life, who explored and adventured, or will my personhood be whittled down to my illness? How can I hold these questions and not be swallowed by them? "I know who you are now is not the person you've been," I said to Suresh. With that, he reached out for my hand and started to cry. We looked at each other with a new understanding. I saw Suresh—not just as a frail patient but as someone who lived a full life. As someone strong enough to cross the Atlantic for decades. In that moment, I was reminded of the Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska's words, "As far as you've come, can't be undone." This, I believe, is what it means to honor the dignity of our patients, to reflect back the person they are despite or alongside their illness…all of their parts that can't be undone. Sometimes, this occurs because we see our own personhood reflected in theirs and theirs in ours. Sometimes, to protect ourselves, we shield ourselves from this echo. Other times, this resonance becomes the most beautiful and meaningful part of our work. It has been years now since I took care of Suresh. When the weather is nice, my wife and I like to take our young son to the harbor in South Boston to watch the planes take off and the barges leave the shore, loaded with colorful metal containers. We usually pack a picnic and sit in the trunk as enormous planes fly overhead and tugboats work to bring large ships out to the open water. Once, as a container ship was leaving the port, we waved so furiously at those working on board that they all started to wave back, and the captain honked the ships booming horn. Every single time we are there, I think of Suresh, and I picture him sailing out on thewaves—as free as he will ever be. Mikkael Sekeres: Welcome back to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology. This ASCO podcast features intimate narratives and perspectives from authors exploring their experiences in oncology. I'm your host, Mikkael Sekeres. I'm Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Hematology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami. What a treat we have today. We're joined by Dr. Alexis Drutchas, a Palliative Care Physician and the Director of the Core Communication Program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School to discuss her article, "The Man at the Bow." Alexis, thank you so much for contributing to Journal of Clinical Oncology and for joining us to discuss your article. Dr. Alexis Drutchas: Thank you. I'm thrilled and excited to be here. Mikkael Sekeres: I wonder if we can start by asking you about yourself. Where are you from, and can you walk us a bit through your career? Dr. Alexis Drutchas: The easiest way to say it would be that I'm from the Detroit area. My dad worked in automotive car parts and so we moved around a lot when I was growing up. I was born in Michigan, then we moved to Japan, then back to Michigan, then to Hong Kong, then back to Michigan. Then I spent my undergrad years in Wisconsin and moved out to Colorado to teach snowboarding before medical school, and then ended up back in Michigan for that, and then on the east coast at Brown for my family medicine training, and then in Boston for work and training. So, I definitely have a more global experience in my background, but also very Midwestern at heart as well. In terms of my professional career trajectory, I trained in family medicine because I really loved taking care of the whole person. I love taking care of kids and adults, and I loved OB, and at the time I felt like it was impossible to choose which one I wanted to pursue the most, and so family medicine was a great fit. And at the core of that, there's just so much advocacy and social justice work, especially in the community health centers where many family medicine residents train. During that time, I got very interested in LGBTQ healthcare and founded the Rhode Island Trans Health Conference, which led me to work as a PCP at Fenway Health in Boston after that. And so I worked there for many years. And then through a course of being a hospitalist at BI during that work, I worked with many patients with serious illness, making decisions about discontinuing dialysis, about pursuing hospice care in the setting of ILD. I also had a significant amount of family illness and started to recognize this underlying interest I had always had in palliative care, but I think was a bit scared to pursue. But those really kind of tipped me over to say I really wanted to access a different level of communication skills and be able to really go into depth with patients in a way I just didn't feel like I had the language for. And so I applied to the Harvard Palliative Care Fellowship and luckily and with so much gratitude got in years ago, and so trained in palliative care and stayed at MGH after that. So my Dana-Farber position is newer for me and I'm very excited about it. Mikkael Sekeres: Sounds like you've had an amazing career already and you're just getting started on it. I grew up in tiny little Rhode Island and, you know, we would joke you have to pack an overnight bag if you travel more than 45 minutes. So, our boundaries were much tighter than yours. What was it like growing up where you're going from the Midwest to Asia, back to the Midwest, you wind up settling on the east coast? You must have an incredible worldly view on how people live and how they view their health. Dr. Alexis Drutchas: I think you just named much of the sides of it. I think I realize now, in looking back, that in many ways it was living two lives, because at the time it was rare from where we lived in the Detroit area in terms of the other kids around us to move overseas. And so it really did feel like that part of me and my family that during the summers we would have home leave tickets and my parents would often turn them in to just travel since we didn't really have a home base to come back to. And so it did give me an incredible global perspective and a sense of all the ways in which people develop community, access healthcare, and live. And then coming back to the Midwest, not to say that it's not cosmopolitan or diverse in its own way, but it was very different, especially in the 80s and 90s to come back to the Midwest. So it did feel like I carried these two lenses in the world, and it's been incredibly meaningful over time to meet other friends and adults and patients who have lived these other lives as well. I think for me those are some of my most connecting friendships and experiences with patients for people who have had a similar experience in living with sort of a duality in their everyday lives with that. Mikkael Sekeres: You know, you write about the main character of your essay, Suresh, who's a barge captain, and you mention in the essay that your family crossed the Atlantic on cargo ships four times when you were growing up. What was that experience like? How much of it do you remember? Dr. Alexis Drutchas: Our house, like our things, crossed the Atlantic four times on barge ships such as his. We didn't, I mean we crossed on airplanes. Mikkael Sekeres: Oh, okay, okay. Dr. Alexis Drutchas: We flew over many times, but every single thing we owned got packed up into containers on large trucks in our house and were brought over to ports to be sent over. So, I'm not sure how they do it now, but at the time that's sort of how we moved, and we would often go live in a hotel or a furnished apartment for the month's wait of all of our house to get there, which felt also like a surreal experience in that, you know, you're in a totally different country and then have these creature comforts of your bedroom back in Metro Detroit. And I remember thinking a lot about who was crossing over with all of that stuff and where was it going, and who else was moving, and that was pretty incredible. And when I met Suresh, just thinking about the fact that at some point our home could have been on his ship was a really fun connection in my mind to make, just given where he always traveled in his work. Mikkael Sekeres: It's really neat. I remember when we moved from the east coast also to the Midwest, I was in Cleveland for 18 years. The very first thing we did was mark which of the boxes had the kids' toys in it, because that of course was the first one we let them close it up and then we let them open it as soon as we arrived. Did your family do something like that as well so that you can, you know, immediately feel an attachment to your stuff when they arrived? Dr. Alexis Drutchas: Yeah, I remember what felt most important to our mom was our bedrooms. I don't remember the toys. I remember sort of our comforters and our pillowcases and things like that, yeah, being opened and it feeling really settling to think, "Okay, you know, we're in a completely different place and country away from most everything we know, but our bedroom is the same." That always felt like a really important point that she made to make home feel like home again in a new place. Mikkael Sekeres: Yeah, yeah. One of the sentences you wrote in your essay really caught my eye. You wrote about when you were younger and say, "I loved those times, the wild abandon of travel, the freedom of being somewhere new, the way identity can shift and expand as experiences grow." It's a lovely sentiment. Do you think those are emotions that we experience only as children, or can they continue through adulthood? And if they can, how do we make that happen, that sense of excitement and experience? Dr. Alexis Drutchas: I think that's such a good question and one I honestly think about a lot. I think that we can access those all the time. There's something about the newness of travel and moving, you know, I have a 3-year-old right now, and so I think many parents would connect to that sense that there is wonderment around being with someone experiencing something for the first time. Even watching my son, Oliver, see a plane take off for the first time felt joyous in a completely new way, that even makes me smile a lot now. But I think what is such a great connection here is when something is new, our eyes are so open to it. You know, we're constantly witnessing and observing and are excited about that. And I think the connection that I've realized is important for me in my work and also in just life in general to hold on to that wonderment is that idea of sort of witnessing or having a writer's eye, many would call it, in that you're keeping your eye open for the small beautiful things. Often with travel, you might be eating ramen. It might not be the first time you're eating it, but you're eating it for the first time in Tokyo, and it's the first time you've had this particular ingredient on it, and then you remember that. But there's something that we're attuned to in those moments, like the difference or the taste, that makes it special and we hold on to it. And I think about that a lot as a writer, but also in patient care and having my son with my wife, it's what are the special small moments to hold on to and allowing them to be new and beautiful, even if they're not as large as moving across the country or flying to Rome or whichever. I think there are ways that that excitement can still be alive if we attune ourselves to some of the more beautiful small moments around us. Mikkael Sekeres: And how do we do that as doctors? We're trained to go into a room and there's almost a formula for how we approach patients. But how do you open your mind in that way to that sense of wonderment and discovery with the person you're sitting across from, and it doesn't necessarily have to be medical? One of the true treats of what we do is we get to meet people from all backgrounds and all walks of life, and we have the opportunity to explore their lives as part of our interaction. Dr. Alexis Drutchas: Yeah, I think that is such a great question. And I would love to hear your thoughts on this too. I think for me in that sentence that you mentioned, sitting at that table with sort of people in the Navy from all over the world, I was that person to them in the room, too. There was some identity there that I brought to the table that was different than just being a kid in school or something like that. To answer your question, I wonder if so much of the challenge is actually allowing ourselves to bring ourselves into the room, because so much of the formula is, you know, we have these white coats on, we have learners, we want to do it right, we want to give excellent care. There's there's so many sort of guards I think that we put up to make sure that we're asking the right questions, we don't want to miss anything, we don't want to say the wrong thing, and all of that is true. And at the same time, I find that when I actually allow myself into the room, that is when it is the most special. And that doesn't mean that there's complete countertransference or it's so permeable that it's not in service of the patient. It just means that I think when we allow bits of our own selves to come in, it really does allow for new connections to form, and then we are able to learn about our patients more, too. With every patient, I think often we're called in for goals of care or symptom management, and of course I prioritize that, but when I can, I usually just try to ask a more open-ended question, like, "Tell me about life before you came to the hospital or before you were diagnosed. What do you love to do? What did you do for work?" Or if it's someone's family member who is ill, I'll ask the kids or family in the room, "Like, what kind of mom was she? You know, what special memory you had?" Just, I get really curious when there's time to really understand the person. And I know that that's not at all new language. Of course, we're always trying to understand the person, but I just often think understanding them is couched within their illness. And I'm often very curious about how we can just get to know them as people, and how humanizing ourselves to them helps humanize them to us, and that back and forth I think is like really lovely and wonderful and allows things to come up that were totally unexpected, and those are usually the special moments that you come home with and want to tell your family about or want to process and think about. What about you? How do you think about that question? Mikkael Sekeres: Well, it's interesting you ask. I like to do projects around the house. I hate to say this out loud because of course one day I'll do something terrible and everyone will remember this podcast, but I fancy myself an amateur electrician and plumber and carpenter and do these sorts of projects. So I go into interactions with patients wanting to learn about their lives and how they live their lives to see what I can pick up on as well, how I can take something out of that interaction and actually use it practically. My father-in-law has this phrase he always says to me when a worker comes to your house, he goes, he says to me, "Remember to steal with your eyes." Right? Watch what they do, learn how they fix something so you can fix it yourself and you don't have to call them next time. So, for me it's kind of fun to hear how people have lived their lives both within their professions, and when I practiced medicine in Cleveland, there were a lot of farmers and factory workers I saw. So I learned a lot about how things are made. But also about how they interact with their families, and I've learned a lot from people I've seen who were just terrific dads and terrific moms or siblings or spouses. And I've tried to take those nuggets away from those interactions. But I think you can only do it if you open yourself up and also allow yourself to see that person's humanity. And I wonder if I can quote you to you again from your essay. There's another part that I just loved, and it's about how you write about how a person's identity changes when they become a patient. You write, "And in that moment the full weight of what he had lost hit me as forcefully as a cresting wave. Not just the physical decline, but the profound shift in identity. What is more, we all live, me included, so precariously at this threshold. In this work, it's impossible not to wonder, what will it be like when it's me? Will I be seen as someone who's lived many lives, or whittled down only to someone who's sick?" Can you talk a little bit more about that? Have you been a patient whose identity has changed without asking you to reveal too much? Or what about your identity as a doctor? Is that something we have to undo a little bit when we walk in the room with the stethoscope or wearing a white coat? Dr. Alexis Drutchas: That was really powerful to hear you read that back to me. So, thank you. Yeah, I think my answer here can't be separated from the illness I faced with my family. And I think this unanimously filters into the way in which I see every patient because I really do think about the patient's dignity and the way medicine generally, not always, really does strip them of that and makes them the patient. Even the way we write about "the patient said this," "the patient said that," "the patient refused." So I generally very much try to have a one-liner like, "Suresh is a X-year-old man who's a barge captain from X, Y, and Z and is a loving father with a," you know, "period. He comes to the hospital with X, Y, and Z." So I always try to do that and humanize patients. I always try to write their name rather than just "patient." I can't separate that out from my experience with my family. My sister six years ago now went into sudden heart failure after having a spontaneous coronary artery dissection, and so immediately within minutes she was in the cath lab at 35 years old, coding three times and came out sort of with an Impella and intubated, and very much, you know, all of a sudden went from my sister who had just been traveling in Mexico to a patient in the CCU. And I remember desperately wanting her team to see who she was, like see the person that we loved, that was fighting for her life, see how much her life meant to us. And that's not to say that they weren't giving her great care, but there was something so important to me in wanting them to see how much we wanted her to live, you know, and who she was. It felt like there's some important core to me there. We brought pictures in, we talked about what she was living for. It felt really important. And I can't separate that out from the way in which I see patients now or I feel in my own way in a certain way what it is to lose yourself, to lose the ability to be a Captain of the ship, to lose the ability to do electric work around the house. So much of our identity is wrapped up in our professions and our craft. And I think for me that has really become forefront in the work of palliative care and in and in the teaching I do and in the writing I do is how to really bring them forefront and not feel like in doing that we're losing our ability to remain objective or solid in our own professional identities as clinicians and physicians. Mikkael Sekeres: Well, I think that's a beautiful place to end here. I can only imagine what an outstanding physician and caregiver you are also based on your writing and how you speak about it. You just genuinely come across as caring about your patients and your family and the people you have interactions with and getting to know them as people. It has been again such a treat to have Dr. Alexis Drutchas here. She is Director of the Core Communication Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School to discuss her article, "The Man at the Bow." Alexis, thank you so much for joining us. Dr. Alexis Drutchas: Thank you. This has been a real joy. Mikkael Sekeres: If you've enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with a friend or colleague, or leave us a review. Your feedback and support helps us continue to save these important conversations. If you're looking for more episodes and context, follow our show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and explore more from ASCO at ASCO.org/podcasts. Until next time, this has been Mikkael Sekeres for the ASCO podcast Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology. The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Show notes: Like, share and subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave a rating or review. Guest Bio: Dr. Alexis Drutchas is a palliative care physician at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

