Raise the Line

The Crucial Role of Psychedelic Therapy Guides - Mary Cosimano, Former Director of Guide and Facilitator Services at The Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness ResearchAll of the promising research into the potential benefits of psychedelics in mental health treatment depends on having skilled professionals who can create a therapeutic alliance with participants and guide the sessions in which the compounds are administered. We could not have a betterRaise the Line guest for understanding this role than Mary Cosimano, LMSW, former director of Guide and Facilitator Services at the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelics & Consciousness Research. Since the genesis of psychedelic research there two decades ago, she has conducted over 500 sessions herself as well as serving as a research coordinator.  In this fascinating conversation with host Shiv Gaglani, Cosimano discusses how she prepares for and processes the often-taxing sessions, the common themes that emerge from participants, and what qualities effective guides need to have. On that point, she thinks the role needs to be open to chaplains, nurses, hospice care workers, and others with the right combination of experience and personal qualities, not just to licensed medical personnel.  “What’s as important is who they are, what they've done in their life and career, how much work have they done on themselves, do you feel comfortable with them?” This is a fascinating look into the heart of psychedelic-assisted therapy and the meaningful experiences participants can have when they are in the right hands.   Mentioned in this episode: https://hopkinspsychedelic.org/ If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

“We're really heading to a cliff when it comes to those expressing interest in healthcare careers,” cautions today’s Raise the Line guest Geoffrey Roche, director of Workforce Development in North America for Siemens Healthineers. Unfortunately, this drop-off in interest is happening as statistics on the current and future shortage of healthcare workers seemingly get worse by the day. One strategy the veteran hospital administrator and educator advocates is partnering with the K-12 system to provide early exposure to healthcare careers. “We have to show young people what the possibilities are. We've got to visually help an individual understand ‘this is what your career ladder could be.’ It could also help, he tells host Rishi Desai, if young people understood how much healthcare technology is powered by the same type of systems as video games. Citing the concerns that other industries do a better job of recruiting young people, Roche urges all healthcare organizations to have deep working relationships with educators. “If you’re not working with an academic institution to look at your needs of today and tomorrow proactively, strategically and tactically, then you're behind.” The good news is Roche sees examples of community partnerships and creative approaches to certification and apprenticeships that could yield results. Tune in to find out how bringing healthcare and education together at all levels can help fill the daunting gap in clinical and non-clinical staff that confronts our healthcare system. Mentioned in this episode: www.siemens-healthineers.com If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

Dr. Amin Azzam, Faculty Engagement Coordinator at Osmosis, discusses the power of active learning and engaged learners in medical education. He shares his experience of creating a medical school course on improving health information on Wikipedia, as well as Osmosis initiatives to support medical students in Syria and refugees. The podcast also explores the role of human oversight in healthcare and provides advice on gratitude and the power of curiosity.

“When we say ‘treatment for menopause,’ it implies that menopause is a disease, when really it’s a normal and expected time of life,” says Dr. Anna Barbieri, an integrative medicine physician and specialist in menopause certified by the North American Menopause Society. That attentiveness to word choice is reflective of a new perspective that’s driving Dr. Barbieri and her peers to see menopause more holistically than in the past and to forge new approaches to the care they provide. "Menopause care is not checkbox medicine. We have to work with our patients individually," Barbieri shares with special guest host Dr. Deborah Enegess, herself a practicing gynecologist as well as a clinical content writer for Osmosis. A personalized approach involves tailoring care plans that take exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress management and other lifestyle and psychological factors into account in an effort to help patients feel better in the short term and longer term.  Providers also have to contend with a shift in long-held thinking about the use of hormone therapy and a bewildering array of supplements that are touted as effective remedies for various symptoms.  To help sort through all of this complexity, new resources have come on the scene in recent years, including the digital platform Elektra Health -- of which Barbieri is the founding physician -- that describes its mission as “smashing the menopause taboo.” Check out this engaging exploration of what looks to be a promising time for women in search of individualized, integrated and informed care during their menopause journey.Mentioned in this episode: https://www.elektrahealth.com/ If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

Dr. Mary 'Bit' Yaden, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, discusses the unique aspects of administering psychedelic-assisted therapy and the importance of a therapeutic relationship. She explores the potential of psychedelics in psychiatry, highlighting the transformative power of psychedelic experiences. The chapter also emphasizes the need for safety and evidence-based practices in psychedelic therapy.

