Raise the Line

We ask all of our guests what they think the COVID-19 crisis has revealed about the U.S. healthcare system. Dr. Lois Nora is the first to assert that "we do not have a healthcare system." As you'll hear in her conversation with Shiv Gaglani, Dr. Nora's background as a clinician, lawyer, and longtime academic leader grounds her unique perspective on what needs to be done to strengthen healthcare delivery and medical education. 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

“Science is the only thing that can get us out of it.” That’s the conclusion of Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who says finding a way to balance the needs of public health and economic recovery in the wake of COVID-19 must be guided by facts. After a long, admirable career tackling public health issues in the U.S. and abroad, including knotty problems like gun safety, Rosenberg says solving complex issues requires agreeing that the truth comes first, and a willingness to find common ground. In this meaningful “wisdom drop” with host Rishi Desai, Rosenberg touches on the importance of humility and “consequential compassion” in medicine, and the profound impact mentors can have on your life and career. Seriously, go find a mentor. 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

Turns out there's nothing new about having a shortage of primary care physicians. In the late 1960's, the need to fill that gap led to the creation of physician assistants who have since expanded into nearly every medical speciality. As Mary Jo Bondy explains to host Shiv Gaglani, the broad-based training PAs receive makes them valuable players in meeting changing patient and workforce needs, as we're seeing in the COVID-19 crisis. 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

It's not just K-12 and college students moving to online education these days. edX and other learning platforms have seen huge increases in enrollment over the past two months as millions of adults seek to learn new skills in a battered economy. As edX CEO Anant Agarwal explains to host Shiv Gaglani, part of edX's role now is teaching people how to learn, and teachers how to teach, using a format that will remain a key source of education long after the COVID-19 crisis has ended. 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

Arianna Huffington learned about burnout the hard way. Two years after starting the Huffington Post, she collapsed from overwork. She turned that moment of personal crisis into a movement to help people learn how to develop a healthier work-life balance and effectively manage stress. In this episode of Raise the Line, host Shiv Gaglani explores with Arianna how her company, Thrive Global, works with employers around the world to realize the benefits of employee wellness, the special effort she's made during the coronavirus crisis to support frontline workers through First Responders First, and some simple microsteps we can all take every day to avoid burnout. 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

After seeing Italy confront the grim reality of ventilator rationing, emergency medicine specialist Dr. Sarah Farris wanted to spare physicians and patients in the U.S. the same agonizing choices. Creating a splitting device that would allow one ventilator to serve two patients seemed like a good solution, and in a remarkable sequence of events, thousands of those devices were manufactured and ready for use just a few weeks after she first mentioned the idea. Sarah and her colleagues at Prisma Health, Dr. Marjorie Jenkins and Dr. Peter Tilkemeier, join host Rishi Desai to describe the powerful partnership of medicine, government and industry that made it possible. 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

Pediatric nurse, global force in fighting AIDS, professor of nursing, academic leader -- Adele Webb has played many roles in her career by following her passion. As she reveals to host Rishi Desai in this episode of Raise the Line, allowing yourself the opportunity to follow that passion, and having the courage to do so, can be the key to a meaningful career. 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

Half of all nurses in the U.S. are graduates of two-year programs when they first start practicing, and while a national push is on to encourage RN's to get bachelor's degrees, an associate's degree remains a critical path into the profession. Donna Meyer, who runs the only organization that advocates for these two-year programs, joins host Shiv Gaglani to explore the realities facing early-career nurses and discuss the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the nursing workforce. 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

Why are young patients with COVID 19 having strokes? Why are ventilators not as effective as expected? Why do some patients have the symptoms of altitude sickness? One explanation for these mysteries is the disease keeps adapting and changing. But the other is that our understanding of it is catching up to what might be the truth: COVID 19 is not primarily a lung disease but rather a disease of the cells that line the inside of blood vessels and lymphatic vessels. Pulmonologist Roger Seheult, one of the drivers behind the popular Medcram video series, talks about the evolving understanding of COVID 19 and his approach to explaining complex medical subjects to a general audience. 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

Quick, accurate testing for COVID-19 is critically important as states begin to loosen up social distancing. Enter Biomeme, a Pennsylvania-based biotech firm, with a system that allows sophisticated DNA testing to be done in virtually any location using a smartphone and a piece of lab equipment small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Non-professionals can be quickly trained to use it, and results come within an hour, instead of a day. Company co-founder Jesse vanWestrienen explains how it all works to Dr. Rishi Desai. 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