“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 Medicine entitled “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.

“When my dad gets sick, he has a Harvard-trained physician looking over his shoulder, helping him know what to type in and what queries to ask. I just want that for the world,” says Dr. Michael Howell, who is in a position to advance that vision as chief clinical officer at Google. In that role, Howell leads the team of experts who provide guidance for the tech giant’s health-related products, research, and services. It's a natural extension of a career that's been devoted to improving the quality, safety and science of how care is delivered and to helping people get the best information across their health journey. Of course in recent months, artificial intelligence has dominated conversations about the future of healthcare, and Howell acknowledges the pace of change has been alarming. “It has felt like we've had more progress in AI over the past ten months than over the past ten years in some ways, and it’s getting better very fast,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani.  That means it’s high time for educators to develop curricular standards for what future physicians need to know about the technology as one way to prepare the healthcare system for its disruptive potential. “I don't think AI is going to replace doctors, but I do think doctors who use AI are going to replace doctors who don't,” he cautions.  This is a great opportunity to gain insight from an extremely well-placed source at the leading edge of healthcare and artificial intelligence.

“I have coaching involved in all of my programs. It's just done wonders not only for the work I do, but for me personally,” says Dr. Rachel Salas, a professor of Neurology at Johns Hopkins University and certified strength and life coach. It wasn’t always this way. Salas was well into her career as a sleep specialist and clerkship director before being introduced to a strengths-based approach to personal and professional development. As she tells host Shiv Gaglani on this episode of Raise the Line, focusing on her strengths was a transformative shift and she is committed to sharing this powerful technique with students, colleagues and even patients. “If a patient is a learner, I know they’re going to like some materials to read about their diagnosis. If someone has a strength of being analytical, I'll probably need to spend a little bit more time talking about the different numbers in their sleep study report.” Knowing yourself and your strengths, she says, is also a valuable tool in helping medical students decide what specialty to pursue. “We want people to be their authentic selves. Who are they? Who do they want to be? How can we help you match your strengths with the meaningful career you want to have?” Based on the success she’s seen at Johns Hopkins, Salas is helping to spread the philosophy to other medical schools. Check out this enlightening conversation that also includes insights on applying precision medicine to treat problems with sleep.

“In 2010, it took three-and-a-half years for medical knowledge to double. Now it takes around seventy-three days,” says Dr. Ted O’Connell, who is among the many medical educators who wrestle with how to help students manage that kind of information load. Artificial intelligence can be a tool for synthesizing vast amounts of data, he says, but it also has the potential to massively increase the amount of information coming at a student. “I think it will be very important for learners to understand what their learning style is so they can harness AI to help them,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. O’Connell plays an important role in the field, serving as regional director of undergraduate, graduate and continuing medical education at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California and the author of eighteen medical textbooks with Elsevier where he also serves as editor-in-chief of ClinicalKey MedEd. Don’t miss a wisdom drop from this best-selling author, podcast host, speaker, company founder and family physician about the importance of mentorship for medical students, the need for further diversity of images in medical learning materials, and other ways to improve medical education.

Some of you may have a general idea about how Osmosis got started, but today you are going to get the full, fascinating story from one of its co-founders, Shiv Gaglani, who we welcome back to the Raise the Line podcast as our special guest. Shortly into his first year of medical school at Johns Hopkins in 2011, Shiv, and his co-founder Ryan Haynes, realized medical education was overdue for an upgrade. “The research was clear on how people learn and how to get them to engage in their education, but professors weren't being taught how to teach. We wanted to bring evidence-based education tools like spaced repetition, test-enhanced learning, memory palaces and flipped classrooms to medical education.” They also wanted to make it fun, efficient and personalized, keying off the customized recommendations media giants such as Netflix and Facebook were using. After completing their second year, both took a leave from med school to build Osmosis based on those insights. After growing it from a crowdsourced question bank for classmates into a global education platform serving millions of future healthcare professionals, Shiv shepherded the acquisition of the company by Elsevier in 2021, freeing him to return to Johns Hopkins to complete his degree which he recently moved to Baltimore to do. So, what’s it like to go from running the company to being a student using the product he helped build? Tune in to this delightful episode to find out, to learn what specialties he’s considering and for advice on using “negative” emotions to achieve productive outcomes.

One effective approach to teaching is to identify where students may have some weaknesses and then provide them with additional resources or information to shore up their understanding of that topic. Well, that’s exactly what Elsevier’s ClinicalKey Student Assessment is designed to do, and because it’s an online platform, the process is efficient for both instructors and students. “It’s a foundation to help students in that journey of self-discovery and self-learning which, hopefully, will set them up for the rest of their careers,” says Dr. Phil Xiu, the platform’s editor-in-chief. Xiu’s journey to that role includes many years of involvement in medical education and health tech, from writing textbooks to becoming the series editor of Elsevier’s Crash Course book series which has sold over a million copies and been translated into eight different languages. In this enlightening conversation with host Michael Carrese you'll also learn about efforts to improve diversity, equity and inclusion in medical training, how blockchain technology is being used to enhance patient access to their complete medical record, and how being a practicing family physician shapes Xiu’s work as an educator.

What if your vibrator not only brought you pleasure but also provided valuable health data? That's precisely what Anna Lee, co-founder of Lioness, is striving to achieve. In this episode of Raise the Line, our host Shiv Gaglani sits down with Anna to discuss her journey from being an engineer at Amazon to starting a company focused on women's sexual pleasure and health. Despite the stigma around female pleasure, Lioness is dedicated to serving an underserved community, and the data they've collected is shedding light on the importance of sexual wellness. As Anna puts it, "Orgasms are the canary in the coal mine for healthcare implications and overall health." Join us to hear Anna's inspiring story and learn about the challenges of creating a smart vibrator in a male-dominated industry. Mentioned in this episode: https://lioness.io/

It’s another special episode of Raise the Line, where we have the honor of speaking with Susan Spielberg, overall winner of the Student Advisor category in the 2022 Osmosis Raise the Line Faculty Awards. Chosen from a pool of over 1,000 nominees representing 377 institutions worldwide, Susan truly embodies the six core values of Osmosis, as evidenced by the glowing testimonials and videos submitted by her students and colleagues. Join host Michael Carrese as he dives into Susan's educational career and her current role at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, where she serves as a student advisor across the pharmacy and dental schools. In this engaging conversation, Susan shares her approach which involves proactively seeking out those who may be hesitant to ask for help. "I find that many people have difficulty asking for help. That's why I feel the need to go out and find them." Tune in to learn more about the types of support students increasingly need, why she thinks teaching the affective is just as important as academics, and why she’s known as the “grandma” of LECOM. Mentioned in this episode: www.osmosis.org/faculty-awards

Even for those with experience in the healthcare system, dealing with health insurance can be confusing and complicated. And for millions of Americans, they have the additional challenge of navigating this complexity in something other than their native language, which is a real barrier to access. Knocking down those barriers is where today’s Raise the Line guest enters the picture. Myong Lee is co-founder and CEO of Clever Care Health Plan, a culturally sensitive Medicare Advantage plan that's tailored to the customs, values and linguistic needs of the diverse communities it serves. The company was sparked by Lee's experience watching his Korean American parents struggle with a system that wasn't designed for them. The mission goes beyond just providing customer service in different languages to including different health customs as well. “My parents certainly have never been to a gym. We saw the opportunity to be able to allow seniors to be able to practice healthcare the way they want to with access to herbal medicine and Tai Chi classes.” Join host Michael Carrese for an exploration of incorporating Eastern and Western medical traditions, assisting seniors in accessing the care they need and deserve and launching a company during a pandemic. Mentioned in this episode: https://clevercarehealthplan.com/

Join us for this special episode as we continue a series of conversations with the winners of the Osmosis from Elsevier 2022 Raise the Line Faculty Awards which recognize the inspirational educators who are responsible for training future generations of healthcare professionals. Winners were chosen from over 1,000 nominations received from 377 institutions around the world. The interviews feature testimonials from the students and peers who nominated the eventual winners focusing on how they embody the six Osmosis core values. Today we feature Michael Moore, the overall winner for the Physician Assistant category. Tapping into his deep passion for education and helping students to succeed, Professor Moore has played an integral role in launching two PA training programs in rural Indiana and Michigan. In his conversation with host Michael Carrese, Moore discusses the growing role of physician assistants on the healthcare team, what he loves about interacting with students, and the need for them to prioritize critical thinking skills. "Something that I think we can work on in even the undergrad years is more critical thinking." From PA education and training to day-to-day responsibilities, you'll gain valuable insights into this critically important and growing profession. Mentioned in this episode: www.osmosis.org/faculty-awards

We’re turning the tables on Raise the Line co-host Shiv Gaglani today who will be answering questions, instead of asking them, about Osmosis from Elsevier’s Year of the Zebra campaign. As Shiv explains to host Michael Carrese, he first became interested in rare diseases meeting patients as a medical student at Johns Hopkins University a decade ago. His discomfort with the standard advice given to medical students to think of horses (the common condition) and not zebras (the rare condition) when determining a diagnosis sparked an interest in learning more. In the ensuing years he created a partnership between Osmosis and NORD, one of the leading rare disease organizations in the world. One result of that relationship is 200 Osmosis educational videos on rare conditions which provide critically needed information to health students, providers and patients. He has also sought out rare disease patients and parents of children with rare conditions to find out what more could be done to help them. “The more of them I've met, the more inspired I am by their stories and the things they've done as community organizers, researchers, scientists, advocates and policy changemakers.” Don’t miss this lively conversation about the components of the campaign - including Elsevier’s new open access journal on rare diseases - and how you can get involved. And, you won’t want to miss Shiv’s recounting of his climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise money for the campaign, including the special photo taken at the summit. Mentioned in this episode: www.osmosis.org/zebra

Join us on this special episode as we continue a series of conversations with the winners of the Osmosis from Elsevier 2022 Raise the Line Faculty Awards which recognize the inspirational educators who are responsible for training future generations of healthcare professionals. Winners were chosen from over 1,000 nominations received from 377 institutions around the world. The interviews feature testimonials from the students and peers who nominated the eventual winners focusing on how they embody the six Osmosis core values. On today’s episode, host Lindsey Smith speaks with Dr. Joanne Baxter, the first female dean of Dunedin School of Medicine at the University of Ōtākou in 148 years. As a champion of diversity, equity, and inclusion, Dr. Baxter discusses the importance of DEI in both the medical field and society at large. Drawing from her Māori heritage, she emphasizes the significance of collaborating with marginalized communities to ensure equitable healthcare access. Through her conversation with Lindsey, she explains the importance of understanding the roots of inequality and highlights how the younger generations are leading the way. “This next generation really embraces and engages with conversations about equity and diversity in a way that is much more open and progressive.” Mentioned in this episode: www.osmosis.org/faculty-awards

One of our favorite themes on Raise the Line is how technology can help people become better informed about their own health, allowing them to participate more actively in maintaining and improving it. Well, today, we're going to take a deeper look at that issue with the help of Carol Lucarelli, Executive Director of Marketing and E-Commerce at Omron Healthcare, the global leader in remote blood pressure monitoring and personal health technology. “We want individuals to take responsibility for understanding what ails them and be part of the care plan to get better.” The medical devices Omron makes can help do that by providing patients and their providers with timely data from remote monitors of various types. One of the most common is blood pressure monitors, which Lucarelli says could go a long way in preventing strokes and heart attacks if used diligently. And it stands to reason that if providers are on top of changes in key health measurements taken at home, they can catch problems early lessening the need for trips to the doctor’s office or emergency room. Join host Michael Carrese for an informative look at the current role of remote monitoring, what’s coming down the road and how medical devices can help facilitate a dialogue between providers and patients. Mentioned in this episode: https://omronhealthcare.com/

