Podcast appearances and mentions of Paul Farmer

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Best podcasts about Paul Farmer

Latest podcast episodes about Paul Farmer

Deacons Pod
Catholics for the Common Good: An Eternal Offering - Daryl Russell Grigsby

Deacons Pod

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 10, 2025 60:13


Daryl Russell Grigsby, author of the new Paulist Press book "Catholics for the Common Good: An Eternal Offering" is the guest on this episode of Deacons Pod. The Paulist Deacon Affiliates ask Daryl about the 36 contemporary Catholics profiled in the book, each of whom lived the prayer "Make of us an eternal offering to you" in their commitment to the common good and to human flourishing. In particular, the deacons ask Daryl about his accounts of the inspiring lives of Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, Mary Lou Williams, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, SJ, Sr. Thea Bowman, FPSA, Dr. Paul Farmer, and Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ. ABOUT THE SHOW: Deacons Pod is a podcast for everyone. But, it's especially created to inspire and give hope to people on the “threshold of faith”: Those who are thinking about going to Church and those who are thinking about leaving Church. Deacons Pod is hosted by the Paulist Deacon affiliates. The podcast is a production of the Paulist Fathers. More at ⁠⁠deaconspod.com

Hays Christian Church
Christians Who Changed the World: Paul Farmer

Hays Christian Church

Play Episode Listen Later May 23, 2025 27:07


Matthew 25:31-46 reminds us to treat the disadvantaged in society as we would treat Jesus. Joanne Tramel, keeping tradition to highlight historic Christians, points to the example set by Paul Farmer (1959-2022). Farmer was a medical anthropologist and physician who worked and advocated for impoverished patients, largely in Haiti and the U.S.

Turn on the Lights Podcast
Imagine a public health system built on mutual aid, participation, and dignity with Eric Reinhart

Turn on the Lights Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 16, 2025 46:19


CareQuest Institute for Oral Health is a national nonprofit dedicated to creating an oral health care system that is accessible, equitable, and integrated. Learn more about how their advocacy, philanthropy, research, and education are creating a better oral health system at carequest.org/turnonthelights What if the path to better health and stronger communities doesn't start in hospitals, but in our relationships with each other? In this episode, Dr. Eric Reinhart, a political anthropologist, social psychiatrist, and psychoanalytic clinician based in Chicago, reflects on how his experiences in medicine, anthropology, and advocacy have shaped his urgent focus on public health reform, especially around mass incarceration and its devastating effects on communities. He argues that incarceration is not only a symptom but also a cause of widespread mental illness and social breakdown, emphasizing the need to democratize caregiving and public health beyond bureaucratic systems. Reinhart critiques the U.S. health care model for being overly medicalized and profit-driven, calling for a bottom-up approach that empowers communities to care for one another. He warns against relying on political self-correction, stressing that meaningful change requires validating public anger and offering materially supported, ethical alternatives rooted in relational care. Drawing from models like Paul Farmer's work and his own experiences in underserved communities, Reinhart envisions a public health system built on mutual aid, participation, and dignity. Tune in as Dr. Eric Reinhart challenges us to rethink public health by examining how systems of incarceration and inequality undermine care and what we can do to build something better! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

LIVE and IN COLOR with Wolfie “D”

Get 45% off the Magic Mind bundle with our link: https://www.magicmind.com/LIVEINCOJAN #magicmind #mentalwealth #mentalperformance #nwo #nwosting #wolfied #prowrestling Welcome to Episode 183 of LIVE and IN COLOR with Wolfie D (@warrenwolfe13) and co-host Jimmy Street (@jamesrockstreet)! Wow, what can we say, NWO Sting is freaking cool man! Once again we bring you a stellar guest in conjunction with our homie, Captain's Corner Nick! So, like we said, we got NWO Sting Jeff Farmer on the show and he has some awesome stories to tell! He grew up in Florida in a modified bus with 8 siblings and one of those siblings, Dr. Paul Farmer, became a Harvard grad and one became a pro wrestler! We're talking Thunder and Lightning, Cobra (Jimmy's fave!), NWO, Sting, Japan some GREAT Joel Deaton stories! You can see Jeff and many of the stars of WCW at Glory Days Grapplecon 2 in Lutz, FL on March 29th! Don't miss it! Visit our Live and In Color with Wolfie D podcast page! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/wolfied FOLLOW US ON: https://www.facebook.com/livewolfied https://twitter.com/livewolfied https://www.instagram.com/livewolfied/ https://www.youtube.com/@livewolfied VISIT OUR PROWRESTLINGTEES STORE: https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/related/livewolfied.html Check out co-host Jimmy's podcast Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gmbmpw ADVERTISE WITH US! Would you or your business like to become a supporter of the 'Live and In Color with Wolfie D' Podcast? Contact us at liveandincolor.wolfied@gmail.com for ad rates and sponsorship options! VISIT OUR AWESOME SPONSORS! -MANSCAPED: 20% OFF with code WOLFIE at https://manscaped.com -STEVE BOWTIE BRYANT'S 1993 "Unbeatables" trading card sets (LIMITED QUANTITIES!): Contact stevebowtiebryant@icloud.com Very Special Thanks To: Tracy Byrd and A Gathering Of None for the “Current Affair”, "Ask Wolfie D Anything" & "Name Game" theme songs! Support them at these links: https://agatheringofnone.bandcamp.com/ https://agatheringofnone.bigcartel.com/ Also, if you'd like to stream or purchase "Cap4YaDome" the official theme song for LIVE and IN COLOR with Wolfie D, you can here: Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/album/cap4yadome/1054542233?i=1054542237 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/7M8F0CTsGwCtzKBjrImC7a?si=bab79a02c9f74cc3 © jamesrockstreet Productions

Sweet On Leadership
Retrospective Special - Part 1 - Arriving

Sweet On Leadership

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 11, 2024 23:17


In this special retrospective episode, Tim Sweet revisits past guests' most profound moments to explore the idea of “arriving” — that deep sense of alignment when purpose, values, and actions converge. Through compelling anecdotes from leaders across diverse fields, this episode sheds light on how moments of arrival are not endpoints but significant milestones that shape our journey. From navigating authenticity to redefining success, Tim unpacks how leaders grow into their roles and discover their impact.Listeners will hear insights on combating imposter syndrome, fostering self-trust, and staying true to personal values. This episode celebrates growth, resilience, and purpose by featuring wisdom from figures like Tracy Borreson on avoiding burnout, Tim Beissinger on non-traditional career paths, and Aaron McConnell on leading through challenges. Tune in to learn why arrival is not just a destination but an evolving state of being.Contact Tim Sweet | Team Work Excellence: WebsiteLinkedIn: Tim SweetInstagramLinkedin: Team Work Excellence--TranscriptTim 00:00I'd like to ask you some questions. Do you consider yourself the kind of person that gets things done? Are you able to take a vision and transform that into action? Are you able to align others towards that vision and get them moving to create something truly remarkable? If any of these describe you, then you, my friend, are a leader, and this show is all about and all for you. I'm Tim Sweet, and I'd like to welcome you to Episode 45 of the Sweet on Leadership podcast. Tim 00:31Today's episode is a little bit different. It's a reflective one. Over the past 42 episodes, we've been exploring leadership growth, transformation with some incredible guests, but one theme has stood out across many of these conversations, and that's the theme I want to bring you today. Today is all about arriving. So, for this episode, I'm diving back into some of our favourite guest contributions. You'll hear short quotes; you'll hear more in-depth stories and anecdotes. Each will add to our understanding of what it means to arrive. When I say, arrive, what I mean is that moment that you know you're enough, that moment that you know you are exactly where you belong. You are fulfilling a purpose. It's a special thing, and when it happens, you know it. But what brings it about? Is it an age or experience thing? Is it a moment? Is it a milestone or maybe just a feeling that we stumble upon when we least expect it? Let's start with the basics. What does it mean to arrive? In episode five, one of my good friends and guests, Paul Farmer, a leadership coach in Australia who specializes in guiding others toward alignment and purpose, captured it so well- Paul Famer 01:50Depending on the way that the conversations happen with the owners, then choosing to bring that feeling into the business allows the business to grow in a deliberate way, whereby the business feels good for all of those that are involved in it. Tim 02:08That's it, right? It's the feeling of alignment when your actions and your purpose, and your values all click. It's not always about what you accomplish, but how it feels when you're in sync with yourself and when you're in sync with yourself, you can be in sync with others. I remember a moment in my own journey when this clicked. Early in my career, I leaned on quotes and research and experts to validate my own ideas, but a mentor told me, You're making great points, but you're not willing to own them. It stung, but it planted a seed, and a few months later, I stood up in a high-stakes meeting and delivered my perspective without quoting anyone else. And in that moment, standing on my own two feet, facing senior executives, I knew I had arrived, not because of what I had said, but because I knew I belonged at the table. To the newer leaders out there, I know how hard it can be to wait for this to happen. You spend your days dealing with imposter syndrome. You spend your days wanting to know why you're not being accepted, wrestling with feelings that you might not be good enough. You're looking ahead and wondering, When am I going to start to feel confident? When am I going to feel like I am where I belong? Here's the thing: arrival isn't something you can rush. It's not something you can force. It's something that you literally have to grow into. It's not based on some predetermined plan, and most importantly, it's not someone else's plan. My good friend, Tracy Borreson, who helps entrepreneurs and business owners really figure out how they belong, talked about avoiding burnout and how to discover authenticity. And she had this to say– Tracy Borreson 03:53I think there's many places in the world where authenticity is a buzzword, but we don't really know what that means, and if we don't know what it means for us, then things can't be authentic. And so one of my big goals is to try and create some more awareness of what authenticity actually is, instead of what people want to tell us it should look like, and create our experience, whether that is a career experience, a home experience, a community experience, a life experience that is aligned with the things that we want to do, that we can uniquely contribute, instead of what people tell us we should. And if you've listened to Tim's show, I've heard, I know you've all heard his opinion on shoulds, so that's probably why we hang out. Tim 04:39If you're chasing someone else's version of success, you'll never feel aligned. In episode 42, Tim Beissinger, one half of that dynamic duo, the ThruHikers, who's a professor and a quantitative geneticist, spoke about risking a non-traditional career path. Tim Beissinger 04:57I think people have a fear of getting off of that PhD, postdoc, professor path because all of the examples they look to are doing exactly that, and it's compelling to want to mimic the path that's worked for others, but everybody's individual and it can be more powerful to follow the path that makes sense for yourself/ Tim 05:20if we can connect with things we're passionate about, we can start to see the impact we want to have on the world, and that's when everything starts to come into focus. You don't have to follow the same road as everyone else. Your journey will look different, and that's a good thing. So take a breath, trust the process. You're not behind. You're just on your own path. For those of us further along who've had this sense of validation, we realize that these arrivals don't always happen when we reach some milestone or event or achievement. It's often found in small moments when you show up fully, even on the hardest days, it's the journey up the mountain that shapes us more than our time at the summit. Dave Sweet, yeah, my cousin is a bit of a legend in the policing community in Canada and now around North America. He was a top homicide detective here in our city, and he's one of these guys that is constantly on true crime shows. His work has given him a unique perspective, he now acts as an expert witness, consultant and author who speaks about empathy and leadership under pressure. On one of his visits to the podcast, he shared this powerful reflection about how he found his calling and when he realized it was more than just solving crimes. It was being present for others. Dave Sweet 06:41The essence of somebody or the what your mantra is going to be. So first of all, I'll always consider myself a servant to the community, you know, first and foremost, and secondly, even on the worst days with some of the worst people, if you can remember to love people, it goes a long ways to being able to ultimately accomplish whatever you're sort of said, you know, to do that particular day. And it doesn't matter who it is, everyone has a story, the uniqueness of the world that I'm in, the world of murder and stuff, we would all think, Oh, well, you know, I would never be in that situation. This could never, ever happen to me. But the truth of it is, is that the majority of people that we investigate had no idea that morning they woke up that they were about to take a life that day, and the victim had no idea that they're about to lose their life. Tim 07:31Even when things are tough, there's something grounding about staying connected to your purpose and values. That's where arrival moments happen, and sometimes it's a personal transformation. Debbie Potts, a former teammate here at Sweet on Leadership, who's also a Senior Educational Administrator, reshaped her entire life to reflect her passions and the connections she wanted to nature. Tim 07:57What did the Red House represent to you? Debbie Potts 07:58Oh my gosh. It represented freedom. It represented achievements. It represented living life on my terms. And obviously, I love nature as you do. And it just represented, you know, being able to be close to nature. And, you know, completely do a 180 turnaround of my life. You know, I lived in a big city, London, full of people, full of traffic, full of everything, and I've now completely reversed that.  Tim 08:32Innovator Jagroop Chhina, a psychological content strategist, say that three times fast, shared this perspective on transformation and its importance. Tim 08:45And blend those suckers as well so that maybe they become something brand new. Jagroop Chhina 08:47Yeah, creating something brand new that didn't exist before in a new perspective that couldn't exist unless you lived it out the way that you lived it out. Right? For me, personally, I was always a pretty smart kid. And I had a tendency to just write the answers to whatever the problem or the thing in the classroom was, right? And where I always lost marks was in showing my work. That was my feedback over my entire, like, elementary to high school—'show your work.' And that's what creating content is actually about. It's about showing your work and documenting what it takes for us to succeed, right? Because that's how we actually learn our lessons—well, other people learn lessons from us is by showing them, 'Oh, this is what we go through on the day-to-day to build this out.Tim 09Æ41Even though we're focused on professional experiences, it's deeply personal. It's about those moments when you feel fully aligned with who you are and what you stand for. In an episode that we published our very first summer, George Trachilis shared a rich story about learning alongside a mentor. George Trachilis 10:01I brought Ritsuo Shingo, bless his heart; he's the late Shingo now. Shingo San, I brought him to Santorini, Greece, along with others, who were leaders in their industry, you know, there's business owners, there's, you know, others like Paul Akers, as an example, I brought him to Santorini, Greece. And we did training there. And we went through a Gemba Walk of Santo Wines, one of the biggest, the biggest winery in Santorini. And we're watching somebody work, we're watching somebody work. And what they're doing is they got a big light facing them, and they got, you know, like three bottles on each end. And they're looking, their eyes are focused on the bottle, and the light is behind it. So, you might be able to see something, you know, in the bottle. And so they're looking for spiders, because the bottle sometimes just, just over. So they do wash the bottles, but sometimes, you know, if there's like a big nest in there, you put that bottle aside and needs extra washing, but this is what this person's job function was. And Ritsuo wouldn't leave. And he's just observing. And I'm thinking, what's he, what could he possibly observe? Like the flow is such that there's such a queue in front of them, and the line is running, and there's no way he's gonna be out of work. Like, he's got a lot of work and the lines running, maybe he's not, maybe they're slack. I don't know if he's trying to calculate how much time he's actually working, versus how many bottles are moved. I don't know what he's doing. And it was so shocking. I said, what do you what are you doing? He says George San, watch his eyes. And I'm watching the worker's eyes. And as he lifts the bottles, his eyes are down. I'm going, oh, Shingo San; I never thought to watch the worker's eyes. Like pretend you're in the worker's shoes, and think you're the worker, and your job is to do this function. And he says also, there's no standard. I said, what do you mean no standard? Sometimes he lifts up three bottles, and two, and sometimes two and two, sometimes three and three, there's no standard. And I'm going, Wow, he got all that from what I would just say that's just not important.  Tim 12:10Okay, one thing that's clear with many of our guests is that they've all had several moments of arrival. Once you've had that first moment of arrival, you're now free to help others find theirs, because, you know, it exists. Rita Ernst, an Organizational Psychologist and author who explores positivity and authenticity, put it this way– Rita Ernst 12:32You become this beacon of possibility for others. It will happen in that way but it does take a little bit of courage to be the one to stand, and I'm not talking about swallow it down false positivity. You know, when people are being disrespectful, when people are harassing others, you need to stand up and challenge that behaviour and stand for your values in that moment, and that is showing up positive. So it's not about just smoothing everything out, and like we were talking about, really, it's not about avoiding conflict at all, but it is about being true to who you need to be to have the workplace around you that you desire. Tim 13:20From a completely different perspective. Brent Yonk, an FBI section chief, emphasized that self-leadership was the foundation for guiding others. Here's his reflection. Brent Yonk 13:31There are people that are following you in the sense that they are watching you, they are taking cues from you. They may even be modelling some of their behaviours after what you're doing. You just may not be aware of that. But even if all of that were taken away, there is still one person that you can absolutely have follow you, and that's you. And that may sound really funny, but I have seen so many people that you can clearly see that they don't have that confidence in themselves to lead themselves effectively, and if you're already struggling to recognize yourself as your own leader. Like what hope do we have for you to be able to effectively lead others? So I think that developing that internal compass, that internal sense that the power to make decisions, the power to guide your fate as it were, is in your hands, right? You get to choose the actions that you're going to take. You get to choose whether or not you're going to try to broaden your awareness of what is influencing and impacting you, or you can just shut down, and you can just put your head down, and you can just focus on doing the easy thing, right? Follow the downward path. That choice is there. And when you recognize that I can lead, even if it's just myself, I can be a leader, you start to unlock that potential. You start to broaden your horizon. You start to open that aperture and see more possibility for yourself. And then that will continue to broaden, and you'll start to see people around you, and you'll start to recognize in them the skills, the abilities, the knowledge, the potential that's there. And then you can start to encourage them to join you on this journey. And now you're starting to see exponential impact happen from that.  Tim 15:26Here's the thing about these moments of arrival. They don't happen all at once. They come in waves. And they don't happen all in the same place. They can happen in different areas of your life, different roles that you're fulfilling. Peter Root, an engineer and innovator working in wildfire robotics, reflected on his long journey. Peter Root 15:48Well, we're about to do a bunch of work with Alberta wildfire, and this means taking our team and our alpha prototype and eventually our next version out to real fires and interacting with them and the people there in a real way. And that, to me, is the most exciting part of running the business. This is where I wanted to be, like, you know, three years ago, but I'm finally here, and this is where I think the relationships get solidified. You know, we built the beginning up, but this is where we show them that, hey, we can come, we'll bring our thing, and then we'll improve it next time we're out here, and we're going to do that until it's something of such extreme value that you'll never kick us off again. Like, that's where we want to get to, and we're at the beginning stages of this, and we're also in an environment now where it's really fun, like there's nothing more fun to me than going out to a wild area with a bunch of hard-working people who have been continuing and interacting with the wildfire, which is such an extreme event and such a such an admirable profession, to be around those people and then to be able to bring them something new and work collectively to build it. What's more fun than that? Tim 16:51In another episode, Massimo Backus, an executive coach focused on self-trust and leadership, brought this to the table. Massimo Backus 16:59Yeah, yeah, one of those bedrock moments that you can always go back to remember what it was like when you truly trusted yourself. And you know, in the organizational context and leadership, you know landscape, we talk about trust all the time. Like leadership, how many books have been written about trust? How often in trust conversations, do we talk about the value of trusting ourselves? Or do we ask, How do I know when I trust myself? How do I know when I'm not trusting myself? What do I need in order to be able to trust myself? What's present when I trust myself least? These are questions that are very rarely asked in the broader conversation about trust. It is always about another person or the team, and that's important, absolutely. But I believe, and I found with the leaders that I've worked with throughout my career, that often, when trust is not present on a team, there is trust that is not present for each individual with themselves. Tim 18:05As we wrap up this retrospective, I want to finish on a couple of notes. Let's remember arrival isn't the end. It's a base camp, a place of safety along the journey. It's about trusting yourself, celebrating your growth and staying open to new possibilities. It's a revolution and an evolution. Here's a beautiful part of what Teresa Waddington brought in Episode 28.  Teresa Waddington 18:29We're gonna need that revolution. We're also gonna need the evolution, and we're gonna need them to come together, to really step change us into what is completely new. So, when I think about like from a leadership perspective, it's being open to change. It's looking for the holes in your argument. And I'll give you an example on my own leadership journey, I've always tried to say, What am I blind to? So, what are people saying about me that I should know in order to decide if I'm going to change anything about what I do, how I show up, how I build my skill sets, how I build my allegiances. Because if I don't know, it might feel comfortable. It might feel like I'm not, you know, exposed to negative opinions of myself. But if I do know, then I can make a choice, and to be comfortable enough to ask for the bad feedback, it requires a measure of worthiness, or belief in your own worthiness. And when I think about the people that I mentor and support, the ones that I want to see continue to drive forward and change the world, it's reinforcing their own core worthiness, while at the same time gathering feedback. Tim 19:39I want to give the last word to Aaron McConnell, my lifelong friend and the CEO of TransRockies. I feel that this story of his is very genuine and very real, and something that many of us can relate to because it's in the middle of hard work that these moments happen. I'm going to let Aaron wrap us up with this last story. Tim 20:02These are great events. You often talk about them as if they are summer camp for adults, right? And so people are out there, and they are having a blast, and they're doing what they love, and they're out in the sun, and they're out in nature, and they're sweating in all the right ways, and good food, good drink, good friends, campfires, the whole nine yards, and they must look at you and say, Wow. What a job to be able to do this for your entire career, right?  Aaron McConnell 20:38Well, there's definitely two sides to it. So we live double lives, I guess, and in this industry, because there is the times when we're in the field, basically, so when we're at an event. We're working on an event, we're with the athletes, and for the most part, that's really positive, you know, unless we're dealing with some kind of crisis that comes up, which does happen sometimes as well, but that's what we live for at events, or even when we're on a scouting trip or doing route planning or something out in the field, and that's where the glamorous side of the event promoter lifestyle is maybe a little bit true. I mean, yeah, sometimes we're trying to figure out where to put the porta potties or something. But you know, still, you know, being creative and hanging out with great people and really cool places. Tim 21:31Here's the thing about arriving: it's not the finish line; it's a feeling, a realization, and sometimes it's just a moment of clarity. It's never really over. And each time we reach a new understanding of ourselves, it allows us to open a door and then further explore our purpose and our impact until, eventually, we arrive again. As you reflect on your own journey, remember this. You're exactly where you need to be right now, whether you're at the start of your race, navigating switchbacks or midlife transitions or finding new ways to give back to others, know that each moment of arrival is a pivotal part of your story, and they're worth celebrating. Thank you for listening to this retrospective, and thank you for joining our community as always, keep leading, keep learning and keep arriving, and I'll see you in the next episode. Tim 22:26Thank you so much for listening to Sweet on Leadership. If you found today's podcast valuable, consider visiting our website and signing up for the companion newsletter. You can find the link in the show notes. If like us, you think it's important to bring new ideas and skills into the practice of leadership, please give us a positive rating and review on Apple podcasts. This helps us spread the word to other committed leaders, and you can spread the word too by sharing this with your friends, teams and colleagues. Thanks again for listening, and be sure to tune in in two weeks' time for another episode of Sweet on Leadership. In the meantime, I'm your host, Tim Sweet, encouraging you to keep on leading.

