Book Club

Host: Andrew Wilner, MD, Author of "The Locum Life: A Physician's Guide to Locum Tenens" Guest: Michael Weisberg, MD What happens when you are admitted to the hospital as a patient, and the physician assigned to be your doctor has never seen you before and knows absolutely nothing about you? Says Dr. Michael Weisberg, gastroenterologist and author of The Hospitalist, situations like these are increasingly common in modern medicine and can have disastrous consequences for patients. Dr. Weisberg joins host Dr. Andrew Wilner to talk about his novel, which underscores how doctors are now at heightened risk of being thwarted by the modern health care system.

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD Guest: Annette Hanson, MD Is forced treatment helpful or harmful? Battle lines have been drawn over involuntary treatment for psychiatric patients. Psychiatrist Dr. Annette Hanson offers a thought-provoking and engaging account of the controversy surrounding involuntary psychiatric care in the United States. She brings the issue to life with first-hand accounts from patients, clinicians, advocates, and opponents. Committed takes on the difficult question of psychiatry's role in preventing violence, suicide, and mass murder. Hosted by Dr. Maurice Pickard.

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD Guest: Elijah Nealy, PhD These days, it is practically impossible not to hear about some aspect of transgender life, and kids are coming out as trans at younger and younger ages. But what resources are available to parents, teachers, and mental health professionals who need to support these children? Host Dr. Maurice Pickard chats with Elijah C. Nealy, therapist and former deputy executive director of New York City’s LGBT Community Center. Mr. Nealy is the author of Transgender Children and Youth: Cultivating Pride and Joy with Families in Transition, which provides insights about the physical, social, and emotional aspects of transition and the best practices to support trans kids.

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD Guest: Peter Dawson, MD In the male-dominated world of medicine, she dared to step forward and fight for fairness—graduating from Johns Hopkins Medical School with honors in the year 1900. But for physician Dorothy Reed Mendenhall, MD, the battle for equality was just beginning. In the name of improving the standards of care for women and infants, she faced the scorn of prejudiced doctors in an establishment marked by its unwillingness to change. Still, through the Gilded Age, two World Wars, and beyond, she kept up her fight—in the process, discovering new breakthroughs and saving lives, all while outperforming many of her male peers. Dorothy in a Man’s World is an inside look at the life and career of Dr. Mendenhall, documented by physician and pathologist Dr. Peter Dawson. This biographical tribute to one of medicine’s great female pioneers showcases the struggles women faced to make a name for themselves in the world of health care—in addition to the drastic improvements w

Host: John J. Russell, MD Guest: H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH The central problem with health care, according to physician and author Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, is that too much of it has too little value. Host Dr. John Russell chats with Dr. Welch about his book Less Medicine, More Health: 7 Assumptions that Drive Too Much Medical Care and the issues of the American healthcare system today. They talk about how the American public has been sold the idea that seeking medical care is one of the most important steps to maintaining wellness. Dr. Welch argues that more medical care is not, in fact, well correlated with good health; by contrast, the opposite may be true.

Host: John J. Russell, MD Infectious disease has the terrifying power to disrupt everyday life on a global scale, overwhelming public and private resources and bringing trade and transportation to a grinding halt. Host Dr. John Russell sits down with Dr. Osterholm to talk about the book Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs. They talk about how we could wake up to a reality in which many antibiotics no longer cure, bioterror is a certainty, and the threat of a disastrous influenza pandemic looms ever larger. Only by understanding the challenges we face can we prevent the unthinkable from becoming the inevitable.