How will the healthcare system navigate unprecedented workforce and financial challenges? What can be done about staff and leader burnout? How can healthcare systems increase diversity and equity? These are the types of big picture questions Deborah Bowen and her colleagues confront at the American College of Healthcare Executives, an international society of more than 48,000 executives in hospitals, healthcare systems and other healthcare organizations. After nearly three decades with the organization, Bowen has a deeply informed take on the kinds of support leaders need in motivating teams to realize their vision. But she is also quick to point out that change in healthcare is not just about who is sitting in the C-suite. “What I love most about healthcare is there are very influential people all throughout the organization. I think anybody who really has the intention to be a leader can be a leader,” she tells host Shiv Gaglani. Don’t miss this chance to hear from someone who has been named one of the most influential people in healthcare about COVID’s impact, why she’s excited about the future of the field and what emerging healthcare professionals can do to change the system. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.ache.org/

Join us on this special episode as we start a series of conversations with the winners of the Osmosis from Elsevier 2022 Raise the Line Faculty Awards which recognize the inspirational educators who are responsible for training future generations of healthcare professionals. Winners were chosen from over 1,000 nominations received from 377 institutions around the world. The interviews feature testimonials from the students and peers who nominated the eventual winners focusing on how they embody the six Osmosis core values. We start with Dr. Athanasios Hassoulas, Director of the Master of Science Psychiatry Program and Digital Education Lead at Cardiff University in Wales who won the “Other Health Professionals” category. Dr. Hassoulas tells host Michael Carrese about how his teaching innovations are informed by students and about the challenges and opportunities of incorporating digital technology into teaching practices. Dr. Hassoulas also shares how his personal experience with OCD led him to pursue a career in psychiatry and inspires his teaching philosophy. "I think care is the philosophy that underpins what I do.” Don't miss this insightful conversation with a remarkable educator who is breaking down barriers and raising the bar for excellence in medical education. Mentioned in this episode: www.osmosis.org/faculty-awards

Regular listeners to Raise the Line know that research into rare diseases should matter to everybody because it has led to treatments for much more common conditions that have improved and saved millions of lives. Statins are usually the prime example of that. Well, on this episode we're going to get into much more detail on this point with someone who literally wrote the book on the subject: Dr. Jules Berman. His 2014 work published by Elsevier, Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs, Keys to Understanding and Treating the Common Diseases, shows that much of what we now know about common diseases has been achieved by studying rare diseases, and therefore, accelerating progress in the field of rare diseases will lead to yet more advances affecting common conditions. “If you have a rare disease and you think about the phenotype that results from it, you can often find that same phenotype occurring much more commonly in acquired disease, so the treatment for the rare disease can often help people with the acquired disease.” Don’t miss this provocative conversation with host Michael Carrese as Dr. Berman shares why he thinks researching one rare disease at a time is a flawed approach, especially in light of his belief that there are more than 50,000 rare conditions.

Lucy Landman is one of only a few children known worldwide to have a genetic disorder called PGAP3, in which a single missing gene can cause seizures and severe physical and cognitive limitations. Luckily for Lucy, her parents Geri and Zach Landman are both physicians whose expertise has been a big help in obtaining a diagnosis and in advocating for her. The Landmans are bringing that know-how and a fervent desire to help all children with single gene disorders to the non-profit they founded, Moonshots for Unicorns, which is already working with Nationwide Children’s Hospital on a promising gene therapy. “There are so many of these single gene disorders that should be amenable to things like gene therapy and drug repurposing. So, we don't want this just to focus on PGAP3.” Listen to this moving episode with host Michael Carrese to learn what causes PGAP3, how the rare genetic disorder has impacted Lucy’s life and health, and the suspected connection between PGAP3 and Autism. Dr. Landman also addresses the big gaps she sees in newborn screening, medical education and research efforts from a rare disease perspective. Mentioned in this episode: www.moonshotsforunicorns.org

Eighty percent of rare diseases are caused by genetic mutations, which is why many of our recent guests have highlighted the importance of pursuing gene therapies as potential treatments and cures. That’s why we’re particularly pleased to have Dr. Gaurav Shah on Raise the Line today. He’s the CEO of Rocket Pharma, a company that’s in hot pursuit of developing curative gene therapies for patients with inherited genetic diseases, and showing remarkable results in some cases. For instance, a gene therapy for a rare and fatal heart condition called Danon disease is moving every parameter in the right direction, a result Dr. Shah is understandably proud of. “When gene therapy works, it really works. We were able to demonstrate the power of gene therapy for heart disease for the first time in our species,” he tells host Michael Carrese. Don’t miss this fascinating look at the art, science and practicalities of developing gene therapies and where Rocket Pharma is seeing progress. You’ll also learn about the many career options in drug development and hear how Dr. Shah’s background as a Grammy-winning artist informs his approach to leadership. Mentioned in this episode: https://rocketpharma.com/

“Burnout to me is about losing control, not overwork. It's about being unable to solve problems, and problems beginning to stack up with no end in sight.” Today’s Raise the Line guest Justin Welsh earned that insight the hard way after a demanding corporate job led to a panic attack so severe it prompted a 911 call. Five years later, after founding a one-man business called “The Saturday Solopreneur,” he’s gained full control of his work life and has the number one rated course on LinkedIn which helps more than 10,000 people identify, share and monetize the knowledge they already possess. Listen in to this enlightening episode with host Shiv Gaglani as Justin shares his journey from successful digital health executive to self-employment and what he’s learned along the way about himself and what really matters to him. He details how he gained such a large following in short order, and offers advice for healthcare workers and digital health entrepreneurs on advancing their careers and preventing burnout. And stay tuned for an insightful take on the impact of AI that should reassure those with real world knowledge and experience, and the wisdom that can come from both. “Try not to look for ways to cut the line in place of real learning. Do the work, make the mistakes, analyze the mistakes, iterate, repeat.” Mentioned in this episode: linkedin.com/in/justinwelsh

“The qualities of a provider that were envisioned fifty years ago are completely different from what the world needs for tomorrow. It’s completely different,” insists Dr. Abebe Bekele, who is entrusted with educating this new breed of physician at the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda. As Bekele explains to host Shiv Gaglani in this special in-person interview on the campus of UGHE in Butaro, Rwanda, COVID-19 has demonstrated that doctors now need to be able to serve as leaders of institutions, manage large projects, raise money and interface with influential public sector players such as policymakers and journalists. The program at UGHE has been designed with that in mind by providing a grounding in liberal arts and humanities along with the necessary medical content. As you’ll learn in this insightful conversation, the relatively young school -- which was established by Partners in Health in 2015 -- is taking a thoughtful approach to meeting healthcare needs in the region through admissions policies and scholarships that are boosting the number of female physicians and incentivizing its graduates to practice medicine in their home communities. Beyond connecting with Dr. Bekele, Shiv’s visit gave him a chance to meet with students and faculty to gain a deeper understanding of the partnership Osmosis has with UGHE which is part of a larger effort to support medical education in Sub-Saharan Africa, including in Namibia where he was born. As you’ll hear, Shiv came away seeing UGHE as a model for health education in an increasingly interconnected world. Mentioned in this episode: https://ughe.org/

“Our rare disease community is looking to solve for many different types of policy barriers because we have a very diverse patient community,” says Annie Kennedy, who was drawn to the rare disease issue due to some personal experience early in her life. After spending many years as a patient advocate -- including being with patients during provider visits -- she has developed a keen understanding of where the healthcare system can be improved to do justice to rare disease patients and families. That insight informs her work as chief of Policy, Advocacy and Patient Engagement at the EveryLife Foundation where she helps provide patient communities with tools and resources they can use to make their voice heard in the policy arena. In fact, next week, EveryLife is holding its annual Rare Disease Week on Capitol Hill during which members of the rare disease community will meet with lawmakers in Washington to provide meaningful perspectives and encourage their support. “There are more than thirty million Americans living with rare diseases, so this is a real public health priority,” she tells Raise the Line host Michael Carrese. One resource EveryLife has brought to the table is a study on the total cost of living with a rare disease, not just the costs of medical care, which is helping to inform policy discussions. You’ll also learn about some key steps pharma companies, insurers and providers can take to support the rare disease community and where the field is heading in the next few years. Mentioned in this episode: https://everylifefoundation.org/

“In about three weeks, I went from a completely normal thirty-year-old to somebody with a heart transplant. It was crazy,” says Dr. Alin Gragossian, who shares her remarkable experience on this edition of Raise the Line. What makes her tale even more interesting is that at the time of the life-threatening heart episode that necessitated the transplant, she was finishing up a residency in emergency medicine. In fact, Dr. Gragossian is dually trained in emergency medicine and critical care medicine. Since her transplant, she’s been using her platform to share her unique experiences with other health professionals and raise awareness about the importance of organ donation. “I’ve had a lot of amazing lessons from what I call ‘patient school’ that medical school never really taught me,” she tells host Michael Carrese. Listen in to this fascinating episode to hear Dr. Gragossian describe what life is like after an organ transplant and the lessons learned as a transplant patient that she’s applying to her medical career. She gets candid about what she would change about medical school curriculums and what would encourage more people to become organ donors. Then, she talks about her podcast, “Both Sides of the Stethoscope” and emphasizes the power of strong patient communities and support groups.