Business Of Biotech
Serving The Underserved With Gates MRI's Claire Wagner, M.D.

Business Of Biotech

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 11, 2024 46:48 Transcription Available


We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Bill and Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute's (Gates MRI) Dr. Claire Wagner joins us to share insights into her work as head of Corporate Strategy and Market Access there. She shares the development of her North Star while working with the incomparable Dr. Paul Farmer in Rwanda, and how that experience translates to the growth of a biopharmaceutical company taking big swings for grossly underserved populations. We discuss the nuances assoiated with setting strategy and enabling product access in a unique not-for-profit setting, and how, perhaps counterintutively, the Institute's work fits synergistically into an ultra-competitive for-profit biopharma landscape. Access this and hundreds of episodes of the Business of Biotech videocast under the Listen & Watch tab at bioprocessonline.com. Subscribe to our monthly Business of Biotech newsletter. Get in touch with guest and topic suggestions: matt.pillar@lifescienceconnect.comFind Matt Pillar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewpillar/

Keen On Democracy
Episode 2235: Peter Osnos on LBJ & McNamara - the Vietnam Partnership Bound to Fail

Keen On Democracy

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 28, 2024 48:05


There are few men politically or intellectually smarter than President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary Robert McNamara. So how did LBJ and McNamara screw up America's involvement in Vietnam so tragically? According to Peter Osnos, the author of LBJ and McNamara: The Vietnam Partnership Destined to Fail, it might have been because the two men were, in their own quite different ways, too smart. For Osnos - a legendary figure in American publishing who, amongst many other things, edited Donald Trump's Art of the Deal - the catastrophe of America's war in Vietnam is a parable about imperial hubris and overreach. According to Osnos, who has access to much previously unpublished material from McNamara, The Best and the Brightest orchestrated the worst and dumbest episode in American foreign policy. Peter Osnos began his journalism career in 1965 as an assistant to I. F. .Stone on his weekly newsletter. Between 1966–1984 Osnos was a reporter and foreign correspondent for The Washington Post and served as the newspaper's foreign and national editor. From 1984-1996 he was Vice President, Associate Publisher, and Senior Editor at Random House and Publisher of Random House's Times Books division. In 1997, he founded PublicAffairs. He served as Publisher and CEO until 2005, and was a consulting editor until 2020 when he and his wife, Susan Sherer Osnos, launched Platform Books LLC. Among the authors he has published and/or edited are — former President Jimmy Carter, Rosalyn Carter, Gen. Wesley Clark, Clark Clifford, former President Bill Clinton, Paul Farmer, Earvin (Magic) Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Sam Donaldson, Kenneth Feinberg, Annette Gordon Reed, Meg Greenfield, Dorothy Height, Don Hewitt, Molly Ivins, Vernon Jordan, Ward Just, Stanley Karnow, Wendy Kopp, Charles Krauthammer, Brian Lamb, Jim Lehrer, Scott McClellan, Robert McNamara, Charles Morris, Peggy Noonan, William Novak, Roger Mudd. Former President Barack Obama, Speaker of the House Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill, Nancy Reagan, Andy Rooney, Morley Safer, Natan Sharansky, George Soros, Susan Swain, President Donald Trump, Paul Volcker, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and Nobel peace prize Winner Muhammad Yunus, as well as journalists from America's leading publications and prominent scholars. Osnos has also been a commentator and host for National Public Radio and a contributor to publications including Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. He wrote the Platform column for the Century Foundation, the Daily Beast and The Atlantic.com from 2006-2014. He has also served as Chair of the Trade Division of the Association of American Publishers and on the board of Human Rights Watch. From 2005-2009, he was executive director of The Caravan Project, funded by the MacArthur and Carnegie Foundations, which developed a plan for multi-platform publishing of books. He was the Vice-Chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review from  2007-2012. He is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations. He is a graduate of Brandeis and Columbia Universities. He lives in New York City, with his wife Susan, a consultant to human rights and philanthropic organizations. His children are Evan L.R. Osnos and Katherine Sanford. There are five grandchildren.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

The Retirement Wisdom Podcast
Passion and Purpose – Jim Ansara

The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 21, 2024 31:30


A study by Stanford and Encore.org found that the majority of older adults want to give back in some way. Jim Ansara, an AARP 2024 Purpose Prize winner, is making a big difference in his retirement with his organization Build Health International. How might you redirect your skills and experience to make a difference? Jim Ansara joins us from Beverly , Massachusetts. ____________________ Bio Jim Ansara is a retired general contractor who founded Shawmut Design and Construction in Boston in the early 1980's and led it to become one of the top 25 construction companies in the US. While at Shawmut he led several volunteer teams of employees to build low-tech, clean water systems in Nicaragua with the organization, El Porvenir. After retiring as Chairman of the Board, Jim redirected his energy to the developing world. In 2009 a trip to Haiti with Dr. Paul Farmer led to an invitation to build a small community hospital with Partners in Health (PIH) in Haiti's Central Plateau. The process took a major turn when a massive earthquake struck the country on January 10, 2010. For three-and-a-half years after the earthquake, through the outbreak of cholera and political unrest, through hurricanes and unbearable heat, Jim, his partner Dr. David Walton of PIH, and hundreds of Haitian and Dominican workers persevered to build Haiti's new 340-bed National Teaching Hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti. Since its completion, the mission to build and equip global health care infrastructure has continued via a new non-profit, Build Health International, based in Beverly, MA. The BHI team has undertaken projects in low-resource settings across 22 countries with PIH, the Kellogg Foundation, Cure International, Direct Relief International and numerous other NGOS. For Jim's philanthropy he has received Honorary Doctorates in Humane Letters from Amherst College and Salem State University, as well as distinction from Partners in Health, Health Equity International, The American Red Cross Northeast MA Chapter, the Political Asylum and Immigration Representation Project, Summer Search Boston, and more. He serves on the board of Health Equity International, and in years past on the boards of Salem State University, the Boston Children's Museum, Youth Build, and City Year. _____________________ For More on Jim Ansara Build Health International (BHI) Health Equity Humanitarian Delivers Hospitals for the Poor ____________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Changing the World One Small Act at a Time – Brad Aronson Live Life in Crescendo – Cynthia Covey Haller The Best Day of My Life So Far – Benita Cooper Why People Make a Career Change with Purpose Top of Mind – Chris Farrell ____________________ Wise Quotes On Learning and New Challenges in Retirement "I'm passionate about tackling challenges and solving problems. And one of the things that really excites me in life is learning, not necessarily learning in traditional methods, but learning by sort of immersion, where I'm trying to keep my nose and mouth just above the flood tide. And I need a level of sort of challenge and the accompanying freneticism in my life to really be happy. I'd like it to be different. I'd like to be a more relaxed and easy-going person, but at 67, that's not going to change probably. So it's really a combination of those two things. And I found, and this is an area, Build Health International, where I could really exercise both of those things. It's informative about who I am and who I'm not." On the Transition to Retirement "I'd like to say that I got to where I am by lots of self reflection and and and that kind of thing, but it's not true. I really fell into it. But I kept sort of trying to figure out what was next for me. And I was also clear on what I didn't want to do. I knew some people who had sold companies and made some money, and many of them manage their money and got into business, either as consultants or advisors.

The Development Debrief
154. Jessica Carbone: Philanthropy Means Love

The Development Debrief

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 25, 2024 31:18


Welcome to the podcast! Today, we're thrilled to welcome Jessica Carbone, the Associate Director of Development for Major Gifts at Boston College, where she oversees initiatives in Seattle and Denver. A proud alumna of BC herself, Jessica graduated from the Lynch School of Education and Human Development in 2014, and her journey since then has been nothing short of inspiring. After earning her degree, Jessica jumped into the nonprofit world with Partners In Health, where she made a significant impact as a major gifts coordinator and stewardship associate. She played a key role in launching their first fundraising gala, "An Evening for Equity," and was honored to tour nationally with the late Dr. Paul Farmer for the documentary "Bending the Arc." Continuing her pursuit of knowledge, Jessica went on to complete her master's in Education Policy and Management at Harvard. From there, she moved to Denver, where she excelled as a Major Gift Officer at the University of Colorado Boulder. In July 2023, Jessica returned to her roots in Massachusetts, taking on her current role at Boston College. In addition to her impressive career, we're excited to discuss Jessica's book, Philanthropy Means Love, which delves into the deep connections between giving and love in our communities. Beyond her professional accomplishments, Jessica is an avid traveler—having explored destinations like Bangkok, Madrid, and Sorrento. When she's not on the go, you can find her enjoying time at Long Beach in Rockport, MA, where she has made cherished memories with family. Join us as we dive into Jessica's journey, her insights on philanthropy, and the themes of her book. You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Philanthropy-Means-Love-Jessica-Carbone/dp/B0DC4S4K1R --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/devdebrief/support

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life
Shabbat Sermon: Love and Complexity with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 14, 2024 17:26


Last Sunday evening Shira and I were in Lakewood, New Jersey for a wedding.  Lakewood is the capital of the charedi, or ultra-Orthodox, world in America.  Lakewood boasts a world-famous charedi yeshiva called Beth Medrash Govoha which is the second largest yeshiva in the world, second only to the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem.  The wedding was charedi.  Men and women sat separately during the wedding.  Men and women danced separately after the wedding. There was a thick wall separating the men and women dancing.  And a strong majority of the men wore black hats.  It was the first black hat wedding we had ever attended. Being at this wedding called to mind, for me, a famous story about Dr. Paul Farmer in Tracy Kidder's biography called Mountains Beyond Mountains.   Paul Farmer would go to impoverished third world nations and provide modern health care to people who otherwise did not have access to modern medicine.  One day Paul Farmer is in Haiti where there had been a tuberculosis outbreak.  Many locals believed that tuberculosis is caused by sorcery, by an enemy casting a spell upon them, the response to which was to ask a Voodoo priest to cast a curse upon your enemy in retaliation for causing your illness.  Paul Farmer tries to make the case that tuberculosis is a disease caused by germs, not an illness caused by curses; and that the most helpful response is antibiotics, not mobilizing a Voodoo priest to cast a counter curse.  Paul Farmer meets a woman afflicted by tuberculosis who is persuaded to take medication.  She recovers.  Afterwards she tells Paul Farmer, “I know TB is caused by germs.”  And she also says I know which enemy cursed me so I asked my Voodoo priest to get revenge.  Paul Farmer responded,  if you believe it was an enemy that cast a curse upon you, why then did you take the antibiotics?  To which this Haitian woman responded: “Honey, are you incapable of complexity?"

Stimulus.
The Strange History of Medical Debt

Stimulus.

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2024 52:47


Medical debt has a strange and storied history in America. Stretching back to colonial times, physicians and patients alike have grappled with its harsh realities. In recent years, hospitals have resorted to selling medical debt to third parties, who then aggressively pursue patients. In today's episode, medical historian Luke Messac, MD, PhD, guides us through the past and present landscape of medical debt, examining perspectives from patients, providers, hospitals, and governments. We delve into a form of indentured servitude in the name of debt clearance, the birth of nonprofit hospitals, a pivotal shift in the 1980s, feasibility of operating healthcare under free market principles, medical economics in the 1600s, hospitals suing patients, and the emergence of medical debt as its own thriving industry.

Faculty Feed
From Tennessee to Calcutta to Kentucky: Dr. Jackson Williams' Global Health Journey

Faculty Feed

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 28, 2024 21:53


Dr. Jackson Williams, University of Louisville Department of Pediatrics shares his two-decade long journey and experience in global health, tracing back to his volunteer work in rural Kentucky and his transformative service trips to Calcutta, India, and Liberia, Africa. This episode is part of a series dedicated to global health, marking a significant discussion point as the podcast explores this topic for the first time in its 115 episodes. Dr. Williams recounts his hands-on experiences in various countries, including a pivotal sabbatical year in Liberia where he contributed to the development of academic pediatrics amid post-civil war recovery. Listeners will gain insights into the evolving nature of global health engagements, the importance of humility and self-reflection in these settings, and the critical evaluation of short-term medical missions. Dr. Williams emphasizes the need for partnerships with local health systems and long-term impact over quick fixes. Discover the challenges and rewards of global health work, the significance of bilateral exchanges, and how future healthcare professionals can thoughtfully and effectively engage in global health initiatives. Dr. Williams also discusses the influential book "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Dr. Paul Farmer, which encapsulates the spirit of relentless perseverance in the face of ongoing global health challenges.   Tune in to this episode to be inspired by Dr. Williams' dedication and to learn how you can make a meaningful impact in the world of global health. Do you have comments or questions about Faculty Feed? Contact us at FacFeed@louisville.edu. We look forward to hearing from you. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hscfacdev/message

The Podcast by KevinMD
Broken but beautiful: Healing ourselves and the world

The Podcast by KevinMD

Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2024 20:21


Join Nessa Meshkaty, an internal medicine, pediatrics, and infectious disease physician, as she explores the profound intersections of empathy, human connection, and societal challenges in this thought-provoking podcast. Drawing on insights from her personal experiences, conversations with mentors like Dr. Paul Farmer, and observations from her global travels, Nessa delves into topics such as the Japanese philosophy of kintsugi, the importance of empathy in addressing social issues, and the impact of technology on human relationships. Through engaging discussions and insightful reflections, listeners are invited to contemplate the complexities of the human condition and discover actionable strategies for fostering genuine connections and collective healing. Nessa Meshkaty is an internal medicine, pediatrics, and infectious disease physician. She discusses the KevinMD article, "Kintsugi: Embracing brokenness and empathy." Our presenting sponsor is Nuance, a Microsoft company. Together, Microsoft and Nuance are leveraging their rich digital technology and advanced AI capabilities to tackle some of health care's biggest challenges. AI-driven technology promises to revolutionize patient and provider experiences with clinical documentation that writes itself. The Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience, or DAX for short, is a voice-enabled solution that automatically captures patient encounters securely and accurately at the point of care. DAX Copilot combines proven conversational and ambient AI with the most advanced generative AI in a mobile application that integrates directly with your existing workflows. Physicians who use DAX have reported a 50 percent decrease in documentation time and a 70 percent reduction in feelings of burnout, and 85 percent of patients say their physician is more personable and conversational. Discover AI-powered clinical documentation that writes itself. Visit https://nuance.com/daxinaction to see a 12-minute DAX Copilot demo. VISIT SPONSOR → https://nuance.com/daxinaction SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST → https://www.kevinmd.com/podcast RECOMMENDED BY KEVINMD → https://www.kevinmd.com/recommended GET CME FOR THIS EPISODE → https://earnc.me/zuv7D6 Powered by CMEfy.

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Chris Keefer: "Empowering the Future: from Nuclear to Podcasting"

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens

Play Episode Listen Later May 15, 2024 130:15


On this episode, Nate is joined by ER doctor, nuclear power advocate, and podcast host Chris Keefer for a broad ranging conversation including the basics of nuclear energy, how he engages with opposing opinions, and hypotheticals for a future medical system. Coming from a broad background, Chris understands what it means to have a human to human conversation and put together the pieces of our systemic puzzle in a clear and compelling way. What role could nuclear play for our future energy needs - and how are different countries making use of it today? How can we prioritize the health and safety of people under energetic and resource constraints? Most of all, how do we listen to others that we don't agree with - regardless of the issue - to foster the diverse perspectives necessary to navigate the coming challenges of the human predicament?  About Chris Keefer: Chris Keefer MD, CCFP-EM is a Staff Emergency Physician at St Joseph's Health Centre and a Lecturer for the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is also an avid advocate for expanding nuclear power as the President of Canadians for Nuclear Energy and Director of Doctors for Nuclear Energy. Additionally, he is the host of the Decouple Podcast exploring the most pressing questions in energy, climate, environment, politics, and philosophy. PDF Transcript Show Notes  00:00 - Chris Keefer works + info, Decouple Podcast, Canadians for Nuclear Energy 04:45 - Egalitarian hunter gatherer society, infant mortality 05:12 - Bow drill fire 07:10 - Yukon 07:30 - Humans and livestock outweigh wild mammals 50:1, not in the Yukon 08:10 - Dr. Paul Farmer 08:45 - Most humans use to work in agriculture, ~15% now involved in healthcare 10:56 - Ontario nuclear power, one of lowest electric grid in the world 12:01 - Justin Trudeau 12:24 - Simcoe Clinic, Canadian Center for Victims of Torture 14:01 - World population over time 14:36 - Paleodemography 14:59 - Degrowth 15:19 - Infant mortality in developed countries 15:55 - Tight link between energy, materials and GDP 20:54 - Duck and Cover Drills 21:05 - Environmental Movement and Nuclear 21:21 - Nagasaki bomb radiation injuries 21:49 - High dose radiation is deadly, low dose radiation less so 21:05 - Strontium-90 found in the teeth of babies 21:10 - Atmospheric weapons testing ban 22:33 - Fukushima meltdown, health impacts are negligible 23:09 - 20,000 people died from the Fukushima earthquake and following tsunami  23:47 - Fukushima contaminated water has been filtered out and is safe 24:24 - How radiation is measured 26:02 - Health effects from alcohol 26:16 - Drinking culture in the U.S. 27:22 - Nuclear energy density, land footprint 28:23 - Best nuclear applications and limitations 30:01 - Those who live in nuclear powered areas fare better 30:33 - Price of nuclear energy over the lifetime 30:45 - Nuclear power in France 31:18 - Canada energy history, center for nuclear research outside of the Manhattan Project 32:23 - 1000 people die prematurely every year due to coal 33:25 - Ontario population 33:38 - Candu Reactors 34:15 - Levelized cost of electricity, skewed with renewables 37:01 - Lazard Graphs 38:09 - Mark Jacobson 41:07 - Carbon emissions by power source 41:23 - Lifespan of nuclear plants 43:11 - Land use change impacts 43:31 - Nuclear and job creation 46:05 - US spending on military vs healthcare 48:49 - Meiji Restoration 49:33 - Vaclav Smil 50:42 - AI electricity demands 50:55 - AI risks 51:29 - Meredith Angwin  52:42 - Nuclear fuel 53:10 - 46% of uranium enrichment happens in Russia 54:15 - Known Uranium Reserves 54:25 - Haber Bosch  54:55 - Breeder Reactors 55:42 - Uranium in seawater 56:14 - Slow vs Fast Neutrons, fertile elements 57:04 - Sodium Fast Reactor 58:45 - China built a nuclear reactor in less than 4 years 1:00:05 - Defense in depth 1:01:11 - EMP, solar flare 1:01:30 - HBO's Chernobyl, wildlife thriving in chernobyl area 1:03:13 - Death toll from radiation in Chernobyl 1:05:13 - Scientific literature and confirmation bias 1:08:12 - Chernobyl Children's International 1:08:44 - Genome sequencing of highest exposures to radiation from chernobyl 1:09:09 - Germline mutations if the father smokes 1:10:02 - The Great Simplification animated video 1:10:32 - Peak Oil 1:12:10 - Complex 6-continent supply chains 1:12:30 - I, Pencil 1:15:19 - Nuclear Fusion 1:16:24 - Lawrence Livermore 1:17:45 - Tomas Murphy, Galactic Scale Energy 1:18:11 - Small Modular Reactor 1:19:26 - Cost saving in nuclear comes from scaling 1:19:34 - Wright's Law, economies of multiples 1:23:33 - Biden administration policies and advances on nuclear 1:24:00 - Non-profit industrial complex 1:24:24 - The size of the US non-profit economy 1:24:44 - Sierra Club, anti-nuclear history 1:25:14 - Rocky Mountain Club 1:27:15 - Hans Rosling 1:27:32 - Somalia infant mortality rate 1:27:42 - Cuba 1990s economic shock and response 1:27:42 - Vandana Shiva + TGS Episode 1:30:27 - Cognitive Dissonance 1:31:45 - Jonathan Haidt + TGS Podcast, Righteous Mind 1:32:48 - Fatality and hospitalization statistics for COVID for first responders 1:33:22 - Truckers protest in Ottawa 1:34:15 - The problem with superchickens  1:36:54 - How social media tries to keep you online 1:37:12 - Paleopsychology 1:37:55 - Tristan Harris and Daniel Schmachtenberger on Joe Rogan 1:39:45 - John Kitzhaber + TGS Episode, Robert Lustig + TGS Episode 1:39:55 - US healthcare 20% of GDP, 50% of the world's medical prescriptions are in the US  1:41:55 - Superutilizers 1:42:37 - Cuban medical system, spending, life expectancy, infant mortality 1:43:06 - Cuban export of pharmaceuticals 1:44:08 - Preventative medicine, chronic disease management 1:44:25 - Cuban doctor to person ratio, rest of the world 1:48:47 - Social determinants of health 1:49:20 - Cement floor reducing illness in Mexico 1:50:03 - Hygiene hypothesis 1:50:28 - Zoonotic disease and human/animal cohabitation 1:50:50 - Roundworm life cycle 1:52:38 - Acceptable miss rates 1:53:16 - Cancer screening effectiveness  1:53:58 - Drugs produced from nuclear plant byproducts 1:58:18 - Timothy O'Leary 2:02:28 - Superabundance 2:02:40 - Julian Simons and Paul Ehrlich bet 2:02:15 - Malthusian 2:06:08 - Pickering Plant Watch this video episode on YouTube

Faculty Voices
Episode 54: Dr. Louise Ivers on Health and Haiti

Faculty Voices

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 30, 2024 32:16


Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned April 25, clearing the way towards new elections. Dr. Louise Ivers, Harvard professor of global health and social medicine, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, has devoted 21 years of her life to Haiti. Here, she talks about the current situation in the country and how it affects ordinary people.