A growing number of patients with stubborn IBS symptoms are asking: if the gut and brain are wired together, could changing one transform the other? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Emeran Mayer and Dr. Erin Mauney to explore what the emerging field of psychedelic-assisted therapy could mean for gut-brain health, beyond the headlines and hype. In this episode we cover:Why traditional IBS treatments often fall short.How psilocybin opens a neuroplastic “window” for processing pain, stress, and interoception.The therapeutic process: preparation, guided dosing, and integration.Early study results: symptom relief, reduced visceral sensitivity, and improved self-illness separation.Safety, variability, and practical questions about access and candidacy.If you're curious about neuroplasticity, the brain-gut axis, psilocybin, and the future of IBS care, this episode offers a grounded, hopeful, and responsible guide to what's known, and what's next. This episode is sponsored by GI Psychology. References: Psychedelic-assisted therapy: An overview for the internistBarnett BS, Mauney EE, King F 4th. Psychedelic-assisted therapy: An overview for the internist. Cleve Clin J Med. 2025;92(3):171-180. Published 2025 Mar 3. doi:10.3949/ccjm.92a.24032Psychedelic-assisted Therapy as a Promising Treatment for Irritable Bowel SyndromeMauney, Erin MD*; King, Franklin IV MD†; Burton-Murray, Helen PhD‡; Kuo, Braden MD‡. Psychedelic-assisted Therapy as a Promising Treatment for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology 59(5):p 385-392, May/June 2025. | DOI: 10.1097/MCG.0000000000002149 Psilocybin and IBS treatment: First psychedelic study in gastroenterologyLearn more about the MGH study with Dr. Erin Mauney and colleagues here.Learn more about Kate and Dr. Riehl:Website: www.katescarlata.com and www.drriehl.comInstagram: @katescarlata @drriehl and @theguthealthpodcastOrder Kate and Dr. Riehl's book, Mind Your Gut: The Science-Based, Whole-body Guide to Living Well with IBS. The information included in this podcast is not a substitute for professional medical advice, examination, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider before starting any new treatment or making changes to existing treatment.

Join Dr. Cecilia Lansang, Associate Editor of Endocrine Practice, Professor of Medicine, and Director of Endocrinology at Cleveland Clinic, as she speaks with Dr. Kristen Flint, Interim Director of Quality and Safety for Endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Attending Endocrinologist at MGH, and Instructor at Harvard Medical School, about her team's quality improvement project, “Expanding Access to Continuous Glucose Monitoring in Medicare Patients Receiving Specialty Diabetes Care.” This episode covers:Strategies for implementing quality improvement interventions in a large academic diabetes specialty clinicKey interventions that increased CGM utilization, including targeted provider education, workflow optimization, and patient outreachLessons for advancing equitable implementation and sustaining quality improvement over time Tune in for practical insights on bridging policy changes and clinical practice to improve CGM access for Medicare patients. Read the full article in the August 2025 issue of Endocrine Practice here.

Nate Bibaud was born in 1984 in Amesbury, Massachusetts, where he grew up skateboarding and playing goalie in hockey. After studying architecture, he moved to St. Croix to work in print and graphic design. In 2010, a car accident left him paralyzed from the neck down, with limited arm movement and no hand function. During rehab at MGH and Spaulding, he began drawing with the help of a recreational therapist. Over time, Nate gained enough shoulder strength to paint independently, experimenting with watercolor, acrylic, and oil. Since then, he has battled through paralysis, infections, a blood clot, and cancer—and now works full time as an artist. Not too bad for someone who once had no idea what to do with his life. Guest info:@natebibaudAdditional Resources:www.natebibaud.comwww.highfivesfoundation.orgContact us: Instagram: @unexpectedjourneypodEmail: tim@unexpectedjourneypod.com Hosted and produced by Tim BrownEditing and sound design by Louis ArevaloOriginal theme music by Jesse LaFountaineEpisode cover art by Lewis Falconer Cover art and logo design by Anne Holt and Lewis Falconer

Good Vibe Tribe: GO for MGH full 320 Thu, 16 Oct 2025 13:13:27 +0000 oVLrCQmKWASjs7iZG8KlVTZLG81SEDmi latest,wwbx,society & culture Karson & Kennedy latest,wwbx,society & culture Good Vibe Tribe: GO for MGH Karson & Kennedy are honest and open about the most intimate details of their personal lives. The show is fast paced and will have you laughing until it hurts one minute and then wiping tears away from your eyes the next. Some of K&K’s most popular features are Can’t Beat Kennedy, What Did Barrett Say, and The Dirty on the 30! 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Society & Culture False https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=https%3A%2F%2Frs

Thank you for tuning in to Episode 307 of the Down Cellar Studio Podcast. Full show notes with photos can be found on my website. This week's segments included:   Off the Needles, Hook or Bobbins On the Needles, Hook or Bobbins Brainstorming From the Armchair In my Travels KAL News Events On a Happy Note Quote of the Week   Thank you to this episode's sponsors: Katie's Randomness, Heart & Squirrel & Paper Daisy Creations   Off the Needles, Hook or Bobbins   Sweetly Striped Hat Pattern: Sweetly Striped Hat by Chit Chat Knits. $4.50 knitting pattern available on Ravelry Yarn: Berroco Vintage in colorway 5185 Tide Pool Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) & US 8 (5.0 mm) Ravelry Project Page Pattern: Snack Shack Sponsor- Chit Chat Knits- 20 points Project Bag & Notions Pouch- Pro Shop Sponsor The Huckleberry Girl- 40 pts each= 80 points Check out this video on how to do a 1x1 left & right cross without a cable needle from my YouTube Channel   On the Needles, Hook or Bobbins   Traveler Sweater Pattern: The Traveler by Andrea Mowry ($9 pattern available on Ravelry & the designer's website) Yarn: Hazel Knits Small Batch Sport (90/10 SW/Nylon) Needles: US 3 (3.25 mm) & US 4 (3.5 mm) Ravelry Project Page Progress:  I finished the front & back and seamed up shoulders and under arms. I cast on sleeve 1 for ride home from PA and was hoping to finish for Rhinebeck but there simply isn't time.   Born to Be Mild Socks Yarn: Hypnotic Yarn Plush Sock in the Born to Be Mild Colorway Pattern: OMG Heel Socks by Megan Williams ($5 knitting pattern available on Ravelry) Needles: US 1.5 (2.5 mm) Ravelry Project Page Progress- Nearly to the toe on sock #2. About the yarn: tan base with browns and robin's egg. It reminds me of a robin's nest.   Granny Square Chicken Yarn: Knit Picks Felici Worsted in the Palm Springs Colorway Pattern: Granny Square Chicken by Sweet Softies- $3.99 crochet pattern on Ravelry. Hook: G (4.0 mm) Progress & Plans: I didn't change color between rounds- I just let the self striping yarn do its thing. almost done last round on the second square then I need to seam it together. I am planning to use some pantyhose with stuffing inside.   Yarn Cozy Lite Yarn: Cascade Heritage Yarn (75% SW Merino 25% Nylon) in the Highlighter Guava colorway Pattern: Yarn Cozy Lite by Knitty Natty- $6 pattern available on Ravelry Needles: US 1 (2.25 mm) Cast on to be ready for our Zoom cast on party on 10/2! Thanks to Natalie for coming to hang out. Such a fun kick off to this month's event. If you'd like the Pigskin Cozy version- it is included in this pattern for free through 10/31/25. Get 10% off any of Natalie's patterns through February 9th, 2026 with the code “PIGSKINPARTY”. Brainstorming   A goose bag for Aila. I may use the notes from this Ravelry Project Page. Or there's a pattern available for $4 on Ravelry & another for $5.48 on Etsy. A Christmas Stocking for my cousin Chris's daughter.   From the Armchair The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose. Amazon Affiliate Link.   Note: Some links are listed as Amazon Affiliate Links. If you click those, please know that I am an Amazon Associate and I earn money from qualifying purchases.   In My Travels Yarn Stores I visited with Riley & Aila Knit Tuck & Purl Another Yarn Stitch House Wicked Good Yarns Sit & Knit Boston Fiber Co Tight Knit Apple picking at Applecrest Farm & Orchard SoWa Market   Want to see more about this fun & yarny filled weekend? Our 2025 MA Yarn Crawls + Side Quests Part 1 video is available on YouTube (Part 2 coming after Rhinebeck).   Our trip to Philadelphia Dan and I stayed with friends in suburbs outside Philly. We had a great dinner at East Branch Brewing Company We visited Yarnphoria (check them out on Facebook) & purchased yarn from Essence of Autumn Rockwell & Rose (restaurant)   KAL News   Pigskin Party '25 Event Dates: KAL Dates- Thursday September 4, 2025- Monday February 9, 2026 Find everything you need in the Start Here Thread in the Ravelry Group Official Rules Registration Form  (you must be Registered to be eligible for prizes) Enter your projects using the Point Tally Form Find the full list of Sponsors in this Google Doc. Coupon Codes are listed in this Ravelry Thread Exclusive Items from our Pro Shop Sponsors are listed in this Ravelry Thread Questions-  ask them in this Ravelry Thread or email Jen at downcellarstudio @ gmail.com Our Official Sponsor for Quarter 1 (October): Love in Stitches with Knitty Natty is hosting a Cozy Up Challenge. The challenge doesn't start until 10/1 but you can start planning now. Check out the details in this Ravelry Thread. Official Sponsor for Quarter 2 (November)- Twice Sheared Sheep Official Sponsor for Quarter 3 (December)- Suburban Stitcher Official Sponsor for Quarter 4 (January)- Yarnaceous Fibers Charity Challenge (runs through Thanksgiving)- details in this Ravelry Thread Pink Challenge (runs through 10/31)- details in this Ravelry Thread. Thanks to Sarah for starting a Pigskin Tips Ravelry Thread!   Updates In This Episode Official Sponsor for Quarter 2 (November)- Twice Sheared Sheep. Row Counter Challenge- details in this Ravelry Thread. Click here for a video on how to use a chain row counter Purchase a Twice Sheared Sheep Row Counter Commentator Report from Mary- links below all go to Ravelry Recently I've been spending time in the Mark it Monday thread.  If you are interested in a thread where the topic of conversation is almost exclusively about the crafting, this is a great thread for you!  It also moves a bit slower than the main huddle thread, so a little easier to keep up.  I find perusing this thread to be great for inspiration. It brings a smile to my face to see other players' projects coming to life. This week, I realized that player Scitchr is making 5 adorable animals. She is making them all Buffalo Bills clothing! So far, she has made an otter, a woodland duck, a hedgehog, and a woodland badger!  You must check them out...they are so adorable. Plus, she plans on making them Halloween costumes! Speaking of Halloween costumes, Sandima made a Wednesday (from Addams' Family) costume for her porch goose: https://www.ravelry.com/projects/sandima/goostavo-porch-goose-sweater   So cute!   In other news...players are busy with the three challenges that are going on right now: * 25 players have already submitted for points for pink challenge, with 5 players already submitting 2 entries!   * over 50 players have submitted for points for the Q1 challenge, with over 15 of them already submitting 2 entries! * 2 people have already submitted for points for the charity challenge!   Don't forget you still have plenty of time to participate in these challenges!   Events Indie Untangled. October 17 CAKEpalooza. October 17 A Woolen Affair. October 17 NY Sheep & Wool (aka Rhinebeck). October 18 & 19. Down Cellar Studio Meet up at Saturday 2p at the Pavilion to the left of the beer tent! Come and say hi. The Fiber Festival of New England. November 1 & 2 Sunkissed Fiber Festival: January 24-25, 2026- just outside Tampa, FL   On a Happy Note Apple picking & yarn crawling with Riley and Aila Megg and I went to see Hamilton in Boston (my second time seeing the show) We celebrated my dad's birthday with a bonfire Trunk show at my LYS I had a blast chatting with Natalie in an interview for the Love in Stitches Membership Haymakers for Hope- Belles of the Brawl. My cousin Kirstin raised $20,363.23 for cancer research that will benefit MGH's research into how non-small cell lung cancer transforms into small-cell. Overall the event raised over $465k! Jewelry 4 person puzzle time with Christine & Seamus Mini Grilled cheese & creamy tomato soup appetizer at Gary's wedding; it was so delightful! Getting new headphones after my right ear bud was broken for a good month. Getting a text from my SIL with photos of my niece and nephew on their way to their first movie with their handmade toys in hand.   Quote of the Week   "Leaves descending to the ground, Orange, magenta, green & brown The cool crisp breezes in the air, Autumn season must be here” -Charmaine J. Forde    ------ Thank you for tuning in!   Contact Information: Check out the Down Cellar Studio Patreon! Ravelry: BostonJen & Down Cellar Studio Podcast Ravelry Group Instagram: BostonJen1 YouTube: Down Cellar Studio Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/downcellarstudio Sign up for my email newsletter to get the latest on everything happening in the Down Cellar Studio Check out my Down Cellar Studio YouTube Channel Knit Picks Affiliate Link Bookshop Affiliate Link Yarnable Subscription Box Affiliate Link FearLESS Living Fund to benefit the Blind Center of Nevada Music -"Soft Orange Glow" by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/ Note: Some links are listed as Amazon Affiliate Links. If you click those, please know that I am an Amazon Associate and I earn money from qualifying purchases.