There are so many choices to make as an undergrad in med school: selecting which medical field to go into; whether to go down the academic path; and how to use your knowledge and skills to find success and create positive change in the world, to name a few. On today’s episode we’re going to hear from someone who helps students work through all of those questions and also assists faculty colleagues with adjusting to the changing medical education landscape. Dr. Kim Tartaglia does all of this wearing several hats at Ohio State University Wexner College of Medicine including Professor of Medicine, Director of the “IMWell” program for internal medicine residents and Director of Faculty Mentorship. “There are so many different ways to make an impact that there’s not one path to success and there’s not one path to be impactful,” she tells host Michael Carrese. Listen in to this episode as Dr. Tartaglia shares her perspective on how medical education has changed since the pandemic as well as how students and academic leaders are relating to each other differently as they work to improve the med ed system. You’ll also learn how she chose her specialty in med school, what drew her to stay in academics, how she established an enjoyable career in medical academics, and the benefits of attending OSU’s College of Medicine. And stay tuned to the end for an enlightening discussion of the role of lifestyle medicine in treating and reversing disease, and the benefits of coaching and mentorship for med school residents. Mentioned in this episode: https://medicine.osu.edu/

A singing guest! A poetic chat bot! This special episode of Raise the Line features those unusual artistic highpoints along with the substantive and interesting conversation you always get with host Shiv Gaglani. Our guest, Dr. Mark Korson, is a metabolic geneticist and Director of Education and Physician Support Services at VMP Genetics who believes patients have a crucial role to play in the education of both learners and practicing clinicians, especially when dealing with rare diseases. “Patients teach about disease a whole lot better than I do because they tell stories and storytelling is so incredibly powerful as a teaching tool.” Tune in as Korson talks about career opportunities in genetics and metabolic disease, the ways he integrates patient voices into his teaching, and the biggest opportunities and challenges in treating genetic and metabolic diseases and biochemical disorders. Plus, he shares his advice for learners about pursuing a career in the increasingly complex and demanding healthcare field. “You have to protect your personal life and protect it greedily because if you don't do that, at some point it's going to impact how you like your career.” Mentioned in this episode: https://www.vmpgenetics.com/

“There's a real diversity of jobs available that folks don’t always think about initially when they think about going into healthcare,” says Marc Cummings, the President and CEO of Life Science Washington, a nonprofit trade association serving the life sciences industry in the state of Washington. Dr. Tina Albertson, the Chief Medical Officer at nearby Lyell Immunopharma, agrees. For instance at her company, which does R&D on cell therapies for solid tumor cancers, there’s a need for specialists in logistics who organize and monitor the movement of patient cells that need to be flown to other locations to be genetically engineered and returned to the bedside for use in treatment. As these industry veterans share with host Michael Carrese, the Seattle region is a well-established hub in the growing biotech sector due to a unique blend of strengths including longstanding non-profit research institutions and powerhouse tech companies such as Microsoft and Amazon. “This region is really well-prepared for innovation from a basic science standpoint and also from the tech side of our community,” says Albertson. Check out this revealing discussion of the challenges and opportunities in life sciences, the critical role AI and machine learning is now playing, and what they wish more people understood about clinical trials and drug development. Mentioned in this episode: https://lyell.com/ https://lifesciencewa.org/

“With psychedelics right now, there's a lot of hype around the compound, which is somewhat important, but Sunstone Therapies is really founded on the belief that the delivery is more important than the drug,” says Dr. Manish Agrawal, the company’s co-founder and CEO. As interest in the use of psychedelics for mental health treatment grows and various compounds continue to move down the path of FDA approval, Agrawal wants to be sure the medical system is prepared to provide the safest and most effective experience for patients. In fact, his company is conducting clinical trials to help define the standards for optimal patient care. Serious thought is given to everything from lighting to how patients are greeted, and of course there is great emphasis placed on training therapists properly and supporting them as they do what can be emotionally taxing work. “When people come through Sunstone, we want them to feel loved and held -- because they're dealing with very difficult issues -- but also the rigor and the discipline of a very thorough process that is very safe.” Listen to this super thoughtful conversation with host Shiv Gaglani as Agrawal discusses a new model of mental health care, psychedelic-assisted group therapy, and the transformative results he’s seen in patients. “In the right context with the right amount of support and understanding, psychedelics can help people resolve difficult emotions.” Mentioned in this episode: https://www.sunstonetherapies.com/

Our guest on this episode of Raise the Line, Dr. Githinji Gitahi, ended up in the medical field because he’s always had a nagging need for social justice. “That was a place that I found where social justice is needed and is probably the foundation for healthy populations,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. Dr. Gitahi is the Group CEO of Amref Health Africa, the leading Africa-based health development international NGO whose vision is to achieve lasting health change in Africa. Tune-in to this episode to learn about the key areas Amref Health Africa is focused on as well as how African countries are training and retaining more healthcare workers and physicians in their communities. You’ll also get a glimpse into the challenges African communities have experienced throughout the COVID pandemic and the key role that trust plays in gaining respect and compliance for public health measures, like vaccinations. Then, Dr. Gitahi shares his vision and goals for Amref Health Africa over the next ten years and offers powerful advice for aspiring healthcare leaders who want to create social change through medicine. Mentioned in this episode: https://amref.org/

Seeing Language Differences as An Opportunity, Not a Barrier - Dr. Pilar Ortega, Founding President of the National Association of Medical Spanish Why is it that Hispanics make up 20% of the U.S. population, but only 6% of the physician workforce? Well, Dr. Pilar Ortega, founding president of the National Association of Medical Spanish and co-founder of the Medical Organization for Latino Advancement, is working towards closing that gap. As an immigrant herself, she and her family have experienced trying to navigate a medical system that wasn’t designed for them. Now as an emergency physician and clinical associate professor with dual appointments at the University of Illinois Chicago Departments of Emergency Medicine and Medical Education, she’s tackling those issues head-on. She will also have the opportunity to address these concerns in her new role as Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Wearing her academic hat, Dr. Ortega utilizes her bi-cultural background to create resources and credentials for Spanish-speaking providers, including two books published by our parent company, Elsevier: Spanish and the Medical Interview: A Textbook for Clinically Relevant Medical Spanish and Spanish and the Medical Interview: Clinical Cases and Exam Review. Don’t miss this enlightening episode of Raise the Line as Dr. Ortega shares her thoughts with host Shiv Gaglani on why language should be seen as a professional skill, the importance of language re-education and the discrimination both Latino providers and patients face. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.namspanish.org/

“Patients don’t understand how little we actually know in medicine. I'm not sure if doctors understand this, either,” says Dr. Lisa Sanders, an associate professor at Yale School of Medicine who is perhaps best known as the author of the “Diagnosis” column for the New York Times Magazine. You’re in for more of that refreshing frankness from Sanders whose fascinating career path includes network TV journalism, advising the popular “House, MD” series on Fox and writing several books, including her most recent, Diagnosis: Solving the Most Baffling Medical Mysteries. In this lively exchange with host Shiv Gaglani, Sanders shares insights on a wide range of topics including opening up the diagnostic process, the critical importance of being able to take a good patient history and the work she is about to begin as the medical director of the Long Covid Clinic at Yale New Haven Health. Plus, she offers her take on the impact AI will have in aiding the diagnostic process. “I think it's going to be important, but it won't make diagnosis a science because bodies are too variable, symptoms are very variable and the way people tell their stories is different.” Mentioned in this episode: https://www.nytimes.com/column/diagnosis

“In medical school, you don't learn about leadership. You don't learn about what skills are required to make large-scale strategic decisions that can impact your patients,” says Nita Gombakomba, who will complete her medical degree later this year at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. As national president of the Student National Medical Association -- which has been fighting for equity and diversity in the medical field for sixty years – Nita has cultivated a broad perspective on medical education and the practice of medicine as she contemplates the future she and her classmates are facing. As she explains to host Michael Carrese, adding leadership training to medical school curricula is particularly important for students from underrepresented communities who see few role models in the ranks of healthcare leadership. As president of SNMA, she’s made leadership opportunities for members a focus, as well as community service initiatives and addressing health disparities. “We've really been pushing the focus on how housing instability also doubles as healthcare instability and the other health disparities that are related to that.” Tune in for a thoughtful perspective from the trenches of medical education and learn why it was important for Nita to take a break from med school to earn an MBA. Mentioned in this episode: https://snma.org/

“I know it's hard for people to think about holding on if they're in despair, but there's the possibility of healing coming ahead. Don’t give up hope,” says Dr. Rick Doblin, who has devoted his career to getting MDMA and other psychedelics approved by the FDA. As you’ll hear in this episode of Raise the Line, he could be on the verge of seeing his decades-long dream come true. On the day host Shiv Gaglani spoke to Doblin (January 5, 2023) successful results from a Phase 3 clinical trial of MDMA to treat PTSD were released by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies – an organization Doblin founded thirty-six years ago. This sets in motion a process that could result in FDA approval of MDMA for this use in 2024. That’s very good news for the millions of Americans with PTSD – and hundreds of millions worldwide – whose disease is resistant to other treatments. One of the next big steps is training therapists to incorporate these drugs into their work, something MAPS and other organizations are moving quickly to accomplish. Tune into this fascinating conversation about the political and social factors that have held up legalization of psychedelics for decades, other promising applications of MDMA, what fuels Doblin’s passion for normalizing the use of these promising medications, and the largest ever conference on psychedelics coming to Denver, Colorado in June. Mentioned in this episode: https://maps.org/ https://psychedelicscience.org/

“It's still early days in the application of all this technology relative to its long-term potential, but even so, it's already producing some big wins for patients,” says Dr. Matthew Might, whose impactful career in computer science and medicine has been shaped by the rare disease odyssey of one of his children. His son, Bertrand, was the first person in the world diagnosed with a particular form of NGLY1 deficiency, a neurogenic degenerative condition that causes developmental delays, seizures and frequent infections. Unfortunately, Bertrand succumbed to an infection at the age of twelve in 2020 but by that time, Dr. Might's work in precision medicine had led to crucial discoveries for dozens of children with NGLY1 deficiency. Now, as director of the Hugh Kaul Institute of Precision Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, he uses an AI-based system programmed to connect the dots in extensive databases of medical literature to make inferences about potential therapies for uncommon diseases. Check out this fascinating conversation with host Shiv Gaglani about the promise of this approach, the challenges in repurposing drugs and conducting clinical trials in the rare disease community, the need for more genetic counselors and Dr. Might’s work on President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative, which he calls the Rosetta stone of the human genome. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/pmi/

The growth in skepticism about science that was fueled by disinformation during the pandemic has been a frequent topic on Raise the Line, with many insightful guests from medicine and academia offering analysis of the problem and possible solutions. On today’s episode, we’ll hear from someone who is very well-placed to actually make progress on this front. Max Bronstein, the Assistant Director for Health Innovation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, joins host Shiv Gaglani to discuss the broad support President Biden has provided for science – elevating his science advisor to the cabinet level being a prime example – and also provide details about programmatic investments that tell the tale at a deeper level. At the top of Bronstein’s list of examples is the launch of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, also known as ARPA-H, which aims to drive transformative biomedical and health breakthroughs with a focus on equity. “The mission is about making sure there are cures for diseases, better diagnostic platforms and better technologies out there, but also making sure those are actually available to all Americans.” Don’t miss this inside look at new efforts to strengthen the biotechnology workforce, broaden access to clinical genetic sequencing, advance development of treatments for rare diseases, and much more as a new era in health innovation gets underway. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/

We welcome one of the nation's most respected health and health policy thought leaders to Raise the Line on this episode. Susan Dentzer’s remarkable career includes many years of reporting on healthcare for major national news outlets, being a senior policy adviser to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and serving as a board leader in medical education and health system delivery, just to name a few of her contributions. Earlier this year, Ms. Dentzer was appointed president and CEO of America's Physician Groups, an organization representing more than 350 physician groups providing coordinated, value-based healthcare for more than ninety million patients nationwide. She's also currently board chair of Research America, which advocates on behalf of biomedical and health-related research and innovation. Tune in to this elucidating discussion with host Shiv Gaglani that delves into what the pandemic revealed about value-based care and virtual care; what is helping to lessen clinician burnout; surprising views among medical students on the use of tech in healthcare; what is at the root of the public’s mistrust of science, and much more. “The reality of healthcare is very complicated. What I would make a plea for is that we all try to engage in developing a greater understanding of the issues, as opposed to seeing them through a narrow lens.” Mentioned in this episode: https://www.apg.org/ https://www.researchamerica.org/

“There's a reservoir of hope, energy and optimism many of us have that we may not know about until we're really tested,” says attorney and author Scott Reich. The heavy test he and his wife Ilissa have endured for the past three years started when their infant son Eli was diagnosed with a rare brain disorder called FOXG1 Syndrome which causes severe seizures and impedes normal movement, speech and sleep, among other problems. Scott vividly recalls the moment when Eli’s doctor explained there was no hope for treatments or a cure. “I just felt an instantaneous gravitational pull that despite the intense emotion that overtook us in the doctor's office, we were going to do something about it.” That “something” includes starting the nonprofit foundation Believe in a Cure which is currently funding over fifty research and development projects worldwide focused on this pernicious disorder. Join us for this enlightening conversation with host Shiv Gaglani to learn about the multi-pronged strategy scientists are pursuing to overcome the mutation in this so-called master gene, the promising results emerging from preclinical programs and the supportive global community Believe in a Cure has helped create for the hundreds of other families fighting the same battle. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.webelieveinacure.org

“I’m currently sitting 100 feet away from a giant lab full of robots where we can do up to 2.2 million experiments a week,” says Dr. Chris Gibson, the Co-Founder and CEO of Recursion, a company whose mission is to create a more efficient path to drug discovery. You are going to hear a lot of mind-boggling numbers from Chris in today’s Raise the Line episode, but they all boil down to this: advances in genetics, computing, artificial intelligence, mRNA capability and other technologies are all converging to accelerate the testing of drugs at an incredible pace. This is particularly good news for people with rare diseases who are often in a race against time for development of therapies. Although only founded nine years ago, Recursion already has four programs in clinical trials. A key factor in this success is a bold departure from the traditional hypothesis-based approach to science driven by lab failures Chris experienced while earning his MD-PhD. Once he and his colleagues cast aside their bias about what was driving the disease in question, they achieved success in animal testing. “We just modeled the genetic loss of function because we knew that incontrovertibly to be true, and then asked the cells what was actually driving the disease and what could make it better.” Don’t miss this fascinating look at reengineering drug discovery through gene mapping, training neural networks and other leading-edge technology. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.recursion.com/

You might think improving healthcare quality is largely in the hands of the clinicians providing the care, but much of this challenging work is actually done behind the scenes by professionals who lead quality reviews, institute new protocols for safer care and focus on performance improvement, among many other efforts. “We are on a journey to really change the perception of what quality is. We want to make it more prospective and actually solve problems for patients and the healthcare workforce,” says Stephanie Mercado, CEO and Executive Director of the National Association for Healthcare Quality. On this episode of Raise the Line, we get an inside look at this critically important function in healthcare, and at the Healthcare Quality Workforce Report NAHQ recently released that recognizes the field’s progress, but also outlines places for improvement. “The areas most important for the future of healthcare are things where the workforce is performing at lower ends of the competency spectrum. Those include health data analytics, change management and payment models. So, we have a lot of work to do.” Check out this revealing conversation with host Michael Carrese to learn what the future holds for quality professionals as healthcare challenges mount. Mentioned in this episode: https://nahq.org/

Regular listeners to Raise the Line know so-called "rare diseases" aren't really rare when you consider up to thirty million Americans are affected by them directly. That makes it likely you know someone who is impacted, or you know one of their colleagues, friends or loved ones. That fact has hit home at Osmosis over the last few months as we've started planning a major focus on rare diseases for 2023, which we're calling The Year of the Zebra. Several teammates have come forward to tell us their rare disease stories and we'll be sharing some of those on the podcast in the coming months. First up is our Director of Nursing Education Dr. Maria Pfrommer and her husband, Jack, who join host Shiv Gaglani to offer insights into the diagnosis and treatment journey they’ve been on to deal with Jack’s battle with retroperitoneal fibrosis, an inflammatory condition which can cause obstructions in the urinary tract. While Maria’s vast clinical knowledge and experience in healthcare systems has obviously been helpful, it was still a struggle to get the right diagnosis and treatment due to limited experience among healthcare professionals with rare conditions. “From my perspective, I really think that we need to learn more about rare disorders from every level of care,” she says. Tune in for great real-world advice for healthcare professionals dealing with rare disease patients including the importance of listening to the patient, understanding their whole life picture and focusing on transitions of care.

Grace Wilsey was born with a deadly genetic mutation so rare that at the time of her birth, it had never been identified in another person. The disorder, NGLY1 deficiency, causes a wide range of physical and cognitive problems such as muscle weakness, speech deficiencies and seizures. “The NGLY1 gene is in every cell in the body. It's almost like a firefighter that's on call, ready to go when there's a problem. Without it, the cell just kind of overwhelms itself with stress and starts to die,” explains Matt Wilsey, Grace’s father, who joins us on this episode of Raise the Line to talk about the daunting journey he and his family have been on since Grace was born in 2009. That journey involves starting a foundation and biotech company that’s fueling research on NGLY1 deficiency which could have an impact on more common diseases such as cancer, diabetes and Parkinson's. The researchers the Grace Science Foundation supports include several Nobel laureates whose work is providing reason for optimism. In fact, Matt says they hope to start a clinical trial in early 2023 to study a gene therapy that has shown promise in animal testing. Listen to this fascinating conversation with host Shiv Gaglani to learn about the race with time to unlock the secrets to a gene that is fundamental to human life. Mentioned in this episode: https://gracescience.org/

“You know, it's easy to say that default answer that everything's okay, but it's really not. She's lost a lot of her vision, she's got hundreds of seizures at night, and she's having difficulty walking,” shares Luke Rosen about his eight-year-old daughter Susannah. She was born with KIF1A-associated neurological disorder -- or KAND -- a rare, degenerative genetic disease for which there is currently no cure or treatment. On this episode of Raise the Line, Luke talks about how he and his wife Sally summoned the strength to move beyond their family’s own challenges to create KIF1A.org which is working to rapidly discover a treatment for all patients and families affected by this devastating disorder, but to also create a supportive community. “Five years later, we have approximately four hundred families around the world that we've identified and there's not one family I know that doesn't play a significant role in what we do.” Thanks to that global community and partnerships with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Columbia University, the n-Lorem Foundation, the Jackson Laboratory and many other organizations, there’s reason to be hopeful, as Luke shares with host Shiv Gaglani. “Susannah has been fortunate enough to just have started an experimental treatment. We really are on the brink of several things for, hopefully, the entire community.” Tune in for a candid and moving look at how families and supportive scientists and healthcare providers are mobilizing to fight back against a rare and pernicious threat to their children. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.kif1a.org/

As we continue our focus on rare diseases on Raise the Line, we’re delighted to be joined by Dr. Alaa Hamed, Global Head of Medical Affairs, Rare Diseases at Sanofi, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the world. Although most well known for their focus on lysosomal storage disorders including Gaucher and Pompe disease, Dr. Hamed and his team at Sanofi are also working in adjacent disease spaces depending on the systems affected. “For example, the lysosome in Pompe disease affects the neuromuscular tissues, so we have a neuromuscular disorder interest as well.” In their discussion, Dr. Hamed and host Shiv Gaglani also touch on the efforts Sanofi is making to shorten the diagnostic odyssey for rare disease patients, including building more disease awareness and greater global infrastructure. “From the inception, we thought that having universal access is a key part of the rare disease equation.” You’ll also learn about the challenges of drug development, the importance of maintaining policy incentives to focus on rare diseases, and where innovation is needed most to advance outcomes for patients. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.sanofi.com/

“Imaging has really become the tip of the spear of the patient journey,” says Daniel Arnold, CEO of Medality. In order to train future radiologists in this critically important and complex specialty, and keep current practitioners on top of their game, Arnold and his team are on a mission to transform the way radiologists learn by offering an online solution that mimics practicing radiology in the field. “Our goal is to make it easy for radiologists to learn a new subspecialty in just five minutes per day.” In his conversation with host Shiv Gaglani, Arnold touches on how Medality (formerly MRI Online) is connecting radiology practices with people who have the skills they need most. The two also discuss the importance of getting imaging diagnoses correct the first time, why radiologists can't just rely on what they learned in residency and fellowship, and the impact of artificial intelligence and other technological advances in the field. “Being a part of the puzzle around how we disseminate new lifesaving technologies is what really motivates us and gets us excited.” Mentioned in this episode: https://mrionline.com/

“One of the reasons I really wanted to be at Walmart is that you're touching people that truly have a need,” says Dr. John Wigneswaran, the retail giant’s Chief Medical Officer. And giant is not an overstatement. 150 million Americans visit a Walmart every week, and there is a store within ten miles of 90% of the U.S. population. In terms of healthcare, there are roughly 5,000 Walmart pharmacies, 4,000 of which are in medically underserved areas. Walmart visitors also have access to primary and urgent care, labs, x-ray and diagnostics, behavioral health, dental, optometry and hearing services. So, clearly, the company is in a unique position to make a big impact in the healthcare space whatever they choose to do. One of their most recent choices is to boost the participation of rural and underserved communities in clinical research, which Dr. Wigneswaran sees as an extension of their existing mission. “Ultimately, what we're trying to do to is drive safer, high quality and equitable care, and research is just one of the levers,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. Tune in to learn about the evolution of a growing player in America’s healthcare system which could include initiatives in diabetes, nutrition education, wound care and HIV.

It’s not hard to start feeling relaxed when you experience a virtual reality visit to a mountain top, taking in the beautiful views of forested peaks and valleys and hearing the rustling breeze. You can actually feel transported from the real world. But imagine how much more transporting it would be if you could also smell the pine trees? Well, now you can, thanks to OVR Technology, a Vermont-based company that has overcome substantial technical challenges to seamlessly add scent to the VR and AR experience. “Research has shown quite directly that adding sense of smell to VR tangibly increases presence and immersion and the key factors that everybody is looking for when they experience a VR environment,” says neuroscientist Dr. Rachel Herz, the company’s chief scientific adviser. And because not everyone has positive associations with scents from the real world, says CEO Aaron Wisniewski, OVR is creating new ones to facilitate the therapeutic impact of the scented VR experience. Both stress that the applications for the technology go well beyond recreational use, and the units are already being deployed in clinical settings with one study showing a major -- and lasting -- drop in levels of pain, stress and anxiety among inpatients after doing just a few short sessions with the OVR headset per week. Don’t miss this fascinating conversation with host Michael Carrese as we explore how OVR’s groundbreaking technology is adding a powerful new dimension to the virtual world. Mentioned in this episode: https://ovrtechnology.com/

“We're the richest country on the planet, healthcare access has to be core to who we are,” says Karthik Ganesh, CEO of EmpiRx Health, one of the fastest growing healthcare services companies in the country and the industry’s only value-based Pharmacy Benefit Manager. Ganesh and his team believe that radical changes are needed in the country’s healthcare system and they’re working to create a better experience for patients, providers, businesses, and insurance companies alike. Ganesh has deep experience in the healthcare insurance industry and health data management with stops in his career at Aetna, Express Scripts and Deloitte, and he's also the author of The Happiness Model: A Roadmap to Inner Peace. In his conversation with host Michael Carrese, Ganesh talks about why employers need to learn more about value-based care, and how healthcare needs to become a less transactional relationship with the provider. He also touches on some of the key factors that make EmpiRx different from traditional PBMs. “We are as equally focused on health outcomes as we are financial outcomes.” Mentioned in this episode: https://www.empirxhealth.com/