Outcomes Rocket
Personalized Support for Medication Adherence with Sebastian Seiguer, CEO and co-founder of Scene Health

Outcomes Rocket

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 17, 2024 17:07


Medication adherence is not just about getting medication into people's hands, it's about ensuring they take it correctly. In this episode, Sebastian Seiguer, CEO and co-founder of Scene Health, shares his journey from starting a coffee chain in Munich to transitioning into healthcare due to a desire for more meaningful work inspired by his family's medical background. He explains how Scene Health employs video technology and a care team to ensure patients take their medications correctly, initially targeting tuberculosis and addiction medications and now expanding to conditions like asthma, diabetes, and hypertension, showing positive outcomes and cost savings. Sebastian emphasizes the importance of focusing on health outcomes rather than just adherence metrics, highlighting the need for immediate results in healthcare. He also discusses the untapped potential of medication adherence as a daily opportunity for patient engagement and improved chronic condition management.  Tune in and learn how innovative solutions like Scene Health are revolutionizing medication adherence and improving healthcare outcomes! Resources:  Watch the entire interview here.  Connect with and follow Sebastian on LinkedIn here. Learn more about Scene Health on LinkedIn and their website. Learn more about the documentary featuring Paul Farmer here. Contact Scene Health's team via email at info@Scene.health.

HealthBiz with David E. Williams
Interview with Healthcare Ready President Tom Cotter

HealthBiz with David E. Williams

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 25, 2024 33:14


Tom Cotter from Healthcare Ready joins the podcast to discuss  the impact of disasters on vulnerable communities. Tom brings a combination of professional expertise and humanitarian insight to the conversation. We delve into the complex interplay of social and economic factors that make certain populations more vulnerable to emergencies, drawing upon his experiences and academic research, including his time in Manila and his long-ago encounter with Dr. Paul Farmer.The episode explores the evolution of Healthcare Ready, an organization formed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and further developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine how Healthcare Ready has effectively utilized public-private partnerships to create equitable health solutions in crisis situations. We discuss the response to the recent Maui wildfire, illustrating successful collaboration between non-governmental organizations and the importance of pooling resources and knowledge for community benefit.Host David E. Williams is president of healthcare strategy consulting firm Health Business Group. Produced by Dafna Williams.