Join us THIS SATURDAY, September 27th, on "The Heart of Innovation" as we honor Dr. Sara Rose-Sauld, DPM, of MGH, Boston, MA with our U.S. PAD Podiatrist of the Year Award! Hosts Kym McNicholas and Dr. John Phillips, along with special guest world-renowned Podiatrist Dr. David Alper, will interview Dr. Rose-Sauld about her extraordinary contributions to PAD care. Selected by patients themselves, Dr. Rose-Sauld has demonstrated exceptional dedication to improving the lives of those with Peripheral Artery Disease. Patients consistently praise her ability to explain complex PAD issues in understandable terms while providing compassionate care that addresses both physical and emotional needs. What truly sets Dr. Rose-Sauld apart is her remarkable success in healing complex wounds and preventing amputations, all while ensuring patients feel respected, heard, and empowered throughout their treatment journey. Don't miss this special episode showcasing a healthcare provider who's saving limbs and changing lives! Watch live at: https://youtube.com/live/3wFPXVWl-Dk?feature=share #PADImpactAwards #LimbPreservation #SaveLimbs #PADawareness #peripheralarterydisease #HeartOfInnovation #podiatry

Episodio número 31 de Cuéntame Más Ciencia con Annika Coleman, Licenciada en Biología y Cultura y Literatura Hispánica por la Universidad de Brown, y actualmente Investigadora Clínica en el MGH de Boston, antes de embarcarse en la Med School.Annika es californiana pero tiene un profundo interés por la cultura española y habla perfectamente nuestro idioma. Tanto así, que nos cuenta su experiencia trabajando como intérprete médica en la clínica. También hablamos del sistema de salud en EE.UU. en comparación con España, lo fundamental que es construir confianza entre médicos y pacientes, la investigación en enfermedades raras y como la medicina narrativa ayuda a mejorar la comunicación entre médicos y pacientes.Además, Annika, que iba para gimnasta profesional, comparte su trayectoria en el deporte, sus lesiones y cómo estas experiencias han influido en su vida y carrera.Episodio grabado por ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fernando de Miguel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.Cuéntame Más Ciencia es un podcast financiado por la Fundación Ramón Areces y elaborado por el programa E-Visibility de la Comisión de Comunicación de ECUSA. Visita nuestra web ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.ecusa.es⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ y síguenos en las redes sociales⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.Las opiniones y declaraciones expresadas en Cuéntame Más Ciencia representan el punto de vista de cada participante y no de ECUSA como asociación, ni de cualquier otra institución.Algunos de los ensayos de Annika:https://sites.google.com/brown.edu/estudios-hispanicos2024/estudiantes/annika-e-coleman

(00:00) Hampton Beach Casino is holding a slew of concerts the next couple weeks and Hardy quizzes Fred and Wallach on what band is playing, and if the show is sold out or not. (xx:xx) Felger had to get airlifted off Nantucket after a bike accident. After a full diagnosis from MGH he is completely fine. (xx:xx) A special food drop came in from Bakey Bakery since they are opening a new location on Friday in Faneuil Hall! Thank you Bakey, the pastries are delicious! (PLEASE be aware timecodes may shift up to a few minutes due to inserted ads) CONNECT WITH TOUCHER & HARDY: linktr.ee/ToucherandHardy For the latest updates, visit the show page on 985thesportshub.com. Follow 98.5 The Sports Hub on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Watch the show every morning on YouTube, and subscribe to stay up-to-date with all the best moments from Boston’s home for sports!

Show Notes: Reverend John H. Finley starts the conversation with a nod to family connections and some good news. He also mentions working at the Unilu Shelter, and how it was a transformative experience for him. Throughout the conversation, the importance of recognizing and valuing the contributions of individuals to the institution is mentioned. The Priesthood and Nativity Prep John describes his experience working at the shelter and how it led to the decision to work with younger people. He decided to become an Episcopal priest, but the bishop wouldn't ordain him since he was openly gay. After college he got involved in building a school and decided that he eventually wanted to open his own. John stayed at Nativity Prep for five years, living in a convent. After applying to Harvard Divinity School, a new  bishop approached him and encouraged him to re-consider priesthood. After John applied to Harvard Divinity School, the same priest encouraged him to open a school. He spent a year at HDS, raising money, hiring teachers, and building a facility to start the Epiphany School. The school is similar to the first Jesuit school. Becoming a Priest and Opening a School John explains the difference between the Epiphany School and Nativity Schools. Nativity Schools serve  low-income kids from homeless, abused, neglected, and poverty-stricken backgrounds, but they look for kids of academic promise and engaged parents, and John explains how this influenced how he structured Epiphany School.  In addition to opening the school,  John also became a priest. He has a parish in Boston and is the summer pastor at Trinity York Harbor in Southern Maine, but his main job is running the Epiphany School, and he explains how it has grown with many locations around the world. It has also grown from a middle school to five components: the Middle School, Early Learning Center, Middle School, Graduate Support, Teaching Fellow Program, and Epiphany Impact. After Epiphany and Extra Curricular Activities John talks about succession planning and projects outside of running the school. He  is currently a trustee of a college scholarship foundation that awards several million dollars a year in college scholarships. He is involved in a program that gives grants to people with projects, and he works with others who want to build schools, helping them replicate the Epiphany model. In addition to running Epiphany School, John also preaches, marries, baptizes, and buries people.  The Nature of the Epiphany School John explains that the core principles of the school are non-merit based admission, tuition-free tuition, extended school days, and graduate support. The school also aims to move every family out of poverty while the kids are in the school. John emphasizes the importance of tracking every graduate every year to improve the program and understand where they are succeeding and where they could improve. He also emphasizes the importance of evaluating the efficacy of the school's interventions. He shares a story of a philanthropist who took 1000 boys at risk and provided 500 with free summer camp and weekend mentoring. John emphasizes the importance of looking at long-term outcomes and holding oneself accountable for social justice work. For Epiphany, 90% of its funding comes from private donors, and the school's graduates have an unemployment rate of less than 1%, whereas the national average is around 20%. This makes it a great way to attract investment and funding. The Epiphany Investment in Families  John talks about the school's curriculum improvement system, which involves yearly assessments by outside experts and feedback from faculty. This Kaizen approach ensures that every aspect of the school is being evaluated and critiqued by experts. John emphasizes the importance of working with families, as studies suggest that 30 to 50% of Head Start gains are lost within three to five years due to perverse incentives in the social system. John explains how the school aims to help families, including  offering an escrow program for families. This program grew out of the school's work on employment and helps families move towards independence from social programs. John also mentions that every child born in the Epiphany system receives a $3,000 or 529 plan, which is invested in a conservative mix of equities and bonds. This investment message is sent to families early on, ensuring that the funds are for their child.  Personal Values and Super Powers                                                                  John takes stock of his good traits, including his ability to thank people. He believes that he has a decent work ethic and has a decent radar of what is feasible. John acknowledges that he has had an amazing education, including Harvard, Groton School, and a private elementary school. He has also been successful in cultivating a diverse group of people around him, with his team and founding teachers being with him for 20 years. John enjoys raising money and bringing resources to things, which has helped him sustain his success. John believes that his ability to lead by example are key factors in his success.   The Finley Family Legacy The conversation turns to John's family legacy and the role it played in his life and world outlook. His great grandfather built City College, a tradition that has been passed down through generations. He left Harvard with no debt and enough income to live a modest life. However, he faced pressure  to find his passion and pursue his dreams. John's father encouraged him to pursue his passions, even when he didn't make any money. He eventually realized that he needed more time to pursue his passions. He now enjoys working with his former students and seeing them grow into happy, productive lives. Social and Emotional Aspects of School John discusses the importance of social and emotional aspects in a school setting, focusing on rewards for conduct and effort. They use a software program called Class Dojo, which allows teachers to track students' thoughtful choices and courage. This system is tied to parents' phones, allowing them to recognize their child's efforts. John emphasizes the importance of group therapy for all students, with 70% being in individual therapy. Therapists and teachers work together to ensure no one falls through the cracks. The school also has a group called the Brotherhood and Sister Sister, older graduates who provide social and emotional support to students. Another tool used is the holistic student assessment, developed with McLean's and MGH. This self-assessment helps teachers understand a child's progress on social and emotional issues and helps capture the child's heart. The school never gives up on a child, ensuring that they make the school work for them. This discipline is important as it prevents teachers from making excuses for not meeting the full needs of their students.  Influential Harvard Professors and Courses John discusses his experiences with various individuals, including Carrie Welch, Peter Gomes, Memorial Church, and the Signet Society. He mentions that the shelter work at Harvard changed his life, as it gave him a sense of making a difference in the world. Many graduates of the shelter went on to interesting careers, such as Katia Falls, who founded a program called On the Rise, which works with women who don't come into the shelter because they don't feel safe. Another example is a recent college graduate who realized the need for a youth homeless shelter in Massachusetts and built a youth homeless shelter in Harvard Square. John believes that Harvard's advantages were ridiculous, but he hopes they are being used in different ways to do good things in the world. The book "Where Harvard meets the Homeless" examines the impact of the shelter work on many people's lives. Timestamps: 03:13: John's Journey Post-Harvard 07:49: Establishing and Expanding the Epiphany School  14:56: Challenges and Successes of the Epiphany School  20:55: Social-Emotional Support and Financial Sustainability  44:53: Personal Life and Future Plans 47:08: Impact of Harvard and Shelter Work  Links:  www.epiphanyschool.com Featured Non-profit: The featured non-profit of this week's episode is recommended by Julie Mallozzi who reports: “This is Julie Mallozzi, class of 1992. The featured non-profit of this episode of The 92 Report is Brown Girls. Doc Mafia. Brown Girls. Doc, Mafia works to disrupt inequity in the film industry by nurturing, amplifying and investing in the creative capacity and professional success of its members. I've been a member of Brown Girls for several years, and find them very well organized and effective. They do a lot to support the documentary community, without huge resources. You can learn more about their work at browngirlsdocmafia.org and now here is Will Bachman with this week's episode. To learn more about their work, visit: browngirlsdocmafia.org.

Can giving birth be traumatic? Harvard researcher Dr. Sharon Dickel says yes—and it's more common than you think. In this eye-opening episode, she breaks down the biology of postpartum PTSD, the signs we often miss, and why better screening and trauma-informed care are urgently needed. If you care about maternal health, this conversation will change how you see birth forever.More about Dr. Sharon Dekel:Dr. Sharon Dekel is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Director of the Postpartum Traumatic Stress Disorders Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Dekel Lab at HMS and MGH. She earned a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University and completed her clinical internship training at Columbia Medical Center followed by a research postdoctoral fellowship in a leading international Trauma lab. Dr. Dekel is also a licensed clinical psychologist.Read more about the Postpartum Traumatic Stress Disorders Research Project and Dr. Sharon Dekel Tsvetkov, MPhil, PhD.

