Social stigma makes the opioid crisis hard to confront (7min) There are many reasons why the opioid crisis is so hard to confront. One of them is social stigma. It often extends beyond users themselves, to their families. People see addiction as a moral weakness, and by extension, the moral weakness of their families.
When drinking ruins your liver - should you qualify for a transplant? When patients develop alcohol liver disease, they are often forced to wait 6 months to prove they can abstain from alcohol before they will be considered for a transplant. Is that a fair amount of time? Is that a fair practice at all?
Withholding surgery: How gaps in policy fail people who inject drugs A recent New York Times article described a harrowing situation faced by some people who inject drugs and develop endocarditis, a life-threatening infection caused by bacteria that enter the bloodstream and settle in the heart. The article described doctors in Tennessee deciding whether to perform repeat costly heart surgeries on patients who were re-infected with endocarditis as a result of ongoing illicit drug use—and at times declining to operate. There are policy failures that are to blame, too, for how and why resources are allocated this way. This looks at those failures and how our bias influences both the policies and how they are applied.
Injecting Drugs can ruin a heart - how many second chances should a user get? A life-threatening heart infection afflicts a growing number of people who inject opioids or meth. Costly surgery can fix it, but the addiction often goes unaddressed.
The Fix (whole episode - 43min) This episode we take a sober look at the throbbing, aching, craving desire states that return people (again and again) to the object of their addiction … and the pills that just might set them free.
What makes a life worth living in the face of death In this deeply moving talk, Lucy Kalanithi reflects on life and purpose, sharing the story of her late husband, Paul, a young neurosurgeon who turned to writing after his terminal cancer diagnosis. "Engaging in the full range of experience — living and dying, love and loss — is what we get to do," Kalanithi says. "Being human doesn't happen despite suffering — it happens within it."
Sight Unseen (must download to hear) Listen to a family's reaction after learning that their son's death had been documented by a photographer embedded with a medevac team in Afghanistan.
Deceit & I RJ Walker performs this emotion-provoking poem about the large role that deceit undeniably plays in our lives and careers as a tool to save others from pain.
Everything Doesn't Happen for a Reason An essay on the importance of grieving and avoidance of "platitudes cloaked as sophistication" from "The Adversity Within" - a blog dedicated to examining the topic of resilience in the face of adversity
Getting Grief Right by Patrick O'Malley Common knowledge is that people go through stages of grief - progressing from one to the next. Not only is this an oversimplification, but providers' assumption that this is how grief "should" be processed may cause our patients harm.
What makes a life worth living in the face of death In this deeply moving talk, Lucy Kalanithi reflects on life and purpose, sharing the story of her late husband, Paul, a young neurosurgeon who turned to writing after his terminal cancer diagnosis. "Engaging in the full range of experience — living and dying, love and loss — is what we get to do," Kalanithi says. "Being human doesn't happen despite suffering — it happens within it."
Sight Unseen (must download to hear) Listen to a family's reaction after learning that their son's death had been documented by a photographer embedded with a medevac team in Afghanistan.
Murderer in the Mirror Surgeon Scott Eggener recalls the devastation of the first time a patient dies on his operating table.
Deceit & I RJ Walker performs this emotion-provoking poem about the large role that deceit undeniably plays in our lives and careers as a tool to save others from pain.
Everything Doesn't Happen for a Reason An essay on the importance of grieving and avoidance of "platitudes cloaked as sophistication" from "The Adversity Within" - a blog dedicated to examining the topic of resilience in the face of adversity
Getting Grief Right by Patrick O'Malley Common knowledge is that people go through stages of grief - progressing from one to the next. Not only is this an oversimplification, but providers' assumption that this is how grief "should" be processed may cause our patients harm.
"Still Point": A Mediation on Mothering a Dying Child - Emily Rapp The struggles and emotions experienced parenting a child with Tay-Sachs disease.