Down the Wormhole
Equity and Love with Dr Emily Smith

Down the Wormhole

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2023 64:01


Episode 120 Today we are joined by Dr Emily Smith to talk about epidemiology, the dangers of truth telling, and how the story of the Good Samaritan changed everything for her.  She is an assistant professor in the department of emergency medicine/surgery at Duke University and at the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI). During the COVID-19 pandemic, she became known as the Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist through her social media outlets which reached over 10 million people in 2020-2021. She continues posting on the social account and her Substack blog with a monthly reach of 2-4 million. Her work has been featured in TIME Magazine, NPR, the Washington Post, Christianity Today, and Baptist News Global. Before joining the faculty at Duke University, she spent four years at Baylor University in the department of public health and was a research scholar at DGHI for two years. She received her Ph.D. in epidemiology from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill and a MSPH from the University of South Carolina.  She has been married to her pastor-husband for 20 years and they have two fantastic children, one spoiled golden retriever and a new very-friendly golden doodle puppy. Her debut book, The Science of the Good Samaritan: Thinking Bigger About Loving Our Neighbors, released on Oct. 24, 2023 from Zondervan. I'm very excited to welcome Dr. Emily Smith to the show today.    Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    AI Generated Transcript Ian (00:04.911) Okay. So our guest today is an assistant professor in the department of emergency medicines surgery at Duke university and at the Duke global health Institute. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she became known as the friendly neighbor epidemiologist through her social media outlets, which reached over 10 million people in 2020 and 2021. She continues posting on the social account and her sub stack blog with a monthly reach of two to 4 million people. Her work has been featured in Time Magazine, NPR, The Washington Post, Christianity Today, and Baptist News Global. Before joining the faculty at Duke University, she spent four years at Baylor University in the Department of Public Health and was a research scholar at DGHI for two years. She received her PhD in epidemiology from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill and MSPH from the University of South Carolina. She's been married to her pastor husband for 20 years and they have two fantastic children. one spoiled golden retriever and a newly and a new very friendly golden doodle puppy. Her debut book, the science of the good Samaritan thinking bigger, bigger about loving our neighbors released on October 24th, 2023. I'm very excited to welcome Dr. Emily Smith to the show today. Emily Smith (01:15.144) I'm very excited to welcome you all. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here for sure. Ian (01:21.518) Yeah. Um, as I was saying before we started recording, you know, I've found you because of your Facebook account and was just always amazed, obviously with your expertise in the science and, um, everything you were sharing, but also your lens as an evangelical Christian. Um, I thought that was really fascinating and trying to work with those two communities, right? Trying to kind of be a boundary, uh, spanning individual for that. But I think before we really get into that. Emily Smith (01:43.734) Yeah. Ian (01:50.162) I would love for you to just kind of talk to us a little bit about what drew you to epidemiology. Emily Smith (01:56.476) Yes, and prior to the pandemic, I don't think a lot of people knew what that word meant. By the way, it's seven syllables, and so throw that into a Thanksgiving meal or something if you need a big word to kind of wow family with. But, you know, people would get us confused with skin doctors, like epidermis instead of epidemics, or entomology, which I think is bugs, right? Yeah, it's just another really big E word. I don't know. So now... Zack Jackson (02:00.95) Ha ha ha. Ian (02:19.548) It is. Yes. Zack Jackson (02:19.756) Yeah. Emily Smith (02:26.068) People know kind of what we are and who we're about just because we've all come out of the pandemic. So if you need the nerdy, jeopardy definition of what that is, before I get into how I got into the field, is the distribution and determinants of disease. And so what makes a disease spread and who is at risk? I tend to say, you know, clinicians and nurses and dentists, they... focus on one-on-one patients at a time, and we focus on one community or population level at a time, so the aggregate of a lot of individuals. I grew up in a tiny town in Eastern New Mexico, 10 miles from the Texas border, so it is West Texas culture, flat land, great sunsets and oil fields, and really good people. But it was a really small town and a lovely town. And I just was always loved science. My eighth grade science teacher started talking about DNA and y'all would have thought he was talking about Beyonce or something. I was just like, what is this? And it's magic. And so he gave me a college textbook. This is as nerdy as it gets. Now it's kind of cool to be a nerd back then in the 90s. I guarantee it was not near as cool to wear glasses. Yeah. Zack Jackson (03:44.687) Ugh. Right? Emily Smith (03:48.5) So he, and I read it, I read it on a band trip, which is like double nerd points. But I just loved science and math. I don't know what it was, but he hooked me up with the first female scientist that I had ever met at Texas Tech University. And I started doing a science fair project with her in high school, because there really wasn't the capacity to do anything like that, you know, at my traditional high school, because it was too small. Ian (03:48.514) Mm-hmm. Emily Smith (04:16.668) And so I still thought I'm going to do something in science, but I had also grown up in the church and our family hosted a lot of missionaries that came into our church. And so I heard their stories. They were very gracious to listen to an eight-year-old, nine-year-old little questions about the world and their adventures. So early on, I knew I wanted to do, I thought I wanted to be a missionary and I still just love the science. And so I went to church. The natural way to do that is go pre-med. I kind of thought the only way to do that is through medical school, so let's just do that. So I did, I chose medical school as a goal and took the MCAT, I got into med school, got married straight out of college to my pastor husband, and his first job in the church was all the way across the country in South Carolina. So I had a gap year. Ian (04:50.218) Mm. Zack Jackson (04:50.222) Mm-hmm. Zack Jackson (05:13.506) Hmm. Emily Smith (05:15.872) And I, I mean, I'm just a nerd, so I decided let's just get another degree because it's what we do when we have a gap year, right? Yeah, I mean, yeah, a lot of people might as well. Yeah. And it was in public health because I thought it'd look good for medical school. Day one of epidemiology, my professor, who was really just inspirational anyways, he did the jeopardy definition of epi. But then he said, this is a... Ian (05:22.764) Mm-hmm. Zack Jackson (05:23.932) Right. Ian (05:25.748) Not as well. Emily Smith (05:44.192) This is an equity science because most of the time we're gonna be working at people who are on the margins in these communities that are marginalized for health or poverty. And growing up in the church, it just clicked in my mind that that's the science of the Good Samaritan. It's quantifying the people who are most at need and then choosing not to walk by. So I didn't go to medical school, went to PhD in Epi instead and history from there. But I... I also remember going to my first mission trip on the Mercy Ship to Honduras. And when the doctors were focusing one-on-one on these people who had traveled a very long way to get to care, I was naturally asking the bigger picture questions about poverty or why this community has such high rates of... you know, diabetes or surgical needs when others didn't. And those are inherently epi questions. I just didn't know it at the time. Ian (06:45.983) That's interesting. Zack Jackson (06:48.766) Yeah. So you mentioned this is the science of the Good Samaritan, which is, uh, the title of your newly released book. Congratulations. Has that been a story that has that clicked with you then, or is this more of a recent connecting of the dots? Has this story been in, in your heart and mind this whole time? Ian (06:48.776) Yeah. Emily Smith (06:52.662) Yeah. Emily Smith (06:58.037) Thank you. Emily Smith (07:10.172) Oh, the whole time, for sure. I love that story of the Good Samaritan. And a lot of people are familiar with it, even if you're not of the Christian faith. You know, it's that story of where there's a man on the side of the road who is very sick. I mean, sick enough, hurt enough, where he can't help himself. And two people walk by. Jesus is telling this story, by the way. And those people are noted as religious leaders. And so they're kind of the people who... Ian (07:11.913) Okay. Emily Smith (07:38.504) represent power and privilege of the day, but there's one person who actually stopped who's the Samaritan. And in that time, that would have been not who you expected to be highlighted in a story. They typically do not have the places of power or privilege in the religious time of the day, but he stopped and he helped the man. And not only that, he helped him, he bandaged him up, he took him to a place to recover, and then he paid for all of it. And it's just a holistic view of what helping, you know, true solidarity and helping means. So I think that story just growing up in the church has always very much resonated with me wanting to do missions. But then when I got into EPPE, it resonated on a scientific level. Ian (08:26.198) Interesting. I love how at the very beginning of the book, you know, you have all those little quotes before you get into the reading itself and, you know, talking, you know, from Mark, uh, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And then you kind of go into, you know, well, this is what health is the greatest of gifts from Buddhism, perform all work carefully guided by compassion from Hinduism. Then you go on with Islam, Judaism, and then you end, which I thought was really sweet with your kid. Emily Smith (08:32.139) Yeah. Emily Smith (08:52.885) Yeah. Ian (08:54.418) love your neighbor, that's just being a good human. That really resonated with me because I'm actually teaching a science and religion class at UNC Charlotte. And I wanted it to be not a science and Christianity class. I wanted it to focus on multiple religions. And so I'm doing it for the first time. And what, I mean, yes, this is coming more from a Christian lens, but what made you even include all of that in there? Because I thought that was really interesting. Emily Smith (08:57.041) Yeah. Emily Smith (09:04.756) Yeah. Emily Smith (09:24.344) Yes, one of my biggest fears about releasing this book is it being misconstrued as a Christian faith book and making that the center of all faiths. I work with all faiths. I work in predominantly Muslim countries. I've definitely worked with all faiths during the pandemic, but then that quote with my kid at the end. You know, you don't have to be of any faith to just want to be a good human. He said that during the pandemic when he didn't understand why so many people were angry at me. Cause he lived through it. They heard and saw different things too. And so he just couldn't understand why being a good human wasn't just the top of the list for everybody. So I didn't want this book to come out even unconsciously. Zack Jackson (10:06.053) Ugh. Emily Smith (10:22.472) making people feel like you have to be of the Christian faith. That's the center of the world or the center of all faiths. Cause it's just not, there are gorgeous expressions of faith or non-faith or just being a good human around. And I wanted to be very careful in that. Also, when you read the book, you'll see that Christianity has been poorly centered for the sake of conquest or colonialism or We see it even nowadays right here in America of we need to put the 10 commandments back in a courthouse or say a prayer before football games, but that's just a Christian prayer that's not inclusive of all. And I did not wanna be one of those people that even unconsciously said you have to be a Christian because I just, I don't think you do. You're beautiful people in the world. So thank you for talking about that. It was important to start the book for me with that. Zack Jackson (10:54.766) Hmm. Ian (11:15.5) Yeah. Emily Smith (11:19.176) kind of foundation. Zack Jackson (11:21.474) Hmm. Ian (11:22.014) Yeah, I thought that, like I said, it just really resonated with me and it probably because I'm coming from the lens of the class I'm teaching. Um, you know, I am a Christian Episcopalian, but I have always been very curious and fascinated by other religious traditions and I just love learning about them. Um, and so I love that you had that in there. And I just remember right away, just running to my wife, being like, Oh, look at this. And, um, so. Emily Smith (11:28.681) Yeah. Emily Smith (11:39.232) Yeah. Emily Smith (11:45.628) Yeah, well and I also didn't want to proselytize even some unconsciously. It's just I'm not a sneak attack Christian and I don't want to view people as projects. You know, I think the evangelical church has done a really bad job at that. And it's just not in my wheelhouse. I wanted to make that very clear. Zack Jackson (11:52.523) Mm. Ian (12:02.825) Mm-hmm. Ian (12:08.787) Yeah. Zack Jackson (12:09.006) Sneak attack Christians. That's such a good phrase. That... Ian (12:11.955) It is. Emily Smith (12:13.508) People are people, not projects. Ian (12:15.56) Yeah. Zack Jackson (12:15.734) Yeah. Oh man, I got to get that on cross stitch somewhere in my house. Emily Smith (12:19.828) There you go! I like that. Ian (12:22.422) So you in here, you know, not everyone who's listening has read the book yet, but what made you decide when the pandemic started? What made you decide to create your friendly neighbor epidemiologist? Emily Smith (12:38.716) Yeah, and you know, I was at two conferences right when Wuhan was starting to ramp up in March, 2020. And we, this is our training, this is our lane. You know, this is our day to really step in and go for it. So once we saw, and when I say we, I say public health and epidemiologists, we saw how this new virus was acting and what was happening. A lot of us paid attention pretty, significantly to what was happening. Cause what was, it was different than Ebola. You know, Ebola is awful. And hopefully we'll talk about where I talk about that chapter in the book. But when someone is sick and contagious, you kind of know it. Cause it's really horrific in visual. With this, it looked like it was COVID or well, well we weren't even calling it COVID at the time. Whatever was happening. maybe people were spreading it before they even knew they were infectious and contagious. And so it could catch a lot of people off guard. My day job here at Duke is also working with health equity communities around the world in very poor countries where they're affected daily by bad access to healthcare, poverty. And so if this really was going to be the pandemic that people have been predicting for years. the margins were gonna be affected the most. So everything in me was just kind of like rising of uh-oh. So I get home and a lot of people were asking questions of what does flatten the curve mean? Do we need to buy a billion rolls of toilet paper? And the answer was always no. Oh, bye. I know, and don't hoard, that's just classic America, isn't it? But also there was a lot. Ian (14:23.158) People did it anyway though, yeah. Ian (14:29.416) Mm-hmm. Zack Jackson (14:30.951) Yeah. Emily Smith (14:32.412) And I, I re we all remember, I mean, this is a real fear. I do want to honor that of people who are high risk, the elderly, you know, do I need to be scared basically. And I wanted to calm fears, but not squash them because it was scary. So I decided why not, why don't I just start a Facebook page for the handful of real life neighbors that I had and like my family. Really, I mean, it was just very, very genetic, generic, not genetic. So I named it Friendly because I tend to be too friendly. Like if I sit by you on an airplane, I'm very sorry. Um, cause I, I'm, I really am anyways, it's just who I am. And I'm trying to accept that, but neighbor because of the good Samaritan story, I knew that COVID in particular was going to imply that we needed to neighbor one another well. We were going to have to take care of the margins. There's going to be a lot of solidarity of staying home for those that couldn't. Get the vaccines for those where it would not work. There just was a lot of neighboring that was going to take place. So I named it because of that. I'm also a pastor's wife. So I thought this is going to be prime time for the church, the Big C Church to be the church. And I say that, I know listeners can't hear it, but I say that with a smile, not as sarcasm, but I was so idealistic at, I really thought this was gonna be our time to shine and take care, you know, live, love thy neighbor really out in full blown faith. So I named it Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist. And the only people that followed at the beginning were real life people that I knew. And then when the pandemic, Ian (16:13.408) Yeah. Emily Smith (16:23.676) started shifting. We all saw this when it became weirdly political. When national leaders started talking about it as the China virus or these othering type, I was going, what is happening? That is not the faith that I ascribe to. And then when it became, you know, faith that were fear, we started hearing that and people started saying that instead of wearing a mask. I was like, you have not read Galatians five in the Bible. Ian (16:37.314) Mm-hmm. Zack Jackson (16:47.15) Hmm. Emily Smith (16:53.192) You might say faith over fear, but that's not true faith. So I started posting about that too, from this perspective of pure science and then weaving in the faith part to try to help people anchor in a different way than perhaps they were able to anchor at their own churches. And that seemed to resonate with a lot of people for good and bad ways. So then it started going viral. George Floyd was murdered. And I talked... Zack Jackson (17:18.55) Hmm. Emily Smith (17:22.724) into that conversation at, especially in the white church, there's a difference between all lives matter and black lives matter and why that distinction is important. People couldn't understand. So it'd go viral for that. And I wasn't doing this to go viral. I don't actually think I was noticing what was happening because I was just busy writing and daily posting. And then the Capitol riot happened and I wrote about that one and that one really kind of exploded. Zack Jackson (17:29.91) Mm-hmm. Zack Jackson (17:47.906) Hmm. Emily Smith (17:53.748) So that's how I got into it. I'm sure we can talk about the nuances, but that's how it initially started. Ian (17:59.362) And you alluded to, you know, your children seeing the things being said about you and everything. What surprised you most as it started going viral with the reactions? Like, because you, you share some things in here and that were really challenging to read and you in there though, even said that, um, I will not share everything. And so I just, I can't imagine. Emily Smith (18:13.341) Yeah. Emily Smith (18:19.457) Really? Ian (18:30.134) the pain you went through and, but you, I love that you embraced your vulnerability with that because I also, I'll be honest. Yes, I, I am a Christian, but there are many times, especially over the last several years, and Zach knows this very well that I have a really hard time saying I'm a Christian because of the extreme baggage that comes with it. But I feel like if I say it, I have to qualify it really. And yeah, we had Brian McLaren on, um, Emily Smith (18:47.032) Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yes. Zack Jackson (18:47.054) Mm-hmm. Emily Smith (18:53.98) Oh, absolutely. Ian (18:58.342) last, what, May of 22. And we talked a lot about it then as well, because it just the extreme hate that I felt like we were seeing that, I guess, has always been there. But now is more acceptable to be said. And so I'm just curious, you are I've never been a member of an evangelical Christian community in that way. And so I'm just curious what surprised you the most or if you don't mind sharing some of that. Emily Smith (19:00.52) Nice. Emily Smith (19:26.896) Yeah, yes and that you know this portion of the book the book is separated into three different sections centering cost and courage um had to be three c's like a good Baptist I guess but that middle section is the thank you for that or evangelical I grew up charismatic and married a Baptist pastor and now we go to a liturgical church so I'm not sure what I am at this point. Did you? Zack Jackson (19:39.138) Yes. Zack Jackson (19:46.531) same. Ian (19:51.925) Yeah. Zack Jackson (19:52.466) I grew up charismatic and went to a Baptist seminary and married my wife there. And then now I'm a part of a mainline denomination. So look, I'm there with you. Emily Smith (20:01.976) Maybe that's just a natural. There's a lot of us out there. Maybe that's a progression. Yeah. Are you? Yeah, I have to figure out where to, like the call and response, do I say the bold or not? Because I would get it wrong or stand and sit. I just get it wrong a lot, but whatever. The church is fine about it. So the middle cost section is the shortest part of the book. Zack Jackson (20:05.174) Yeah. I'm seeing it more and more. Yeah. Ian (20:06.559) Yeah. Emily Smith (20:27.492) It was by far the hardest to write and the hardest to read on the audio. I read the audio book and when I was recording it, I realized the, these chapters still feel so messy. Um, and it's because I just couldn't do more. I couldn't get it. I couldn't package it in a way that some of the other chapters felt pretty and tidy and bowed up. And anyways, it feels like there's a lot of ums and ohs in that chapter because it is incredibly painful. Zack Jackson (20:39.075) Hmm. Emily Smith (20:57.472) We were in Texas at the time. We were in the belly of the beast, that kind of feels like, of Waco, Texas. Great, great people there. But also the buckle of the Bible belt, probably the latch of the buckle. So what surprised me is when I started talking more and more about faith over fear, we started getting little trickles. I say we. I started getting little trickles of pushback from that online. And, you know, it's horrific stuff. It's not, I mean, you get called names and people, you know, you can put that aside. But when I started getting pictures of people sending pictures of guns and Holocaust imagery to me and saying awful things about my children, you know, threats against them, it became very real. Zack Jackson (21:45.762) Hmm. Emily Smith (21:53.5) And then one day in the middle of it, my husband came in and brought in a letter that was in our mailbox that was written in black and red marker. And it was an awful threat. And it was laced with, you know, you're part of the mark of the beast and a lot of these religious overtones, which I had heard and received for months at that point, but not in my mailbox. I mean, that is when it became too crazy. Zack Jackson (22:11.894) Oof. Ian (22:17.771) Mm-hmm. Emily Smith (22:22.732) close. You know, there's a cost that was to me, but then this was going to be a cost to the whole family and to the church, to our church. We ended up leaving the faith community. That not all faith, but that one. Some of the worst threats and harassment I got were people from within my own neighborhood or people that I worshiped with. Those are the ones that I won't share because I just can't talk about it yet. Zack Jackson (22:45.451) Mm. Emily Smith (22:51.676) The book is not a COVID book because I can't talk about it for 200 pages, nor do I think people want to read about it. The cost was awful because we couldn't let our kids go walk in around the neighborhood without one of us. They had safe homes that they could go in if they ever felt scared. They don't know why we were saying that. We just said, if there's a rainstorm, run to these five homes or Ian (22:58.166) Mm-hmm. Zack Jackson (23:00.579) Hmm. Ian (23:11.19) Hmm. Ian (23:19.49) Mm-hmm. Emily Smith (23:20.488) and they still don't know that. And that's very tender for me as a mom to have to hold. And two, at that time, it was also feeling like I was losing a foundation of faith because I grew up with Sandy Patty, Michael W. Smith, Bethel worship, I mean, come on now, really good, yeah. All of that evangelical stuff. And I remember watching the prayer rally that happened in November, 2020, and I'm sure, Zack Jackson (23:39.222) Yes. Emily Smith (23:49.32) you guys watched it as well, you know, on the Capitol steps, Michael W. Smith is there, Franklin Graham, I mean, these, it was a massive thousands of people rally. And this was also at the height of that first surge before vaccines. So my soul could not reconcile how that was standing on faith when I put the number in the book of how many died that day, but it was at the peak of the deaths in the US, like morgue trucks. you know, scenarios. I couldn't, I just couldn't reconcile like, so I felt like we were losing our faith community, losing jobs, you know, or leaving jobs, losing real life friends. And then these foundations that I had just anchored in were, I was just losing that as well. So it's just difficult. I do wish Ian (24:19.915) Mm-hmm. Emily Smith (24:45.556) that I could have shielded my family from some of that and just taken more of the brunt of it. But it's just part of the, you know, it's part of the cost of us as a family. And I wanted to put some of that vulnerability in because I think a lot of people, especially from the faith communities, have lost a lot. Or Thanksgiving's and Christmases have been very hard and are still hard. I just get that. Ian (24:55.126) Mm-hmm. Zack Jackson (24:55.138) Hmm. Zack Jackson (25:09.826) Hmm. Emily Smith (25:12.552) At the same time, it's the tip of the iceberg of what I did put in there. So I wanted to be careful to not put too much just cause I couldn't talk about it. Ian (25:20.235) Yeah. Zack Jackson (25:22.156) Yeah. Ian (25:22.61) When I appreciate, like I said, I appreciate, I I'm someone who embraces vulnerability. Um, and you know, I really love Brene Brown's work around that too. But I very much appreciated you sharing that with all of us and the readers because I just, it was tough. It was tough to read and, um, but I admire that you continued to work a lot. You know, I really appreciate that too, because Emily Smith (25:31.197) Yeah, for sure. Emily Smith (25:48.926) Yeah. Ian (25:52.438) You are still continuing to do what you can to save lives. Emily Smith (25:57.94) Well, and that was a choice. I mean, there was a point in there where a couple of the threats, I mean, we were working with high up authorities at certain parts of it. And I just asked my husband, do we need to just stop? Do I need to, well, do I need to stop basically? Cause I would, I would have just pulled all of it. It was not worth having a child, having one of my kids hurt or worse. And so we took a little bit of a break there in the middle of it to kind of discern and use wisdom and then I just decided to keep going with certain parameters in place of Some cameras and Authorities and some backup plans also Some boundaries around what I would or wouldn't stay who I would or wouldn't listen to I got asked to come on Far right like Breitbart type podcast and just I automatically just saying no to that. I mean, that's just a boundary. So it was a it was a choice to keep going. But it was also at a cost. I mean, that was before I got sick in 2021. My body just said no more. And I just had a I don't know if it's a thunderclap or just a massive migraine never had it before. And it just put me in bed for 15 months. So it Ian (27:23.838) Yeah, that reading that was tough too. I, yeah. And I just, because it just, I felt like your pain that you were experiencing, at least some of it was coming across, which again, I, I appreciated that a lot. Um, and I have a very dear friend of mine that was in my PhD program with that deals with migraines. I don't think she deals with them as much anymore. This was, you know, back between 2004 to 2008, but I knew right before she started the PhD program, Zack Jackson (27:24.148) Ugh. Emily Smith (27:26.952) Was it? Yeah. Emily Smith (27:38.125) Yeah. Ian (27:52.266) she would have them where she would be bedridden for like a month or something like that. And just, I couldn't imagine what that was like, but even, you know, I know I asked you how things are going now with you and your family and you told us prior to recording that things are getting better. And, and, but again, you made the choice to continue trying to save lives. Like I think that's very admirable. And so I, that's one of the reasons why I was so excited to get you here. Emily Smith (27:54.74) Yeah. Oh, for sure. Ian (28:20.934) And to read your book because that truly is admirable because you know, I have faced hateful things just because of stuff I do with science and religion for a long time now, nothing compared to what you've done. But there have been plenty of times where I've thought, I can't, I'm not doing this anymore. Like, it's just not worth it. Um, and it was nowhere near to the scale of what you have experienced. And so I just, I think it gives a lot of people hope. And I just wanted to make sure you knew that. Emily Smith (28:37.333) Yeah. Zack Jackson (28:37.559) Yeah. Emily Smith (28:45.052) Yeah, well thank you. There was also a scrappy piece of me that did not want to let them win. And because there were there were months of being bedridden in an incredibly dark room, I mean laughing would send me to weeks of a migraine that no amount of medicine, including hospital type medicine, would touch. Ian (28:55.039) Mm-hmm. Zack Jackson (28:55.313) Hmm Emily Smith (29:11.484) And so I, there was a little bit of a fight in me too. I just, I was so terrified that was gonna be the rest of my life. And I was doing everything possible to get out of it. And so now that I've come out of it a little bit more, the tenacity, the scrappiness to keep going means not only did like the bad people, they did not win, but also living into probably who, I am more of myself now than I have ever been because of it, because I'm a whole lot braver and courageous than I thought was actually in me. So thank you for saying that, because I think we hear stories of overcoming something and it looks like it was an overnight thing and you just believed your way out of it. And this is not the prosperity gospel. It is really difficult stuff. Zack Jackson (29:43.149) Mm. Zack Jackson (30:00.311) Hahaha! Zack Jackson (30:04.023) now. Emily Smith (30:08.7) you know, just day by day, I'm just doing, I'm just so grateful to be doing my job again. Ian (30:14.475) Yeah. Ian (30:18.07) Zach, did you have anything to add? Just, yeah. It's just, it's very inspirational, so thank you. Emily Smith (30:23.693) Thank you. Zack Jackson (30:25.222) Oh, you remind me of Julian of Norwich, my favorite dead Christian. Um, are you familiar with her story at all? Yeah. How she, uh, asked, asked Jesus for, uh, an encounter as close to death as possible so she could get to the heart of things and then to come back and be able to share that and the amount of revelation she encountered on those dark nights in that bed, um, changed her. Emily Smith (30:28.618) Yeah. Emily Smith (30:32.574) Yes. Emily Smith (30:35.892) Oh, for sure. Yes, I am. Zack Jackson (30:54.31) and really clarify the rest of her life. And I'm hearing that a lot from you as well. That's beautiful. Emily Smith (31:03.592) Yeah, she was probably a little bit more full of faith in the bed. I was just like, what is happening and I want out. Zack Jackson (31:14.283) Yes, but when she says, yeah, when she says all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things shall be well, she's saying it from that bed. And so it actually means something instead of the sort of, you know, pithy platitudes that you would see on a bumper sticker or a greeting card. And so when you talk about it and you talk about hope and change and good things, I feel, I believe it more. Emily Smith (31:14.842) This is not okay. Emily Smith (31:33.113) For sure. Yeah. Zack Jackson (31:42.262) you know, because you've been through the flames. One of the things that I found Emily Smith (31:42.724) Yeah, that passage in particular that she said is, oh go ahead, there was a little, I was saying one of the things about that passage that you just quoted, that's what my husband would tell me just nearly daily during those really dark times, all shall be well and all, yeah all of that. So that's very special. Zack Jackson (31:53.025) Nope, go ahead. Zack Jackson (32:09.542) Yeah, that's my mantra. I repeat to myself almost a daily basis. Emily Smith (32:14.963) Yes. Zack Jackson (32:17.75) Yeah. One of the things that surprised me in reading some of your work, when I hear about epidemiology, I think of, well, that's spread of disease, clearly. But that's such a small part of your book and a small part of your writing. And I'm reading about gun violence and systemic racism and injustices and economics and... all kinds of things that have nothing to do with disease? Am I reading epidemiology wrong as a study or is it that this is all just a part of how your heart works? Emily Smith (33:03.692) probably a both and of that. But epidemiology is not just the pandemic, epidemic, you know, disease detective type stuff that they make movies of. It's that, but it's also anything that affects a certain group of people differently than another group of people. And so that could be, you know, in my work, that's poverty and children's health. It could be who is affected the most by congenital Zack Jackson (33:05.687) Hmm Emily Smith (33:33.356) chronic type condition. So it's a really broad field than just disease detectives. Zack Jackson (33:41.376) Okay. Ian (33:41.378) All right. Well, so, and I remember your chapter, Trickle Up Economics. And so I'll be honest, Emily, there are so many, like I've now been putting like little markers in here, but I've folded down so many pages that I can't get, oh sorry, I can't get to everything I wanna say. So you made something and I can't find everything again because I just, I have comments on almost every single page. Emily Smith (34:03.124) Oh Zack Jackson (34:09.218) We'll leave a link in the description. Emily Smith (34:09.484) Oh yay! I'm gonna hang your reference business. Thank you. Ian (34:10.414) And your references in the end and stuff. And especially, so, you know, I'm also a fellow academic. And so I just was pulling your references. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is so amazing, honey. And just, and also too, I started down like the anti-racism journey. And I think 2016. And so some of the things I was aware of, but it was nice to also reread it and stuff, but that the chapter on trickle up economics, when you talk about, um, the question you ask us is, do you want to know the main factor per Emily Smith (34:15.613) Yes. Emily Smith (34:26.858) Oh yeah. Ian (34:40.302) Uh, predicted. Do you want to know what main factor predicted descending into poverty and not being able to climb back out, even when you account for everything else and it was having a child who needed surgery, which I was not at all surprised. Obviously it was health related, but that part and the part I'm trying to remember too, is that just for the communities in Somaliland or was that just also applicable worldwide? Emily Smith (34:50.57) Yeah. Emily Smith (35:06.176) it's applicable worldwide that look like, I mean the margins countries, you know, the poorest countries for sure. Yeah, yeah, and that, um, that was not something that we expected either. You know, in my day job, I work in communities like in Somaliland, which is the fourth poorest country of the world, on children who need surgical care. And so we know there's a group of kiddos who can get to, you know, a hospital when they need it. Ian (35:08.17) Okay. Right, yeah. Okay. Emily Smith (35:34.752) there's a whole slew of them that can't for reasons that are not their fault, nor their family's fault. That's the structure system, systemic racism, structural violence type stuff that happens. So we had been working with our community partners within the country for starting in 2016, trying to map out in the country, where are the kids who need the greatest care? How far do they have to travel? I mean, it is hours and hours and hours on wheelbarrows and stuff that is just not equity. It's just not what we would want for our children by a landslide. And then we started teasing the data. This is part of epidemiology that I love is you start with the margins and then you go further in to get the truth of the story. Cause that's what laws and legislations are built on, policies. And we found that There were a group of families in Somaliland that went into poverty because of something and never came out. There were some that were able to climb out of poverty. We see this in the US, right? Someone goes to the ER. If you have an insurance or a nest egg or family members that could chip in, it's going to be a huge expense. Some go into poverty and can come out and others can't. So in Somaliland, that's what happened. And we started looking at those families at what was different about them than the rest of them. I thought it was gonna be the income level of the family or the number of kiddos that they had to feed, but it was having a kid with surgical care. And so we took that to the United Nations as a policy effort in 2019. There was a big summit there for universal health coverage. And it's asking the question of what basically is going to be covered under a universal health coverage package. We know it's going to be vaccines and taking care of the sniffles, you know, primary care stuff. But what about surgery? Because that is what is impoverishing people. So we went to make that statement. And the chapter is about starting with the stories of the margin and then trickle your way back up. Emily Smith (37:48.976) instead of the whole trickle-down capitalism type where you put, you know, a hundred dollars in Jeff Bezos mailbox and you hope it reaches the poorest of the poor in inner Detroit. So it was a very, it was really interesting finding for me, but it also linked the story, their story, hopefully to policy change at the highest levels. Zack Jackson (38:00.546) Hmm. Ian (38:10.634) Yeah. Well, I've always said that I, I think it's, um, shameful that our country, which is the richest country, I believe in the history of the world, that anyone in this country could ever go into poverty because of healthcare or that people are in poverty, but still there's so many things there, right? But that healthcare can make people go bankrupt. I, Emily Smith (38:29.96) and we're the number one. Yeah. Ian (38:39.958) will never understand that with the amount of money and wealth in this one country that that's possible. It just is absolutely mind boggling to me. And then of course it elsewhere, right? I mean, you talk about in this chapter of like the wealth of like the 10 richest people or whatever the number was and what that could do for those countries in the margins, right? But even the margins in our own country. Um, and I just, I found that Emily Smith (38:49.696) Yeah. Emily Smith (38:59.509) Yeah. Emily Smith (39:04.64) Right. Ian (39:08.35) Uh, really interesting. I was really grateful that you went that route with that chapter because I thought it was just so important to see. Emily Smith (39:14.696) Right, and I think that that's where our centering is wrong because this story of medical impoverishment, healthcare impoverishment is in the Bible too. You know, the story of the bleeding woman who had spent her last resort was to go to find Jesus because she had spent all of her money for years trying to get care. And then she touches the hem of his garment to try to be incognito and he stops the crowd for her. Like his center. His majority, his view was not the crowd. It was the medically impoverished woman. So there's a chapter about that too, about his majority, how we can make that, how we can visualize the world. I think perhaps like what he looks like. But I get all the time, we just need more resources or Emily, we just need more money type. And I think that's short-sighted. I don't think that's true. I think we have... in the world enough resources and enough money that we need, we just don't have enough equity. And that's money, that's healthcare. We saw that in the pandemic with the lack of oxygen. There's a whole chapter in there on innovation. Yeah, and in India, yeah, when they were running out of oxygen, it's not because the world lacks oxygen. It's because the US and Zack Jackson (40:18.158) Hmm. Ian (40:25.054) Oh yeah, that was very heartbreaking. Oh yeah, that part, yeah, yeah. Emily Smith (40:40.584) stockpiles of it. And so the question innovation is making sure that oxygen is where it needs to be but also asking the harder systemic questions of why wasn't it there in the first place. That the other chapter in that section on courage is on valuing a life you know how do we value it which I think that one was the hardest one to write outside of the cost chapters. Do you remember those about Ebola? Ian (41:09.574) Yeah. Can we go into that a little bit? That, that was very challenging chapter to read too. You're right. Well, it just, and I'm in a butcher, their names, cause I'm getting to it, but I mean, do you mind telling us the story with that? The doctor who died, but then the other one who didn't. And yeah. Emily Smith (41:10.34) Yeah. Emily Smith (41:15.56) Yeah, go ahead. Emily Smith (41:23.488) Yeah. Emily Smith (41:27.524) Mm-hmm. Yes. So the it starts out introducing you to Dr. Khan. And for those of us in public health and global health, we know who Dr. Khan is. He is the Anthony Fauci of Africa. He had also been prior to the 2016 Ebola outbreak that hit his country and you know, West Africa. We all probably remember that epidemic. He had been working with congressmen here in the US, people, legends like Dr. Paul Farmer, who the book is in part dedicated to, to advocate for pandemic or epidemic preparedness for his hospital or resources for something that, could really cripple their system with not a whole lot of fanfare, not much was done with that type of legislation. So I'm trying to set the stage that he is a, very well known and respected doctor. When Ebola hit in his country, he was also frontline, because he's an MD. So he ended up getting Ebola. And this was in his health system that wasn't given the necessary resources to be ready for this epidemic, even though he was advocating for it. So with Ebola without the support of care, you deteriorate very quickly. Ebola is not highly It's highly fatal without the support, but not here in the US, which is why a lot of people or the people that have gotten it and have received care here have not passed away. So he gets it, he gets very sick, he gets transferred to a MSF unit that was specifically made for Ebola, and he keeps deteriorating. So they were having to make a decision on, do we give him what's called ZMAP? Zack Jackson (42:53.355) Hmm. Emily Smith (43:18.428) And at that point, it was an experimental drug for Ebola. It was the only option available for treatment outside of supportive care like IVs and rehydration. I go into a little bit of detail in the book, but I would definitely encourage people to go read that full story by the New York Times article, and that's in the references. But they made a decision not to give him ZMAP. Now, There were only a few vials of that in the world, one of which was actually at that MSF facility or very close by. He was also asked to be medevaced and that was given, a plane did come, but he was so sick, they refused to take him, cause it was not equipped like we see those, you know, the big ones here. So. He ends up dying just a few days later. Without his family, they finally let a friend go in at the end to be with him. If you reverse time a couple of days, there were two other doctors in West Africa, well, one doctor then a nurse that got Ebola too. Same thing, got very sick, deteriorated, had to make a decision of what to do. They were also asked to be medevaced and there was a conversation about ZMAP to be given to them. Both of them received ZMAP. And not only that, they were medevaced in the state of the art, you know, it looks like a sci-fi book airplane, just equipped with every legit thing possible to keep that contained and landed in here in the US. I remember that. I don't know if y'all remember that on the news where full hazmat suits. Ian (45:01.95) Mm-hmm. Zack Jackson (45:03.778) Yeah. Emily Smith (45:06.844) there's a team of 15, 20 doctors, and they walked out of that hospital a couple days later recovering. I was very intentional in that chapter who I named by name and who I didn't, because the point I was trying to make was if that was my family, I would move heaven and earth to get them medevaced. So I didn't want to dishonor that. Ian (45:14.207) Yeah. Zack Jackson (45:14.608) Hmm. Emily Smith (45:34.46) The question is more at a 30,000 foot level of who is worthy to get ZMAP? Who is worthy to get oxygen? Who is worthy to get medical resources or free healthcare or free education? How do we value a life and how are people's lives valued? Then when you take that to a country level, who gets what from a country? So as a person of faith, I wanted to write a chapter that honored Dr. Khan, but then the bigger questions too of how should we value people if we are believers of, you know, of the Bible or of what Jesus says. So it was a hard chapter to write. I also wanted to, that mission organization of the two people that got medevacked out were part of Samaritan's Purse, and I had been a vocal. I spoke against Franklin Graham's aspect, how he was treating the pandemic very vocally. So everybody knows what I think about that. I also have really good friends that work at Samaritan's Purse. So it's not about the missions agency. It's about some people having friends in very high places with a whole lot of money to help people in need while others don't and asking the question of why. Ian (46:41.255) Mm-hmm. Ian (46:56.823) Mm-hmm. Zack Jackson (46:59.906) Hmm. Ian (47:00.07) And I love how you bring it back to equity. Cause that, as you said, that's what this is all about. And which again is very tragic, right? But, um, I wanted to shift if I can, there was another thing I just wanted to, there was a quote that I loved is at the end of the chapter on, um, let's see, which one was this broadening our definition of health. When you're talking about the good Samaritan, I just wanted to read it out. Cause I, I just loved it. I read it to my wife. Emily Smith (47:08.468) Right. Emily Smith (47:23.849) Yeah. Zack Jackson (47:24.184) Hmm. Ian (47:30.522) And I just was really happy with this one. But you say blast paragraph, by the way, did the Samaritan tell the man the gospel or preach to him or hand out a tract? The parable doesn't tell us anything like that. I have a hunch Jesus would have mentioned it if it were important to the point he was making at the time, but he didn't. What he modeled for us with, with this story as being a neighbor and word indeed. And I actually was on a zoom meeting with, uh, my priest. It was last Wednesday. So, you know, nine days ago and other lay leaders in our church. And I just was telling them that we were interviewing you and then read that to them because I really part of my struggle is when people the certainty aspect of things that they this is the way we're supposed to behave. Or, you know, it's my way or the highway when it comes to being a person of faith. And I just love that you pointed that out of just there. That's not in there. And you were right. Right. When I read it, I just was like, oh, my gosh, that's yeah. Emily Smith (48:16.905) Yeah. Zack Jackson (48:22.902) Hmm. Ian (48:28.554) Like that's a great lens to take to it. To show that was not the purpose. And I loved that. And I just, oh, absolutely. Yeah. Emily Smith (48:28.821) Yeah. Emily Smith (48:34.272) Right. Well, don't you think he would have put it in there? I mean, Jesus is super duper smart. Yeah, I mean, he's he was very sneaky and intentional with the parables and how he told the stories. So I think he would have let us know that we needed to put a track in there before we gave people health care. But gosh, I mean, unconditional love is not conditional on viewing people as projects or Ian (48:47.68) Yeah. Emily Smith (49:01.196) proselytizing. So I just wanted, especially in the evangelical church, to, you know, we do things with, or we should do things just out of a goodness of heart. Because we're, I mean, it says in the Bible too, when we do these, you do it unto me. When you take care of the poor and feed and clothe, then you take, you do it for him. And so I keep in, I think keeping that perspective, I think we should do more of it in the evangelical church for sure. Zack Jackson (49:31.903) You mentioned the evangelical church. You have a chapter in here called Topics Too Many Evangelicals Don't Want to Talk About. I would expand that to topics that Christians in general don't talk enough about. What sorts of things should we be talking about in our faith communities? Emily Smith (49:38.932) Sure. Emily Smith (49:43.315) Yes. Emily Smith (49:50.2) Yes, I wrote that because when I got back from that UN meeting that I was, I told you about earlier, you know, I'm a pastor's wife and so we get in there for Sunday school and somebody called me a socialist and I did not know, I didn't know how to respond because it caught me so much off guard that wait a minute, I just told you we were talking about like poverty, you know, we can all agree that that's a problem and let's help. So I, it Ian (50:03.441) Mm-hmm. Zack Jackson (50:04.074) Hahaha Emily Smith (50:17.564) it made me realize we need a conversation about what some of these topics are. It also came out of the pandemic, you know, when I would talk about structural violence or systemic racism or Black Lives Matter, climate change, there was such this hubbub of we don't want to talk about it or overtones of we just don't go there. But I think when we hold those to the sky, they reflect heaven So I wanted to make, the whole first part of the book is on that, how to talk about that in non-threatening but challenging ways still. Then that last chapter on making the connections between climate change and poverty and the margins to try to at least let pastors know, talk about it from the pulpit. And here are some ways that you can talk about it where you don't have to scream. You know, you don't have to come across as a crazy liberal if you're in a predominantly Republican Texas type church. But they are holy words because they are equity words. So that's what that chapter is about. Thank you for bringing that up. I chuckled at the title. Ian (51:33.75) Yeah. Zack Jackson (51:34.598) It made me chuckle too as an evangelical who's been, well, former evangelical who's been accused of all kinds of things that, you know, is Jesus taught me, you know. I have a shirt that says, um, cast down the mighty, lift up the oppressed, uh, feed the hungry, send the rich away empty handed. And I often get accused of like Marxism for that. And I say, Emily Smith (51:44.86) Yeah. Right. Ian (51:45.438) Yeah. So then how good. Emily Smith (52:01.236) Oh sure, yeah. Zack Jackson (52:02.294) That's the Magnificat. Mary says that. Hahaha. Emily Smith (52:06.953) Right. Or Jesus' first sermon, you know, when he rolls out the scroll from Isaiah, that is full of captives free and the oppressed and yeah. Yeah. Zack Jackson (52:11.465) Mmm. Zack Jackson (52:16.35) Yeah, good news to the poor. Yeah. Ian (52:18.43) Yeah. So kind of adding to that chapter in particular, you know, the pandemic, you know, there was already lots of divisions in our society, obviously pandemic, I believe made it much worse and more in our face. And so I'm curious, you know, especially as someone who does work with, uh, trying to figure out ways to combat misinformation, science misinformation in particular. Um, Emily Smith (52:33.546) Yeah. Ian (52:46.878) with either from my education lens or just research or work I do. You know, I started when you started seeing the, uh, the increased hesitancy around the vaccine, um, that really started raising a lot of flags for me of like, this is not ending that we're going to see this. This is going to, you know, spread to hesitancies and laws against other vaccines that have made it so that diseases that have been eradicated from our country. solely because of those vaccines, those will come back. Um, and so I'm just curious, you know, the white evangelical community has a lot of power. And so how can one start to have conversations with those communities? You know, I've never been a member, so I know it'd be hard for me, but you were a member and you went through a lot because of what you were trying to do. How, how do we get back in to be able to figure out ways to work with those communities to build that trust again? Emily Smith (53:45.577) Yeah. Ian (53:45.598) Right. And to help them realize that the science is not there to get them. It's not evil. It's trying to save lives. I mean, that's the point. And so how would you recommend we do that? Emily Smith (53:55.209) Yeah. Emily Smith (53:59.884) I wonder if I would recommend something different if I answered this question in five years because I still feel like it's too close. But I think one of the biggest things is knowing who is actually going to have a conversation with you and who is not and having the wisdom to just leave the room or leave a church. Like it's okay. We don't leave a church because we don't like the color of the carpet. You know, I'm not that type of Christian. But Zack Jackson (54:16.215) Hmm. Emily Smith (54:29.668) If there are real equity things and faith issues, I think it is okay to leave a church. So if, I don't know, leave friends, lose friends. I know that's hard when there are kids and youth and some people have to stick with it. If you do stay and you're trying to have these conversations, I would be really careful to guard your heart on what you let in and... what you hear because it can pummel you, which is why I wanted to write some of that cost section so vulnerably. I wish I would have known a little bit more, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if I would have had some of the wisdom to not go to every fight that I was invited to. So, and there's a chapter on that, on the wisdom of Nehemiah having that type. Yeah, thank you. I would also... Ian (55:18.172) Mm-hmm. Ian (55:21.566) Yeah, I liked that chapter a lot. That's very good. Emily Smith (55:27.56) tell people to be very cognizant, to pay attention to people who are not learning or listening anymore. Because the evangelical church has an incredible amount of power, always have. You know, like faith and prayer at football games where I grew up was still going on in the 90s and 2000s. It's probably still going on. Ten Commandments. And so we think that should be the norm or the centered of everything else when it actually shouldn't. And if somebody can understand why I just said that and why it matters, that's a person who listens. If others just dig in their heels more and we want the good old days, but don't realize those good old days were awful for a wide group of like Black Americans, any immigrants, then we've missed the point. So I think I'm, I don't think I'm answering your question. I think I'm telling people to be careful. Yeah, and also just to, there's this whole notion in the evangelical space that we just need to come together and get along. And that phrase really bothers me because that inherently denotes that there are two sides that need to come together, that both are weighted equally. And in that case, sure, let's come together because that's the center, but. Ian (56:23.878) No, you are. Yeah. Zack Jackson (56:26.402) Yeah. Emily Smith (56:48.84) When you have two sides and one is their voices have had the microphone longer than another side, it's time to equal out that balance where both sides can be heard. And that is still just certainly not going on, especially with science. Zack Jackson (57:00.034) Yeah. Zack Jackson (57:04.766) Right. So it's less about finding the middle point between two things and more thinking about it like a binary star system where the one that is the center of gravity has to do with the relative mass of each one. And so a big star and a small star, the center of gravity is going to be closer to the big star because that's where the mass is. And when we're talking about Emily Smith (57:27.37) Yeah. Zack Jackson (57:31.866) On this side, we have a climatologist, and on this side, we have your uncle on Facebook. Then, the center of gravity is not going to be in the middle of those two things, right? Emily Smith (57:38.636) Sure. Ian (57:41.931) Right. Emily Smith (57:42.948) Yes, or even in, I'm working with some indigenous communities in Brazil and listening a lot longer as a researcher of what their health needs are, including how to overcome them. So talking with traditional healers and valuing and honoring where people's stories are and their needs more than maybe a preconceived idea of what I think it should be. Zack Jackson (58:00.75) Hmm. Ian (58:13.098) Well, we are. Yeah. Well, so I just had a couple of smaller questions if that's all right. Um, and I just appreciate your time really do. But, so I'm curious, especially for you with your expertise, you know, as we reflect back on COVID-19 and this pandemic, um, it's natural for us to think about what we could have done differently. And I'm curious what your thoughts on that, but also too, what can we learn from this to better prepare? Zack Jackson (58:13.266) We're nearing the end. So if you want to. Emily Smith (58:19.584) Good. Ian (58:43.542) for future outbreaks of infectious diseases. Cause I might say another pandemic's gonna happen right away, but there will be outbreaks of infectious diseases. We know that. And so I'm just curious, what are the things that we can learn from this to try to do more preventative measures in the future? Like what would you recommend? Emily Smith (59:03.083) Yeah. recommend starting a conversation on trust in people's expertise instead of feeling like you're the expert on everything, which is a classic American thought. You know, we're very individualistic and so I think that could start, that's very 30,000 foot, but trust the experts. But then finding the community champions within the communities that are speaking from a place of their own. You know, I think that's why part of why I went viral is because I was speaking into my own community. I knew the language. I loved the church. I understood what pastors and their families were going through. So if you can find those and that means, you know, if we have distrust in some sort of science or the vaccines, then find the communities where that distrust is and then find the people there that are the champions. I just think it's a trust, it's a value issue. I know people don't like to hear about the political stuff, but who we vote for matters in very real ways on the ground, and we saw that. So I think having conversations about that too, you know, we are not voters of just one issue. If you are, that is going to trickle to a billion other types of issues. Letting people, especially like my children, I've got a teenager telling her about the importance of who you vote for and why that matters. Ian (01:00:43.958) So is there anything that you want to share? Anything else we should have asked but didn't? Emily Smith (01:00:51.684) No, I mean, I hope if anything for the book, I hope that it makes people laugh. Because there's a lot of stories in there that hopefully are funny. There's really silly pictures from my science fair board. Please go look at that. It's fantastic and a little over the top. But I also hope it... Yes. Zack Jackson (01:01:03.844) I'm going to go. Ian (01:01:06.464) Yes. Ian (01:01:12.402) I think the picture, if I can say the picture that you're staring at, I forgot who you're staring at, but you talk about that you have it. Uh, oh yeah. That picture of the board is great, but then the picture of you staring at somebody and you put, you have that framed on your desk. I, who was that again? I, I couldn't find that again in the book right now. Emily Smith (01:01:21.33) Yes. It's. Emily Smith (01:01:27.222) It's, yes, it's Dr. Tedros. He's the WHO president and I ran into him at the UN and that is my picture of me, like total fan girl moment with him. Yeah. Zack Jackson (01:01:38.382) Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe Ian (01:01:39.851) It was hilarious. And I just, I mean, I'm sure we've all done it. I do that with people all the time, but yours was captured on camera. And I love that you framed it and have put it on your own desk because I just find that hilarious. Like that's just such a wonderful story. Emily Smith (01:01:51.228) Yeah, I have- Emily Smith (01:01:55.372) Well, I have one that's a real one. I mean, they took one where we're both looking at the camera, legit, but I just keep it, because it was how I felt at the time. And... Oh, I'd like to show the card. Oh, thank you. Ian (01:02:05.662) When I love that you shared it with us, like I just, you know, I could totally envision it. And then all of a sudden I see the picture. I'm like, yeah, that's, that's what I was thinking. Like it just, that was really cool. Yeah. Zack Jackson (01:02:07.53) Yeah. Emily Smith (01:02:13.549) Yeah, this is a fangirl. Yeah. So. Zack Jackson (01:02:15.55) Yeah. And a completely honest review for those who are listeners and who hopefully trust the things that we say and do is that this book is really heartfelt. It is fact filled and it is driven by story and your own personal experience instead of just, you know, here's a list of objective facts. And for me, that not only conveys truth. in a way that is easier to digest, but also shows how authentic you are and how important this book is, how much of your own soul is encapsulated in this and how much of your own experience and growth from a young and idealistic nerd who's going to save the world, who gets jaded and cynical, but then finds hope and emerges on the other side stronger and I think all of our listeners should find a copy at your local bookstore or if you have to on Amazon. Or listen to the audiobook which is recorded by you and that must have been a fun experience. Emily Smith (01:03:25.176) Yes, it was fun. It's very hard to do too to just read it harder than expected, but it was fun to do. Ian (01:03:29.703) I'm back. Well, and if I can just add to that, I think that's a great, um, thumbs up there, Zach and recommendation for this book. I can't recommend it enough for people. I think it's an outstanding book. Um, I agree with everything Zach said, but I loved, I just absolutely loved that you couched it in the good Samaritan story. And also in Jesus, the second commandment to us about love, I neighbor a

The Fourth Way
(266)S11E7/5 True Conspiracy of Government: L' Overture of Empire

The Fourth Way

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2023 108:57


We take a look at the centuries long conspiracy of the U.S. against Haiti. 0:00 - Introduction9:20 - What's in a Myth?15:15 - What is Conspiracy?17:35 - Wade in the Water20:00 - Columbus in Haiti24:00 - Haitian Revolution32:30 - French Revolution41:30 - Condercet, Galton, & Le Bon49:40 - Threat of a Good Example55:55 - Haiti's Reparations59:40 - Frederick Douglass in Haiti1:03:55 - Spain, Philippines, & Cuba1:13:00 - U.S. Invades Haiti1:25:55 - Dogs on a Leash1:35:40 - Coups A huge thanks to Seth White for the awesome music! Thanks to Palmtoptiger17 for the beautiful logo: https://www.instagram.com/palmtoptiger17/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/thewayfourth/?modal=admin_todo_tour YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTd3KlRte86eG9U40ncZ4XA?view_as=subscriber Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theway4th/  Kingdom Outpost: https://kingdomoutpost.org/ My Reading List Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21940220.J_G_Elliot Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4VSvC0SJYwku2U0awRaNAu?si=3ad0b2fbed2e4864 Episode Transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vPjVG55_B5mC4mHEP-hdx0RwRnbisd9z4kpwn9h83O8/edit?usp=sharing  Balasa's Paintings: https://www.wikiart.org/en/sabin-balasa Robert Meeropol Episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/bd7d18d2 What to Believe Now: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14319314-what-to-believe-now?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=XiqRqlKrUb&rank=1 The Crowd: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25870624-the-crowd?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16 Threat of a Good Example:  Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26593431-the-new-confessions-of-an-economic-hit-man?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=LzlDcuvBRW&rank=2 Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16145154-fresh-fruit-broken-bodies?ref=nav_sb_ss_2_13 OEC Imports/Exports: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/hti?yearlyTradeFlowSelector=flow1 Haiti's self-sufficiency: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/may/13/haitians-self-sufficiency#:~:text=When%20the%20cost%20of%20US,the%20dependence%20on%20food%20aid Truth About Haiti: https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5018 America Invades Haiti: https://sociology.yale.edu/sites/default/files/invasion_of_grenada_foresight.pdf America Invades Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2R_FyKisRk Threat of a Good Example: https://chomsky.info/unclesam01/ U.K. Pays Slaveholders: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/30/fact-check-u-k-paid-off-debts-slave-owning-families-2015/3283908001/ Lincoln and Slavery: https://www.history.com/news/abraham-lincoln-black-resettlement-haiti Colonizing Freed Slaves: https://www.cairn.info/revue-francaise-d-etudes-americaines-2015-1-page-6.htm Code Noir: https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2011/01/slavery-in-the-french-colonies/ Paul Farmer: https://religionandpolitics.org/2016/03/01/the-liberation-theology-of-dr-paul-farmer/ The Uses of Haiti: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10234.The_Uses_of_Haiti?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=h6F1axpyr9&rank=1 Charlamagne Peralte: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne_P%C3%A9ralte Jefferson on Taking Land: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-39-02-0500 Douglass and American Empire: https://reparationscomm.org/reparations-news/editors-choice/frederick-douglass-and-american-empire-in-haiti/ Smedley Butler and Haiti: https://newrepublic.com/article/164825/smedley-butler-marine-critic-american-empire Jefferson to Madison: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-3827 Damn the Filipinos: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/u/unknownlyrics/damndamndamnthefilipinoslyrics.html Jefferson on Haiti: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/01/americas-curse-on-haiti/34183/ Hamilton for Haiti: https://itshamiltime.com/2012/12/07/hamiltons-views-on-race-and-slavery-haiti/#:~:text=Hamilton%20supported%20the%20Haitian%20revolution,of%20a%20free%20black%20republic Rochambeau Genocide: http://islandluminous.fiu.edu/part02-slide13.html Haiti's Nightmare: https://thevillagesun.com/haitis-nightmare-the-cocaine-coup-the-c-i-a-connection Dependency: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPdV7ShkVic How Europe Underdeveloped Africa: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40630.How_Europe_Underdeveloped_Africa?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_19 General Clark on Conspiracy of Empire: https://youtu.be/6Knt3rKTqCk  U.S. Assassinations and Coups: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/cia-long-history-kill-leaders-around-the-world-north-korea Every Coup Mapped: https://youtu.be/_wIOqHSsV9c  U.S. and the DR: https://progressive.org/40-years-later-u.s.-invasion-still-haunts-dominican-republic/  Dominican Republic and Clientism: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29766464 Thanks to our monthly supporters Laverne Miller Jesse Killion ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Social Geek Radio
Social Geek: AI Update for July

Social Geek Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 25, 2023 57:00


It's the July edition of the AI Update on Social Geek!  Topics today include:  What's the future of the branding for AI or Machine Learning?  What does a Chief AI Officer do? How are franchisees following a brand's lead in AI?  How are franchise brands mitigating risk and dealing with security surrounding AI? And how are franchisors using AI tools to assist Franchise Development efforts? Joining us again today: Robert Mitchell of WSI, Paul Farmer of Starfish SEO & Marketing, Patti Rother of The NOW Massage, and Ingrid Schneider of Stay In Your Lane!   Thanks to Northeast Color, AnswerConnect, Citrin Cooperman, and BIGGBY Coffee.    

High-Impact Growth
Scaling mental health care: Exploring the intersection of mental health, physical health, human connection & technology

High-Impact Growth

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 10, 2023 43:34


Depression alone is projected to be the third leading cause of disease burden in lower and middle income countries by 2030, where 75% of people don't receive any treatment. In this episode we delve into the escalating global issue of mental health care. Jonathan Jackson speaks with three of Dimagi's experts: senior health strategy specialist Lauren Magoun, senior project analyst Anaba Sunday Atua, and senior mental health strategy consultant Christie Civetta. Gain insights from the team's diverse experience and learnings in project analysis and the implementation of mental health initiatives, as well as approaches to combating the barriers to mental health care delivery and the grave lack of funding. You'll walk away from this episode with a clear understanding of the role of Frontline Workers in providing intervention, the need for human connection in digital solutions, and the positive impact of integrating mental health care into broader health strategies. This episode challenges funders, implementers, and technologists working in the mental health space to consider the intersection between mental and physical health in developing solutions that create lasting impact and achieve holistic health outcomes. Topics include:  The opportunities and future possibilities for mental health care innovation The potential of digital solutions to break down barriers and deliver impactful, scalable and cost-effective programs The realities of mental health stigma and care in low-and middle-income countries  The advantages of community-based interventions and the role of trusted members in addressing stigma The importance of human connection in mental health care delivery  The intersection of physical and mental health with a focus on anxiety and depression Related Resources: Bending the curve: the impact of integrating mental health services on HIV and TB outcomes - United for Global Mental Health: https://unitedgmh.org/knowledge-hub/bending-the-curve-the-impact-of-integrating-mental-health-services-on-hiv-and-tb-outcomes/ Poor countries are developing a new paradigm of mental health care. America is taking note: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23402638/mental-health-psychiatrist-shortage-community-care-africa Basic Needs Ghana (Anaba's former employer): https://basicneedsghana.org/ Reimagining global mental health care with a person-centered, digitally-enabled approach with Dr. Vikram Patel co-founder of Sangath and successor to Paul Farmer at Harvard Medical School: https://sites.dimagi.com/high-impact-growth-podcast/reimagining-mental-health  Sign up to our newsletter, and stay informed of Dimagi's work :⁠⁠⁠https://sites.dimagi.com/newsletter-sign-up⁠⁠⁠  We are on social media - follow us for the latest from Dimagi: LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/dimagi⁠⁠⁠ Twitter:⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/dimagi/⁠⁠⁠ Facebook:⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/dimagi.inc/⁠⁠⁠ Youtube:⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt8JcRhWywkVJRR_YWv4OhA⁠⁠⁠  If you enjoy this show, please leave us a 5-Star Review and share your favorite episodes with friends. Hosts: Jonathan Jackson: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanljackson/⁠⁠⁠ Amie Vaccaro: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/amievaccaro/ ⁠⁠

Physician's Weekly Podcast
Episode 100! Celebrating the Top All-Time Heroes in Medicine

Physician's Weekly Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 5, 2023 31:21


This week's episode of the PW Podcast is celebratory, in honor of our 100th episode. This has been a fantastic adventure, and we have been honored to interview more than 150 health practitioners to date, exposed to so much fantastic clinical science and expertise! We need to thank all our guests, as well as our regular contributors, Dr. Medlaw and Dr. Alex McDonald. This is an opportunity to also thank our sound guys at The Audio and the great staff at Physician's Weekly. But we would especially like to thank you, the listeners!To celebrate this milestone, Dr. Alex McDonald (Physician's Weekly Editorial Board Member and family/sports medicine physician at Southern California Permanente Medical Group) and PW Podcast host Rachel Giles, MD, generated a list of their “Heroes of Medicine,” which they discuss in this episode; this list reflects their personal choices and just scrapes the surface. We would love to hear your suggestions of who was missed! Enjoy Listening! Heroes of Medicine:Hippocrates promoted the idea that gods did not cast illnessesEdward Jenner: 1796, first vaccine à small poxWatson and Crick (and Rosalind Franklin): 1953 - DNALouis Pasteur: 1864, microorganisms in the air and waterAlexander Fleming: 1928, antibioticsIgnaz Semmelweiss: 1846, handwashing, and no one believed him!Harold Varmus: open access publishing (Public Library of Science, PLoS)James Lind: first clinical trial, he was a ship's surgeon in the Royal Navy. While at sea in May 1747, Lind provided some crew members with two oranges and one lemon, proving scurvy could be prevented by citrusJennifer Doudna: 2006, CRISPR gene editingMary Claire King: 1989, not for discovery of breast cancer gene but for her humanitarian work performing pro bono sequencing of children “lost” in the dictatorship of Argentina and placing them back with their familiesPeter Ratcliffe, Bill Kaelin, Greg Semenza: 2019, Nobel prize - hypoxia signalingElizabeth Blackwell: 1849, became the first woman in America to receive an MD. She was soon joined by her younger sister, and together, the Blackwells founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first hospital staffed entirely by women.Paul Farmer: with colleagues, pioneered novel, community-based treatment strategies that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality healthcare in resource-poor settings. He wrote extensively on health, human rights, and the consequences of social inequality.Let us know what you thought of this week's episode on Twitter: @physicianswkly Want to share your medical expertise, research, or unique experience in medicine on the PW podcast? Email us at editorial@physweekly.com! Thanks for listening!

High-Impact Growth
Reimagining global mental health care with a person-centered, digitally-enabled approach with Dr. Vikram Patel, successor to Paul Farmer at Harvard Medical School

High-Impact Growth

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 12, 2023 48:32


“There is no health without mental health.” - Dr. Vikram Patel Dr. Vikram Patel is a psychiatrist, professor, renowned researcher and the incoming chair of Harvard Medical School Department of Global Health and Social Medicine where he takes over for the late Dr. Paul Farmer. Through decades of field-defining research, Dr Patel has shown how community-based resources can meet a growing burden of mental illness globally. In this episode, we explore Dr. Patel's journey from training as a psychiatrist in London to working in Zimbabwe and co-founding Sangath - an award-winning Indian NGO, committed to improving mental health care across the globe. This episode is a must-listen for those wanting to learn about strategies for scaling mental health care that extend beyond the traditional healthcare system and understanding how technology can help to improve the quality of psychological and social interventions. Topics include:  The importance of supporting Community Health Workers and Frontline Workers to treat mental illness and address the crisis of human resources in healthcare and mental health The integral difference between mental health and mental illness  The critical need for integration of mental health support into universal health coverage The connection and influence of mental health on other chronic diseases  The role of the ‘accompaniment model' in mental health care Understanding how non-specialist providers can deliver the ‘active ingredient' in mental health intervention for two thirds of mental illness The failings, future and possible fixes for the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual (DSM) in psychiatry   Introducing a stepped care approach in addressing individual's mental health needs  The importance of human connection in mental health treatment The need to shift from a diagnostic model to a person-centered approach  Exploring measurement based peer supervision in mental health treatment programs  The top 3 ways to leverage digital to augment humans in mental health care, not replace them Related resources: Grand Challenges Canada funded project to scale up peer supervision for delivery of psychological treatments - Collaboration between GMH@Harvard's Project EMPOWER, Dimagi, Sangath and the University of Toronto https://globalhealth.harvard.edu/empower-gcc-project-pilot/ How Digital Solutions Can Help Scale Mental Health Care https://www.dimagi.com/blog/digital-solutions-scale-mental-health-care/ Dr. Vikram Patel profile and research: https://ghsm.hms.harvard.edu/faculty-staff/vikram-patel Learn about Dr. Patel's new role as Chair of of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School:  https://hms.harvard.edu/news/patel-named-new-chair-global-health-social-medicine Sign up to our newsletter, and stay informed of Dimagi's work :⁠⁠⁠https://sites.dimagi.com/newsletter-sign-up⁠⁠⁠  We are on social media - follow us for the latest from Dimagi: LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/dimagi⁠⁠⁠ Twitter:⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/dimagi/⁠⁠⁠ Facebook:⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/dimagi.inc/⁠⁠⁠ Youtube:⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt8JcRhWywkVJRR_YWv4OhA⁠⁠⁠  If you enjoy this show, please leave us a 5-Star Review and share your favorite episodes with friends. Hosts: Jonathan Jackson: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanljackson/⁠⁠⁠ Amie Vaccaro: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/amievaccaro/ ⁠⁠

The Commonweal Podcast
Ep. 105 - How Hospitals Could Be

The Commonweal Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 25, 2023 39:50


Is single-payer health care really feasible in America? For one Texas physician, the answer is an unqualified ‘yes.' On this episode, Commonweal associate editor Regina Munch speaks with Ricardo Nuila, an internist at Houston's Ben Taub hospital and author of the new book The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine.  Then, as Commonweal approaches its centennial in 2024, we're featuring brief reflections on writers we've published since our founding. Here, associate editor Griffin Oleynick reflects on the spiritual writing of the late John Garvey. For further reading:  Paul Farmer's theology of accompaniment Luke Mayville campaigns for healthcare in Idaho Pope Francis's priorities for Catholic healthcare John Garvey on spiritual surrender

The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman
Author Tracy Kidder on homelessness, hope and telling stories that matter

The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 19, 2023 59:24


Author Tracy Kidder has been described as a “master of narrative nonfiction.” Kidder won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for his 1981 book, “The Soul of a New Machine,” about the development of cutting edge computers. He is the author of more than a dozen books including the acclaimed 2003 New York Times bestseller, “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” about the late global health pioneer Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners In Health. The book is often assigned as required reading in colleges.The Washington Post says that Kidder writes about “the moral value of small victories in a world of big problems.”Homelessness is the focus of Kidder's latest bestselling book, “Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People.” Kidder spent five years following Dr. O'Connell as he worked the streets of Boston. Kidder was moved by the people he met who were experiencing homelessness in Boston and wanted to tell their stories. “If you get to know them, to really look at them — and a lot of people never do — you realize that they're every bit as human as you and I, and that old adage, There but for the grace of God go I.”“The engine of every good story is human character,” said Kidder. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic, and the New York Times but he insisted, “I'm a storyteller more than I am a journalist.”“I stopped thinking of myself as a journalist around the time of the Iraq War. I didn't want to be associated,” he explained. “Because there were so many lies told and so much bad reporting… it starts to taint the term. And then you have Fox News. …It's a wonderful profession, journalism. I believe in it utterly. But I want to see it practiced better.”Kidder says of his craft that “the techniques of storytelling don't belong exclusively to fiction.” Good writing should “be like a pane of glass. The writing itself should be interesting but it doesn't have to be flashy. I believe in immersion in the story that I've discovered.”

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ®  Produced by David Introcaso
Dr. Eric Reinhart Remembers Paul Farmer (March 13th)

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David Introcaso

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 14, 2023


Listen Now Dr. Paul Farmer unexpectedly passed away on February 21, 2022. He was 62. Trained as physician and medical...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ®  Produced by David Introcaso
Dr. Eric Reinhart Remembers Paul Farmer (March 13th)

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David Introcaso

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 14, 2023 38:16


Dr. Paul Farmer unexpectedly passed away on February 21, 2022.   He was 62.  Trained as physician and medical anthropologist, Dr. Farmer was known moreover for his healthcare work in Haiti that he more formally forwarded via Partners in Health (PIH), an organization he cofounded in 1987.   Over the subsequent years Dr. Farmer and PIH expanded their work around the world in Africa, Russia, South America and in the US.  Dr. Farmer and his colleagues were also widely known for their international efforts to address multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB).  Among other notable achievements, Dr. Farmer served as a University Professor and a department chair at Harvard, served in United Nations' positions, on numerous boards and as editor in chief of Health and Human Rights.  He authored over 100 articles and a dozen books.  His most recent was the 2020 work, “Fevers, Feuds and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History.”  Among numerous awards Dr. Farmer received a MacArthur fellowship, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences was the recipient of numerous honorary doctorate degrees and prizes.  (Listeners may recall I interviewed Dr. Reinhart on June 24, 2021 regarding mass incarceration, public health and structural racism during the COVID era.)During this 38-minute conversation, Dr. Reinhart begins by noting his relationship with Dr. Farmer.  He goes on to discuss or attempt to interpret Dr. Farmer's work, what informed his work or motivated him, how he pursued his work and what might his legacy be or should be.       Dr. Eric Reinhart is a political anthropologist, psychoanalyst, and physician.  His teaching and research addresses the anthropology of law, inequality, and public health; psychoanalysis, ethnography, and aesthetic politics; and medicine, policing, and logics of apartheid and abolition.  In addition, he conducts conduct policy-oriented public health research to address carceral-community epidemiology,  or how the health and welfare of incarcerated people are always intertwined with that of broader communities. The work examines systemic prejudice in healthcare and legal systems, the uses of confinement and punishment in the US and internationally, and large-scale decarceration policies in relation to public health and safety, pandemic preparedness, and biosecurity.  His research has been published in medical and legal journals including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Health Affairs, and Journal of Legal Studies – and in popular media venues, such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, TIME, Slate, The Nation, Boston Review, The New Republic, and USA TODAY.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealthcarepolicypodcast.com

WBUR News
‘We all have to do this work': Paul Farmer's greatest legacy is the people he left behind

WBUR News

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 21, 2023 7:31


Dr. Paul Farmer, a co-founder of Partners In Health and a medical anthropologist affiliated with Harvard University, died, unexpectedly, on February 21, 2022. A year after his death, 10 of his colleagues and friends share what they miss and what lessons they hope to carry forward.

Everybody Hates Me: Let's Talk About Stigma
Dr. Caetano Dorea on Sanitation Stigma: It's More Than Just a Toilet

Everybody Hates Me: Let's Talk About Stigma

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2023 39:21


Dr. Caetano Dorea is a Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, at the University of Victoria. His interests and expertise are at the crossroads of environmental and public health engineering. You can learn more about his Public Health & Environmental Engineering (PH2E) Lab research here, his publications here, and follow him on Twitter here. We talk about the stigma around sanitation-and in particular 'shit'-and the 'flush and forget' culture. Caetano discusses the stigma experienced by sanitation workers, how sanitation services and water treatment are being reframed to show their value, the need for sanitation systems to address the needs of the most marginalized (and the relevance of Paul Farmer's teachings), and how we need to transform (and learn more about!) these sanitation systems we use every day. And the importance of toilet humour!Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.

As Woo Woo As You Want
Episode 48: Acupuncture & Herbalism with Margaret Travis

As Woo Woo As You Want

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 20, 2023 70:38


Episode 48: Acupuncture & Herbalism with Margaret Travis Happy Lunar New Year! In this episode, Celine & Jeremiah chat with acupuncturist and co-founder of Louisville Community Acupuncture Margaret Travis! We dive deep into the practice of acupuncture and herbalism, learn about Margaret's practice, and get a ton of helpful tips and tricks from the world of integrative medicine that can help with a wide variety of issues and conditions. We really enjoyed speaking with Margaret and hope you enjoy listening! Learn more about Louisville Community Acupuncture at louisvillecommunityacupuncture.com. Paul Farmer/Preventative Health (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Farmer), Chinese Medicine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine), Acupuncture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture), AOMA (https://www.aoma.edu), POCA Tech (https://www.pocatech.org), “The Web That Has No Weaver” by Ted J. Kaptchuk (https://www.fivebranches.edu/wp-content/uploads/book_pdf_The_Web_that_has_no_weaver.pdf), Qi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi), Gua Sha (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gua_sha), Louisville Community Acupuncture (https://louisvillecommunityacupuncture.com), Tiger Lily (http://www.tigerlilyholistic.com), Marfa, TX (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa%2C_Texas), Pulse Taking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse), Turtle Dragon Health Services (https://www.turtledragon.com), Herbal Medicine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbal_medicine), Astragalis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astragalus), Holy Basil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocimum_tenuiflorum), Ashwagandha (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withania_somnifera), Ginseng (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginseng), Salvia / Dan Shen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_miltiorrhiza), Goji Berries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goji), He Shou Wu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynoutria_multiflora), Four Gentleman Decoction, Gan Mai Da Zao Tang, Xiao Yao San, Yu Ping Feng San, NADA Protocol (https://acudetox.com/nada-protocol), Lincoln Detox Center (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Detox), Mutulu Shakur (https://mutulushakur.com), Miriam Lee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Lee), “Insights of a Senior Acupuncturist” by Miriam Lee (https://www.amazon.com/Insights-Senior-Acupuncturist-Miriam-Lee/dp/0936185333), Cupping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupping_therapy), Mai Men Dong, Meditation for Beginners(https://soundcloud.com/aswoowooasyouwant/meditations-with-jeremiah-4) If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting us: Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/aswoowooasyouwant Buy Me a Coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/woowoo Follow us on social media: Instagram - https://instagram.com/aswoowooasyouwant Twitter - https://twitter.com/aswooasyouwant TikTok - https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPdrawRgf/ YouTube - https://youtube.com/channel/UCiz_gMlLUJorTN7UAszHrgQ SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/aswoowooasyouwant Thanks for listening! [Recorded, mixed, and produced at PS379 (http://ps379studio.com)] ⓒ & ℗ Own Your Rhythm LLC 2022 Disclaimer: The material and information presented here is for general informational purposes only. No material on this podcast is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions may have regarding a medical condition or treatment before undertaking a new health care regimen. The “As Woo Woo As You Want” name and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.

Ketamine Insights
Managing Expectations: Ketamine, "Cures," and Cognitive Distortions

Ketamine Insights

Play Episode Play 18 sec Highlight Listen Later Dec 2, 2022 37:12 Transcription Available


An exploration of "All or Nothing Thinking" and other mental habits that hold us back. Google "cognitive distortions," and you're sure to recognize a few patterns from your own internal monologue. Maybe you catastrophize or you tend to disqualify the positive things in your life. Another common cognitive distortion is "all or nothing thinking," which can wreak havoc on our ability to manage our expectations as we try different treatments.Molly and Lynn discuss their own experiences with treatments that aren't cures, and Molly cautions against expecting therapeutic ketamine to end treatment resistant depression. They also share some thoughts on how distorting "all or nothing thinking" can be in the arenas of personal wellbeing and service to others. We take a moment of mourning for Dr. Paul Farmer, whose vision and moral clarity continue to instruct and inspire us. We reference a wonderful Ezra Klein Show episode in which he interviews the incomparable Robert Sapolsky. That episode (called "Robert Sapolsky on the Toxic Relationship of Poverty and Stress") is here https://pod.link/voxconversations/episode/34b7e4b6820f3877279f47e0b38224c1 If you enjoy Ketamine Insights, please take a moment to share it with a friend.Our hosts are Lynn Schneider and Molly Dunn. All of our music is by Solid State Symphony.Help us keep the lights on at https://www.patreon.com/ketamineinsightsEmail us at ketamineinsights@gmail.com with suggestions for Season Two!Our Instagram is @ketamineinsightsYou can also find us on YouTubeIf you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, please get help. In the US, you can dial 988. You are never all alone.Support the show

In Pursuit of Development
Silenced voices in global health — Address Malata

In Pursuit of Development

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2022 66:23


Global health organizations are mainly located in the global North and experts from low- and middle-income countries are underrepresented in global health leadership positions. Thus, it is unsurprising that there has been considerable criticism and heated debate on who should represent the underrepresented. According to our guest this week, it is crucial to ask: Who Speaks for Whom and About What?Professor Address Malata is the Vice Chancellor of the Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST). She trained to be a nurse and is former President of Africa Honor Society of Nursing and former Vice President of International Confederation of Midwives. She has previously served as principal of the University of Malawi's Kamuzu College of Nursing and is the recipient of numerous honors both at home and abroad. Host:Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPodApple Google Spotify YouTubehttps://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com/