Would you rather be poked with a needle, or get a diagnosis from a non-invasive scan? Most of us would choose the latter, if we had the option. Needle biopsies also come with the risk of infection and other complications that can be avoided by obtaining a diagnosis via imaging. Those are just some of the advantages underpinning the work of Perspectum, a global precision health company focused on improving the diagnosis, treatment, and management of metabolic diseases and cancer. As founder and CEO Dr. Rajarshi Banerjee explains to host Michael Carrese, “I can work out with incredible clarity what kind of prostate cancer someone has, and what treatment they're likely to respond to, just from a scan.” Other applications include diagnosing and monitoring liver disease, and more recently, doing multi-organ scans to aid in evaluating long COVID. Banerjee also sees a role for Perspectum’s computer-assisted imaging technology in combatting the rising tide of chronic disease in the U.S. “Unless we do something about them, there is going to be a fourfold rise in breast, colon and liver cancer in the next two decades.” Check out this enlightening look at new tools to help providers customize treatments and provide better care for patients. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.perspectum.com

“We know that whenever nurses are listened to in policymaking arenas, health outcomes improve,” says Dr. Michelle Acorn, chief nurse at the International Council of Nurses, a federation of nursing associations. That’s why she’s focused on making sure nurses are at the decision-making tables all over the world. “ICN ensures that nurses have a voice in developing and implementing health policy so that we can meet the real needs of patients, families and communities.” Acorn makes a point of getting into the decision-making arena herself, including at the recent United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York where she raised awareness of health disparities. “Our health systems need resources to provide patient- centered and culturally-appropriate care to the diverse populations we serve,” she tells host Michael Carrese. Tune in for a wide-ranging exploration of current global trends and challenges in nursing, lessons from COVID-19, and major leadership opportunities in the nursing profession. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.icn.ch/

Science As a Force for Social Good: Dr. Richard Horton, Editor in Chief of The Lancet The first scientific paper on the clinical features of patients infected with what came to be known as COVID-19 was published in The Lancet, launching that famed journal's prominent role in COVID research, which it has maintained throughout the pandemic. But being an influential force in science and medicine is nothing new to this nearly 200-year-old publication, which is published by Osmosis' parent company, Elsevier. We explore that role on this episode of Raise the Line with The Lancet’s Editor in Chief, Dr. Richard Horton. A physician by training, Dr. Horton himself has often been described as a global force in science and medicine, partially for his work in greatly expanding the content offerings and global reach of The Lancet’s family of publications, but also for his outspokenness on politically charged issues. “I don't apologize for not being impartial. I would say it's the only way you can be. You have to look at the world, diagnose the world view you have, and then we use our journal to try and achieve certain objectives. It's what science was all about originally,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. Insights abound in this penetrating and lively look at the intersection of science and society, what lessons we should learn from COVID and the prospects for humans solving the existential threats we’ve created. “Our role at The Lancet is to draw attention to the dangers that face the human species, but also, to the solutions that are available to us.” Mentioned in this episode: https://www.thelancet.com

Deploying community-based health workers has been a popular tactic to boost vaccination rates during COVID, but when the crisis ends, how can they stay engaged to help achieve other public health goals? That’s the kind of question Maria Thacker-Goethe grapples with as CEO of the Atlanta-based Center for Global Health Innovation. “You have to have the respect to keep paying people and not leave them high and dry because that will just break down trust,” says Thacker-Goethe, who is also the President and CEO of Georgia Bio. A key link in public health efforts in Georgia and beyond, she takes a ground-up approach to fostering collaboration among stakeholders in order to develop and share innovations, particularly those focused on health equity. A good example is a new “innovation district” the Center is building that will, in a unique twist, co-locate high tech health companies with public health organizations. As she tells host Dr. Rishi Desai, Thacker-Goethe believes an underlying issue connecting all of this work is building trust through better communications, including more effective use of popular social media platforms, a tactic not yet fully embraced by the public health establishment. Don’t miss this fascinating exploration of innovation in public health, and stay tuned to learn about a special project that shares the wisdom of public health pioneers. Mentioned in this episode: https://cghi.org https://www.9lessons.org

The first thing you see when you walk into the medical school building at the University of Texas at Tyler is a teaching kitchen, and the director of the nutrition curriculum is a dietician from the East Texas Food Bank. That should give you some idea of how differently the school’s founding Dean, Dr. Brigham Willis, sees its mission. “What we're trying to do is create a very unique program focused on how we can serve the particular needs of East Texas,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. And in a region that has some of the highest rates of obesity, diabetes, and smoking in the country, that means focusing on lifestyle medicine. “Our students are actually going to have the opportunity to become nutrition coaches and personal trainers which I think is really foundational to what we're trying to do. Instead of just saying, “eat better," they're going to have actual strategies and be a connection to resources to be able to help patients do that.” It also means being deeply embedded in the community in everything they do, and recruiting students from the region to increase the chances that they will eventually practice there and help reduce a physician shortage. From limiting lectures in favor of active learning, to requiring students to become certified EMTs in the first six weeks, to pushing to make education tuition free for all students, Dr. Willis and his team are taking full advantage of the opportunity to build a medical education from the ground up, as you’ll learn in this fascinating episode. Mentioned in this episode: https://medicine.uttyler.edu

Ninety percent of the body's serotonin is produced in the gut, says Jeff Glueck. So, if you are like the many millions of Americans with a digestive disorder, happiness and calm may not come easily. Enter Salvo, a “medical clinic in an app” that provides specialty care for people suffering from chronic GI conditions. In this episode of Raise the Line with host Michael Carrese, hear how the loss of a child and the illness of two others, combined with Glueck's love of entrepreneurship and data-based solutions, motivated him to start the company. Tune in to find out about Salvo's “Whole Self Science” approach that incorporates diet, mind, movement, sleep, labs, and more; the company's continually expanding data set; and the program's promising results. Glueck also talks about his role as an integrator at work and why he believes this type of better-care, lower-cost medicine is the future. And stay tuned to hear why he thinks students should be giving serious thought to the type of work environment they want for their future careers. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.salvohealth.com/

Heather Fullmer will never forget seeing her nursing license for the first time and realizing the date of issuance was the same as her son Michael’s birthday. She had spent the week since delivering him in the NICU as Michael’s struggle with the rare, life-limiting skin disorder Epidermolysis Bullosa began. “It was a surreal moment. I became a nurse professionally, and in my personal life on the exact same day,” she tells host Shiv Gaglani. EB is a pernicious disease which causes skin to tear at the slightest touch, with resulting wounds that don't heal. “If I had to sum up Michael's day,” says her husband, Ryan Fullmer, “it's probably fear and pain. We still haven't been desensitized to his screams, or the disappointment on his face from not being able to enjoy the day-to-day things that he sees his friends do.” In this inspiring episode of Raise the Line, you’ll learn how the Fullmers rose above their all-consuming struggles to care for Michael to forge a new approach to rare disease research with the support of Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder and his wife, Jill. The resulting EB Research Partnership raises millions of dollars a year to fuel promising efforts to find a cure for EB and, ultimately, other rare diseases. Tune in to learn how the “venture philanthropy” model they use differs from typical investing, and hear about important fundraising events for EB including Venture Into Cures hosted by Spiderman actor Tom Holland. And be sure to stay tuned to hear their advice to medical providers on the importance of building rapport with patient families, and taking an interdisciplinary approach to treating rare disorders. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.ebresearch.org/founders.html https://www.ebresearch.org/our-mission.html https://www.ebresearch.org/venture-into-cures.html Mikey's World video:

Although many countries are facing a shortage of physicians, Israel is being hit particularly hard by this problem, especially in rural areas. But as we’ll learn in this episode of Raise the Line, Dr. Peter Gilbey and Dr. Yair Blumberg of The Azrieli Faculty of Medicine at Bar-Ilan University are doing their part to reverse that trend by developing new approaches to medical education. “If you take the best local people and train them, they will stay in the area,” says Dr. Gilbey, chair of the Department of Research and Innovation in Medical Education. For Yair Blumberg, the school’s Physiology Coordinator, doing more to embed technologies such as ultrasound in the educational journey is a key focus. “Point-of-care ultrasound may be one of the major tools future physicians are going to use, so we decided as a strategic teaching method to teach the students to use ultrasound from basically the first day of medical school.” Tune in to this discussion with host Shiv Gaglani in which Drs. Gilbey and Blumberg shed light on the biggest challenges they’re facing as medical educators, how medical education is impacting health outcomes in Israel, and the innovative solutions they’re implementing in their curriculum. They also share their best advice for medical students on overcoming burnout and meeting the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic while progressing in their medical careers. Mentioned in this episode: https://medicine.biu.ac.il/en

As the rate of new medical knowledge continues to accelerate, how can medical students and practitioners keep up with it all and make sure they are providing the most up-to-date care to their patients? One answer is being provided by AMBOSS, a German medical technology company whose platform has greatly improved the way medical knowledge is acquired and utilized at the point of care. In this episode of Raise the Line, AMBOSS Co-founder Dr. Sievert Weiss joins host Shiv Gaglani to explore ways to increase adoption of new technologies in medicine, reminding us that even the thermometer was rejected when first introduced. He also shares his thoughts on the direction healthcare should head in order to enhance the doctor-patient relationship. “I think it's super important to get away from this patriarchal model to a model that is more on eye level”. Don’t miss this thought-provoking conversation on these and many other critical issues in healthcare.

Imagine 60% of your skin having open wounds every day. That's the grim reality of those with Epidermolysis Bullosa, or EB, a rare genetic connective tissue disorder which results in blisters and tears to the skin being created from even minor contact or friction. The range of complications this causes for almost every normal activity – from eating to bathing to sleeping – is daunting, leading our guest today, Brett Kopelan, to call EB “the worst disease you’ve never heard of.” He should know. Brett and his wife have the equivalent of fulltime jobs just managing daily care for their daughter Rafi, who suffers from a severe form of EB. Advocating for Rafi led to Brett becoming Executive Director of debra of America, the only national not-for-profit providing all-inclusive support for patients battling the disease. In this revealing discussion with host Shiv Gaglani, Brett opens up about his frustrations with the health insurance system, the challenges of raising money for rare diseases, and why he feels there is a need for more doctors to specialize in rare disorders for patients over twenty-three. Brett shares some positive news as well about several promising gene therapies on the horizon. “I can say that the past two years has really been the first time that I've felt I'm working for my child's life, not for beyond her. So that's an exciting thing.” Mentioned in this episode: https://www.debra.org

Just a few weeks ago we shared the story of John Crowley’s family and their battle with Pompe disease on Raise the Line, and in this episode, we’re honored to share another remarkable story of a rare disease parent and the contributions they've made beyond their efforts to help their own loved ones. Nick Sireau is the CEO and Chair of Trustees of the AKU Society, an award-winning patient group that helps people with Alkaptonuria (AKU), sometimes referred to as black bone disease, a rare disorder affecting both of his children. In AKU patients, a build-up of acid in the body leads to a painful breakdown of bones and joints, and serious heart complications. Nick’s tireless efforts have led to some extraordinary results, including making the very first treatment for AKU available. Nick is also Founder and Chair of Orchard, a medical charity that works to develop new and better treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a misunderstood mental illness that Nick has battled for many years. Join host Shiv Gaglani for a fascinating look at the impact one parent has had on the welfare of so many, and for advice for those weighing career options in the healthcare field. “There are hundreds, if not thousands of these ultra-rare diseases that just nobody is touching.” Mentioned in this episode: https://akusociety.org/ https://www.orchardocd.org/