Today, Dr. Kat speaks with Dr. Lee Cohen about his powerful new documentary, More Than Blue. Dr. Cohen shares the inspiration behind the film, how it was made, and his hopes for its impact in destigmatizing perinatal mental health conditions. A passionate advocate, Dr. Cohen offers insights from his decades of work helping women navigate mood and anxiety disorders during and after pregnancy. Please check out the trailer for More Than Blue here: https://womensmentalhealth.org/more-than-blue-documentary/   Bio Dr. Cohen: Dr. Lee Cohen is Director of the Ammon-Pinizzotto Center for Women's Mental Health at Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. A pioneer in perinatal and reproductive psychiatry, Dr. Cohen has dedicated his career to research, clinical care, and education focused on mental health across the female reproductive lifespan. He has authored over 350 publications in journals including JAMA and the American Journal of Psychiatry, and has received multiple awards for his contributions to maternal mental health. Dr. Cohen is a nationally recognized leader and a passionate voice in improving care for women with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. Show Highlights: Dr. Cohen's journey in women's mental health The key is getting patients well during pregnancy. Today's trends in perinatal mental health, from Dr. Cohen's perspective as a researcher and clinician Increasing awareness also increases access to care for at-risk patients. Accessing care doesn't always result in “well” patients several months later. Planning process for the “More Than Blue” documentary Characteristics of patients with PMADs  Process of collecting, curating, and organizing diverse stories via⁠⁠ womensmentalhealth.org⁠⁠ to destigmatize treatment options and show multiple perspectives Dr. Cohen's perspective on the importance of including postpartum psychosis in the documentary (A YouTube video is in the works.) Dr. Cohen's passion and optimism for his work: “We're not done.” The intentional plan for screenings and dissemination of “More Than Blue”  “Lowering the burden” in helping people feel comfortable in telling their stories to optimize the likelihood of proper care Resources: Connect with Dr. Cohen: The Center for⁠⁠ Women's Mental Health at MGH⁠⁠,⁠⁠ Facebook⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠, and⁠⁠ X⁠⁠. Womensmentalhealth.org Call the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 1-833-TLC-MAMA or visit⁠⁠ cdph.ca.gov⁠⁠ Please find resources in English and Spanish at⁠⁠ Postpartum Support International⁠⁠, or contact us by phone or text at 1-800-944-4773. There are many free resources available, including online support groups, peer mentors, a specialist provider directory, and perinatal mental health training for therapists, physicians, nurses, doulas, and anyone who wants to become more supportive in offering services.  You can also follow PSI on social media, including⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠,⁠⁠ Facebook⁠⁠, and other platforms. Visit⁠⁠ www.postpartum.net/professionals/certificate-trainings/⁠⁠ for information on the grief course.   Visit my website at⁠⁠ www.wellmindperinatal.com⁠⁠ for more information, resources, and courses you can take today!If you are a California resident seeking a therapist in perinatal mental health, please ⁠⁠email me⁠⁠ about openings for private pay clients. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Late day drama at the Karen Read retrial. A man faces charges after a scuffle with an officer near MGH. Public defenders say the Commonwealth needs to raise the bar for them. Stay in "The Loop" with #iHeartRadio.

Dr. Ben Kleinstiver, whose lab is located at the Center for Genomic Medicine at Mass General Hospital, joins us to talk about programmable nucleases, genome editing, and the applications of this technology in the future of healthcare.

In this episode, we visit the Bulfinch Building at the Massachusetts General Hospital to examine one of the most, if not the most, significant discoveries in modern medicine. Sarah Alger, the Director of the Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation, shows us the hospital's Ether Dome where the first public surgery using an anesthetic was performed. Back at the MHS, we sit down with Chief Historian Peter Drummey and Curator of Art and Artifacts Emerita Anne Bentley to learn more about the contentious history of this innovation. Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-episode-3-painless-revolution Email us at podcast@masshist.org. Episode Special Guest: Sarah Alger is the George and Nancy Putnam Director of Mass General Hospital's Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation. She was a founding editor of Proto, a thought leadership publication that was sponsored by MGH for 17 years. This episode uses materials from: The Bond (Instrumental) by Chad Crouch (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International)        Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)        Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)

Mass General Brigham, the largest health care system in Massachusetts, announced its plan to lay off hundreds of workers, citing a roughly $250 million budget gap. MGH said the layoffs will focus on “non-clinical and non-patient facing roles.” What are some of the challenges MGB is facing that might have led to the layoffs? How will MGH's restructuring impact the hospital system?Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio and listen to NightSide with Dan Rea Weeknights From 8PM-12AM!

Mass General Brigham, the largest health care system in Massachusetts, announced its plan to lay off hundreds of workers, citing a roughly $250 million budget gap. MGH said the layoffs will focus on “non-clinical and non-patient facing roles.” What are some of the challenges MGB is facing that might have led to the layoffs? How will MGH's restructuring impact the hospital system?Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio and listen to NightSide with Dan Rea Weeknights From 8PM-12AM!

Host Eric Marcus welcomes listeners to MGH's “Nazi Era” series by going back in time to 1980 and a darkened Broadway theater where his interest in LGBTQ Holocaust history was kindled. Join Eric as we embark on a 12-episode journey and honor Holocaust Remembrance Day. Visit our episode webpage for a transcript of the episode. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our Patreon community. ——— -1993 interview with Pierre Seel courtesy of Là-Bas Si J'y Suis.  -RG-50.030.0019, oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. For more information about the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, go here.   -Lucy Salani footage courtesy of Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini, directors of C'è un soffio di vita soltanto (2021), produced by Blue Mirror and Kimerafilm, distributed by True Colours.  ——— To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Making Gay History (MGH) is a nonprofit addressing the absence of substantive, in-depth LGBTQ+-inclusive American history from the public discourse and the classroom. For it's 14th season, the acclaimed MGH podcast debuts a 12-episode series delving into the often-overlooked experiences of LGBTQ+ people during the rise of the Nazi regime, World War II, and the Holocaust, shining a spotlight on a vital but under-discussed chapter of history. Our guest is Eric Marcus, author, founder and host of Making Gay History. For more, visit MakingGayHistory.org

Host Eric Marcus welcomes listeners to MGH's “Nazi Era” series by going back in time to 1980 and a darkened Broadway theater where his interest in LGBTQ Holocaust history was kindled. Join Eric as we embark on a 12-episode journey and honor Holocaust Remembrance Day. Visit our episode webpage for a transcript of the episode. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our Patreon community. ——— -1993 interview with Pierre Seel courtesy of Là-Bas Si J'y Suis.  -RG-50.030.0019, oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. For more information about the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, go here.   -Lucy Salani footage courtesy of Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini, directors of C'è un soffio di vita soltanto (2021), produced by Blue Mirror and Kimerafilm, distributed by True Colours.  ——— To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ryan Goff, Executive VP Chief Marketing Officer and Social Media Marketing Director at MGH said, content creators and businesses alike should take note of the opportunity the TikTok platform presents. The impact of compelling content and reviews have on purchasing decisions as we dive head first into the competitive holiday season. So if you're a merchant looking for a way to create awareness and drive direct sales, look to social media platforms like TikTok and others to do just that this holiday season

El laboratorio puede ser un lugar de grandes descubrimientos, pero también de grandes desafíos emocionales. ¿Sabías que un tercio de las personas que trabajan en ciencia enfrentan problemas como ansiedad, estrés o depresión? ¿Cómo es lidiar con tanta presión o con situaciones de abuso en una estructura jerárquica?  En este episodio, Carmen Morcelle, conductora del podcast, conversa con Magdalena Sevilla sobre experiencias personales, reflexionando sobre cómo han afrontado desafíos de salud mental como ansiedad, depresión, síndrome de la impostora y situaciones de abuso de poder a lo largo de sus carreras científicas. Carmen es Chair de la Comisión de Mujer en Ciencia de ECUSA (MECUSA) y trabaja como investigadora postdoctoral en el Ragon Institute del Hospital General de Massachusetts (MGH), MIT y Harvard. Magdalena es instructora en la Unidad de Epidemiología Clínica y Traslacional del MGH y Harvard Medical School. Magdalena forma parte del programa “Creating Opportunities for Underrepresented Researchers to Achieve Growth and Excellence” (COURAGE). Durante el episodio, también se menciona el curso “Becoming a Resilient Scientist”, un recurso del National Institutes of Health (NIH) de Estados Unidos diseñado para fomentar el bienestar de los científicos.  Si trabajas en investigación y estás pasando por un mal momento, recuerda que no estás sola/o. Te animamos a hablar con personas de confianza y explorar las herramientas de apoyo disponibles en tu institución o en organismos públicos.

The pancreatic anastomosis is often regarded as the “Achilles Heel” of the Whipple operation, as technical failure and leakage is a significant source of perioperative morbidity and mortality. In this episode from the HPB team at Behind the Knife listen in as we discuss the standard techniques for the anastomosis, alternative techniques for the pancreatic anastomosis in patients with aberrant anatomy and/or physiology, key factors to consider when selecting the ideal approach/technique for the anastomosis, and mitigation strategies for leaks.  Hosts Anish J. Jain MD (@anishjayjain) is a current PGY3 General Surgery Resident at Stanford University and a former T32 Research Fellow at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Jon M. Harrison is a 2nd year HPB Surgery Fellow at Stanford University. He previously completed his general surgery residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and will be returning to MGH as faculty at the conclusion of his fellowship.    Monica M. Dua (@MonicaDuaMD) is a Clinical Professor of Surgery and the Associate Program Director of the HPB Surgery Fellowship at Stanford University. She also serves as also serves as the regional HPB Surgeon at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Learning Objectives · Develop an understanding of the standard technical approaches to the pancreatic anastomosis during a Whipple (pancreatoduodenectomy) operation · Develop an understanding of the alternative technical approaches to the pancreatic anastomosis during the Whipple when the standard approaches may not be feasible · Develop an understanding of the key anatomic and physiologic factors in the decision making when selecting the optimal approach for the pancreatic anastomosis · Develop an understanding of possible mitigation strategies in the event of a pancreatic anastomotic leak. Suggested Reading Jon Harrison, Monica M. Dua, William V. Kastrinakis, Peter J. Fagenholz, Carlos Fernandez-del Castillo, Keith D. Lillemoe, George A. Poultsides, Brendan C. Visser, Motaz Qadan. “Duct tape:” Management strategies for the pancreatic anastomosis during pancreatoduodenectomy. Surgery. Volume 176, Issue 4, 2024, Pages 1308-1311, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38796390/ Please visit https://behindtheknife.org to access other high-yield surgical education podcasts, videos and more.   If you liked this episode, check out our recent episodes here: https://app.behindtheknife.org/listen

Join us for the 5th Annual JOWMA Conference: Transforming Healthcare Through Innovation & Research on January 5, 2025, from 8am to 5pm in NYC! Spend the day immersed in expert-led scientific sessions, hands-on surgical simulations, specialty roundtables, and a networking lunch tailored for healthcare professionals and students. PLUS, we're offering a full premed program with panels, roundtables, and networking dedicated to aspiring medical students.