CFR On the Record
Social Justice Webinar: Infectious Diseases

CFR On the Record

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 29, 2022


Demetre Daskalakis, deputy coordinator of the White House national monkeypox response, and Jeremy Youde, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota Duluth, discuss the emergence of monkeypox and other diseases, international responses, and messaging around health issues that especially affect the LGBTQ+ community. Jennifer Nuzzo, senior fellow for global health at CFR, moderates. Learn more about CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program. FASKIANOS: Thank you, and welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Social Justice Webinar series. The purpose of this series is to explore social justice issues and how they shape policy at home and abroad through discourse with members of the faith community. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. As a reminder, this webinar is on the record, and it will be made available on CFR's website, CFR.org, and on the iTunes podcast channel, “Religion and Foreign Policy.” As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We're delighted to have Jennifer Nuzzo, senior fellow for global health at CFR, to moderate today's discussion on infectious diseases. Dr. Nuzzo is a senior fellow for global health here at CFR. She's also a professor of epidemiology and the inaugural director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University's School of Public Health. Her work focuses on global health security, public health preparedness and response, and health systems resilience. In addition to her research, she directs the Outbreak Observatory, which conducts operational research to improve outbreak preparedness and response. And she advises national governments, and for-profit and non-profit organizations on pandemic preparedness and response, and worked tirelessly during the COVID pandemic to advise and tell people what was going on, to the extent that we knew, as we made our way through this two-and-a-half-year pandemic. So, Jennifer, I'm going to turn it over to you to introduce our speakers. NUZZO: Great. Thank you, Irina. Thanks for that introduction and thanks for organizing this webinar today. I'm very glad that we're having this conversation. As someone who's worked in infectious diseases for my entire career, I have found the last few years to be particularly staggering. I was looking, and as of today there are more than 616 million cases of COVID-19 that have been reported globally, upwards of 6.5 million diagnosed deaths that have been reported worldwide. At the same time, we are also seeing a global surge in cases of monkeypox, a disease that many hadn't heard of prior to this past year. And now we are over 66,000 cases that have been reported globally, more than 25,000 of those reported here in the United States alone. At the same time, successive outbreaks of Ebola have been occurring, and we have measles once again on the rise. And now vaccine-derived polio circulating in countries where the virus had been previously thought to be eliminated. So it's really a staggering list of infectious diseases that have been occurring and continue to occur. So clearly, we're at an important crossroads in terms of how we respond to these recurring hazards and infectious disease emergencies. But today we get to zoom out a little bit, and to examine factors that they may have all in common, and to try to understand what may be driving these—the recurrence of these events over and over again. So over the past few years we have seen the consequences of social, economic, and racial inequities play out center stage. These factors have underpinned not only our underlying vulnerabilities to infectious diseases, but also how effectively we respond to them. So that's what we're going to talk about today. And to help discuss these issues we are joined by two globally renowned experts who have a long history in working to address infectious disease threats and the disparities that accelerate them. Our first panelist is Dr. Demetre Daskalakis. Dr. Daskalakis is the deputy coordinator of the White House national monkeypox response. Prior to this role, he served as director of CDC's division of HIV prevention. And prior to that, oversaw infectious diseases for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which is one of the largest health departments in the nation and rivals the WHO in terms of staff and budgets. So Dr. Daskalakis is a leading national expert on many things, but also in particular health issues affecting the LGBTQIA+ communities. And he has worked clinically for much of his career to focus on providing care for these communities. We are also joined by Dr. Jeremy Youde, who is the dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Previously, Dr. Youde was an associate professor in the department of international relations at Australia National University in Canberra. Dr. Youde is an internationally recognized expert on global health politics. And he is a very prolific writer. He has written five books, and many chapters, and countless articles. I recently read a very compelling blog post by him on our own CFR's Think Global Health. So really excited to get both Dr. Youde and Dr. Daskalakis's perspectives on the issues in front of us. So I will get the conversation started. We have a lot of great attendees, and we'll have time for questions. But just to get the conversation going, let's see here. Maybe first, if I could turn to you, Dr. Demetre. For those who haven't been living in the monkeypox data as much as you have, perhaps you could just give us a quick summary of where we are and where you see us being headed. DASKALAKIS: Thank you. And thank you for having me. I'm really excited to join Jeremy and to be a part of this discussion. So living in the data is, in fact, what I do. So I'll tell you, so monkeypox—I'll give a little key bit of background just for everyone to be level-set—is an orthopoxvirus, that is a virus that causes disease, transmitted usually from animals to humans. Usually, traditionally, not a lot of human-to-human transmission. This current outbreak in 2020, global in scale, with 66,500 cases reported internationally, actually demonstrates pretty good human-to-human transmission, often in the setting of close contact, often associated with sexual activity, and the majority of cases being among men who have sex with men—the vast majority, over 96 percent. In the U.S., at this moment, we have 25,300 cases. I can tell you right up to the moment. And so we continue to see increases in cases in the United States, but we're seeing a deceleration in the rate of increase. So cases are stilling being logged. We used to see kind of around four hundred cases per day. We're now more on the order of two hundred or below and continue to see that trend going in a good direction with more data imminently coming to the website of CDC later on today. Again, just briefly, the demographic, majority male, mainly men who have sex with men—the gay, bisexual, other men who have sex with men. Looking at the demographics, at the beginning of the outbreak in May, the majority of cases were among white men. And now we're seeing about 68 percent of those cases are happening in Latino or Black men. From the perspective of that measure as well we've seen a significant increase in vaccinations. So we can talk—we're going to talk more about that, I'm sure. But really with lots of strategies to increase vaccine supply. We are now well over eight hundred thousand vaccines administered. There is an inequity there as well. The majority of vaccines are going to white men. And we're seeing Latino men and Black men in second and third place, respectively, in terms of vaccines administered. Jennifer, I hope that that's a good situation summary to start off with. NUZZO: Yeah, great summary. Thank you so much. That helped kind of bring everybody to the same—somewhat same level. Just a quick follow-up question for you. There have been a lot of headlines about the important progress we've made, and the fact that the global monkey—or, sorry—the monkeypox cases seem to be coming down in terms of numbers. Question: Are you seeing similar trends for all demographics? Or are you concerned that perhaps the large numbers are hiding increased transmission in other groups? DASKALAKIS: I had to fix the mute. There we go. So I think what we've seen is that the declines are looking to be even across population. So that's good news. Again, the vaccine equity is our main issue right now in terms of where we're—where that's stubborn right now, and really thinking about strategies to improve that. We had a lot of news today, which I'm sure we'll be able to talk about some of the strategies that we have to address that. But so I think there's no clear sign that the deceleration is different in different populations. Geographically, however, it is different. And so that's, I think, one place where—the jurisdictions that have had the greatest and longest experience with this outbreak, so the most cases, are also the jurisdictions that have access to the most vaccines. So whether it's because of behavior change that we're seeing, which is definitely something that we, I imagine, could talk about here as well, or natural infections plus vaccine-induced immunity, I think the places that have had more experience are showing deceleration faster. So New York, California, Texas, and Georgia are looking down, while some of the places where the outbreak is newer and they've also had less access and time for vaccines, those places are showing an increase. We're going to get an update of this, this week. So this is based on data that's about a month old. So soon we're going to have a new view into how this deceleration or acceleration looks like, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. NUZZO: Great. Thank you. Maybe turn to you, Dr. Youde. You've been an important voice about the global dimensions of the monkeypox crisis. And I'm just curious where you think we are globally. And I referenced in introducing you that piece that you wrote on Think Global Health that I thought was—made a quite compelling argument about the role of WHO and where you see the response needing to go. Do you want to maybe elaborate on those points for people who haven't had a chance to read your article? YOUDE: Sure. Thank you for the question, and thanks for organizing this. I'm honored to be part of this event. And, picking up on some of what you were talking about and what Demetre was just talking about as well, we do see these inequities that exist, especially when we're looking worldwide. The World Health Organization did declare monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern. And while it doesn't necessarily come with automatic funding or programmatic resources, it does raise the profile. It does put this on the global health agenda and say: This is something we need to be paying attention to. In the piece I described it as the WHO's bat signal. We're sending out the message: This is something that we need to pay attention to. But one of the things I think is frustrating about the WHO response, and just sort of the global community's response to monkeypox in general, is that monkeypox isn't a new disease. This is a disease that we've known about in human cases since 1970. Laurie Garrett in her book, The Coming Plague, which came out in '94—which is one of the books I think a lot of us who are probably about a similar age read in our early, formative days as we were coming into global health and global health politics—she talks about it in that book. And if you look at the data that we have, we've been seeing increases in monkeypox cases in humans in countries where monkeypox was endemic for about the last decade or so. And so—but what really caught the international community's attention was then when it came to the Global North, when it came to the industrialized countries. And that helps to reinforce some of these questions about what is the nature of our real concern about global health? Is it about health in this very broad mandate, like the World Health Organization has as part of its constitutional mandate, to be this international coordinating body? Or is the sense that we, in the Global North, want to keep the diseases from the Global South coming to affect us? And there are similar sorts of issues when we're looking at vaccine equity and vaccine access, when we're looking globally. And, there have certainly been some problems here in the United States, getting access to the vaccine. But, I was able to get vaccinated against monkeypox. Yeah, I had to drive two and a half hours to Minneapolis to do it, but I was able to do it. And I was able to arrange it. People in countries where monkeypox is endemic have little to no access to these vaccines. And it raises some of the questions then, again, about how the international system and the global health governance systems that we have in place—how they can address some of these equity challenges? Because in many ways, outbreaks like monkeypox, they glom onto the societal and social cleavages that exist, and help to reinforce and exacerbate them, but also provide this opportunity for us to really put some of our ideals and our promises around social justice, around a cosmopolitan view of understanding that we are all healthier if we are all healthier. And really put those into practice, if we have the political and economic will to do so. And that's where—that's one of the areas where I get a bit concerned right now. I know we're all exhausted talking about COVID-19 and about monkeypox, and all of these sorts of outbreaks. Jennifer, I know you've been doing a lot of this. Demetre, obviously, you've been on the frontlines. I've been doing some of this work as well. But when we lose that attention, sometimes we lose then that motive—that momentum in the political system to try to address some of these challenges and these shortfalls that we have identified. So, I can be a critic of the World Health Organization, but I also recognize that the World Health Organization is a creature of its member states. And so, it's really incumbent upon the member states to really put some action behind their words. And to say: If we want to have a more effective response, we need to build systems that are going to be able to respond better than this. NUZZO: Thank you for that. It's a good segue to what I wanted to talk about next, which is the title of this webinar being about social justice. And those who've worked in public health, the notion that social justice has a role to play in reducing our vulnerability to infectious disease is quite clear. But I'm aware, particularly over watching—(laughs)—the national political debate over the last several years that those outside of public health may not recognize the connection between our vulnerability to infectious diseases and social justice. And they may be dismissive of the idea that public health authorities should be engaged in the work of social justice. So this is actually a question for you both. And maybe reflect on monkeypox or your long experience of other infectious disease threats that you've worked to address. And what would you say to folks that just don't understand why public health should be concerned with social justice, and what role do you think it has to play going forward? And maybe we'll turn back to you after Demetre. DASKALAKIS: Do you want Jeremy to go or do you want me to go first? NUZZO: Go ahead. YOUDE: Go for it. Go for it. I'll let you start. DASKALAKIS: All right. So I'll put my very strong HIV hat on, because that's sort of where I come from. And I'll start that this is a forty-one—a forty-two, almost, year-old lesson that I think we've seen play out over and over again, which is that really the social determinants of health are actually what drive infection. So there are countermeasures that can work. There's vaccines. There's drugs. There's pre-exposure prophylactics, post-exposure prophylactics. It doesn't matter. The social determinants are really what ultimately ends up blocking us from being able to implement the full vision of what we know we can from the perspective of medical technology and public health. And so I think that at the end of the day that implementation piece is so critical. So much technology can exist, so many interventions can be designed, but they sit on the shelf unless there's both the political and social will to move them forward. And so I think I should put that HIV hat there for a second, because in environments where there is less political and social will we tend to see HIV flourish. And in places where there is social and political will, we tend to see HIV not do so well from the perspective—or, in other words, we will do well because of less incidents and prevalence. So I think that sort of looking at that will is so critical. I'll give you a story from monkeypox which I think is really important, that is about the sort of CDC response. I got pulled in really early on, before the first case actually hit the United States. One of the very early conversations that we had with the response is that we need to expect that we're going to have inequities that are going to be a part of this. And I think that's based on lessons from COVID, and lessons from HIV, and lessons from so many other infections. I think we really worked to make equity the cornerstone of the response. But even when you do that, it is an all-of-society thing that needs to happen, and not just something that is mediated simply by a public health department or a public health agency. Over. YOUDE: And if I can take that public health hat and HIV hat that you had on, and I'll wear it myself. I got into this line of work through working on HIV/AIDS issues in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and seeing how those sorts of societal cleavages played a role, but then also how infectious disease outbreaks, and the spread of HIV was glomming into these other issues around democratization, around building societies that were going to be equitable, that were going to be able to fulfill the promises that governments had made to their populations. And seeing how a disease like this was thwarting that progress. So it's something that is not just unique to the United States. It's something that we see globally. From a very instrumental perspective we can say, look, public health is ultimately a weakest link public good. Everyone is still at risk, so long as risks still exist. So we need to reach out to those places which might have fewer resources, which might not have the same sorts of ability to implement these sorts of programs, because ultimately that's going to make us all healthier. And I think there's elements and an important role for those sorts of instrumental views of public health. But I also think about the recently passed Paul Farmer, and his notion of public health, especially his idea around the preferential option for the poor, which was kind of a double-edge sword. Because on the one hand he was saying, look, the people who are disenfranchised within societies, those are the people who are the most vulnerable to these infectious disease outbreaks. Those are the people who are at the greatest risk. But also, we need to think about our programs, we need to think about our interventions putting those people first, thinking about equity. Putting that not as an afterthought or something that we think about five, six, seven steps down the road, but it needs to be central, and it needs to be core. Because, again, if we're not taking equity seriously and we're not really putting this into everything that we're doing, then we're just reinforcing these sorts of divisions and, again, providing these opportunities and these outlets where diseases can thrive. And so, to just cosign what Demetre was saying we can have all the technologies we want. And I have all my criticisms about the way that the access to pharmaceuticals and drug interventions exist on a global level, and questions about compulsory licensing and all these sorts of things. Those are all important, but those are secondary in a lot of respects if we don't have the underlying core infrastructure in place. And that core infrastructure, even if it's not touching us in a direct way, does have an effect on our ability to stay healthy. DASKALAKIS: Could I—this is a fun one. Could I keep going a little bit longer on this? NUZZO: Please do, yeah. DASKALAKIS: This is a great, stimulative conversation on this. And along with what ends up being both the foundation of the issue as well as the deeper foundation, the way that all of these social issues interact with stigma, like I think we've seen in fast-forward with monkeypox. Like all the things that we saw with HIV and other infections and COVID—today, for instance—this is a really good example. So, we're giving the vaccines and right now they're going on people's forearms. Which means that literally some people will have a mark on their forearm. So talking about stigma—literally stigma. And so, we changed it so that individuals can elect to get the vaccine on their shoulder or on their back. So we have people who want vaccines but are saying, I don't want to be marked by this. I don't want to have the sort of—someone know that I am someone who's potentially identifying myself as part of a group at risk. And so it interacts exactly with the social determinants. Whether it's poverty, transportation, racism, all of it interacts in a way where these sort of more brass-tacks economic issues interact with these very profound stigma issues and create barriers where even if you do have great access—I'll give an example again. [The] Ryan White [program] is really great access for people for HIV medication, but we still don't have everybody in the country—(inaudible)—right? So why is that? It's partially access, but it's also that the systems are built to sort of maintain structures of stigma and structures of inequity that are really hard to overcome, even with things that provide access. NUZZO: So I was actually going to ask you about stigma. So thank you for segueing to it. And I seems to me that—and I don't have the HIV hat to wear, like you both do. But studying events that we typically think about in the field of health security—which is a field that sort of struggles to incorporate the forty-plus year lessons that HIV has learned—is that it is clear that stigma is an issue in nearly every single event. Any time we have particularly a new infectious disease, or something that's unusual, society seems to look for some group to blame. But what it seems, though, is that while there's an increasing recognition of the importance of stigma, it doesn't seem like we have great strategies for addressing it. And I guess I'm wondering, do you agree? And also, what practically can and should we be doing to address stigma? I really saw us struggle with this. I mean, we had a recognition of it as being important in monkeypox, but I feel that the absence of clear ways to deal with it really led us to struggle to talk about monkeypox, and who was at risk, and how people could protect themselves. So what should we be doing going forward not just for monkeypox but future threats, so that we don't get hobbled by—first of all, that we can minimize or tackle stigma, but also don't get hobbled by it? Whoever wants to chime in. (Laughs.) DASKALAKIS: So this is back to the HIV hat. This is the tightrope that we walk every day in HIV. And I think that the lesson actually—well, one of the first lessons that's important, sort of sitting on the government side of the world, is that government needs to lead, and governmental public health needs to lead, so that its messaging does not propagate stigma. That's very important. Because whether people like governmental public health or not, or have complaints about it, ultimately people do look to governmental public health—like CDC, local health departments—to really fine-tune their own messaging, and then translate that messaging not just to another language but translate it so the populations that people work with actually understand. And so I think monkeypox was actually a kind of exciting example, where from the very beginning of the response it was a how can we take an anti-stigma stance in how we messaged it? And so the balance really then depended on the data. And so that's what was really important. So it was starting with imperfect data, and as the data became more and more clear, making sure that the messaging evolved in a way that addressed what you were actually seeing epidemiologically without necessarily—without creating a scenario where you're pinning infection, a virus, on a population. Let me give you an example since, Jennifer, you say your HIV hat isn't as strong as ours. So in the '80s, when HIV started, before it was HIV it was gay-related immunodeficiency. So that lesson was the lesson that was so important in the work that we did with monkeypox, to start off by saying: This is a virus that can affect anyone. But we're seeing this virus more in this population. As opposed to saying: This is this population's virus. And so it's leading by that example. And it's one of those things that we can raise up and say: We have learned the lesson from this forty-two years ago, and we're not doing it this way again. And so with that said, I think that there's a lot of strategies that can address stigma. And a lot of that has to do with communications, using trusted messengers. So, that has been a really important part of this as well because, again, working in public health I would love if everybody listened to public health data. So providing good communications to individuals who are trusted messengers is really important. And also, part of the propagating stigma is also being clear about what data is, things that we fully know and things that we're still learning. Because that really allows that risk communication so that you don't over-select or too rapidly move a response into what population, as opposed to being broad. So as you learn more data—so, for us, our guidance started off in one place about safer sex and safer gathering. As we were seeing that this was not moving throughout the different populations, it got stronger and stronger. And we really started the conversation by saying that this is guidance that's going to change as we learn more. I think that we do have stigma mitigation strategies. But stigma's a stubborn thing. I'll give it over to Jeremy. YOUDE: Yeah, I would agree with everything that you said. And especially being—having that level of humility. We are still learning about this. Things are going to change. Things are going to evolve but building those sorts of trusting relationships. The other things that I would emphasize, and I think these complement what you were saying quite well, is empowering communities to speak to each other. I think one of the things that we've seen here in the U.S. around access to the monkeypox vaccine, and the relatively high rates of vaccination that we've seen, has been people talking to other people. Men who have sex with men talking to other men who have sex with men, and this becoming part of the conversation. Even if it is something at the level of, where were you able to get access to it? When supplies are limited. Just building that sort of awareness within a community can be incredibly important. I think it's also important to make sure that we do have targeted messages. Not blaming messages, but understand that the message that just says, everyone is at risk for HIV or everyone is at risk for monkeypox, ends up falling flat and doesn't really strike anyone. And so having that sort of targeted outreach plays an important role. But going back to this point about empowering the affected communities, one of the most powerful things that I think that I've seen in the work that I've done is looking at the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, and the work that they did, especially in the late '90s and early 2000s, with the T-shirts that just in huge, bold letters across the chest said: HIV positive. And just having people going out there, wearing those T-shirts. The image of Nelson Mandela wearing one of those Treatment Action Campaign T-shirts is just incredibly important because, again, it's helping to remove some of that stigma. It's getting people who are trusted, who are respected, coming into the conversation. OK, if he's involved in this, if he's saying this is an important issue, maybe this is something that I need to be paying attention to. But also just trying to make that sort of availability, so that people are willing to share their experiences, or talk about what's going on, or what worked, or what didn't work for them. Again, these all play really important roles. It's never going to be perfect. It's something that we do need to keep at the forefront when these sorts of outbreaks happen. And you see some of this in some of the broader conversation around even what we call diseases, the names that we use. The fact that there is a very strong move away from geographically located names for diseases, because we don't want to stigmatize those particular communities or people who happen to be coming from those areas. Even something like that can play a really important role in helping people to think, this is something that I need to take seriously if I'm in the United States, I need to take this seriously. Even though we're talking about something like monkeypox, which isn't a geographic designator but there aren't a lot of monkeys roaming around in Minnesota. But it's something that they should be taking seriously, because of these effects and these sorts of community-based responses that help to try to destigmatize things, encourage people to get access to vaccines, or treatments, or other sorts of options that are available to them, and start to have those conversations to empower communities. NUZZO: That's great. I'm going to turn over to questions. And maybe participants can start putting their hands up. But while that's happening and before I turn it over for that section of the conversation, one last question to you both. Which is, I am deeply worried that we respond to these events as these one-offs. We have an emergency, we get emergency funding, then perceptions of the emergency being over, the funding disappears, and it's gone. And we saw that happen with COVID, where the money went away and then states had to let go their pandemic hires. And guess what? They weren't there when monkeypox happened. So I guess the question is, how do we move away from sort of seeing these as just one-off emergencies, and moving towards a role where we create a durable sort of permanent system that's in place to snap into action anytime there's an event, which is happening—which we're seeing—these events are happening with an increasing frequency? YOUDE: I'll jump in first, Jennifer. It's like you're reading the paper that I've been working on throughout the event today. And that's part of my concern about WHO designating this to be a public health emergency of international concern, when we're talking about monkeypox or COVID-19 for that matter, is the emergency framework. Public health, when it's doing its job, we don't know about it. It's something that—where we're essentially trying to stop things before they reach that level of public consciousness, or stopping it really, really early in the process. And so the emergencies, they get the attention for global health but they don't necessarily get the long-lasting system. It becomes, like, OK, whew, we got through that. We can move onto the next thing, or we can just not pay attention to global health again until the next system comes up. But at a very fundamental level we have this organization. We have the World Health Organization, which has this constitutional mandate to act as this international coordinating body for health—cross-border health issues. And it has a smaller biennial budget than many large hospital systems here in the United States. So how is it going to be able to do that sort of work when it has so few resources? Plus, given the way that the WHO is funded, it only has control over about 20 percent of its budget. The rest of it is coming through these voluntary contributions, which are generally specified for specific purposes, which may or may not align with the purposes that the WHO itself would put in place. So I think that one of the things that happens there is it behooves us, it behooves the member states to actually—to put some diplomatic and political capital behind this, to actually move on this. I have no doubt that in a few years' time we will have some sort of after—some sort of response that will look at the response that WHO made to COVID-19. And it will bemoan the failures. And it will talk about all the things that need to change. And then it will gather dust on the bookshelf. And we will get similar sorts of things for monkeypox. And what we haven't had is a country or a group of countries, or some sort of person with high stature, really glom onto this and be like, yes. We need to do this. This is our potential roadmap for trying to address this in the future. I—nerding out in the global health politics world—I had this idea that someone like a Helen Clark, or an Angela Merkel, someone who knows international politics, who knows the systems, who has that sort of diplomatic experience, but also is concerned about issues around health, that could be the person who could help to inspire some of these actions, and could get the attention of world leaders in a way that civil society organizations often aren't able to do. Which is not to say anything bad about those organizations, just that there are structural problems getting the attention of world leaders, and having that sort of concentrated attention. So I think we—ultimately, we need a champion. We need a person, or a country, or a group of countries who are willing to really champion this, and go to the mat for trying to make these sorts of changes, so it isn't just emergency, after emergency, after emergency, but something that is going to be more long lasting, that is going to provide that sort of infrastructural support, and make sure that we aren't just lurching from here, there and everywhere, but actually can have some sort of coordinated response and something that is a bit more forward-thinking. But it's a challenge. NUZZO: Demetre, the bullets of your bio—(laughs)—are a list of the emergency, after emergency, after emergency. So I know you have first-hand perspectives of this. So any hope we can fix it? DASKALAKIS: Sure do. (Laughter.) So, my perspective may be very domestic, but I actually think it's not. I think when I start talking, I think it's going to seem as if there's also infrastructure that needs to be leveraged internationally that's similar. Which is, I always think about what actually worked. And so one of the things that I think we're seeing over and over again, whether it's COVID, or monkeypox, or other outbreaks, is leveraging systems that already exist, and really figuring out how to support those systems during peacetime as well as wartime, so that it stays warm for a response. And that's a very public health—it's a very sort of operational, public health example. So I'm talking HIV. I'm talking chronic infections. I'm thinking domestically, we have this excellent—I think the HIV Epidemic Initiative, it's not nationwide yet. It hasn't been resourced to do that. But, if it were, that is a really sort of important way to be able to create and maintain an infrastructure. So thinking about sort of chronic diseases like viral hepatitis, having an infrastructure that could potentially lead to curing more people with viral hepatitis creates a system that then could be used for care and other public health delivery of countermeasures. So thinking about things that—what can we do to sort of do our peacetime work, which is around chronic infections like virus hepatitis and HIV, and what can we—and STIs, which are out of control in the United States, mainly because they're under-resourced—but what can we do sort of to maintain sort of those systems, so that when we flip the switch from peacetime to wartime that we can pivot those resources to do the work? I'll give an example from the research universe—monkeypox, as an example. Right now, there are studies that are going on for monkeypox vaccines and for monkeypox therapeutics. And they're built on the networks of HIV investigators. So, HIV Vaccine Trials Network and AIDS Clinical Trials Group are currently the people that are doing those studies. And sort of research funding potentially being a bit more flexible, that pivot is possible. But what if we had similar models sort of in the operational world of public health, where you have sexual health clinics or STD clinics that are doing HIV/STD work during peacetime, but can flip into monkeypox vaccines and testing in wartime? And so it's investing in a chronic infrastructure to be able to make it translatable into an emergency response, in a nimble way, I think is really important. And of course, I back up Jeremy. That idea of political will and leadership is really important in making sure that this sort of moves forward in a way that works. But, I mean, I say this domestically, but then one can conjure PEPFAR in terms of an infrastructure that works. So that—they have been leveraged. And so what if we worked harder to make sure that they were resourced adequately during the peacetime, so that during wartime they flip and are flipped more effective? And by the way, that HIV positive T-shirt has influenced my career, Jeremy, in terms of seeing people who were willing to put on a shirt that really works against stigma. My favorite being Annie Lennox, who I met with that T-shirt on, and I was very excited, as a fan. But definitely an important thing to reclaim that stigma. Jennifer, thank you. YOUDE: And if I can build on what Demetre was saying, think about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, and the cases that popped up in Nigeria. That led to all sorts of concern. Now you've got someone who has Ebola in Lagos, a city of twenty million people, and just not a city that necessarily has the sort of infrastructure in place that you're going to think, oh, we're going to be able to contain this. But they were able to repurpose existing programs. They were able to use measles control programs and other sorts of programs. And, using the word that we have all become way too familiar with over these past two and a half years, they pivoted, turned that into doing the surveillance and doing the contact tracing for Ebola, and were able to stop the spread, and being able to prevent that from spreading rampantly throughout one of the largest cities in the world. And I think that's the sort of thing, you know? If we have these sorts of structures in place, we can adapt them. Even if they are for one purpose, they can be adapted for other purposes. And so it's not that we need to recreat the wheel each time, it's that we need to figure—we need to make sure that we've got enough wheels out there, essentially. DASKALAKIS: And that goes for surveillance. Maintaining good surveillance systems for chronic things means that when an acute thing comes up, that good surveillance already exists there. So not only for an operation, but also for being able to understand what's happening with the threat. I like to call it keeping the system warm, if you think of sort of the stuff that's happening. So when you have to heat it up, you're not starting from—it's not a TV dinner you're taking out from frozen. It's thawed already. You can move quickly. NUZZO: It's really hard to build capacities in the midst of an emergency. So thank you for those thoughts. I am going to give others a turn to ask questions and turn it over to the question-and-answer session now. OPERATOR: Thank you. (Gives queuing instructions.) Our first question comes from Mark P. Lagon from Friends of the Global Fight against AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. LAGON: Hi, there. Thank you for this really thought-provoking forum. I come from a perspective working in the health field, but also background in human rights. I was an adjunct senior fellow at CFR, and president of Freedom House. I wonder, to take some of the points that Jennifer Nuzzo has been making and posing to you, to move to pandemic preparedness. If you have—we've seen that AIDS confronts one with very clear human rights and equity issues, particularly for stigmatized populations. You have a kind of a reprise with monkeypox. There was a lot of discussion about in terms of the impact of COVID and equity on vaccines. As the international community has moved to form a fund housed at the World Bank, how do you embed preparation for pandemics to have a human rights or social justice perspective? Activists really had to push hard to get two voting seats for civil society on the governing body of that fund. Thank you. NUZZO: Anyone want to take that on? (Laughs.) YOUDE: Sure. I'll offer a few thoughts. I think this is something—again, this is something to be thinking about at this early stage. As these sorts of systems are being designed, as they're being set up, keeping these sorts of elements important and at play. But I also think it's important to make sure that there are multiple channels for this communication to happen. That there's one thing to talk about formal board seats, and those are obviously important to have people at the table for these pandemic financing facilities through the World Bank and other sorts of organizations. But also make sure there are other opportunities, because new organizations may pop up. They may change. Depending on the particular circumstance or the particular outbreak that we're talking about, there may be other groups that are being mobilized and being affected by this. And so, there needs to be a certain level of nimbleness that needs to go into this. I think it's also something that puts a lot of—we need to put pressure on our leaders to really put their promises into action, to make sure that this isn't just something that we have as a tick box exercise. Oh, yes, equity is important, we need to address this. But actually, that there is this ongoing pressure and this sort of check of what are we actually doing here? Are we reaching out to these communities that are being affected? How can we better do this? And so I—again, there's an interesting moment right now that we can hopefully seize to make sure that this is something that really does get instantiated within these systems. And I hope we don't let that moment pass. I hope we don't decide to just we'll go back to existing systems. Because that's the other thing that goes along with this. It does challenge the status quo. It does challenge the sorts of standard operating procedures that we have in these organizations. And that can be challenging. That can be a difficult sort of conversation to have. And we have to be willing within our international organizations and other sorts of responses, we have to be willing to have those conversations. We have to be willing to challenge ourselves and to criticize ourselves, and to then make changes that are going to be effective. LAGON: Thank you. DASKALAKIS: I don't have almost anything to add to what Jeremy said. I think there really—again, the political will is important. And just we've all experienced that U-shaped curve of concern, right, where when things are very exciting everyone is very worried and engaged, and then when it fades away, resources fade away. And what that means is the infectious disease comes back. And so it's really—whether it's the same or a different infectious disease, sort of keeping that momentum and having it really come both from the political piece, from organization, but also from the side of advocates and activists is really critical to keep the—to keep the energy moving and the momentum moving. We have to make sure that we come to a better place. Every event, you learn more. And so I think that even if we take a quantum leap in what preparedness looks like, whatever the next event will challenge that level of preparedness and will require us to then—to really develop systems that are—that are updated based on the experience. So I think moving the needle anywhere, but moving it in a coordinated way because of that will and that strategy is the most we could hope for and the most we should expect. Or the least that we should expect, the minimum, of being able to move to a place where we have something that is better than how we found it, and potentially more resilient in terms of a—monkeypox is minor compared to COVID, after COVID. NUZZO: Yeah. I mean, I think the more we have these events the more we learn, though it does feel to me a little bit like the more we have these events, the more we learn the same things over and over again. (Laughs.) And particularly when we're talking about these inequities. And Jeremy pointed out about the stark inequities in terms of who's able to access vaccines in the globe. And that was clearly something that we saw throughout much of COVID-19, still see it today. We saw it during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, in terms of who had vaccines and who didn't. So I guess the question—and I recognize that we have just about ten minutes left, and the CFR rule is we always end on time. So I'm going to—(laughs)—I'm going to be aggressive about that. But just on that point what do we need, I think, to put into place? We talked about how there's a pandemic fund now, which is important. But aside from money, and maybe it's just money, what else do we need to kind of create structures to address these inequities globally? Given, Jeremy, you also made the important point about—I've been struck by how hard it's been to contain monkeypox here in the U.S. But let's say we're successful, we're still going to have challenges as the virus continues to circulate. So we need to make progress globally. And we need to have systems in place such that every time these emergencies happen, we don't keep learning these same lessons over. So maybe just two or three minute each, your takeaways on what you would do to fix these problems if you were deemed in charge of the world. YOUDE: A little new world, just like that. Money is obviously important. The amount of money that we spend on development assistance for health has gone up dramatically since the early 1990s, but it still pales in comparison to the level of need. So there is just a basic resource need. The second is that we need to make sure that systems that we are building are not for specific diseases, but are things that can be flexible, things that can be adapted. We don't want to just say: Now we're going to set up all these monkeypox surveillance systems, when that may or may not be what is going to be the next big outbreak. So we need to have things that are going to be able to be flexible like that. Third, we need to have—we need to have a better sense of just our—I guess our international community's willingness to engage with global health. We have the international health regulations. So we do have an international treaty that's supposed to govern how states respond to infectious diseases and their outbreaks. But the willingness of states to abide by that varies quite dramatically. And so we need to have a big of a come-to-Jesus moment about what are we actually willing to do, when push comes to shove? And then last thing I'll say is that I do think we need to have a conversation around access to pharmaceuticals and vaccines and other sorts of medical interventions like that. Because we know that there are inequities, and we know that oftentimes the communities that have the least access are the communities that have the highest rates of incidence or are in the most need of these sorts of things. And our structures are not really well designed for getting people access. Even though there are things like COVAX, even though there are things like PEPFAR, and all these other sorts of programs, which have done tremendous work, they are still falling short. And so we need to—we need to have a better sense of what—how do we actually put these sorts of things into practice? How do we actually make sure that these scientific breakthroughs that are so invaluable are reaching all the people that need to be reached? DASKALAKIS: Ditto, I'll start off. So that makes my job a little bit easier, because I think what Jeremy said is really important. I'll say again, I think in my hierarchy the first and most important thing is consistent political will, because I think that that then drives a lot of what happens beyond that. So I think that that really jives really well with what Jeremy said, in terms of that sort of commitment. Money is very important, I think, but it is not the only thing that drives us into preparedness. So I think that having that commitment. I also would like to think about that investing the money in things that keep the system warm. So I'll go back to that sort of statement, or like thinking about investing in the diseases that we still haven't finished. We still are working—we've got HIV, we have hepatitis, malaria internationally that we're worried about. There are a lot of areas that we could invest to create systems that are infrastructures that keep it warm for operation for pandemic. I cannot say it loud enough that what Jeremy said about flexibility is right. You can't really build the infrastructure on chronic disease if it's not flexible to move to another acute event. So it needs to be something that is both creates and maintains the infrastructure, but also has the ability—everyone's favorite word today—to pivot into the emergency response zone. So very important. I think also workforce and data. I think that it is important to remember that we talk about giving patients trauma-informed care, but we need to give our workforce trauma-informed care. COVID has been hard. Monkeypox has been hard. Our next challenge will be hard. And sort of how can we support the workforce and then also continue to mentor it to be able to do the work? Data also is so important. A commitment to share data, and to have data that is accessible for decisions, even if it is imperfect. And then finally, the realization—and it goes back full circle, Jennifer, to your first question—about our—or, maybe second question—about the social determinants. There's only so much that public health can do. There is an all-of-society need to address the core drivers of so many of the inequities. We can't solve everything through public health. We can get closer to health equity, but ultimately the goal is that as you access is really to go into social justice, which is not just public health but really an all-of-society endeavor to try to improve the environment so that we don't have fertile ground for these pandemics to blossom and grow. NUZZO: Thank you. There's a question that just popped up in the Q&A box. And we just have a few minutes. It's about the privilege of good information and how we address misinformation and disinformation, which likely leads to fragmentation. I will just chime in, having done a lot of communication over the past two years, I think that this is not a problem that public health can solve. I actually think the drivers of this are much, much larger. And I think we need an all-of-government approach to this that includes the potential regulation of the platforms. But I'm curious if you all have any quick comments to add to that. DASKALAKIS: I mean, I just agree with you. (Laughs.) It's definitely much bigger. There are things we can do, like monitor social media and make sure that our messaging is one way. But ultimately this is an issue that's bigger, that requires not just the public health lens to address. YOUDE: And, at the same time, we also can recognize that those trusted outlets, those can be really important tools. So, churches in sub-Saharan Africa played a really crucial role in many parts of helping to decrease HIV stigma, helping to get access and information out there about testing, about protection, about these sorts of things. I mean, that can also be the flipside, though. If you got these trusted sources that are peddling this misinformation, then it becomes this much bigger issue that goes beyond what public health can do. So I guess it's—part of it is just figuring out where those allies exist, be they in government or outside of the government, and what sorts of connections they might have with populations. DASKALAKIS: And to your earlier point about building those connections prior to events, so those relationships exist and you're not trying to forge them in the midst of a crisis. NUZZO: Well, really, thank you both. I wish I could appoint you both in charge of the world, because if I was asked who should be in charge of the world you would both be on the top of my list. But I am very glad that you continue to do the work that you do and contribute in important ways. And have both been really guiding voices as we continue to experience these events. So thank you very much for that, and really thank you to our participants for attending and the thoughtful questions. FASKIANOS: I second that. Thank you all. And we appreciate your taking the time to do this. I hope you will all follow their work. For Dr. Daskalakis, you can follow him at @dr_demetre. Dr. Youde is at @jeremyyoude. And Dr. Nuzzo is at @jennifernuzzo. Pretty easy. So we also encourage you to follow CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program on Twitter at @CFR_religion and write to us at outreach@CFR.org with any suggestions or questions. We want to help support the work that you all are doing. And we hope you will join us for our next Religion and Foreign Policy Webinar on the Politics of Religion and Gender in West Africa, on Tuesday October 11 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern time. So thank you all again for being with us, and thank you for your public service. We appreciate it.