Host: John J. Russell, MD After sitting at the feet of Martin Luther King at the University of Michigan in 1963, Larry Brilliant was swept up into the civil rights movement, marching and protesting across America and Europe. As a radical young doctor he followed the hippie trail from London over the Khyber Pass with his wife Girija, Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm commune to India. There, he found himself in a Himalayan ashram wondering whether he had stumbled into a cult. Instead, one of India’s greatest spiritual teachers, Neem Karoli Baba, opened Larry’s heart and told him his destiny was to work for the World Health Organization to help eradicate killer smallpox. He would never have believed he would become a key player in eliminating a 10,000-year-old disease that killed more than half a billion people in the 20th century alone. Host Dr. John Russell sits down with Dr. Larry Brilliant to discuss his book, Sometimes Brilliant and talk about his amazing journey from Detroit to counter-culture San Francisc

Host: John J. Russell, MD Host Dr. Russell sits down with Dr. Steven Hatch, an infectious disease specialist and author of the book, Inferno: a Doctor's Ebola Story, about his experience in Liberia during the heart of the Ebola crisis. Dr. Steven Hatch first came to Liberia in November 2013, to work at a hospital in Monrovia. Six months later, several of the physicians Dr. Hatch had mentored and served with were dead or barely clinging to life, and Ebola had become a world health emergency. Hundreds of victims perished each week; whole families were destroyed in a matter of days; so many died so quickly that the culturally taboo practice of cremation had to be instituted to dispose of the bodies. With little help from the international community and a population ravaged by disease and fear, the war-torn African nation was simply unprepared to deal with the catastrophe. A physician’s memoir about the ravages of a terrible disease and the small hospital that fought to contain it, Inferno is also an explana

Host: John J. Russell, MD Three out of four people addicted to heroin probably started on a prescription opioid, according to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the United States alone, 16,000 people die each year as a result of prescription opioid overdose. But perhaps the most frightening aspect of the prescription drug epidemic is that it’s built on well-meaning doctors treating patients with real problems. Host Dr. John Russell chats with Dr. Anna Lembke, Chief of Addiction Medicine and an Assistant Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Lembke is the author of Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop, exploring how the prescription drug epidemic is a symptom of a faltering health care system, the solution for which lies in rethinking how health care is delivered.

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD Dr. Maurice Pickards talks with Dr. Edward Shaw about his book Keeping Love Alive as Memories Fade: The 5 Love Languages and the Alzheimer's Journey. Dr. Shaw shares how love can lift a corner of dementia’s dark curtain to cultivate an emotional connection amid memory loss. The book provides focused help for those feeling overwhelmed by the relational toll of Alzheimer’s.

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD Guest: Damon Tweedy, MD How do black doctors grapple with race, bias, and the unique health problems for black Americans? Host Dr. Maurice Pickard chats with Dr. Damon Tweedy, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Duke University Medical Center and author of the book Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflection on Race and Medicine, which examines the complex ways in which black doctors and patients must both navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine.

Host: John J. Russell, MD What if Americans put aside their differences and worked together to fix America's broken healthcare system? What changes need to be made in order to make health care both accessible and affordable without compromising excellent quality of care standards for patients? These and other crucial questions form premise behind the book We CAN Fix Healthcare: The Future is NOW. Host Dr. John Russell sits down with Dr. Stephen Klasko, President and CEO of Jefferson University and Jefferson Health and author of We CAN Fix Healthcare: The Future is NOW.

Host: Brian P. McDonough, MD, FAAFP Guest: Harley Rotbart, MD Dr. Brian McDonough speaks with Dr. Harley Rotbart, Professor of Pediatrics at University of Colorado School of Medicine and author of the book Miracles We Have Seen: America's Leading Physicians Share Stories They Can't Forget. This collection of remarkable stories offers a compelling glimpse into the lives of physicians—their humanity and determined devotion to their patients and their patients' families. It reminds us that what we don't know or don't understand isn't necessarily cause for fear, and can even be reason for hope.