Above is a brief video snippet from our conversation. Full videos of all Ground Truths podcasts can be seen on YouTube here. The audios are also available on Apple and Spotify.Transcript with links to audio and external citationsEric Topol (00:06):Well, hello it's Eric Topol with Ground Truths, and I'm really delighted to welcome Dr. Rachael Bedard, who is a physician geriatrician in New York City, and is actually much more multidimensional, if you will. She's a writer. We're going to go over some of her recent writings. She's actually quite prolific. She writes in the New Yorker, New York Magazine, New York Times, New York Review of Books. If it has New York in front of it, she's probably writing there. She's a teacher. She works on human rights, civil rights, criminal justice in the prison system. She's just done so much that makes her truly unique. That's why I really wanted a chance to meet her and talk with her today. So welcome, Rachael.Rachael Bedard (00:52):Thank you, Dr. Topol. It's an honor to be here.Eric Topol (00:55):Well, please call me Eric and it's such a joy to have a chance to get acquainted with you as a person who is into so many different things and doing all of them so well. So maybe we'd start off with, because you're the first geriatrician we've had on this podcast.Practicing Geriatrics and Internal MedicineEric Topol (01:16):And it's especially apropos now. I wanted maybe to talk about your practice, how you got into geriatrics, and then we'll talk about the piece you had earlier this summer on aging.Rachael Bedard (01:32):Sure. I went into medicine to do social justice work and I was always on a funny interdisciplinary track. I got into the Mount Sinai School of Medicine through what was then called the Humanities and Medicine program, which was an early acceptance program for people who were humanities focused undergrads, but wanted to go into medicine. So I always was doing a mix of politics and activist focused work, humanities and writing, that was always interested in being a doctor. And then I did my residency at the Cambridge Health Alliance, which is a social medicine program in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and my chief residency there.(02:23):I loved being an internist, but I especially loved taking care of complex illness and I especially loved taking care of complex illness in situations where the decision making, there was no sort of algorithmic decision-making, where you were doing incredibly sort of complex patient-centered shared decision making around how to come up with treatment plans, what the goals of care were. I liked taking care of patients where the whole family system was sort of part of the care team and part of the patient constellation. I loved running family meetings. I was incredibly lucky when I was senior resident and chief resident. I was very close with Andy Billings, who was one of the founders of palliative care and in the field, but also very much started a program at MGH and he had come to work at Cambridge Hospital in his sort of semi-retirement and we got close and he was a very influential figure for me. So all of those things conspired to make me want to go back to New York to go to the Sinai has an integrated geriatrics and palliative care fellowship where you do both fellowships simultaneously. So I came to do that and just really loved that work and loved that medicine so much. There was a second part to your question.Eric Topol (03:52):Is that where you practice geriatrics now?Rachael Bedard (03:55):No, now I have ever since finishing fellowship had very unusual practice settings for a geriatrician. So right out of fellowship, I went to work on Rikers Island and then New York City jail system, and I was the first jail based geriatrician in the country, which is a sort of uncomfortable distinction because people don't really like to think about there being a substantial geriatric population in jails. But there is, and I was incredibly lucky when I was finishing fellowship, there was a lot of energy around jail healthcare in New York City and I wrote the guy who was then the CMO and said, do you think you have an aging problem? And he said, I'm not sure, but if you want to come find out, we'll make you a job to come find out. And so, that was an incredible opportunity for someone right out of fellowship.(04:55):It meant stepping off the sort of academic track. But I went and worked in jail for six years and took care of older folks and people with serious illness in jail and then left Rikers in 2022. And now I work in a safety net clinic in Brooklyn that takes care of homeless people or people who have serious sort of housing instability. And that is attached to Woodhull Hospital, which is one of the public hospitals in New York City. And there I do a mix of regular internal medicine primary care, but I preferentially see the older folks who come through, which is a really interesting, painful, complicated patient population because I see a fair amount of cognitive impairment in folks who are living in the shelter system. And that's a really hard problem to address.Frailty, The Aged, and LongevityEric Topol (05:54):Well, there's a theme across your medical efforts. It seems to me that you look after the neglected folks, the prisoners, the old folks, the homeless people. I mean that's kind of you. It's pretty impressive. And there's not enough of people like you in the medical field. Now, no less do you do that, but of course you are a very impressive author, writer, and of many topics I want to get into with you, these are some recent essays you've written. The one that piqued my interest to start to understand who you were and kind of discover this body of work was the one that you wrote related to aging and President Biden. And that was in New York Times. And I do want to put in a quote because as you know very well, there's so much interest in longevity now.Eric Topol (06:51):Interrupting the aging process, and this one really stuck with me from that op-ed, “Time marches forward, bodies decline, and the growing expectation that we might all live in perfect health until our 100th birthdays reflects a culture that overprizes longevity to the point of delusion.” So maybe if you could tell us, that was a rich piece, you got into frailty, you related it to the issues that were surrounding President Biden who at that time had not withdrawn from the race. But what were you thinking and what are your thoughts about the ability to change the aging process?Rachael Bedard (07:36):I am very interested in, I mean, I'm incredibly interested in the science of it. And so, I guess I think that there are a few things.(07:49):One thing is that the framework that, the part that gives me pause the most is this framework that anything less than perfect health is not a life worth living. So if you're going to have a long life, life should not just be long and sort of healthy in relative terms to your age cohort, but healthy that when you're 80 you should feel like you have the health of a 45-year-old is my understanding of the culture of longevity science. And while I understand why that's aspirational and everybody worry about my body's decline, I think it's a really problematic thing to say that sick bodies are bodies that have disability or people who have cognitive difference are somehow leading lesser lives or lives that are not meaningful or not worth living. I think it's a very, very slippery slope. It puts you in a place where it sort of comes up against another trend or another emerging cultural trend, which is really thinking a lot about physician-assisted suicide and end of life choices.(09:04):And that in some ways that conversation can also be very focused on this idea that there's just no way that it's worth living if you're sick. And that's just not true, I think, and that's not been true for many, many, many of my patients, some of whom have lived with enormous disability and incredible burden of illness, people who are chronically seriously ill and are still leading lives that for them and for the people who love them are filled with meaning. So that's my concern about the longevity stuff. I'm interested in the science around the longevity stuff for sure. I'm interested in, I think we're living in this really interesting moment where there's so much happening across so many of the chronic disease fields where the things that I think have been leading to body decay over the last several decades for the majority of the population, we're sort of seeing a lot of breakthroughs in multiple fronts all at once. And that's really exciting. I mean, that's really exciting. And so, certainly if it's possible to make it to 100 in wonderful health, that's what I'd wish for all of us. But to hold it up as the standard that we have to achieve, I think is both unrealistic and a little myopic.Eric Topol (10:28):Yeah. Well, I certainly agreed with that and I think that that particular essay resonated so well and you really got into frailty and the idea about how it can be potentially prevented or markedly delayed. And I think before we move on to one of those breakthroughs that you were alluding to, any comments about the inevitability of frailty in people who are older, who at some point start to get the dwindles, if you will, what do you have to say about that?Rachael Bedard (11:11):Well, from a clinical standpoint, I guess the caveat versus that not everybody becomes frail and dwindles exactly. Some people are in really strong health up until sort of their final years of life or year of life and then something happens, they dwindle quickly and that's how they die. Or some people die of acute events, but the vast majority of us are going to become more frail in our final decades than we are in our middle decades. And that is the normal sort of pattern of wear and tear on the body. And it is an extraordinary framework, I think frailty because the idea of this sort of syndrome of things where it's really not a disease framework, it is a syndrome framework and it's a framework that says many, many small injuries or stressors add up to create a lot of stress and change in a body and trauma for our body. And once you are sort of past a tipping point of an amount of stress, it's very hard to undo those things because you are not sort of addressing one pathologic process. You're addressing, you're trying to mitigate many processes all at once.(12:31):When I wrote that piece, it was inspired by the conversation surrounding President Biden's health. And I was particularly struck by, there was a huge amount of clinical speculation about what was going on with him, right? I'm sure you remember there were people, there was all of this talk about whether he had Parkinson's and what his cognitive status was. And it felt to me like there was an opportunity to do some public education around the idea that you need not have one single sort of smoking gun illness to explain decline. What happens to most of us is that we're going to decline in many small ways sort of simultaneously, and it's going to impact function when it tips over a little bit. And that pattern of decline is not going to be steady day over day worsening. It's going to be up and down. And if you slept better the night before, you might have a better day the next day. And if you slept badly, you might have a worse day. And without knowing anything specific about his clinical situation, it felt like a framework that could explain so much of what we were seeing in public. And it was important also, I think to say that nothing was necessarily being hidden from anybody and that this is the kind of thing that, this has accumulated stress over time that then presents suddenly all at once after having been submerged.Eric Topol (14:01):Yeah, you reviewed that so well about the wear and tear and everything related to that. And before I move on to the second topic, I want to just circle back to something you alluded to, which is when Peter Attia wrote about this medicine 3.0 and how you would be compressed and you'd have no comorbidities, you'd have no other illnesses and just fall off the cliff. As a geriatrician, do you think that that is even conceivable?Rachael Bedard (14:35):No. Do you think it is?Eric Topol (14:37):No, but I just wanted to check the reality. I did challenge on an earlier podcast and he came up with his pat answer. But no, there's no evidence of that, that maybe you can delay if there ever was a way to do that. But I think there's this kind of natural phenomena that you just described, and I'll refer people also to that excellent piece that you get into it more.Rachael Bedard (15:06):Peter Attia, I mean, he is certainly the sort of standard bearer in my mind of that movement and that science or that framework of thinking about science. And there's stuff in there that's really valuable. The idea of thinking about lifestyle in your middle decades is having meaningful impact on how you will age, what your final years will look like. That seems intuitively true, I think. And so, thinking about his emphasis on exercise, I mean, his emphasis on exercise is particularly intense and not super achievable for the average person, but the idea that you should sort of be thinking about keeping your body strong because it will decline eventually. And so, you want to do that from a higher peak. That makes a lot of sense to me. The idea that where we sort of draw pathologic disease cutoffs is obviously a little bit arbitrary. And so, wanting to think about optimizing pre-disease states and doing prevention, that's obviously, I think pretty appealing and interesting. It's just really in an evidence free zone.Ozempic for the IndigentEric Topol (16:18):Yeah, that's what I confronted him with, of course, he had a different perspective, but you summed that up really well. Now let's switch to a piece you had in New York magazine. It was entitled, What If Ozempic Is Just a Good Thing? And the reason, of course, this ties into the first thing we're discussing. There's even talk now, the whole GLP-1 family of drugs with the dual triple receptors, pills to come that we're going to be able to interrupt a path towards Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Obviously you've already seen impact in heart disease, liver disease, kidney disease way before that, diabetes and obesity. So what are your thoughts? Because you wrote a very interesting, you provided a very interesting perspective when you wrote that one.Rachael Bedard (17:11):So that piece I wrote because I have this unbelievably privileged, interesting clinical practice. In New York City, there is public health insurance basically available to anybody here, including folks who are undocumented. And the public hospital system has pharmacies that are outpatient pharmacies that have, and New York Medicaid is very generous and they arranged through some kind of brilliant negotiating. I don't quite know how to make Ozempic to make semaglutide available to people who met criteria which meant diabetes plus obesity, but that we could prescribe it even for our very, very poor patients and that they would be able to get it reliably, that we would have it in stock. And I don't know how many other practices in the country are able to reliably provide GLP-1s to marginalized folks like that. I think it feels like a really rare opportunity and a very distinct perspective.(18:23):And it has just been the most amazing thing, I think to have this class of drugs come along that, as you say, addresses so many problems all at once with at least in my prescribing experience, a relatively mild tolerable side effect profile. I have not had patients who have become incredibly sick with it. And for folks where making that kind of impact on their chronic illness is so critical to not just their longevity, but their disease status interacts so much with their social burden. And so, it's a very meaningful intervention I think around poverty actually.(19:17):I really feel that almost all of the popular press about it has focused very much on use amongst the wealthy and who's getting it off label and how are they getting it and which celebrities are taking it, and what are the implications for eating and diet culture and for people who have eating disorders. And that's a set of questions that's obviously sort of interesting, but it's really interesting in a very rarefied space. There's an unbelievable diabetes epidemic in this country, and the majority of people who have diabetes are not the people who are getting written about over and over again in those pieces. It's the patients that I take care of, and those people are at risk of ending up on dialysis or getting amputations. And so, having a tool this effective is really miraculous feeling to me.Eric Topol (20:10):Well, it really gives me some hope because I don't know any program like that one, which is the people who need it the most. It's getting provided for them. And we have been talking about a drug that costs a thousand dollars a month. It may get down to $500 a month, but that's still a huge cost. And of course, there's not much governmental coverage at this point. There might be some more for Medicare, Medicaid, whatever in the future, but it's really the original criteria of diabetes, and it took almost 20 years to get to where we are right now. So what's so refreshing here is to know that there's at least one program that is helping to bridge the inequities and to not make it as was projected, which was, as you say, for celebrities and wealthy people more exclusively, so that's great. And we still don't know about the diverse breadth of these effects, but as you well know, there's trials in Alzheimer's. I spoke to Steve Horvath recently on the podcast and he talked about how it's reset the epigenetic clock, GLP-1.Rachael Bedard (21:24):Does he think so?Eric Topol (21:26):Whoa. Yeah, there was evidence that was just presented about that. I said, well, if that does correspond to aging, the thing that we spoke about first, that would be very exciting.Rachael Bedard (21:37):It's so wild. I mean, it's so exciting. It's so exciting to me on so many levels. And one of them is it's just exploding my mental model of disease pathogenesis, and it's making me think, oh my goodness, I have zero idea actually how metabolism and the brain and sort of cardiovascular disease, all of those things are obviously, what is happening in the interplay between all of those different systems. It's really so much more complicated and so much more interdependent than I understood it to be. I am really optimistic about the Alzheimer's trial. I am excited for those results, and I think we're going to keep seeing that it prevents different types of tumors.Eric Topol (22:33):Yeah, no, and that's been shown at least certainly in obese people, that there's cancers that gets way reduced, but we never had a potent anti-inflammatory that works at the brain and systemically like this before anyone loses the weight, you already see evidence.Long Covid and ME/CFS(22:50):It is pretty striking. Now, this goes back to the theme that was introduced earlier about looking after people who are neglected, who aren't respected or generally cared for. And I wanted to now get into Long Covid and the piece you wrote in the New Yorker about listening to patients, called “what would it mean for scientists to listen to patients?” And maybe you can talk about myalgic encephalitis/chronic fatigue (ME/CFS), and of course Long Covid because that's the one that is so pervasive right now as to the fact that these people don't get respect from physicians. They don't want to listen to their ailments. There's no blood tests, so there's no way to objectively make a diagnosis supposedly. And they're basically often dismissed, or their suffering is discounted. Maybe you can tell us again what you wrote about earlier this year and any updated thoughts.Rachael Bedard (24:01):Have you had my friend Harlan Krumholz on the show to talk about the LISTEN study?Eric Topol (24:04):Not yet. I know Harlan very well. Yes.Eric Topol (24:11):I know Akiko Iwasaki very well too. They're very, very close.Rachael Bedard (24:14):So, Akiko Iwasaki and Harlan Krumholz at Yale have been running this research effort called the LISTEN study. And I first learned about it sometime in maybe late 2021. And I had been really interested in the emerging discourse around chronic illness in Long Covid in the 2021. So when we were past the most acute phase of the pandemic, and we were seeing this long tail of sequelae in patients, and the conversation had really shifted to one that was about sort of trying to define this new syndrome, trying to understand it, trying to figure out how you could diagnose it, what were we seeing sort of emerge, how are we going to draw boxes around it? And I was so interested in the way that this syndrome was really patient created. It came out of patients identifying their own symptoms and then banning together much, much faster than any kind of institutional science can ever work, getting into message boards together or whatever, and doing their own survey work and then coming up with their own descriptive techniques about what they were experiencing.(25:44):And then beyond that, looking into the literature and thinking about the treatments that they wanted to try for themselves. Patients were sort of at the forefront of every step of recognizing, defining, describing this illness presentation and then thinking about what they wanted to be able to do for themselves to address it. And that was really interesting to me. That was incredibly interesting to me. And it was also really interesting because by, I don't know exactly when 2021 or 2022, it was already a really tense landscape where it felt like there were real factions of folks who were in conflict about what was real and what wasn't real, how things ought to be studied, who ought to be studying them, what would count as evidence in this realm. And all of those questions were just really interesting to me. And the LISTEN study was approaching them in this really thoughtful way, which was Harlan and Akiko sort of partnering really closely with patients who enrolled.(26:57):And it's a decentralized study and people could enroll from all over the world. There's a portion of patients who do have their blood work evaluated, but you can also just complete surveys and have that data count towards, and those folks would be from anywhere in the world. Harlan did this amazing, amazing work to figure out how to collect blood samples from all over the country that would be drawn at home for people. So they were doing this decentralized study where people from their homes, from within the sort of circumstances of their lives around their chronic illness could participate, which that was really amazing to me. And then they were partnering really thoughtfully with these patients just to figure out what questions they wanted to ask, how they wanted to ask them, and to try to capture a lot of multimodal data all at once.(27:47):Survey data, journaling so people could write about their own experience in a freeform journal. They were collecting blood samples, and they were holding these town halls. And the town halls were on a regular basis, Harlan and Akiko, and anybody who was in the study could come on, could log onto a Zoom or whatever, and Harlan and Akiko and their research staff would talk about how things were going, what they were working on, what questions they had, what the roadblocks were, and then they would answer questions from their participants as the study was ongoing. And I didn't think that I had ever heard of something quite like that before. Have you ever heard of anything?Eric Topol (28:32):No. I mean, I think this is important to underscore, this was the first condition that was ever patient led, patient named, and basically the whole path was laid by the patient. So yes, and everything you summarize is so well as to the progress that's been made. Certainly, Harlan and Akiko are some of the people that have really helped lead the way to do this properly as opposed to, unfortunately one and a half billion dollars that have been put to the NIH for the RECOVER efforts that haven't yet led to even a significant clinical trial, no less a validated treatment. But I did think it was great that you spotlighted that just because again, it's thematic. And that gets me to the fourth dimension, which is you're the first prison doctor I've ever spoken to. And you also wrote a piece about that called, “the disillusionment of a Rikers Island Doctor” in the New Yorker, I think it was. And I wonder if you could tell us, firstly, now we're four years into Covid, you were for a good part of that at Rikers Island, I guess.The Rikers Island Prison Doctor During CovidRachael Bedard (30:00):I was, yeah.Eric Topol (30:00):Yeah. And what could be a more worrisome spot to be looking after people with Covid in a prison? So maybe you could just give us some insight about all that.Rachael Bedard (30:17):Yeah, it was really, I mean, it was the wildest time, certainly in my career probably that I'll ever have. In the end of February and beginning of March of 2020, it became very apparent to my colleagues and I that it was inevitable that this virus that was in Wuhan and in Italy was coming to the US. And jails are, we sort of jokingly described them as the worst cruise ships in the world. They are closed systems where everybody is eating, sleeping, going to the bathroom, everything on top of each other. There's an incredible amount of excess human contact in jails and prisons because people don't have freedom of movement and they don't get to do things for themselves. So every single, somebody brings you your mail, somebody brings you your meals, somebody brings you your medications. If you're going to move from point A to point B, an officer has to walk you there. So for a virus that was going to spread through what we initially thought was droplets and then found out was not just droplets but airborne, it was an unbelievably high-risk setting. It's also a setting where folks tend to be sicker than average for their age, that people bring in a lot of comorbidity to the setting.(31:55):And it's not a setting that does well under stress. I mean, jails and prisons are places that are sort of constitutionally violent, and they're not systems that adapt easily to emergency conditions. And the way that they do adapt tends to be through repressive measures, which tends to be violence producing rather than violence quelling. And so, it was just an incredibly scary situation. And in mid-March, Rikers Island, the island itself had the highest Covid prevalence of anywhere in the country because New York City was the epicenter, and Rikers was really the epicenter within New York. It was a wild, wild time. Our first seriously ill patient who ended up getting hospitalized. That was at that time when people were, we really didn't understand very much about what Covid looked like. And there was this guy sitting on the floor and he said, I don't know. I can't really get up.(32:59):I don't feel well. And he had an O2 stat of 75 or something. He was just incredibly hypoxic. It's a very scary setting for that kind of thing, right? It's not a hospital, it's not a place where you can't deliver ICU level care in a place like that. So we were also really worried about the fact that we were going to be transferring all of these patients to the city hospitals, which creates a huge amount of extra burden on them because an incarcerated patient is not just the incarcerated patients, the officers who are with that person, and there are special rules around them. They have to be in special rooms and all of these things. So it was just a huge systems crisis and really painful. And we, early on, our system made a bunch of good guesses, and one of our good guesses was that we should just, or one of our good calls that I entirely credit my bosses with is that they understood that we should advocate really hard to get as many people out as we could get out. Because trying to just manage the population internally by moving people around was not going to be effective enough, that we really need to decant the setting.(34:18):And I had done all of this work, this compassionate release work, which is work to get people who are sick out of jail so that they can get treatment and potentially die in a free setting. And so, I was sort of involved in trying to architect getting folks who were sort of low enough security risks out of jail for this period of time because we thought that they would be safer, and 1500 people left Rikers in the matter of about six weeks.Rachael Bedard (34:50):Which was a wild, wild thing. And it was just a very crazy time.Eric Topol (34:56):Yeah. Well, the word compassion and you go together exceptionally well. I think if we learn about you through your writings, that really shines through and what you've devoted your care for people in these different domains. This is just a sampling of your writings, but I think it gives a good cross section. What makes you write about a particular thing? I mean, obviously the Rikers Island, you had personal experience, but why would you pick Ozempic or why would you pick other things? What stimulates you to go after a topic?Rachael Bedard (35:42):Sometimes a lot of what I write about relates to my personal practice experience in some way, either to geriatrics or death and dying or to the criminal justice system. I've written about people in death row. I've written about geriatrics and palliative care in sort of a bunch of different ways. I am interested in topics in medicine where things are not yet settled, and it feels very of the moment. I'm interested in what the discourse is around medicine and healthcare. And I am interested in places where I think the discourse, not just that I'm taking a side in that discourse, but where I think the framework of the discourse is a little bit wrong. And I certainly feel that way about the Ozempic discourse. And I felt that way about the discourse around President Biden, that we're having not just a conversation that I have a strong opinion about, but a conversation that I think is a little bit askew from the way that we ought to be thinking about it.Eric Topol (36:53):And what I love about each of these is that you bring all that in. You have many different points of view and objective support and they're balanced. They're not just trying to be persuasive about one thing. So, as far as I know, you're extraordinarily unique. I mean, we are all unique, but you are huge standard deviations, Rachael. You cover bases that are, as I mentioned, that are new to me in terms of certainly this podcast just going on for now a couple of years, that is covering a field of both geriatrics and having been on the corrections board and in prison, particularly at the most scary time ever to be working in prison as a physician. And I guess the other thing about you is this drive, this humanitarian theme. I take it you came from Canada.Rachael Bedard (37:59):I did.Eric Topol (37:59):You migrated to a country that has no universal health.Rachael Bedard (38:03):That's right.Eric Topol (38:03):Do you ever think about the fact that this is a pretty pathetic situation here?Rachael Bedard (38:08):I do. I do think about it all the time.Eric Topol (38:10):In our lifetime, we'll probably never see universal healthcare. And then if you just go a few miles up north, you pretty much have that.Rachael Bedard (38:18):Yeah, if you've lived in a place that has universal healthcare and you come here, it's really sort of hard to ever get your mind around. And it has been an absolute possessing obsession of my entire experience in the US. I've now been here for over 20 years and still think it is an unbelievably, especially I think if you work with marginalized patients and how much their lack of access compounds the difficulty of their lives and their inability to sort of stabilize and feel well and take care of themselves, it's really frustrating.Advice for Bringing Humanities to Medicine in a CareerEric Topol (39:14):Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess my last question to you, is you have weaved together a career that brings humanities to medicine, that doesn't happen that often. What's your advice to some of the younger folks in healthcare as to how to pull that off? Because you were able to do it and it's not easy.Rachael Bedard (39:39):My main advice when people ask me about this, especially to students and to residents who are often the people who are asking is to write when you can or pursue your humanities interests, your critical interests, whatever it is that you're doing. Do it when you can, but trust that your career is long and that you have a lot of time. Because the thing that I would say is I didn't start publishing until I was in fellowship and before that I was busy because I was learning to become a doctor. And I think it's really important that my concern about being a doctor who's a hybrid, which so many of us are now. A doctor or something else is you really do want to be a good doctor. And becoming a good doctor is really hard. And it's okay if the thing that is preoccupying you for the first 10 years of your training is becoming a great clinician. I think that's a really, really important thing to do. And so, for my first 10 years for med school and residency and chief residency and fellowship, I would write privately on the side a fair amount, but not try to publish it, not polish that work, not be thinking in sort of a careerist way about how I was going to become a doctor writer because I was becoming a doctor. And that was really preoccupying.(41:08):And then later on, I both sort of had more time and mental space to work on writing. But also, I had the maturity, I think, of being a person who was comfortable in my clinical identity to have real ideas and insights about medicine that felt different and unique to me as opposed to, I barely understand what's going on around me and I'm trying to pull it together. And that's how I would've been if I had done it more, I think when I was younger. Some people are real prodigies and can do it right out the gate, but I wasn't like that.Eric Topol (41:42):No, no, I think that's really sound advice because that's kind of the whole foundation for everything else. Is there a book in the works or will there be one someday?Rachael Bedard (41:53):There may be one someday. There is not one now. I think about it all the time. And that same advice applies, which is I believe in being a late bloomer and taking your time and figuring out what it is you really want to do.Eric Topol (42:10):Yeah. Well, that's great. Have I missed anything? And obviously we only can get to know you in what, 40 minutes to some extent, but have I not touched on something that you want to bring up?Rachael Bedard (42:23):No, I don't think so. Thank you for this conversation. It's been lovely.Eric Topol (42:28):No, I really enjoyed it. I'll be following your career. It's extraordinary already and you've got decades ahead to make an impact and obviously thinking of all these patients that you look after and have in the past, it's just extraordinary. So what a joy to talk with you, Rachael, and I hope we'll have a chance to do that again in the times ahead.Rachael Bedard (42:51):Me as well. Thank you so much for inviting me.**********************************************Thank you for listening, reading or watching!The Ground Truths newsletters and podcasts are all free, open-access, without ads.Please share this post/podcast with your friends and network if you found it informative!Voluntary paid subscriptions all go to support Scripps Research. Many thanks for that—they greatly help fund our education and summer internship programs.Thanks to my producer Jessica Nguyen and Sinjun Balabanoff for audio and video support at Scripps Research.Note: you can select preferences to receive emails about newsletters, podcasts, or all I don't want to bother you with an email for content that you're not interested in. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

