The Dose

Health care workers are among the heroes of the pandemic. One year in, many of us are experiencing stress, fatigue, and grief. But this can pale in comparison to the toll faced by those caring for the sick and dying on a daily basis. On this episode of The Dose, we listen to the stories of one group of frontline health workers: nurses. Often dealing with inadequate PPE and staff shortages, nurses are putting their own lives at risk — and many are experiencing burnout and exhaustion. Our guest, Mary Wakefield, takes us on a journey from rural hospitals to clinics in underserved areas, all through the eyes of nurses. Mary, a nurse with a long career in health care and public service, says the pandemic has revealed that America's public health infrastructure is "incredibly anemic."

Violence kills thousands of Americans each year and sends many more to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. Even though many people recover physically, the issues that cause violence often go unchecked. On today's episode of The Dose, we talk about how interventions, both in hospitals and in communities, that can help break the cycle of violence that traumatizes people over time. Our guest, Fatimah Loren Dreier, is the executive director of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, and a Pozen-Commonwealth Fund fellow in Health Equity Leadership. She talks about how trained violence interruption specialists can help people navigate conflict, and how the national protests around police violence towards Black Americans has created an opportunity for communities to rethink the role of the police.

Living with the COVID-19 pandemic for a year, it's hard to process the numbers. What we know is that nearly 500,000 Americans have lost their lives, and that Black, Latino, and Indigenous people are worst impacted. But behind the statistics are stories, and on the latest episode of The Dose, we listen to one of those stories. Our guest, Dr. Magdala Chery, is a primary care physician and Commonwealth Fund Fellow in Minority Health Policy. Magdala is also a daughter, and she experienced firsthand the racial inequities of our health care system when she lost both her parents to COVID-19 last spring. Magdala speaks of her personal tragedy without rancor: she believes that sharing stories like hers will help us see the people of color affected by COVID-19 not as case numbers and fatalities, but as lives.

Almost a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. faces another health crisis – one of loneliness. Between lockdowns, social distancing, and the fear that contact with others could make us sick, many people are living in isolation. But there are ways to cope. On this episode of The Dose podcast, Matthew Pantell and Laura Shields-Zeeman, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, talk about how innovative programs from around the world could help mitigate the effects of isolation.

A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States appears to have learned few lessons from its disastrous early response. Hasty lockdowns and bungled reopenings have now given way to a sluggish and uncoordinated vaccine rollout. This month, the daily death toll crossed 4,000, and hospitals in many parts of the country are overflowing with sick patients. How are we going to get out of this mess? On the latest episode of The Dose, Ashish Jha, M.D., dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, explains how vaccine distribution could be sped up and carried out in a manner that addresses racial and economic disparities. Jha believes that swift action from the incoming administration could help America emerge from the pandemic by mid- to late 2021.

COVID-19 brought the lives of college students to an abrupt standstill – being in a classroom, a dormitory, a dining hall table with friends became risky activities overnight. How did universities navigate the impossible tradeoff between having students on campus with the risks of the coronavirus, and keeping students remote but putting their education in peril? Find out on this episode of The Dose podcast with Dr. Michael Drake, President of the University of California. Drake, who is also a member of The Commonwealth Fund Board of Directors, explains the decisions he made to keep students safe – and learning – on and off campus. Listen here, and then subscribe wherever you find your podcasts.

A new president doesn't get four years to shape health care, he gets six months. And for President-elect Joe Biden, the most pressing health care issue is – no surprise here – COVID-19. On this episode of The Dose, the Commonwealth Fund's President David Blumenthal, M.D., talks about Biden's opportunity to leave a lasting health-care legacy by bringing the pandemic under control. History will judge Biden by how he rises to our new reality, says Blumenthal, in which one in every 1,300 Americans has died of COVID, millions have lost their jobs, and science has been undermined and ignored.

President-elect Joe Biden says he is committed to strengthening the Affordable Care Act so that all Americans can get the health care they need. He also wants to work with people of all political stripes: in his acceptance speech, he said it's time "to listen to each other again." This week on The Dose podcast, we're bringing back an earlier episode on the compromise required to bring about big political change — in this case, change in U.S. health care. The Commonwealth Fund's Elizabeth Fowler, a key architect of Obamacare, talks about the behind-the-scenes effort it took to get the landmark law passed.

People who are incarcerated have complex health needs, and to make matters more complicated, prisons and jails have seen some of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S. But what happens when they leave prison or jail and need to receive health care on the outside? Many states that have expanded Medicaid are also trying to ensure that people leaving jail or prison are able to enroll in health coverage upon release. On the latest episode of The Dose podcast, learn how these and other health care and criminal justice reform efforts work together from guests Vikki Wachino, who heads a nonprofit that connects jails with community health care providers, and Rebekah Gee, who oversaw Medicaid expansion as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health.

Masks. Lockdowns. Shuttered businesses. Hospitals strained beyond capacity. Weary of the pandemic's myriad disruptions to normal life, many Americans are pinning their hopes on a COVID-19 vaccine. But even if an effective one is developed, it won't make the virus magically disappear. On today's episode of The Dose podcast, Dr. Margaret "Peggy" Hamburg, former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a member of the Commonwealth Fund's board, talks about the race to develop and deploy a vaccine. "Even the world's most safe and effective vaccine won't make a difference if people don't trust it and won't take it," she warns.