A Second Opinion with Senator Bill Frist, M.D.

This episode is brought to you by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. Blue Shield companies are supporting health care partners on the frontline of this unprecedented fight. Ensuring patients don’t have to worry about costs. Caring when it counts the most, for the Health of America. Dr. Kavita Patel is a Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a practicing primary care physician in Washington, DC.  She previously served in the Obama Administration as a senior aide to Valerie Jarrett, where she played a critical role in health reform, financial regulatory reform, and economic recovery policies.   Dr. Patel also has a deep understanding of Capitol Hill from her time spent on the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s staff as deputy staff director for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.    Kavita and I have worked together for years, including at the Bipartisan Policy Center and The Aspen Group, and she always has her finger on the pulse when it comes to the latest on healthcare policy.  Today, we’re placing a timely focus on how healthcare can help schools reopen safely.   

Dr. Deborah German is the Founding Dean of the University of Central Florida College of Medicine. Established in 2006, the UCF College of Medicine is one of the first U.S. medical schools in decades to be built from the ground up.  Under her impressive leadership, the College of Medicine: Achieved full accreditation Raised funds to provide full four-year scholarships for the entire Charter class Built a team of over 500 faculty and staff, and Oversaw construction of 375,000 square feet of medical school space in the emerging Medical City at Lake Nona in Orlando. In our discussion today, Dr. German shares how she took on this seemingly impossible task, uniting a community around this exciting vision. Deb German is also a dear friend, someone I have known since our days together at Vanderbilt where she was Associate Dean for Students and later Senior Associate Dean of Medical Education.  Her passion and inclusive leadership was clear then and is palpable in our interview today.

Anthony Iton is Senior Vice President for Healthy Communities at The California Endowment, where he oversees the organization’s 10-Year, multimillion-dollar statewide commitment to advance policies and forge partnerships to build a healthier California.  Dr. Iton, who holds a medical degree from Johns Hopkins and a law degree and a Master’s of Public Health from UC Berkeley, previously led California’s Alameda County Public Health Department, worked as an HIV disability rights attorney, and as a physician and advocate for the homeless at the San Francisco Public Health Department.   A Lecturer of Health Policy and Management at the UC-Berkeley School of Public Health, Dr. Iton’s research focuses on disadvantaged populations and the contributions of race, class, wealth, education, geography and employment to health status.  Stayed tuned to hear why zip code is a better predictor of your long term health than your genetic code. 

Robert McDonald served Procter & Gamble for 33 years with the last four as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer.  Following his career at P&G, Bob was named Secretary of Veterans Affairs by President Obama in 2014, taking the helm of an organization in crisis.  An Army veteran and graduate of West Point, Bob was able to apply his military training and years of private sector experience to help transform the agency into one that delivered better care for our Military veterans. Bob’s shares with us some powerful leadership lessons, including how you build trust and compassion in times of upheaval.

Dr. Sarah Chouinard is a rural health expert and Chief Medical Officer at Community Care of West Virginia, a federally qualified health center operating 17 outpatient clinics and 50 school-based centers across 9 counties in central West Virginia. She recently served as National Faculty for CMS’s Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative, and was previously recognized by the West Virginia Rural Health Association as “Rural Practitioner of the Year.” In our discussion today, Dr. Chouinard shares the startling reality of what clinicians experience on the ground in rural communities, and how care can be transformed to better meet local needs.   Visit A Second Opinion's website here: https://asecondopinionpodcast.com/ Engage with us on social media at: Facebook Twitter Instagram

Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld is a senior associate dean, tenured professor of anesthesiology and director of the “Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment” at the Medical College of Wisconsin - a $470-million statewide health philanthropy. He serves on the American Medical Association Board of Trustees, and is a combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan.     For the past two decades, Dr. Ehrenfeld has advocated on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals. In 2018, in recognition of his outstanding research contributions, he received the inaugural Sexual and Gender Minority Research Investigator Award from the director of the NIH.  Today, he’ll share with us some of the unique health disparity issues faced by the LGBTQ community, and steps we can take to advance health equity for all Americans.   Visit A Second Opinion's website here: https://asecondopinionpodcast.com/ Engage with us on social media at: Facebook Twitter Instagram

Our country is at a historic crossroads: the global coronavirus pandemic has laid bare our country’s racial disparities and inequities in health and healthcare, and the death of George Floyd and other events have sparked a national social justice movement.  At A Second Opinion, we seek to better understand how race, structural racism, and implicit bias impact health and healthcare, which is why I’m honored today to have two global experts with us, Dr. Ruth Shim and Dr. David Williams.  I know Dr. Shim from our working together as Trustees at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where vulnerable populations are at the center of everything we do. Dr. Williams and I worked together for two years on the landmark study that he led, the RWJF Foundation’s Commission to Build a Healthier America.  Both Dr. Shim and Dr. Williams are widely published on the intersection of race and health, and are true national resources on informing our current national discussion. I want to get to the episode, but first some background on our experts: • Dr. Ruth Shim is a practicing clinical psychiatrist who serves as the Luke & Grace Kim Professor in Cultural Psychiatry and director of cultural psychiatry at the University of California, Davis.  She is co-editor of the widely reference volume, The Social Determinants of Mental Health. • Dr. David Williams is the chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Professor of African and African American Studies and Sociology at Harvard University.  He is the author of more than 475 scientific papers and has been ranked as one of the top 10 Most Cited Social Scientists in the world. The Everyday Discrimination Scale was developed by Dr. Williams, and is the most widely used measure of discrimination in health studies today. On today’s episode, we explore what’s at the heart of implicit bias, how “racism makes us sick”, and learn what simple childhood interventions can impact health and socioeconomic status for years to come.   Dr. Williams recommends: America’s Original Sin, by Jim Wallis Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime, by Elizabeth Hinton Dr. Shim recommends: White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, by Robin DiAngelo The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, by Harriet Washington Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century, by Dorothy Roberts Code Switch Podcast Seeing White Podcast Visit A Second Opinion's website here: https://asecondopinionpodcast.com/ Engage with us on social media at: Facebook Twitter Instagram

Bill Lucia is the Chairman, President & CEO of HMS, which provides a broad range of payment accuracy and population health management solutions for healthcare systems – saving billions of dollars annually and helping consumers lead healthier lives. Bill began his career in the life insurance industry, and will share why he made this mid-career change to help make a difference. Visit A Second Opinion's website here: https://asecondopinionpodcast.com/ Engage with us on social media at: Facebook Twitter Instagram

Professor Larry Van Horn is a renowned expert and researcher on health care management and economics at the Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management.  He serves as Executive Director of Health Affairs and Founder and Director of the Center of Health Care Market Innovation at Vanderbilt. Larry is an advisor to the White House on healthcare price transparency, and serves on the Health and Human Services Quality Summit Panel, and is my longtime friend and colleague. His research and ideas continue to challenge the status quo in healthcare today. Visit A Second Opinion's website here: https://asecondopinionpodcast.com/ Engage with us on social media at: Facebook Twitter Instagram

Ken Misch is the President and Chief Financial Officer of MEDHOST, a healthcare technology company focused on providing robust Electronic Health Records designed to meet the special and specific needs of rural and community health systems.  Today, Medhost is a partner to over 1000 facilities in 49 states.  And in our discussion today, you will find particularly fascinating Ken’s personal story overcoming adversity, and how this journey feeds his passion for making healthcare and the patient experience better.