“I really have challenged the students that have graduated from Duke the last couple of years to consider being ambassadors for science and for communication of what is good science,” says Dr. Mary Klotman, executive vice president for Health Affairs and dean of the School of Medicine at Duke University.  She notes that the stakes of disinformation are too high to do otherwise, as up to 300,000 COVID-19 deaths can be attributed to unfounded fears about one of the safest vaccines ever produced. It's just one of many educational imperatives Klotman is pursuing to prepare future clinicians for a constantly changing healthcare landscape. Others include helping students put new tools such as AI in the context of patient care, creating more opportunities to learn in ambulatory settings where 90% of healthcare is now delivered, and more multidisciplinary training to reflect a growing team approach to medical care. To help develop those interprofessional habits, Klotman has championed a “One Duke” approach. “Whether you're a student, senior investigator or a clinician, take advantage of the broad expertise here to solve a problem whether it's engineering in medicine, or it's data science. That is the nature of scientific problem solving today.” Join host Shiv Gaglani on this episode of Raise the Line for a wide-ranging look at how a leading academic center is innovating to adjust to dynamic changes in society, technology and healthcare.Mentioned in this episode: Duke University School of MedicineDuke's Program on Medical Misinformation If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

Dr. Nigam Shah, Chief Data Scientist at Stanford University, discusses embracing the power of AI in healthcare. He encourages using AI to augment human abilities, not replace them. He emphasizes the need for systematic verification and testing of AI in medicine. The podcast also explores the confusion and misapplication of AI, and highlights the importance of understanding problems rather than solely focusing on AI. Dr. Shah calls for training AI with proper instruction-tuning data, and urges listeners to avoid fearmongering.

“What's really exciting and scary in medical education right now is we're seeing large language models enter the scene,” says today’s Raise the Line guest Dr. Adam Rodman, who is well-placed to make such an assessment. As co-director of the Innovations in Media and Education Delivery Initiative (iMED) at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Rodman is witnessing, and influencing, how new technologies are shaping both medical education and the future of healthcare.  In his view, AI can’t replace a doctor right now, but it can make remarkable insights into how humans think. “We need to start to grapple with what it means when a lot of these cognitive processes that medical education is designed to train for get offloaded to a machine,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. He summarized his thoughts on AI, with co-author Dr. Avraham Cooper, in a piece for the August issue of the New England Journal of Medicineentitled “AI and Medical Education: A 21st-Century Pandora's Box” and invokes another concept rooted in ancient Greece as he describes AI as a ‘pharmakon.’ “There really is a way these technologies could dramatically improve what it means to be a patient -- and hopefully what it means to be a physician -- but the same technologies could be used to make things worse.” The ancient references are not surprising coming from Rodman, a medical historian who enjoys exploring the roots and evolution of the field on his long-running podcast Bedside Rounds. Don’t miss this richly informed conversation on how humans perform when interacting with AI, the advent of virtual tutors, and how AI might be used to improve student assessments and enhance the doctor-patient relationship.  If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

When Munjal Shah and his colleagues chose to use Hippocratic in the name of their new AI-based company, it wasn’t just about signaling their product was involved with healthcare, it was also intended to leverage the ‘do no harm’ philosophy associated with the term. After all, formerly fanciful fears of ‘robots’ replacing doctors have become more realistic since the advent of generative AI last year.  Shah addresses that issue up front in this revealing Raise the Line episode with host Shiv Gaglani. “We're going to be restricting the product when it comes out. It's not going to be able to do diagnoses.” Instead, the platform will focus on serving the needs of patients after their diagnosis, especially for those with chronic conditions.  Shah sees his healthcare-specific chatbots answering questions about symptoms, medications, post-op care and other routine matters as a vast, virtual and low-cost expansion of the healthcare workforce. “What would happen in the world if we could have 30 million nurses? How much would America's health improve? That's the vision we're after.” And he argues that healthcare expertise available in every home in every language, 24-7 would be a major factor in improving access. “We want to really solve health equity for everybody.” Tune in to find out how Hippocratic AI plans to establish itself as a trusted source of accurate healthcare information, how they intend to manage AI’s ‘hallucination’ problem and how his system could actually improve patient engagement.  Mentioned in this episode: https://www.hippocraticai.com/ If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast