First Opinion Podcast

This week, physician Frank Lin discusses with former patient Anne Madison how difficult it can be for seniors to access care for hearing loss and hearing aids. "When you move into a community with older people, you get on two mailing lists: the hearing aids mailing list and the cemetery lots mailing list," Madison said. But the price tag is sky-high.

This week, Stephen Tourjee shares his experience contracting a breakthrough case of Covid-19, months after he thought he was safe thanks to the vaccine. Céline Gounder provides expert context on just how worried we should — or shouldn't — be about these breakthrough cases.

This week, writer and philosopher Adam Hayden opens up about what it's like to be in the minority of glioblastoma patients that have survived the harrowing brain cancer. Around 93% of patients with the disease will die before 5 years — as long as Hayden has survived so far. As the pandemic began, Hayden knew there were lessons for physicians and the public to learn from his experience.

Episode 25: A journalist on what the Vietnam war taught us about addiction by STAT

Are health care workers more obligated than others to get a Covid-19 vaccine? In this week's episode, physician and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel argues that hospitals and healthcare facilities nationwide need to issue vaccine mandates for all employees in order to prevent further deaths from Covid-19.

Why do more women die in and after childbirth in the U.S. than any other industrialized nation? In this week's episode of the "First Opinion Podcast," physician Alissa Erogbogbo argues that the only way the country can change the maternal mortality rates is through addressing the inherent biases and inequities of traditional health care.

What if every time we went to the bathroom, we could say we contributed to a local public health initiative? In this week's episode of the "First Opinion Podcast," biostatistician Aparna Keshaviah digs into the benefits of wastewater testing as a public health measure.

In this week's episode of the "First Opinion Podcast," Lizzy Feliciano talks about her brother, Louis, who died after years of suffering from depression, anxiety, and alcohol abuse. She struggled to help him find a program that could treat all of his issues holistically, not just one at a time. In a cruel twist of fate, just hours after moving into a facility, Louis Feliciano died of natural causes at age 51. Joining the conversation is Chuck Ingoglia, the president and CEO of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, a membership organization that supports mental health centers across the country. Chuck shares the provider perspective on Lizzy’s situation and the state of mental health care in the U.S.

Priscilla Chan, co-founder and CEO of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, talks about the urgent need for more single-cell research in pediatrics. Chan broke down the science and reflected on how becoming a parent to two young children has intersected with her professional interests. "Over the course of Covid, I've also asked myself, would I enroll them in a Covid study?" she said. "And I think for me the answer is yes."

This week is a special two-part episode focusing on last week’s controversial — some say inflammatory — decision to approve aducanumab, a new Alzheimer’s drug. In these episodes, I talk with two Alzheimer’s experts with vastly different viewpoints on the news. Second up: Jason Karlawish, an Alzheimer’s physician who wrote a First Opinion in May about how he would not prescribe the drug, were it to be approved.