Host: John J. Russell, MD Guest: Sanjiv Chopra, MD, FACP Dr. John Russell talks with Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, author of The Big Five: Five Simple Things You Can Do to Live a Longer, Healthier Life. They discuss 5 easy changes that anyone can implement to improve their overall health. The book delves into how the underlying promise of every exciting medical discovery, diet, and exercise program is the same: do this, buy this, or eat this and you will look better, live longer, and be healthier. But few books can make the promise of this one: if you adapt these five simple, virtually-free suggestions you will live a longer and healthier life, guaranteed. This is no fad study. Each of the recommendations outlined in this book has been proven by an overwhelming number of tests, trials, and studies to increase health and lifespan. There are no gimmicks, no catches, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD Guest: Rebecca Alexander Born with a rare genetic mutation called Usher Syndrome type III, Rebecca Alexander has been simultaneously losing both her sight and hearing since she was a child, and was told that she would likely be completely blind and deaf by age 30. Then, at 18, a fall from a window left her athletic body completely shattered. In Not Fade Away, Rebecca tells her extraordinary story, by turns harrowing, funny and inspiring. She meditates on what she’s lost—from the sound of a whisper to seeing a sky full of stars, and what she’s found in return—an exquisite sense of intimacy with those she is closest to, a love of silence, a profound gratitude for everything she still has, and a joy in simple pleasures that most of us forget to notice.Not Fade Away is both a memoir of the senses and a unique look at the obstacles we all face—physical, psychological, and philosophical—exploring the extraordinary powers of memory, love, and perseverance. It is a gripping story, an

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD While modern medicine produces miracles, it also delivers care that is too often unsafe, unreliable, unsatisfying, and impossibly expensive. For the past few decades, technology has been touted as the cure for all of healthcare’s ills. But medicine stubbornly resisted computerization – until now. Over the past five years, thanks largely to billions of dollars in federal incentives, healthcare has finally gone digital. Yet once clinicians started using computers to actually deliver care, it dawned on them that something was deeply wrong. Why were doctors no longer making eye contact with their patients? How could one of America’s leading hospitals give a teenager a 39-fold overdose of a common antibiotic, despite a state-of-the-art computerized prescribing system? How could a recruiting ad for physicians tout the absence of an electronic medical record as a major selling point? Logically enough, we’ve pinned the problems on clunky software, flawed implementations, absurd regulati

Host: John J. Russell, MD A fascinating and shocking historical exposé, The Malaria Project is the story of America's secret mission to combat malaria during World War II—a campaign modeled after a German project which tested experimental drugs on men gone mad from syphilis. Karen M. Masterson, a journalist turned malaria researcher, uncovers the complete story behind this dark tale of science, medicine and war.

Host: John J. Russell, MD Have you ever wondered what that 1 outlier would say when you see commercials and products boasting that 9 out of 10 doctors recommend something? Dr. H. Eric Bender, co-author of the book 1 Out of 10 Doctors Recommends: Drinking Urine, Eating Worms, and Other Weird Cures, Cases, and Research from the Annals of Medicine, provides real answers that you wouldn't have even thought possible. Entertaining and informative (and sometimes just plain gross), 1 Out of 10 Doctors Recommends examines the strangest and most unusual medical practices, including: drinking your own urine to fight infection, using live eels to relieve constipation, and licking a patient's head to diagnose Cystic Fibrosis.

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD STDs are widespread in all walks of life, regardless of gender, race, social status, or education. Seduced into complacency by the notion that "it can't happen to me" many sexually active teens and young adults are stunned when they are diagnosed with an STD. In Seductive Delusions: How Everyday People Catch STDs, author and physician Dr. Jill Grimes reveals the truths about sexually transmitted diseases through narrated accounts of young men and women, their exam room conversations with doctors, and both the physical symptoms and the emotional reactions that can accompany infection.

Host: John J. Russell, MD After having a nationally televised panic attack, Dan Harris, co-anchor of “Nightline” and the weekend edition of “Good Morning America” on ABC News, knew he had to make some changes. Mr. Harris realized that the source of his problems was the very thing he always thought was his greatest asset: the incessant, insatiable voice in his head, which had propelled him through the ranks of a hypercompetitive business, but had also led him to make decisions that provoked his on-air panic attack. Eventually Harris stumbled upon an effective way to rein in that voice, something he always assumed to be either impossible or useless: meditation, a tool that research suggests can do everything from lower your blood pressure to essentially rewire your brain. 10% Happier, an autobiographical account of Harris's discovery of meditation, takes readers on a ride from the outer reaches of neuroscience to the inner sanctum of network news to the bizarre fringes of America’s spiritual scene, leavin