Book Club

Host: John J. Russell, MD In December 2005, the National Football League produced a scientific paper concluding that "professional football players do not sustain frequent repetive blows to the brain on a regular basis." That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: a chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players -- including some of the all-time greats -- to madness. In this conversation with Mark Fainaru-Wada, author of League of Denial, the NFL's apparent efforts to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage over a period of nearly two decades are put into the spotlight.

Host: John J. Russell, MD From the 15th to the mid-19th centuries, scurvy caused more deaths at sea than storms, shipwrecks, combat and all other diseases combined, according to author Stephen Bown. In this remarkable discussion, Bown talks about the harrowing path toward the cure for scurvy. While ranking among the greatest of human accomplishments, its impact on history has, until now, been largely ignored.

Host: John J. Russell, MD A horrifying epidemic of smallpox was sweeping across North America when the War of Independence began, and until now we have known almost nothing about it. Author Elizabeth A. Fenn is the first historian to reveal how deeply Variola affected the outcome of the war in every colony and the lives of everyone on the continent. Join Dr. John Russell in exploring Fenn's innovative work, which brings to light how this megatragedy was met and what its consequences were for the young republic.

Host: John J. Russell, MD When the next pandemic arrives, what will it look like? From which innocent host animal will it emerge? Will we be ready? Addressing these and other questions is David Quammen, author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. Mr. Quammen's book illuminates the origins and dynamics of Ebola, SARS, bird flu, Lyme disease, and other emerging threats.

Host: John J. Russell, MD Hospitalized with a freak case of tropical pneumonia and ashamed of a middle-aged body best described as "a python that swallowed a goat," author A.J. Jacobs felt compelled to change his ways and get healthy. In his book, Drop Dead Healthy, Jacobs encapsulates his experiences of consulting an army of experts and subjecting himself to dozens of different workouts, diets, and devices - from Finger Fitness to Strollercize sessions, and from veganism to "extreme chewing."

Host: John J. Russell, MD At the turn of the last century, a powerful smallpox epidemic swept the United States from coast to coast. The age-old disease spread swiftly through an increasingly interconnected American landscape: from southern tobacco plantations to the dense immigrant neighborhoods of northern cities to far-flung villages on the edges of the nascent American empire. In Pox, award-winning historian Michael Willrich offers a gripping chronicle of how the nation's continentwide fight against smallpox launched one of the most important civil liberties struggles of the twentieth century.

Host: John J. Russell, MD Author Christopher McDougall's book, Born To Run, is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? Isolated by Mexico's deadly Copper Canyons, the blissful Tarahumara Indians have honed the ability to run hundreds of miles without rest or injury. Mr. McDougall set out to discover their secrets. In the process, he has journied from science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultra-runners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to a climactic race in the Copper Canyons that pits America's best ultra-runners against the tribe.

Host: John J. Russell, MD In his book, The Wildlife of Our Bodies, biologist Rob Dunn from the Department of Biology at North Carolina State University opines that while "clean living" has benefited us in some ways, it has also made us sicker in others. We are trapped in bodies that evolved to deal with the dependable presence of hundreds of other species. As Dunn reveals, our modern disconnect from the web of life has resulted in unprecedented effects that immunologists, evolutionary biologists, psychologists, and other scientists are only beginning to understand.

Host: John J. Russell, MD In 1998 Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist with a history of self-promotion, published a paper with a shocking allegation: the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine might cause autism. The media seized hold of the story and, in the process, helped to launch one of the most devastating health scares ever. Yet despite the numerous studies that failed to find any link between childhood vaccines and autism, it has since been popularized by media personalities, and declining vaccination rates have led to outbreaks of deadly illnesses like Hib, measles, and whooping cough. In The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy, author Seth Mnookin draws on interviews with parents, public-health advocates, scientists, and anti-vaccine activists to tackle a fundamental question: How do we decide what the truth is?

Host: John J. Russell, MD 500,000 Americans died over a 6 week period; is this the latest thriller from Hollywood, or a piece of American history? Joining host Dr. John Russell to elaborate is Gina Kolata, acclaimed reporter for The New York Times and author of Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It. In Flu, Ms. Kolata unravels the mystery of this lethal virus. From Alaska to Norway, from the streets of Hong Kong to the corridors of the White House, Kolata tracks the race to recover the live pathogen and probes the fear that has impelled government policy ever since. A gripping work of science writing, Flu addresses the prospects for a great epidemic's recurrence and considers what can be done to prevent it. 