As Dr. Katie Kay reflects on what adjustments need to be made to nursing curricula in light of the pandemic, she is not focused mainly on academic content. “We have to address some gaps in curriculums across the board that really prepare individuals for what they're going to encounter in the healthcare setting.” Assessing grit, making sure students seek out resources when they are struggling and adding resilience and wellness training to the mix are top-of-mind examples. As University Dean for West Coast University College of Nursing, Kay is able to impact learning for thousands of students in the largest states in the country where the pandemic has left demand for nurses at an all-time high. In this wide-ranging conversation with host Shiv Gaglani, Kay touches on ways the nursing field can reduce burnout, and gives her opinion on how to successfully implement new technology in the healthcare system. She also speaks about ways the pandemic caused a shift in student expectations around education, the need for faculty to center themselves to best serve students and why hospitals should view nursing as an operational expense versus a billable service. Don’t miss this chance to learn about current and future challenges and opportunities in nursing education. Mentioned in this episode: https://westcoastuniversity.edu

The increasing integration of oral healthcare with medical care could lead to a reconsideration of roles and responsibilities on care teams in both fields. That’s just one of the emerging trends in oral healthcare we explore on this episode of Raise the Line with guests Laura Skarnulis, CEO of the Dental Assisting National Board and the DALE Foundation, and Ann Battrell, CEO of the American Dental Hygienists Association. Both agree this trend, among others, is making oral healthcare an increasingly dynamic field of employment. “There are so many opportunities, pathways, jobs, and environments in which to work,” says Skarnulis. “People can make all different kinds of choices today that never had been there before,” Battrell adds. There is also an ongoing need for both dental assistants and dental hygienists, with the supply in both roles declining during the pandemic due to retirements and other factors. In their informative conversation with host Shiv Gaglani, these industry experts also dive into issues surrounding scope of practice, the benefits of having diversified experiences throughout one’s career and why it’s important to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable” to maximize professional and personal growth.

It was on a Friday the 13th in late winter 1997 when John Crowley’s life changed forever. John and his wife Aileen had been noticing concerning symptoms in their infant daughter Megan for several months, and after a few rounds of testing she was diagnosed with a rare form of muscular dystrophy known as Pompe disease. Doctors told the Crowleys their daughter likely only had a few years to live, an outlook that ultimately sparked John’s remarkable efforts to find treatments for Megan as well as her younger brother Patrick, who was also struck with Pompe. His family’s amazing journey was the inspiration for the movie Extraordinary Measures starring Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford. Join host Shiv Gaglani in this captivating and inspiring conversation with Crowley, now the Executive Chairman at Amicus Therapeutics, to learn about how he and his team are shedding light on some of the rarest diseases in the world, the promise of new technology in genetics, and the need for an Operation Warp Speed to develop rare disease treatments. As Crowley puts it, “We can beat nature, we think, in the years and decades ahead. We just oftentimes have to beat time.” Mentioned in this episode: https://amicusrx.com/

Direct-to-consumer healthcare and how technology can empower people to be active participants in achieving and maintaining their own good health is a favorite topic on Raise the Line. Today we’re going to take a closer look at how one consumer health device that’s growing sharply in popularity, continuous glucose monitors, can be used to drive healthier decisions. Millions of Americans wear the devices to see the impact of what they eat on their bodies, but it can be difficult for people to use that information. That’s where Levels enters the picture, a health tech company helping people discover how diet and lifestyle choices impact their metabolic functioning. “We're enabling people to better understand what health decisions they should be making,” says Dr. Taylor Sittler, the company’s Head of Research and Development. Levels does that through an app that presents data from the monitors in a way that people can understand. For example, you can see a chart showing your glucose levels over the course of the day. Next up for Levels is supporting people as they act on the information, and providing data on exercise and sleep. Join host Michael Carrese as he explores this growing area of medical technology with Dr. Sittler, and how measuring and monitoring resilience can also play an important role in improving health. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.levelshealth.com

Unlike many young children who are fearful of visits to the doctor, Dr. David Canes was fascinated by his. This early interest set the foundation for a career in medicine, leading him to become a skilled urologist and robotic surgeon. But he started to feel unsatisfied with the repetition of information he needed to deliver during patient appointments. “I think there's a lot of other doctors like me who really love making a connection with another human being who needs your help, but if you are repetitively explaining things, you enter an autopilot type of mindset and it really bothered me a lot.” Ultimately, the patient-centered solution he developed grew into the company Wellprept, which empowers doctors to curate educational content that can easily be shared with patients before appointments via a single link. Happily, it’s working well for both the physicians who are using the system and their patients. “The "ah-ha" moment seems to be that the patient comes back in and says, ‘thank you so much for sending me that,’ and then the provider notices that the visit is better.” Check out this wide-ranging conversation with host Shiv Gaglani, in which Dr. Canes shares his insights on other ways to reduce physician burnout, thoughts on improving the doctor-patient relationship, and tips on planning for a long-term career in medicine. Mentioned in this episode: https://wellprept.com

There’s good news in the world of organ donation and transplant. For the first time last year, more than 40,000 transplants were performed in the U.S. and donations from deceased donors increased for the eleventh year in a row. And as we’ll learn from today’s guest Leslie McMahon, newer technologies are making it possible to evaluate organs for viability that previously might have been rejected due to concerns about trauma-inflicted damage or other factors. “They can put the heart in a box and watch its function outside of the body before implanting it. They have the same devices for liver, kidneys and lungs as well.” McMahon is Organ Recovery Manager at Donor Alliance, an organ, eye and tissue procurement organization serving Colorado and parts of Wyoming, one of 57 OPOs in the United States dedicated to helping the 106,000 Americans in need of transplants. “Our vision is to maximize all donation opportunities. We are really focused on performance improvement to be able to meet that vision.” Don’t miss this informative conversation with host Shiv Gaglani in which McMahon shares her insights on the challenges of procuring organs for donation, the special connection developed with donor families, and why having a positive attitude is essential in growing a career in the healthcare field. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.donoralliance.org/ https://www.donatelife.net/

Inspired by her own challenges with fertility a few years ago, serial entrepreneur Halle Tecco saw a tremendous opportunity to rebuild the fertility and pregnancy experience for families from the ground up. She wanted to bring a human-centered approach to physical products that were largely designed and sold by male-owned incumbents in the space. She came home one day after interviewing a few potential CEOs and told her husband, "I'm so sorry. I know I said I wouldn't start a company, but I think that I have to do this, I'm just so passionate about it." With those words, Halle founded Natalist to offer fertility and pregnancy essentials for women and men who wanted a better solution, just like her. The company was acquired in October of 2021 by Everly Health where Halle now serves as vice president, focusing on developing and supporting women’s health strategy across the organization. Check out this episode of Raise the Line as host Shiv Gaglani sits down with Halle to hear all about her journey as an entrepreneur in the healthcare space, and discuss the many obstacles and challenges women still face navigating the healthcare system today.

Victoria Repa has known from her earliest days growing up in Ukraine how difficult it can be to lose weight. “In my family, everyone is overweight. It's our family problem and we can't overcome it.” Breaking that cycle provided Repa with the motivation to start her own journey toward better health, but she wanted to help others find their own motivation as well, and sustain it. Armed with business degrees from Kyiv University and Stanford, she launched the tech company BetterMe five years ago whose apps have already been downloaded 110 million times. Keeping that level of success going would be a challenge in any circumstances, but especially during the War in Ukraine which has required some staff to flee the country while others stayed to fight. Join host Michael Carrese for this inspirational conversation with a tenacious leader who is fighting for her country, her employees and the health of her customers all at once. Mentioned in this episode: https://u24.gov.ua/ to support the people of Ukraine.

It was a decade after NY Giants great and Super Bowl champion Leonard Marshall retired when he first started to notice cognitive issues and a concerning change in attitude. Five years, many doctor visits and countless hours of research later, the two-time Pro Bowl defensive lineman received a diagnosis of CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease that’s common in former NFL players. He estimates taking over 30,000 blows to the head in his entire college and pro football career, which included 12 years in the NFL. “I knew what I signed up for when I started to play pro football. I knew there was a very strong chance I could end up getting a knee injury, back injury, neck injury, maybe a concussion or two. But nowhere in that fine print did it say you could end up with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and no one ever talked about it.” Today, Marshall is using his high profile to support CaringKind, New York City's leading expert on Alzheimer's and dementia caregiving with a forty-year history of working with community partners to help affected patients and families. Join host Shiv Gaglani for this touching opportunity to hear a patient’s perspective on a disease that is constantly in the headlines, and learn what Leonard Marshall is doing to support people facing the same reality. Mentioned in this episode: www.caringkindnyc.org

“I knew I wasn't going to survive unless I found a drug that could save my life,” says Dr. David Fajgenbaum, who has almost died five times from the rare disorder idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease, which he developed while in medical school. Now a physician and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Fajgenbaum has led research efforts into a cure for Castleman, discovering a drug that has kept him disease-free for eight years and is helping other patients. As he continues pursuing new therapies for Castleman, Fajgenbaum is also spearheading an effort to create a system for identifying alternate uses for existing drugs, something which could benefit millions in the rare disease community and beyond. “One of my favorite examples is tocilizumab, which was made for Castleman in the 1990’s and is now the first drug you'll receive if you're admitted to the ICU with COVID,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. The non-profit effort is being announced this month at a Clinton Global Initiative meeting. Don’t miss this deeply inspiring conversation with many lessons on the importance of collaboration, laughter and hope, and the perspective gained from feeling like you are living on borrowed time. Mentioned in this episode: www.chasingmycure.com

On this special episode of Raise the Line, we get an eyewitness account of how medical needs are being met in the midst of the war in Ukraine from Ukrainian-American anesthesiologist Dr. Oleg Turkot, who has been coordinating resources and treating patients since the war started. As he tells host Shiv Gaglani, one important focus for him has been working with the Butterfly Network to distribute hand-held ultrasound devices. “If you have an ultrasound that weighs sixty pounds, lugging that as you're fleeing from a rocket attack ends up not really being your best priority versus something that you have on your belt.” Dr. Turkot is not new to improving medical care in under-resourced countries. For years, he’s been working with Kybele, an organization that creates healthcare partnerships across borders to improve childbirth safety. Tune in to this fascinating and important conversation to hear more about that work, how Twitter can be a powerful resource in crowdsourcing medical devices, and about some of the unique differences between the healthcare systems in the United States and Ukraine. “I think the most important thing is to continue to support organizations that are doing the work on the ground because this is going to have to continue for years.” Mentioned in this episode: https://kybeleworldwide.org/ https://www.butterflynetwork.com/

When Akiva Zablocki found out his infant son Idan had a one-in-a-million immune disorder, he and his wife Amanda were terribly worried, as all parents would be. But unlike most parents of children with rare diseases, Akiva could draw on the expertise in navigating the healthcare system he gathered when successfully overcoming his own rare and scary ordeal with a brain stem tumor. Thanks to that know-how, his wife’s background in healthcare law, some amazing clinicians, the couple’s tenacity, and Idan’s spirit, he is now a healthy ten-year-old enjoying summer camp. On this episode of Raise the Line, Akiva shares the remarkable details of his family’s journey with host Shiv Gaglani, and tells the story of how the Hyper IgM Foundation, which the Zablockis launched, is helping patients all over the world. Be sure to stay tuned for some heartfelt advice for current and future providers as they encounter patients and families with rare diseases.