In this 293rd episode I interview Dr. Keith Baker in another master clinician episode. Dr. Baker is a professor at Harvard Medical School, the Vice Chair for Education at MGH and was formerly the residency program director there for 15 years.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In fellowship, one of the leaders at MGH used to quote Balfour Mount as saying, “You say you've worked on teams? Show me your scars.”  Scars, really?  Yes. I've been there. You probably have too. On the one hand, I don't think interprofessional teamwork needs to be scarring. On the other hand, though it goes against my middle-child “can't we all get along” nature, disagreement is a key aspect of high functioning teams.  The key is to foster an environment of curiosity and humility that welcomes and even encourages a diversity of perspectives, including direct disagreement. Today we talk with DorAnne Donesky, Michelle Milic, Naomi Saks, & Cara Wallace about the notion that we should revolutionize our education programs, training programs, teams, incentive structures, and practice to be intentionally interprofessional in all phases.  The many arguments, theories, & approaches across settings and conditions are explored in detail in the book they edited, “Intentionally Interprofessional Palliative Care” (discount code AMPROMD9). Of note: these lessons apply to geriatrics, primary care, hospital medicine, critical care, cancer care, etc, etc. And they begin on today's podcast with one clinical ask: everyone should be a generalist and a specialist. In other words, in addition to being a specialist (e.g. social worker, chaplain), everyone should be able to ask a question or two about spiritual concerns, social concerns, or physical concerns. Many more approaches to being interprofessional on today's podcast.  But how about you! What will you commit to in order to be more intentionally interprofessional? If we build this dream together, standing strong forever, nothing's gonna stop us now… -@AlexSmithMD    Interprofessional organizations that are not specific to palliative care are doing excellent work National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education: https://nexusipe.org/ National Collaborative for Improving the Clinical Learning Environment https://ncicle.org/ Interprofessional Education Collaborative (home of the IPEC Competencies) https://www.ipecollaborative.org/ American Interprofessional Health Collaborative (sponsor of the biennial meeting "Collaborating Across Borders") https://aihc-us.org/index.php/ Health Professions Accreditors Collaborative https://healthprofessionsaccreditors.org/