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD When Dr. Pauline Chen began medical school, she dreamed of saving lives. What she could not predict was how much death would be a part of her work. Almost immediately, she found herself wrestling with medicine's most profound paradox-that a profession premised on caring for the ill also systematically depersonalizes dying. Drawing from her authored work, Final Exam, Dr. Chen describes the course of her education and practice as she struggled to reconcile the lessons of her training with her innate sense of empathy and humanity. Hosted by Dr. Maurice Pickard.

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD Dr. Maurice Pickard welcomes author Scott McGaugh to discuss the subject of his book "Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care." Through their discussion, listeners will discover how one lone surgeon, Jonathan Letterman, reshaped military medicine over the course of four major Civil War battles and a single year. Letterman, confronted by thousands of wounded lying abandoned on the battlefield, a sickly and malnourished Union army, and obscenely filthy military camps, took steps that make battlefield survival possible for our soldiers today.

Host: John J. Russell, MD One of the age-old questions on human behavior is why we do the things we do. Are our habits ingrained, and if so, how do we break the behavioral cycles they produce? Investigating these and other questions is Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, whose work takes readers to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. Hosted by Dr. John Russell.

Host: John J. Russell, MD San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God's Hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves - "anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times" and needed extended medical care - ended up there. Dr. Victoria Sweet ended up there herself, as a physician. And though she came for only a two-month stay, she remained for twenty years. God's Hotel tells the story of a hospital, which - as efficiency experts, politicians, and architects descended, determined to turn it into a modern "health care facility" - revealed its truths about the cost and value of caring for body and soul.

Host: John J. Russell, MD A maddened creature, frothing at the mouth, lunges at an innocent victim and, with a bite, transforms its prey into another raving monster. It's a scenario that underlies our darkest tales of supernatural horror, but its power derives from a very real virus, a deadly scourge known to mankind from our earliest days. In this fascinating exploration, journalist Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy speak with host Dr. John Russell about the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies as described in their book "Rabid."

Host: John J. Russell, MD Matthew Miller had just pedaled up a mountain pass. He was 20, a member of the University of Virginia triathlon club, so fit his resting pulse was 42! He was on top of the world in so many ways, in love, with dreams of attending medical school. And then, cycling along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia, tragedy struck. The real story is not what happened, but what happened after. Host Dr. John Russell is joined by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Michael Vitez to share the humbling story of Matt's survival and recovery. The author first chronicled Matt Miller's story for his newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer. The response from readers was so overwhelming - and Matt's continued recovery so remarkable - that Vitez immersed himself in Matt's world. The Road Back is not only about a young man's drive to reclaim his life, but about the people who rode with him, rescued him, helped him heal, and saw up close his amazing comeback.  

Host: John J. Russell, MD An extraordinary yet almost unknown chapter in American history is revealed in this extensively researched exposé by author Matthew Algeo. On July 1, 1893, President Grover Cleveland boarded a friend's yacht and was not heard from for five days. During that time, a team of doctors removed a cancerous tumor from the president's palate along with much of his upper jaw. When an enterprising reporter named E. J. Edwards exposed the secret operation, Cleveland denied it and Edwards was consequently dismissed as a disgrace to journalism. Twenty-four years later, one of the president's doctors finally revealed the incredible truth, but many Americans simply would not believe it. After all, Grover Cleveland's political career was built upon honesty-his most memorable quote was "Tell the truth"-so it was nearly impossible to believe he was involved in such a brazen cover-up. "The President Is a Sick Man" is the first full account of the disappearance of Grover Cleveland during that summe

Guest: Marc Galanter, MD Host: Leslie P. Lundt, MD Medicine and spirituality have always been linked, we have struggled as a profession with how to introduce spirituality and religion into the general hospital setting. Host Dr. Leslie Lundt discusses such a program with Dr. Mark Galanter, professor of psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine, and author of Spirituality and the Healthy Mind: Science, Therapy and the Need for Personal Meaning.

Guest: Laurie Edwards Host: Leslie P. Lundt, MD Better technology and treatments mean that people with serious childhood illnesses such as cystic fibrosis and type one diabetes are reaching adulthood in unprecedented numbers. That means they are also struggling with college, relationships, fertility and employment. Laurie Edwards, a health journalist and author of Life Disrupted, joins host Dr. Leslie Lundt to discuss these issues.

Guest: Steve McKee Host: Susan Dolan, RN, JD Hear Steve McKee, author of the book, My Father's Heart: A Son's Journey, as he discusses why it was so difficult for him to make the decision to take a statin for his heart disease.