In this super insightful conversation with host Shiv Gaglani, Dr. Karim Lakhani breaks down the difference between “strong” and “weak” artificial intelligence, and how the healthcare world can not only adapt to it, but harness its full potential. But, he stresses, the system has some important groundwork to do before that can happen. “Process change is the biggest work that has to happen in healthcare, from discovery to the clinic and beyond. Otherwise, we're basically pouring digital and artificial intelligence asphalt over old cow-paths." As professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, founding director of the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard, and the Principal Investigator of the NASA Tournament Lab at the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Lakhani is a powerful intellectual force in understanding AI, open-source software and crowdsourcing. He’s also the author of the book Competing in the Age of AI. If you’re curious about how artificial intelligence might transform the healthcare system, this is a can’t miss opportunity to hear from a leading expert in the field.

As a young girl, Dr. Maria Guevara was inspired by her parent’s volunteer medical missions in the Philippines where they helped repair cleft lips and palates. The deep impression that work created led her on a path to medicine and eventually to her role today as International Medical Secretary at Médecins Sans Frontières (aka Doctors Without Borders). In her eighteen years with the agency, Dr. Guevara has traveled the world tending to the needs of people who have been victimized by armed conflicts, natural disasters, and disease outbreaks such as Ebola. Founded in 1971 in the wake of the Biafra war in Nigeria, Médecins Sans Frontières now operates as an independent medical organization in over seventy countries with more than forty-six thousand members. Join host Shiv Gaglani for this riveting conversation with Dr. Guevara in which she shares her experiences in the field, provides her thoughts on global health as a discipline, and shares lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic with an eye on the looming challenge of climate change. “We’re getting dress rehearsals on a regular basis to see how we can fix ourselves. It's like Mother Earth is saying, ‘We’re going to teach you. Learn!’”

“From the beginning, my approach was that we need to challenge the system,” says Dr. Ronald Harden, General Secretary of the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE). In the 1970’s as a young medical professor in Scotland, this mindset led Harden to create the Objective Structured Clinical Examination, or OSCE, which dramatically improved the way medical students are evaluated. Many years and contributions later, he continues to push the field through AMEE, which is holding its popular annual conference starting August 27 in Lyon, France. As he tells host Shiv Gaglani, his latest focus is on the evolving role of the student, which will be described in a book being published by Elsevier next year. “The student has a changing role as a partner in the learning program. They're not just there as a client or consumer, but as a partner.” This partnership could extend to the area of helping to assess peers on resilience and problem-solving -- qualities newly recognized as important due to COVID -- and ones that students might be in a better position to observe than professors. Check out this inspiring wisdom drop from a veteran educator who has not lost even a wee bit of enthusiasm for his work. “I think we have an exciting future ahead in medical education. There are so many things still to be done.” For more information on the AMEE conference, visit https://amee.org/Conferences/AMEE-2022

“So much of healthcare actually does have parallels to the business world, insofar as much of our job is to help align people to the next steps that are in their best interest,” Dr. Robert Lord tells host Shiv Gaglani. Dr. Lord, who recently completed his medical degree at Johns Hopkins, understands the parallels between the business world and the healthcare world better than most. As a Partner at early-stage digital health venture capital firm LionBird Ventures, Dr. Lord works with all sorts of exciting companies focusing on elements of healthcare that can range from the back office of compliance, to front-end clinical devices. Prior to LionBird, Dr. Lord co-founded Protenus, which provides healthcare organizations with risk reduction solutions. Robert’s insights have been featured in Forbes, The Baltimore Sun, and many national conferences, and he has briefed the U.S. Senate on cybersecurity threats to our nation's healthcare systems. Tune in to this insightful conversation to get an inside-look into some of the exciting new start-ups Dr. Lord and his team at LionBird are working with, as well as many take-aways for aspiring medical professionals and entrepreneurs alike. (Dr. Lord’s comments reflect his personal views and do not represent those of the organizations with which he is affiliated.) Mentioned in this episode: https://www.lionbird.com/

“It's a strange odyssey being a rare disease parent. It sort of forces you to question everything about life,” says Philippe Pakter, whose daughter Lysiane was born with Pierre Robin Sequence, a condition that impedes normal breathing and feeding. In this compelling interview with Shiv Gaglani, he shares the wrenching details of his family’s daunting emotional, medical and legal journey. “It's tough, but you just have to keep going and from the hardship can potentially come very beautiful things.” Among the brighter spots of their story are finding a non-surgical treatment that helped with part of Lysiane’s condition, and connecting with a network of dedicated clinicians focused on improving treatments for Pierre Robin Sequence. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear hard won wisdom about ways clinicians can approach their work to be mindful of rare diseases and how they can be a resource for patients and families who are often desperate for answers.  Pakter is a great example of how well-informed rare disease family members are, and why clinicians should listen closely to what they have to say.

Ryan McQuaid was facing chronic back and joint pain so intense he could barely stand up in the morning. Without a primary care doctor to reach out to about his symptoms -- and little experience navigating the healthcare system -- he turned to a friend, James Wantuck, who happened to be a Stanford-trained physician. Through this relationship, which was largely conducted via text messages and FaceTime calls, Ryan’s condition was diagnosed and he received effective treatment. It was out of this experience that PlushCare was born. “We said let's take that experience, this human-centric personalized care done digitally, and democratize it and give it to every American.” Today, the company provides nearly instant access to primary care from a desktop or smartphone, making it easy for patients to get the care they need without ever having to leave their home. The company has grown considerably during the COVID-19 pandemic, and now has provided primary care and behavioral health care to hundreds of thousands of people in all fifty states. Tune in to this conversation with host Michael Carrese to hear where the future of virtual care is headed, and how PlushCare’s team is tackling a major problem in the U.S. in an innovative way.

With its mission to bring the benefits of modern medicine to places that have been impacted by poverty and injustice, Partners In Health has been at the forefront of the battle for global health equity since it began in 1987. Founded by a group of like-minded physicians and philanthropists, including the late Dr. Paul Farmer, it has focused on strengthening health systems in the communities that need them most. “Paul really saw that the link between academia and clinical and the community had to be a deliberate and authentic one," says Dr. Sheila Davis, CEO of Partners In Health. Dr. Davis began her work as a nurse fighting the HIV pandemic in the 1980s and has since built an amazing career in healthcare and philanthropy, holding multiple leadership roles at Partners In Health over the past decade. In this informative conversation with host Shiv Gaglani, she gives us an inside look at the organization's current work, provides insights on what it takes to strengthen healthcare systems, and stresses the importance of taking a community-grounded approach.

Like many academics, Dr. Peter Decherney wears many hats, but in his case you can also add a virtual reality headset. That’s because in addition to being a professor of Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, he’s also a filmmaker working in both the traditional “flatty” format and virtual reality, with subjects ranging from artists in Puerto Rico to a Jewish community in Ethiopia. Choosing which medium to use to tell which story is a newer part of the process he enjoys. “Filmmaking is often about this kind of obsessive control. It's a challenge to be able to give up some control and create lots of different opportunities and learning experiences for audiences,” he tells host Michael Carrese in this episode of Raise the Line. Using technology to create learning experiences is also a big part of his job as the Faculty Director of UPenn’s Online Learning Initiative, a role that put him at the center of perhaps the largest, quickest, and most significant change in higher education in modern times when the pandemic forced the universal use of remote learning. “The pandemic was a moment of reflection and it was kind of amazing to see people across campus just think about education and pedagogy in a really deep and new way.” Check out this wide-ranging conversation to find out what that new thinking is leading to, what he likes about online instruction himself and one of the most important things universities learned about themselves during the pandemic.

“Curriculum is at the heart of everything a university does, so it only makes sense to architect the solution we provide based on the core offering of the universities,” says Greg Vanclief, President & CEO of Elentra. The tech industry veteran and his team are on a mission to transform the delivery of higher education and nurture life-long learners through an end-to-end platform featuring a wide range of tools to support everything from scheduling to curriculum mapping to testing and accreditation management. The global reach of Elentra’s advanced education management system is growing in part because it allows universities to consolidate multiple existing software tools into one. Join host Michael Carrese as Vanclief provides a peek into the tech support underpinning successful student journeys, and shares his passion for entrepreneurship and transforming higher education.

In the last decade, a projected physician shortage drove the establishment of new medical schools across the country. Among these was the Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine, where Dean Dr. Paula Termuhlen is working to forge an identity for the young institution. She says they’ve settled on “health equity” -- a vision that emphasizes teaching and practicing among the undeserved in the local community. This, she tells host Michael Carrese, doesn’t just mean more people get care, but it also shores up public trust in doctors, and brings new potential populations into the medical education pipeline. “We've come to recognize that you really have to reach down into elementary school to inspire young people to continue their education,” she says. Tune in to hear about what it means to build a medical school from scratch, why communicating clearly with the public is among the great medical challenges of our time, and how the pandemic has opened up new possibilities for emerging health care professionals to shape the field for the better.

In medical school, when taught about differential diagnoses, students are often taught, "if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras” says Rebecca Aune, the Director of Education Programs at National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD). NORD, she says, represents twenty-five million American zebras living with rare diseases every day, many of whom undergo a deeply frustrating and isolating odyssey as they seek an accurate diagnosis. The reasons for this are numerous, Dr. Edward Neilan, the organization’s Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, tells host Michael Carrese. But NORD is working to address many of these problems at once -- at the level of the patient, the doctor, the research, and the medical system as a whole. Tune in to hear how a 1980s law dramatically increased research into rare disorders, how the human genome project has revolutionized their treatment, and what a future of better diagnostics could look like.

The Student National Medical Association has been fighting for equity and diversity in the medical field for almost 60 years. Unfortunately, it’s a need as pressing today as it was when the association began, with Black doctors making up only 5% of the physician workforce in the nation. And beyond making sure Black Americans are aware of the path to, and through, medical school, SNMA Executive Director Bridgette Hudson also works closely with her team to make sure medical students have the opportunity to be great leaders as well. “We have an amazing pipeline of learners who are going to be primed to be physician leaders to make sure positions and influences are diversified not just on the floors of the hospital systems, but also in those decision-making suites and in our accreditation spaces.” On this episode of Raise the Line, Hudson joins host Michael Carrese to discuss the importance of maintaining support for the record number of first-year medical students who are Black to ensure they graduate, how SNMA supports diversity in medical research and the role of medical educators in breaking down stereotypes about race and health.

One of the things that convinced Dr. Steve Riley to remain in Wales after leaving his native England as a youth to attend Cardiff University is what he calls its sense of citizenship and social accountability. It was a good fit with his own values, and when given the opportunity to help shape the curriculum at the University’s School of Medicine, he wanted it to reflect those sensibilities. “For me, it’s about trying to structure a course that recognizes the needs of the local population and seeing how a school of medicine can contribute back to make things better for the population,” he tells host Michael Carrese. Among the ways to achieve that are having students teach health literacy in local schools and aligning the School of Medicine’s research strengths to positively impact local communities. Tune into this thoughtful look at medical education in the UK to find out why medical students were an asset, not a liability, to doctors in Wales during the COVID crisis, how to how to help students navigate the ever-increasing amount of evidence and data at their fingertips, and why Riley thinks being a doctor should be fundamentally enjoyable.