Raise the Line
Leading the Fight for Global Health Equity - Dr. Sheila Davis, CEO of Partners In Health

Raise the Line

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 3, 2022 27:53


With its mission to bring the benefits of modern medicine to places that have been impacted by poverty and injustice, Partners In Health has been at the forefront of the battle for global health equity since it began in 1987.  Founded by a group of like-minded physicians and philanthropists, including the late Dr. Paul Farmer, it has focused on strengthening health systems in the communities that need them most. “Paul really saw that the link between academia and clinical and the community had to be a deliberate and authentic one," says Dr. Sheila Davis, CEO of Partners In Health. Dr. Davis began her work as a nurse fighting the HIV pandemic in the 1980s and has since built an amazing career in healthcare and philanthropy, holding multiple leadership roles at Partners In Health over the past decade. In this informative conversation with host Shiv Gaglani, she gives us an inside look at the organization's current work, provides insights on what it takes to strengthen healthcare systems, and stresses the importance of taking a community-grounded approach.  Mentioned in this episode: https://www.pih.org/

Ufahamu Africa
Bonus: Hear Kim Yi Dionne's review of Paul Farmer's "Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds"

Ufahamu Africa

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 30, 2022 7:05


Kim reviews Paul Farmer's last book, Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds, in this week's bonus episode. Farmer, a well-known American medical anthropologist and physician, offers an essential and provocative account of the West African Ebola crisis and why it occurred.Books, Links, & Articles"Paul Farmer's Last Book Teaches Still More About Pandemics" by Kim Yi DionneFevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History by Paul Farmer

Take as Directed
Dr. Margaret Bourdeaux: “Meeting People Where They're at Is Very, Very, Very Powerful."

Take as Directed

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 28, 2022 50:12


Dr. Margaret Bourdeaux, Research Director of the Global Public Policy and Social Change Program, Harvard School of Medicine, joins J. Stephen Morrison for Episode 142. Her mentor Dr. Paul Farmer, who recently passed, inspired her with his exhortation to “do hard things together” even when the odds are against you. Her project, the Covid Academy, is developing a locally-informed model for standardized health security outbreak investigation and response. Though the United States is deeply divided politically, Dr. Bourdeaux believes the situation is not as dire as it seems. Common sense can win. “I don't believe that Americans can't see reason on this”.

Light Reading Podcasts
The Divide: WeLink's John Paul Farmer on bringing affordable broadband to cities

Light Reading Podcasts

Play Episode Listen Later May 27, 2022 15:36


In this episode, we hear from John Paul Farmer, chief innovation officer at WeLink Cities, and the former chief technology officer of New York City. We discuss the fixed wireless technology WeLink is using to deploy broadband in cities, and the company's efforts to deliver affordable service. We also get into WeLink's new Cities Challenge: a $100 million effort to partner with cities on rapid broadband deployments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Alyssa Milano: Sorry Not Sorry
Dr. Thomas Fisher, Author of The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER

Alyssa Milano: Sorry Not Sorry

Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2022 40:16


It's almost impossible to quantify the problems with the way we approach healthcare in this country. For something which should be a human right, high-quality healthcare is often provided in unlimited amounts to the rich at the expense of the poor—especially people of color. In his new book “The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER,” our guest Dr. Thomas Fisher examines the injustices of our system through the eyes of a physician trying to do his best for his patients in a system that seems designed to prevent him from doing so. PRAISE for “The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER” “This book reminds us how permanently interesting our bodies are, especially when they go wrong. Fisher's account of his days is gripping. . . . His frustration, his outraged intelligence, is palpable on every page. . . . the best account I've read about working in a busy hospital during Covid.” —The New York Times “A briskly paced, heartfelt, often harrowing year in the life of an ER doctor on Chicago's historically Black South Side.” —San Francisco Chronicle “The Emergency is graphic and gut-wrenching, as it should be. It is an undeniable call for a just health-care system, as it will be.”—Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist “With scalpel-like precision and searing patient stories, Thomas Fisher exposes the battlefield of medicine and the scarring—and often fatal—wounds of inequality. The Emergency is a bat call. Health care doesn't care, inequality kills, and we must do better.”—Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, author of What the Eyes Don't See “The Emergency is a doctor's-eye view of the layered crises afflicting a single Chicago community and the entire nation that surrounds it. By turns brutal and beautiful, this is a tale of life, death, and the people whose efforts often determine which of those two will prevail.”—Jelani Cobb, co-editor of The Matter of Black Lives “Tired of reading about COVID-19? Don't make the mistake of missing the best book about it to date. The Emergency is Thomas Fisher's memoir of the first year of the pandemic's grip on Chicago's South Side, where he grew up and where he battled the disease, along with every other ailment and injury that reached his emergency room. This is no past-tense memoir but a gripping account of events as they happen. It's beautifully rendered in the present tense and leavened by a series of letters he composed to, and in honor of, his patients. But this is also a book about our country, a wrenching and tender reflection on an aphorism Fisher invokes: When America catches a cold, black America catches pneumonia. It won't take you long to read this fast-paced account, but you won't forget it anytime soon.”—Paul Farmer, M.D., author of Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor “Riveting . . . [Fisher] eloquently captures the intensity of the situation . . . and shares heartrending stories of victims. . . . The result is a powerful reckoning with racial injustice and a moving portrait of everyday heroism.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Dramatic . . . well written and compassionate . . . a persuasive, sympathetic . . . insider's report on a broken system.”—Kirkus Reviews SEE LESS --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alyssa-milano-sorry-not-sorry/message

NEJM This Week — Audio Summaries
NEJM This Week — April 14, 2022

NEJM This Week — Audio Summaries

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2022 26:13 Very Popular


Featuring articles on nirmatrelvir plus ritonavir for Covid-19, the treatment of acute Achilles' tendon rupture, rilzabrutinib in immune thrombocytopenia, mitapivat for pyruvate kinase deficiency, and global health and the moral clarity of Paul Farmer; a review article on cancer-associated hypercalcemia; a case report of a woman with pancytopenia; and Perspective articles on fully realizing SNAP's health benefits, on the 2022 Child Nutrition Reauthorization, and reflections on caring for the unvaccinated.

HealthcareNOW Radio - Insights and Discussion on Healthcare, Healthcare Information Technology and More
Conversations on HC: Building on the Legacy of Global Health Leader Dr. Paul Farmer

HealthcareNOW Radio - Insights and Discussion on Healthcare, Healthcare Information Technology and More

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 21, 2022 28:14


As the world faces enormous challenges, in Ukraine and from COVID, it's doing so without one of its global health champions. Dr. Paul Farmer, the co-founder and chief strategist of Partners In Health, unexpectedly passed away in February. This week Dr. Joia Mukherjee, the Chief Medical Officer of Partners in Health, shares memories with Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter. She explains how the nonprofit's focus will remain on community health in the countries it serves. To stream our Station live 24/7 visit www.HealthcareNOWRadio.com or ask your Smart Device to “….Play HealthcareNOW Radio”. Find all of our network podcasts on your favorite podcast platforms and be sure to subscribe and like us. Learn more at www.healthcarenowradio.com/listen

COVID NoiseFilter - Doctors Explain the Latest on COVID-19
Ep. 498 - Remembering Paul Farmer, Lassa Fever, and Iraq Overcoming Vaccine Hesitancy

COVID NoiseFilter - Doctors Explain the Latest on COVID-19

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 17, 2022 9:56


Today, in episode 498, our expert Infectious Disease Doctor and Community Health Specialist discuss what you need to know about Public Health. We talk about the legacy of Paul Farmer, as well as what lassa fever is, and how Iraq is overcoming vaccine hesitancy. As always, join us for all the Public Health information you need, explained clearly by our health experts. Website: NoiseFilter - Complex health topics explained simply (noisefiltershow.com) Animations: NoiseFilter - YouTube Instagram: NoiseFilter (@noisefiltershow) • Instagram photos and videos Facebook: NoiseFilter Show | Facebook TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@noisefiltershow --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/noisefilter/message

Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders
Dr. Cynthia McCauley - An Achievement of the Collective

Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 15, 2022 44:55 Transcription Available


Cynthia McCauley is an honorary senior fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership. With more than 35 years of experience, Cindy has been involved in many aspects of CCL's work: research, publications, program and product development, evaluation, coaching, and management. Capitalizing on this broad experience, she has developed expertise in leader development methods, including developmental assignments and relationships, 360-degree feedback, and action learning. She has also played a central role in CCL's efforts to understand leadership as a collective phenomenon shared among people and to expand its leadership development practice to include the development of teams and leadership cultures. Cindy has published numerous articles and book chapters for scholars, HR professionals, and practicing managers. She is the co-editor of three editions of The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development (1998, 2004, 2010), as well as two books on experience-based development (Using Experience to Develop Leadership Talent, Experience-Based Leader Development: Models, Tools, Best Practices, and Advice). Cindy has a Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology from the University of Georgia and is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Association, and the American Educational Research Association.A Few Quotes From This Episode"What we say is leadership is an 'achievement of the collective,' which might be the most concise way to express a relational view of leadership."“Assessment, challenge, and support…are the elements that combine to make developmental experiences more powerful. That is, whatever the experience, it has more impact if it contains these three elements.” “Individuals broaden and deepen their leadership capabilities as they do leadership work. In fact, there are good reasons to believe that learning from experience is the number one way that leader development happens…. How can organizations better harness the power of experiences for leadership development?”  “A leadership development strategy is a plan for the thoughtful, intentional deployment of organizational resources to ensure the ongoing availability of leadership for achieving the organization's strategic agenda…." (with Karen Grabow)“Relational views of leadership may be the disruptive idea that helps reconstruct leadership development in ways that meets these concerns” (with Chuck Palus )Resources Mentioned In This EpisodeBook: Trust in a Complex World: Enriching Community by Charles HeckscherBook: The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson Book: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy KidderBooker: In Over our Heads by Robert KeganAbout The International Leadership Association (ILA)The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals with a keen interest in the study, practice, and teaching of leadership. Plan now for ILA's 24th Global Conference Online October 6 & 7, 2022, and/or Onsite in Washington, D.C., October 13-16, 2022.Connect with Your Host, Scott AllenLinkedInWebsite

Please, Go On with James Hohmann
Author John Green reflects on the legacy of global health giant Paul Farmer

Please, Go On with James Hohmann

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 11, 2022 22:38


Paul Farmer, a global health advocate and physician whose work saved millions of lives, died in Rwanda last month at age 62. Author John Green, a mentee of Farmer's, discusses the physician's life and remarkable legacy.Read John Green's op-ed about Paul Farmer.And his op-ed about giving up social media.

Why Am I Telling You This? with Bill Clinton
Remembering Dr. Paul Farmer: How to Fight for Health Equity

Why Am I Telling You This? with Bill Clinton

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2022 29:39


Dr. Paul Farmer, who passed away unexpectedly in Rwanda on February 21st, fundamentally changed the way healthcare is delivered in the most impoverished places on Earth, touched millions of lives, and inspired countless others to follow his example. In tribute to his extraordinary life and pioneering work, this special episode features a conversation between Chelsea Clinton and Dr. Farmer from 2019, as well as President Clinton's reflections about his longtime friend. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Raised Catholic
Communal Lent

Raised Catholic

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 8, 2022 10:18


This week we're remembering the reading from the Prophet Joel we heard on Ash Wednesday, and reflecting on the idea of communal repentance, communal sin, communal suffering, communal life, and communal faith. Maybe the idea of communal Lent has come to us in this complicated, hyper self-oriented, and challenging time for a reason. Maybe it's time we remember we belong to each other. If you'd like to connect with me, find me on Instagram or on my blog. If you'd like to help support this podcast financially, there's now a way to do just that, and thank you - visit me on my page at buymeacoffee.com! Thanks as always for sharing, subscribing, rating, and reviewing, as this helps our community to grow! Here are some resources I hope will help you to engage with this week's topic in a deeper way for yourself: 1. Book of Joel overview from Bible Project 2. Where Peter Is: A collaborative effort of writers increasingly concerned about divisive attacks on Pope Francis and effects on the Church 3. Podcast: Field Hospital with Mike Lewis and Jeannie Gaffigan 4. Song: One Voice, by The Wailin' Jennys 5. Song: Clean - Live, by Hillsong 6. Song: People of God, by Gungor 7. Lenten resources/study from author Kate Bowler 8. Book: Bitter & Sweet, by Tsh Oxenreider 9. On Dr. Paul Farmer of Partners In Health, a modern and timely example of someone who gave his life away in the name of God on behalf of his sisters and brothers 10. Podcast: Jesuitical - Remembering Dr. Paul Farmer - a Catholic Who Wanted to Cure the World

Why Am I Telling You This? with Bill Clinton
Michael Murphy: How Architecture Can Save Lives

Why Am I Telling You This? with Bill Clinton

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 3, 2022 44:23


Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, so many of us found ourselves looking at the places we visit in our daily lives, weighing factors like ventilation and ability to social distance, and asking ourselves a new question: will going here make me more or less likely to become sick?   For architect Michael Murphy, this is the kind of question he has spent his life thinking about. As the Founding Principal and Executive Director of MASS Design Group, one of the most innovative architecture and design collectives working today, Michael is devoted to designing better buildings that improve health, bring people together, and promote equality and dignity. In this episode, Michael joins President Clinton to talk about projects they've worked on together in Haiti and Rwanda, his new book “The Architecture of Health” and the simple design elements that can limit the spread of disease, and his involvement with the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. They also share personal reflections on the impact that their mutual friend and partner Dr. Paul Farmer, who passed away unexpectedly the day before this conversation, had on their lives. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sundial | WLRN
Abortion in Latin America, vote fraud in South Florida, the legacy of a beloved doctor

Sundial | WLRN

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 2, 2022 50:44


Abortion legalization is increasing across Latin America. Also, there's already voting fraud issues in South Florida ahead of the midterm elections. Plus, remembering the late global health advocate, Dr. Paul Farmer.

Start Making Sense
Canadian Truckers: a Working Class Protest? Jeet Heer, plus Amy Wilentz on Paul Farmer

Start Making Sense

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 23, 2022 31:07


Now that Canada's "Freedom Convoy" has come to an end, we're wondering: was this protest really a working-class movement? As Jeet Heer explains on this week's episode, the leadership and funding for the protest came from right-wing networks, and the “truckers” were mostly owners of trucking firms rather than drivers. Nevertheless, it was a movement that gained significant support, and something left-wing political activists should pay attention to, Heer says. Also this week, Amy Wilentz remembers her friend and a hero to many: Paul Farmer. Farmer brought high-quality healthcare to some of the poorest communities in the world, beginning in Haiti. For more, read Wilentz's obituary of public health hero. Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Overseas
Paul Farmer

Overseas

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 23, 2022 10:23


In this episode, we remember the life of a remarkable doctor to the poor in Haiti.