Clinician's Roundtable

Guest: Rebecca Thomley, PhD Host: Michael Greenberg, MD Five years after Katrina, some mental health issues linger. Dr. Michael Greenberg talks with Rebecca Thomley, a psychologist and CEO of Orion Associates, based in Minneapolis, about the mental health situtation in New Orleans and her group's walk-in mental health clinic in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, opened post-Katrina.

Guest: Angela Gardner, MD Host: Bruce Japsen As healthcare reforms take place, changes are also in the offing in the emergency department amid demands that EDs be able to turn attention from treatment of routine conditions to disasters and other true emergencies. Dr. Angela Gardner, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, tells host Bruce Japsen about tomorrow's needs for the emergency department, which will have a greater role as health reform is implemented and patients seek primary care.

Guest: Maureen Lichtveld, MD, MPH Host: Maurice Pickard, MD Long after the clean-up process from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is complete along the Gulf of Mexico, we'll still be examining the health effects of this catastrophe. While there is a wealth of information on the health effects of specific contaminants, the effects are less known regarding mixtures of contaminants. What are some of the immediate and potential long-term health risks (both mental and physical) of this disaster? Dr. Maureen Lichtveld, professor and chair of the department of environmental health sciences at the Tulane University, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana, discusses the role of physicians in this type of public health disaster. How are we identifying the populations most at risk of experiencing health effects from the oil spill, and what are some of the most effective risk communication strategies for these populations? What types of surveillance methods are being used? What can we learn from this disaster to be more prepared for the next? Dr. Maurice Pickard hosts.

Guest: Patrick Hagan Host: Bruce Japsen As doctors and hospitals enter an era of healthcare that will demand high quality at a competitive price, factory-style efficiency is an answer that's working, at Seattle Children's Hospital. The hospital's president, Patrick Hagan, tells host Bruce Japsen about how doctors and hospitals can replicate the kind of factory efficiency used at companies like Toyota and Boeing to improve medical care service for their patients, and perhaps even boost their productivity and profits.

Guest: Max Brown Host: Bruce Japsen Though tort reform has been an elusive goal for some state lawmakers and Congress, health reform will bring grants to come up with alternative medical liability reform initiatives. But meanwhile, some medical providers have developed their own answers. Max Brown, Vice President and General Counsel to Rush University Medical Center in Chicago tells host Bruce Japsen about the hospital's mediation program that has dramatically lowered the academic medical center's liability costs and has become a national model followed by others.

Guest: Daniel Carlat, MD Host: Bruce Japsen Is there a psychiatrist in the house? There is often attention to a shortage of doctors, particularly in primary care, but the specialty of psychiatry is also in crisis. Dr. Daniel Carlat, professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston and editor-in-chief of The Carlat Psychiatry Report, tells host Bruce Japsen about how medical professionals and the healthcare system can cope with and address the crisis facing psychiatry.

Guest: Berish Rubin, PhD Host: Bruce Bloom, DDS, JD Only a few years ago familial dysautonomia (FD) was a fatal disease, but some "Rediscovery Research" from the FD lab at Fordham University in Bronx, New York, is turning this killer into a chronic manageable disease. What have we learned from familial dysautonomia research, and how might this help patients with other diseases? Joining host Dr. Bruce Bloom to provide an update on current FD research and treatment is Dr. Berish Rubin, professor in the department of biological sciences and head of the laboratory for familial dysautonomia research at Fordham University.

Guest: Peter Carmel, MD Host: Bruce Japsen Healthcare reform will bring health insurance benefits to more than 30 million uninsured Americans but the nation's largest doctor group and its new-president elect see more work to be done. Dr. Peter Carmel, elected in June as president-elect of the American Medical Association, tells host Bruce Japsen how he plans to lead the nation's doctors group into a post-health reform era and what additional improvements need to be made by Congress.

Guest: J. Lyle Bootman, PhD Host: Bruce Japsen Pharmaceutical sales representatives can have great impact on patient care but until now have not always been subject to rigorous certification standards. Dr. Lyle Bootman, chairman of the Medical Representatives Certification Commission and dean of the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy, tells host Bruce Japsen about a new initiative that will prepare drug, device and other medical sales representatives to deal with the complex regulator, legal and political environment they face when selling health care products to physicians.

Host: Bruce Japsen Guest: Mark Frohlich, MD The cancer treatment Provenge, known as a "therapeutic vaccine," was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in April, 2010 as a novel way to attack prostate tumors. But this is more than the story of a new treatment. Host Bruce Japsen learns about the long path to FDA approval for this unique therapy that some see as a watershed development in oncology, from Dr. Mark Frohlich, senior vice president of clinical affairs and chief medical officer of Dendreon Corporation, the Seattle-based biotech company that manufactures Provenge.