In this 292nd episode I play the audio from the live episode we did at the Northeast Anesthesia Resident Conference in Boston on 9/14/24. I interviewed Aalok Agarwala, Associate CMO at MGH, Joanne Conroy, President and CEO of Dartmouth Health, and Sunil "Sunny" Eappen, CEO of UVM Health. We discuss their careers, and their tips for aspiring leaders in healthcare. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today we are joined by Susan Fasoli. In addition to being an active member of AOTA and the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, Susan is a Professor Emerita of occupational therapy at MGH institute of health professions where she has conducted, published, and disseminated research related to robot assisted therapy and cognitive skills training, the importance of interprofessional collaboration, and the rehabilitation treatment specification system (RTSS). She shares information related to RTSS and gives recommendations on how students, practitioners, educators, and researchers can enhance their practice by applying the RTSS.  Additional Resources: American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine: Improving Lives Through Interdisciplinary Rehabilitation Research | ACRM ACRM Rehabilitation Treatment Specification Networking Group (RTS-NG)  Follow ACRM on X at @ACRMRTS

The 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer brings together leading experts, researchers, and oncologists to showcase the latest advancements in lung cancer research and celebrate IASLC's 50th anniversary. To reach a global audience, IASLC has recorded podcast episodes on WCLC 2024 in world languages. In this episode, host Dr. Coral Olazagasti moderates a discussion in Spanish about highlights from the conference with Dr. Maria Velez and Dr. Rossana Ruiz. Guests: Dr. Coral Olazagasti Assistant Professor at the Sylvester Cancer Center, University of Miami at Miami, Florida. Dr. Rossana Ruiz Medical Oncologist from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia Global Health Fellowship at MGH in Boston, Massachusetts Thoracic Medical Oncologist, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Neoplasicas and AUNA-Oncosalud in Lima, Peru Dr. Maria Velez Clinical Instructor, Division of Hematology-Oncology UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine in Los Angeles, California

We kicked off the program with four news stories and different guests on the stories we think you need to know about!'Boy Meets World' actress reveals breast cancer diagnosis – MGH's Dr. Matthew Strickland discussed breast cancer types, importance of screenings, and more. It's hard to have much confidence in the Patriots when Eliot Wolf doesn't project it. With Ben Volin – Boston Globe NFL writer.We're joined by Ryan Roy - Production Director/ Office Manager of King Richard's Faire  – The New England Renaissance Festival opens its season on August 31st in Carver, MA.Conquer Self-Sabotage By Overcoming These 5 Hazardous Attitudes with Ricky Brown – Author, Speaker, Coach.Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio!

YOGA IS MY TRUE PASSION... The practice found me over ten years ago and has followed me around with nurturing love ever since. My yoga experience began at Charlestown Yoga in Boston, Massachusetts while volunteering for a non-profit organization that offered alternative healing services to veterans. In exchange, I was able to take yoga classes at the studio. I soon became a regular, sometimes taking two, even three classes each day. Simultaneously, I experienced a couple of unexpected lay-offs from my jobs in online advertising sales and this opened up some space to make what was initially a physical practice a very spiritual journey for me. With the completion of my 200-hour yoga teacher certification in 2007, I began to pursue my teaching career in yoga. First, managing the studio part-time and then, teaching as many classes as I could in and around Boston. This journey through my practice has paved the path for many of the challenges I would face later on in a way that nothing else could have prepared me for. In 2011, at age 35, I was teaching yoga and running a Bed & Breakfast on Martha's Vineyard when I was diagnosed with stage 2/3 triple-negative breast cancer. My life turned upside down. Planning a wedding turned into deciding on a treatment plan for the following year. 16 chemo treatments, two surgeries and 30 days of radiation is what followed. That is what my treatment looked like on paper, but I believe I was saved because of yoga, the community at MGH, and my 'tribe'. Students would pop up with messages of love and support when I least expected it, at hospitals, on the street, along with various other places and in moments that you couldn't predict if you tried. I practiced hot power yoga the day after chemo with a bald head, surrounded by my tribe. This is what yoga is, a place where we can turn things off and look inside ourselves, without judgment or ego but with vulnerability and humble love. I am 7 years cancer-free, a wife and a mother of two small children. I have faith and hope and yoga taught me that. My students and colleagues continually inspire and teach me so much about myself. This is what I hope to share with you - on and off the mat. Namaste. ⁠CONTACT ME⁠ I am continually honored to represent KiraGrace as a Warrior Ambassador. KiraGrace is a  leader in Yoga Clothing Apparel and all of their clothing is responsibly manufactured in the USA. I was chosen as a Brand Ambassador because of my leadership on and off of the mat, community involvement, and seva, or service. I continually try to exercise leadership through my commitment to the betterment of this community and my teachings of yoga. To check out this amazing company, please go to ⁠www.kiragrace.com⁠. SIGN UP FOR my Better Divorce Blueprint PROGRAM: https://betterdivorceblueprint.com/ WEBSITE - resources for those in need of Certified Divorce Coaching and Private Mediation Services : https://betterdivorceacademy.com/ SOCIAL MEDIA - bit.ly/betterdivorceacademy Buy my book and workbook: Better Divorce Blueprint https://betterdivorceblueprint.com/ RESOURCES - https://betterdivorceacademy.com/reso... AUDIOBOOK FROM AUDIBLE - https://www.audible.com/pd/Better-Div... Are you looking for answers and guidance? BOOK a 30 minute assessment consultation: https://calendly.com/betterdivorceaca... Disclaimer: All statements made in this audio/video are expressions of the opinion of the speaker, and should be regarded as such. The audio/video is made to serve a therapeutic purpose for the speaker or speakers and to assist others in recognizing and dealing with matters in their own lives which they believe may be similar. #divorce #mediation #coaching #lifeafterdivorce #divorcesupport

On today's special episode of Hot Topics and Kidney Health we're sharing audio from a recent webinar hosted by National Kidney Foundation on kidney xenotransplantation. Stay tuned to hear from the experts and learn about the latest updates on animal-to-human transplantation.   Dr. Tatsuo Kawai is a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and the A. Benedict Cosimi Chair in Transplant Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also director of the Legorreta Center for Clinical Transplantation Tolerance. He was awarded the Martin Research Prize at MGH in 2009 and the New Key Opinion Leader Award by the Transplantation Society in 2010 for this work. In the field of xenotransplantation, he has collaborated extensively with eGenesis over the past five years, achieving over two years of survival for genetically edited kidney xenografts in nonhuman primates, which was published in Nature in 2023. In March 2024, he successfully performed the world first kidney xenotransplantation from the pig with 69 genomic edits in a living patient with end stage renal disease.  Vineeta Kumar MD, FAST, FASN  is the lead nephrologist for the Living Kidney Donor and Incompatible Kidney Transplant programs at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. She is an expert in kidney transplantation, living kidney donation, incompatible kidney transplant, kidney paired donation and cardiovascular outcomes after kidney transplantation. Peter Reese, MD, PhD, is an NIH-funded transplant nephrologist and epidemiologist. His research focuses on: a) developing effective strategies to increase access to solid organ transplantation; b) improving the process of selecting and caring for living kidney donors; c) determining outcomes of health policies on vulnerable populations with renal disease, including the elderly; d) testing strategies to improve important health behaviors such as medication adherence; and e) transplant ethics. He was a recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, was elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and was a Greenwall Faculty Scholar in bioethics. He is a past chair of the Ethics Committee for the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which oversees organ allocation and transplant regulation in the US, and is an Associate Editor for the American Journal of Kidney Diseases. He co-led the THINKER, USHER, MYTHIC, and SHELTER trials involving transplanting HCV-infected donor organs into uninfected recipients. His work has been generously funded by foundations and the NIH, including a K-24 to support mentoring.   Do you have comments, questions, or suggestions? Email us at NKFpodcast@kidney.org. Also, make sure to rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts.  

In Season 7's final episode, Dr. Ron Hirschberg sits with Dr. Ali Raja, MGH's Executive Vice Chair of Emergency Medicine, in his office in the heart of the Bulfinch Building at Massachusetts General Hospital, est. 1811... 159 years prior to establishing Emergency Medicine training programs in 1970. Dr. Raja's life and work are discussed, from growing up in Houston looking towards an Air Force career - a family legacy - to a journey into medicine, business, service, and leadership - while along the way juggling all the balls in the air with his eye always on the most important (and delicate) "glass ball" - his family.Thanks very much for joining today on our final episode of Season 7 of Home Base Nation. Many thanks to Dr. Ali Raja for your service and ongoing service to your staff at MGH and of course the patients who come in every day to the ED who may be unlucky to be there, but lucky to have you and your team at the bedside. Learn more about Dr. Ali RajaAnd on behalf of Home Base, thank you to all who've served. Hoping to see you at the 15th Annual Run To Home Base on July 27th at Fenway Park. You can still Run virtually with us and donations are accepted and appreciated – Go To: www.runtohomebase.org.____Home Base Nation is the official podcast for Home Base Program for Veterans and Military Families – Our team sees veterans, servicemembers and their families addressing the invisible wounds of war at no cost. This is all made possible thanks to a grateful nation – And if you want to learn more on how you can help, visit us at www.homebase.org, or if you or anyone you know would like to connect to care, you can also reach us at 617-724-5202.Theme music for Home Base Nation: "Rolling the Tree" by The Butler FrogsFollow Home Base on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedInThe Home Base Nation Team is Steve Monaco, Army Veteran Kelly Field, Justin Scheinert, Chuck Clough, with COO Michael Allard, Brigadier General Jack Hammond, and Peter Smyth.Producer and Host: Dr. Ron HirschbergAssistant Producer, Editor: Chuck CloughChairman, Home Base Media Lab: Peter SmythThe views expressed by guests to the Home Base Nation podcast are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by guests are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Home Base, the Red Sox Foundation or any of its officials.

CardioNerds Co-Founder Dr. Daniel Ambinder, Series Co-Chair Dr. Giselle Suero Abreu (FIT at MGH), and Episode Lead Dr. Iva Minga (FIT at the University of Chicago) discuss the use of multi-modality cardiovascular imaging in cardio-oncology with expert faculty Dr. Nausheen Akhter (Northwestern University). Show notes were drafted by Dr. Sukriti Banthiya and episode audio was edited by CardioNerds Intern and student Dr. Diane Masket. They use illustrative cases to discuss: Recommendations on the use of multimodality imaging, including advanced echocardiographic techniques and cardiac MRI, in patients receiving cardiotoxic therapies and long-term surveillance. Role of nuclear imaging (MUGA scan) in monitoring left ventricular ejection fraction. Use of computed tomography to identify and/or monitor coronary disease. Imaging diagnosis of cardiac amyloidosis. This episode is supported by a grant from Pfizer Inc. This CardioNerds Cardio-Oncology series is a multi-institutional collaboration made possible by contributions of stellar fellow leads and expert faculty from several programs, led by series co-chairs, Dr. Giselle Suero Abreu, Dr. Dinu Balanescu, and Dr. Teodora Donisan.  CardioNerds Cardio-Oncology PageCardioNerds Episode PageCardioNerds AcademyCardionerds Healy Honor Roll CardioNerds Journal ClubSubscribe to The Heartbeat Newsletter!Check out CardioNerds SWAG!Become a CardioNerds Patron! References -  Multi-modality Imaging in Cardio-Oncology Baldassarre L, Ganatra S, Lopez-Mattei J, et al. Advances in Multimodality Imaging in Cardio-Oncology. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2022 Oct, 80 (16) 1560–1578.

As Eric notes at the end of today's podcast, we talk about many difficult issues with our patients.  How long they might have to live. Their declining cognitive abilities. What makes their lives meaningful, brings them joy, a sense of purpose.  But one issue we're not as good at discussing with our patients is sexual health. On today's podcast Areej El-Jawahri, oncologist specializing in blood cancers at MGH, says that sexual health is one of the top if not the top issue among cancer survivors.  Clearly this issue is important to patients.  Sharon Bober, clinical psychologist at DFCI, notes that clinicians can get caught in an anxiety cycle, in which they are afraid to ask, don't ask, then have increased anxiety about not asking.  Like any other conversation, you have to start, and through experience learn what language is comfortable for you.  Don Dizon, oncologist specializing in pelvic malignancies at Brown, suggests speaking in plain language, starting by normalizing sexual health issues, to paraphrase, “Many of my patients experience issues with intimacy and sexual health. Is that an issue for you? I'm happy to talk about it at any time.”  All guests agree that clinicians feel they need to have something they can do if they open Pandora's box.  To that end, we talk about practical advice, including: The importance of intimacy over and above physical sexual function for many patients Common causes and differential diagnoses of sexual concerns in patients with cancer and survivors Treatments for erectile dysfunction - first time the words “cock ring” have been uttered on the GeriPal Podcast - and discuss daily phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitor therapy vs prn The importance of a pelvic exam for women experiencing pain What is “pelvic physical therapy?” Treatments for vaginal dryness and atrophy ACS links, NCCN links, Cancersexnetwork, and a great handout that Areej created And I get to sing Lady Gaga, also a first for GeriPal!  And let me tell you, there's nothing like the first time (sorry, I couldn't help it!).

Today on the Beat Club Podcast, we chop it up with a "producer's producer" and New England Music Awards Producer of the year...Mel Go Hard!Tap in as we learn more about her journey, where it began and where it is going next; We also get a chance to preview some tracks off her debut complication album, as well as put MGH to the test as  she takes on the BCP community in our first every R&B Beat Battle. All this and more, while listening to beats sent in from around the globe!Beat Club Podcast | Where producers are heard. Be sure to check out more exclusive content on our Patreon page: patreon.com/beatclubpodcast Upload your beats www.beatclubpodcast.com | #whereproducersareheardFind out about our next LIVE episode by following us on https://www.instagram.com/beatclubpodcastSubscribe & watch exclusive clips on our Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatClubPodcastAnd don't forget to follow our hosts on social media:@Doitallloopz | @MotivateMerren | @Trenchgotgame

The National Memorial Day Concert features Marine Veteran Kirstie Ennis and others and a conversation with Yuliia Matvieieva, working with Ukrainian Veteran Amputees on mental and physical health - Nearly 60,000 people have lost limbs over the the past two years since the Russian envarion of Ukraine in February 2022, the vast majority being servicemembers. Yuliia came to Home Base during a two week Ukrainian physician visit to MGH, a collaboration with Global Response Medicine, the W.H.O. and our colleague at MGH Center for Global Health, Dr. Jarone Lee. Yuliia finished medical school in Ukraine in 2013, and has been in the US for the past 8 years – now focusing on the mental and physical health for this massive group of veterans with limb loss. Yuliia and Ron sat for a conversation about life before the War in 2014, and how the Big War in 2022 changed everything. As a military-mental health specialist, she runs peer support for Ukrainian veteran amputees with non-profit Volia Fund, who's mission is the protect and boost wellbeing in Ukraine.Many thanks Yuliia Matvieieva for you ongoing service to those who've served. And thank you for telling your story about perseverance and your new chapter, while helping so many others get back to a new normal life and reintegrate back to their own.Thank you Dr. Jarone Lee of MGH Center for Global Health and Health Tech without borders, and Deputy Director of Global Response Medicine Andrea Leiner for making this special visit from Kharkiv to Boston possible.Thanks for joining us everyone. And on Memorial Day - Today and every day we honor our fallen heroes and the families who have supported them. Have a great couple weeks folks and see you next time. This is Ron Hirschberg at Home Base. ____And of course, Home Base Nation will continue to share episodes every two weeks up through the Run to Home Base this coming July 27th. Please sign up to join us there to support all veterans, servicemembers and families, and as we celebrate and honor women in the military this year in 2024.Home Base Nation will be sharing episodes every two weeks up through the Run To Home Base this coming July 27th. Please sign up to join us there to support all veteran, servicemember and family care, and as we celebrate women in the military this year. Home Base Nation is the official podcast for Home Base Program for Veterans and Military Families – Our team sees veterans, servicemembers and their families addressing the invisible wounds of war at no cost. This is all made possible thanks to a grateful nation – And if you want to learn more on how you can help, visit us at www.homebase.org, or if you or anyone you know would like to connect to care, you can also reach us at 617-724-5202.Theme music for Home Base Nation: "Rolling the Tree" by The Butler FrogsFollow Home Base on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedInThe Home Base Nation Team is Steve Monaco, Army Veteran Kelly Field, Justin Scheinert, Chuck Clough, with COO Michael Allard, Brigadier General Jack Hammond, and Peter Smyth.Producer and Host: Dr. Ron HirschbergAssistant Producer, Editor: Chuck CloughChairman, Home Base Media Lab: Peter SmythThe views expressed by guests to the Home Base Nation podcast are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by guests are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Home Base, the Red Sox Foundation or any of its officials.

Dr. Kelly is the Elizabeth R. Spallin Professor of Psychiatry in Addiction Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is the Director of the Recovery Research Institute at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the Associate Director of the Center for Addiction Medicine at MGH, and the Program Director of the Addiction Recovery Management Service. Dr. Kelly is a former President of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Society of Addiction Psychology, and is a Fellow of the APA and a Diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology. He has served as a consultant to U.S. federal agencies and non-federal institutions, as well as foreign governments and the United Nations. Dr. Kelly has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and books in the field of addiction medicine. His work has focused on addiction treatment and the recovery process, mechanisms of behavior change, and reducing stigma and discrimination among individuals suffering from addiction. In this Episode: What initially sparked his interest in studying Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-step programs? What were the the key findings of the Cochrane review regarding the efficacy of AA and 12-step approaches? How effective is AA compared to professionally-delivered addiction treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy? Why does AA work for some people but not others? How well does AA work for diverse populations? Are there certain groups for whom it works better or worse? Could these findings be applied to other recovery communities? i.e. Sweet Sobriety, Smart Recovery, LifeRing? What role can AA play within a modern system of clinical addiction treatment and recovery support? His thoughts on harm reduction Why he thinks that sometimes in the addiction field it's either a harm reduction model OR an abstinence model instead of both offered. The research on average recovery trajectories (ie 4 – 5 years before they decide to stop even though the use is very problematic due to stigma or fear and trying moderation, then 7 or 8 years and multiple treatment interventions before they get one full year of abstinence, then 5 years of continuous remission before people are no longer at an elevated risk versus the normal population) People with addiction ned to be given permission to practice recovery instead of just being expected to just stop immediately  Does he believe in Food Addiction ? His thoughts on what our next steps should be to get Food Addiction Recognized   Follow John Kelly and the Recovery Research Institute: https://www.recoveryanswers.org The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.

Welcome back to Season Two of "On Pump," where we delve into the heart of perfusion, exploring the latest trends, innovations, and insights in the field. In this highly anticipated episode, we have the privilege of sitting down with Nathan Minie and Joseph Catricala from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), renowned for its prestigious perfusion program and clinical rotation opportunities. Our guests provide an exclusive inside look into MGH, offering invaluable perspectives on what sets it apart as one of the nation's premier perfusion clinical rotation sites and top employers for new graduates. Throughout the episode, Nathan and Joseph illuminate MGH's pioneering approach to culture, simulation, research, and leadership in perfusion. They share firsthand experiences and anecdotes that highlight how MGH is not only shaping the future of perfusion but also fostering an environment conducive to growth and excellence. As seasoned professionals in the field, our guests discuss the significance of MGH's emphasis on simulation training, which equips students and practitioners with the skills and confidence needed to navigate complex perfusion scenarios effectively. Moreover, they shed light on MGH's commitment to cutting-edge research initiatives, illustrating how these endeavors contribute to advancing the science and practice of perfusion, ultimately benefiting patients worldwide. Beyond technical proficiency, Nate and Joe emphasize MGH's dedication to cultivating strong leadership qualities among its perfusionists, empowering them to thrive in diverse clinical settings and take on leadership roles within the healthcare ecosystem. Listeners will gain invaluable insights into the inner workings of MGH's perfusion program, discovering why it stands out as a beacon of excellence and a coveted destination for aspiring perfusionists. Join us as we embark on this enlightening journey into the heart of Massachusetts General Hospital's perfusion program, where innovation, expertise, and passion converge to shape the future of cardiovascular care.

Today's guest on the She Impacts Culture podcast is Wendy Puffer, Owner and Chief Executive Officer of Marion Design Co., a social design studio committed to the revitalization of downtown Marion through empowering community assets. Her story is a testament to the transformative power of faith in action, the significance of presence, and breathing new life into cities! In this episode, we specifically chat through:Designing a life of purposeThe transformative power of presenceReshaping perceptionsNurturing authentic connections within communities Friends, if you find yourself in a season of wanting to revitalize your city, community, or work, this episode is a must-listen. Wendy's insights and experiences offer a roadmap to inspire change and impact. Wendy's journey of faith intersecting with design to breathe new life into Marion, Indiana, will encourage you! Her story is a testament to the transformative power of faith in action to nurture stronger communities.Connect with Wendy:Website: https://www.mariondesign.co/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mariondesigncoInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariondesignco/Wendy Puffer, NCIDQ, is the Owner and Chief Executive Officer of Marion Design Co., social design studio committed to the revitalization of downtown Marion through empowering community assets. Her design staff of professionals and interns have created design throughout the city such as the Marion City Brand and Marion Health's (MGH) recent rebrand and hosted events such as the Marion Made Fashion Show and Market. As a licensed interior designer, her design is scattered throughout Grant County and beyond. She launched two design programs at IWU; Interior Design and Design for Social Impact. As a professor, she led teams to paint murals on the Sweetser Cafe and on Converse Mainstreet, directed eight teams to build temporary facade designs on the downtown square, and co-launched Marion Design Co. with design colleagues in 2016. She earned a Design Thinking MFA in 2016 which expanded her collaborative offerings to empowering business and organizations to creatively solve “wicked problems” through innovative solutions. She's been married to Dr. Keith Puffer, IWU Psychology Professor for 36 years and has three adult children located in New York, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis.

Eric is joined in conversation by Dr. Laura Erickson-Schroth and Dr. Ilan H. Meyer to delve into the past and present of mental health for LGBTQ people.  They discuss historical stigma, the ramifications of the American Psychiatric Association's declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder 50 years ago, and shifting psychiatric understandings of LGBTQ mental health in relation to societal pressures and prejudice. They also explore the continued pathologization of trans people, and the barriers that exist to finding accessible, safe, and informed care.  The MGH episode about Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld mentioned in the episode can be found here. Visit our episode webpage for additional resources and a transcript of the episode. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our Patreon community. ——— To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Calling all those with a passion for cardiovascular prevention! In this episode of the CardioNerds Cardiovascular Prevention Series, we take a deep dive into the world of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists. Along the way, you'll hear about the biology of the GLP-1 molecule and its related peptides, learn more about how GLP-1 agonists promote glycemic control, weight loss, and cardiometabolic health, and explore the current body of literature supporting the individualized application of these medications to patients with diabetes, obesity, and/or ASCVD. Join Dr. Christian Faaborg-Andersen (CardioNerds Academy Fellow and Internal Medicine Resident at MGH), Dr. Gurleen Kaur (Director of the CardioNerds Internship, Chief of House Einthoven, and Internal Medicine resident at BWH), and Dr. Rick Ferraro (CardioNerds Academy House Faculty and Cardiology Fellow at JHH) for a wide-ranging discussion on GLP-1 and GIP agonists with Dr. Dennis Bruemmer (Cardiologist and Director of the Center for Cardiometabolic Health in the section of Preventive Cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic). Show notes were drafted by Dr. Christian Faaborg-Andersen. Audio editing was performed by CardioNerds Academy Intern, student Dr. Tina Reddy. This episode was produced in collaboration with the American Society of Preventive Cardiology (ASPC) with independent medical education grant support from Novo Nordisk. See below for continuing medical education credit. CardioNerds Prevention PageCardioNerds Episode PageCardioNerds AcademyCardionerds Healy Honor Roll CardioNerds Journal ClubSubscribe to The Heartbeat Newsletter!Check out CardioNerds SWAG!Become a CardioNerds Patron! Pearls and Quotes - GLP-1 Agonists: Mechanisms to Applications The selection and dosing of GLP-1 and GIP agonists (GLP-1s and GIPs) depends on their intended use as an anti-glycemic or anti-obesity agent. The cardiovascular benefits of GLP-1s and GIPs may be independent of improvements in glycemic control, and in part be driven by reduction in inflammation, a key driver of arterial plaque formation. In patients with comorbid coronary artery disease, obesity, and diabetes, GLP-1 agonists and SGLT-2 inhibitors should be used as first-line agents, over metformin. Tirzepatide is a dual agonist that activates GIP and GLP-1 receptors. GIP is highly expressed in the brain, which may mediate satiety, promote energy expenditure, and enhance peripheral glucose metabolism. Caution should be used with GLP-1 agonists in patients with long-standing diabetes complicated by gastroparesis, as well as incompletely treated diabetic retinopathy. GI upset is not uncommon with GLP-1/GIP agonists, and switching to a different agonist is unlikely to help.  Show notes - GLP-1 Agonists: Mechanisms to Applications What are the mechanisms of action by which GLP-1 and GIP controls blood sugar and body weight? Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is an endogenous hormone that is secreted in response to an oral glucose load. It promotes insulin release, inhibits glucagon secretion, and slows gastric emptying via the brain-intestine axis, leading to satiety. GLP-1 agonists are medications that mimic the effect of this hormone and, on average, lower hemoglobin A1C by 0.8% to 1.5%. These medications include semaglutide, liraglutide, and dulaglutide. Glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) is also an endogenous hormone, similarly secreted by the body in response to an oral glucose load such as a meal. GIP is highly expressed in the arcuate nucleus and hypothalamus, which may mediate satiety, promote energy expenditure, and enhance peripheral glucose metabolism. Tirzepatide is a dual GLP-1/GIP agonist. What is the role of GLP-1/GIP agonists in patients with overweight/obesity and/or type 2 diabetes? How does the dosing of GLP-1/GIP medications change with their intended disease target?

Emma Foley joins the show to discuss the woke calendar MGH sent to their donor list. Columbus Day has been scratched completely, and several other Leftist additions have been made. Then, John Fetterman is at it again. This time, he's talking about red pandas. As always, tune in for the Chump Line to start off the hour.