The current interest in using psychedelics for mental health treatment is a ‘back to the future’ moment for Dr. Jim Fadiman, a pioneer in psychedelic research known as the father of microdosing. “The method that's been developed for administering high doses in a supervised environment is replicating exactly what we developed in the 1960s,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. At that time, the federal government approved his research, but when the Nixon administration criminalized this class of drugs for political reasons, all research stopped, creating a wide belief that they are unsafe when actually, he says, they’re among the pharmacologically safest drugs. In the absence of government-sanctioned research, what Fadiman calls “citizen science” has been thriving. Hundreds of thousands of people have self-reported through social media and other means that the drugs improve their functioning and have no serious side effects. Other countries are sponsoring research yielding the same results. In the context of a deepening mental health crisis, Fadiman believes it makes sense to integrate psychedelics into treatment, especially when the pharmaceuticals in use are only modestly effective for a minority of patients. Make sure to listen through to the end of the episode to learn about his new book, Symphony of Selves on harmonizing different aspects of our personalities to reduce stress and increase empathy for others. This is a deeply-informed, revealing and fun conversation you won’t want to miss.

As a child, Dr. David Perlmutter developed an uncommon familiarity with the human brain. Exploring the surgical ward -- and eventually, the operating room -- with his neurosurgeon dad, he observed the possibilities of modern brain medicine, but also its limits. After becoming a neurologist himself, he grew dissatisfied with the medical status quo which he says tended to react to brain diseases like Alzheimer’s after they took effect. The numerous bestselling books he has since written draw on the latest science to explain how the brain interacts with the rest of the body and give readers the tools to adapt accordingly. The latest example is Drop Acid: The Surprising New Science of Uric Acid - The Key to Losing Weight, Controlling Blood Sugar and Achieving Extraordinary Health. Dr. Perlmutter’s work reflects a commitment to questioning the scientific status-quo. “I'm not saying to be iconoclastic day in and day out,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. But he wants to “look at long-held tenants and recognize that nothing is sacrosanct. There's nothing there that can't be overturned.” Tune in to learn about a powerful new tool in everyone’s toolkit for keeping our brains healthy, and how doctors can get patients to actually follow through on their lifestyle recommendations.

For decades, science fairs have kindled young peoples’ imaginations as they face down the conundrums of their time. Countless such fairs have been put on by the Society for Science, a century-old organization known for its science research competitions, its award-winning publication, Science News, and its outreach and equity programs that seek to help the young would-be-Einsteins living in “science deserts” to realize their potential. “We want to make sure every young person in this country can grow up to be a scientist or engineer if that's what they want to be,” Society for Science President and CEO Maya Ajmera tells host Shiv Gaglani. Ajmera sees effective science journalism and early scientific education as key strategies in the effort to combat rampant disinformation and scientific illiteracy. And she envisions new strategies for making sure more people have the chance to pursue a career in the sciences. Tune in to hear about Ajmera’s work as a children’s book author, how science fairs have launched so many successful careers, and why every medical professional should prioritize becoming a better communicator. Quote: “We want to make sure every young person in this country can grow up to be a scientist or engineer if that's what they want.”

“Our goal is to make things much more human,” says Dr. Vishal Punwani when speaking about the mission of SoWork, the company he co-founded to create virtual office environments that enhance the remote working experience. Recognizing that members of distributed teams experience a loss of self, SoWork allows people to customize their avatar and workspace in its virtual office environments. “When you have the ability to represent yourself authentically in terms of how your avatar looks and dresses and interacts with other avatars, you get to have some of your own representation back,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. If virtual office environments improve employee satisfaction with remote work, Punwani predicts major improvements in quality of life – because people will be able to live wherever they want – and possibly a major contribution to fighting climate change due to reduced commuting, office construction, business travel and the like. “It sounds totally grand, and maybe a bit unbelievable, but there's a path to get there, and that's the one we're walking.” You won’t want to miss this warm and fascinating conversation between these longtime friends and colleagues as they explore the pandemic’s lasting changes on healthcare, education and work, and share advice about following an entrepreneurial path in healthcare.

Responding to the crisis of medical burnout, Punit Singh Soni, a former product manager at Google, launched the company Suki with a specific goal: leverage the burgeoning field of voice technology to lessen the growing administrative burden on clinicians. Soni says enterprise contexts, and healthcare in particular, are well-suited for the next generation of assistive voice-activated software. “Whatever you’re going to do in medicine is going to be interwoven with technology in the near future,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. But as the rickety state of so much current healthcare administrative technology suggests, the prevailing cultures in the tech and medical worlds do not easily mix. Rather than trying to reshape how doctors do their job, Soni seeks to meet doctors where they already are, seamlessly integrating a voice system into the fabric of their work so they can spend more time caring for patients. Tune in to hear about why “the biggest technology company ever built is going to be in healthcare,” and how a user-centric mindset can help you not just build a company, but craft a career.

More than twenty-five million people in the U.S. experience bladder leakage every day and while the problem is more common in women, millions of men also confront this challenge. Unfortunately, says Vanita Gaglani, support for men dealing with this issue is lacking, especially after prostate surgery. “Men have been ignored and they have an equal problem. They don't know who to go to. There is no structure. There are no guidelines for them to follow.” Gaglani recognized this gap not long after starting her physical therapy practice in Melbourne, Florida thirty years ago, and now 90% of her patients are men. In that time, she’s treated thousands of people with a multipronged approach that resolves incontinence issues in a matter of weeks. “Kegels are not the end-all, be-all treatment. We have to have a complete approach,” she says, which includes nutrition, understanding body mechanics and lifestyle changes. Gaglani has detailed her protocol in a new book: Life After Prostate Cancer and Other Urological Surgeries: A Step-by-Step Guide to Stop Urinary Leakage in Ten Weeks, which is a follow-up to an earlier book that was geared more to an older population. Don’t miss this deeply informative conversation about the special characteristics of the bladder, insights on how men approach medical treatments, and advice about helping patients overcome reluctance to speaking about embarrassing issues. And, make sure to listen to the end to discover Vanita’s special connection to Raise the Line!

After more than a decade studying resuscitation science in the ICU, Dr. Stephen Trzeciak felt himself burning out. He was skeptical of “escapist” options, like more vacations. “I thought something had to fundamentally change at the point of care,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. Inspired by empirical studies linking human connections with increased resilience, he decided to lean into relationships with those around him and focus on service toward others. Through his books, research, and his work as Chair of Medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, Dr. Trzeciak has dedicated himself ever since to spreading the word about the often-overlooked importance of human connection. Amid a worker shortage in the healthcare professions, Dr. Trzeciak hopes a renewed emphasis on the bonds that connect us all will make the system, and the people who constitute it, stronger. Tune in to hear about his new book Wonder Drug: 7 Scientifically Proven Ways that Serving Others is the Best Medicine for Yourself, how people are increasingly opting for self-care strategies that isolate them further, and why medical conversations often stay with patients and their families for the rest of their lives.

David Blake -- rattled in the wake of a tough standardized exam – was doing some independent research in his high school library when it dawned on him that while he was a top-notch student, he was a terrible learner. From then on, he committed to changing a system that had encouraged him to merely “jump through hoops.” Through his companies Degreed, and more recently, BookClub, Blake has sought to change how individuals and corporations alike perceive education and learning. Rather than helping employees become their best selves, he tells host Shiv Gaglani, companies historically saw education in terms of regulatory compliance, of “checking a box.” But Blake sees this as wholly inadequate in a world where people get more and more of their education outside of formal institutions, and where new technology develops at dizzying speed. Ultimately, Blake sees a paradox: “If you're willing to skill someone up in a way that actually makes it easier for them to leave, they're actually more likely to stay.” Tune in to hear why Blake thinks our current way of talking about education is absurd, the enduring role of the book in today’s learning culture, and how a shot-in-the-dark email to Mark Cuban saved his company.

On this episode of Raise the Line, we're going to learn about a company that sits at the intersection of three huge trends in U.S. healthcare: the unending growth in the number of people with chronic conditions, the advent of new virtual healthcare technologies, and moving more care into the home. And that’s just where the founder and CEO of Cadence, Chris Altchek, wants to be. “I’m very interested in how we can bring data from devices, wearables, and other sensors in the home and use it to help providers and health systems deliver world-class care outside the four walls of the hospital,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. Coming from a family of physicians, and being married to one, he’s sensitive to making sure the company’s remote care management platform does not add to the heavy load clinicians are already carrying. “What we've tried to design is a model where Cadence can manage patients according to guidelines and protocols the physician approves and only escalate things that really require their attention. The routine day-to-day stuff can be handled by us.” Don’t miss this informative look at new ways of harnessing health tech to create what could be the future standard of care for chronic conditions.

One night, Suzanne Peek was awoken by her son who thought he was having a heart attack. That began a drawn-out ordeal of misdiagnoses and ER visits until he was properly diagnosed with Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome, a rare disorder which results from a constriction of blood flow to organs in the upper abdomen. Fortunately, Peeks had an easier time than most navigating our complicated medical system due to many years practicing as a certified massage therapist. As she worked diligently to get her son the appropriate treatment, she formed relationships with others in the MALS community. “Some of these people have had the condition for five years, ten years or longer because it was misdiagnosed,” she tells host Dr. Rishi Desai. She now leads the National MALS Foundation, which seeks to spread awareness among medical professionals about rare disorders. Tune in to hear how patient advocacy groups organize, what COVID has meant for people with rare disorders, and how to mitigate the forces that can hinder an accurate diagnosis.

One of the most urgent issues Dr. Sanjay Desai sees in medical education is how to bring historically minoritized people into the physician workforce. “We need to have a physician workforce that resembles the patients that we care for,” he urges. In Dr. Desai's former role as program director of the prestigious Osler Medical Residency at Johns Hopkins University, he and his team more than doubled the number of minority recruits into their program. Tune in to this episode of Raise the Line with host Shiv Gaglani to learn about the data and research- based approach they took to achieve that aim, as well as improving student and resident well-being. Find out about Dr. Desai's route to medicine via consulting, and hear what he has seen change for the better in his time as a medical education leader. Plus, hear about the opportunity the current moment offers to use technology to personalize education, learn more about the American Medical Association's mission and impact, and discover why Dr. Desai thinks medical education needs to become more continuous.

The good news is researchers have established a tremendous amount about how human memory is acquired, organized, and deployed. The bad news, according to Dr. Stephen Kosslyn, is this information has pretty much stayed in technical journals and textbooks and not been applied in classrooms. Adding to the problem is that popular misconceptions about learning abound, so most of us are not learning nearly as effectively or efficiently as we could. Kosslyn, one of the world’s leading researchers on the science of learning, has long been concerned by the inadequacies of our education systems. Through public-facing books, and institutions he helped create like Minerva University and Foundry College, he has dedicated much of his life to bringing what researchers understand about learning into real world practice. Tune in to this fascinating conversation with host Dr. Rishi Desai to hear how our education systems could be improved by applying active learning and by teaching critical thinking skills, among other changes.

“It's impossible to be a physician and not be able to speak the language of medicine, which really is anatomy,” says Dr. Marios Loukas, who, in addition to his current role as a medical school dean, has written several books on anatomy and is former president of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists. In this episode with host Dr. Rishi Desai, find out how Dr. Loukas became interested in the subject, and how the goal of making a bigger impact ultimately led to pursuing a career in administration. Learn about St. George’s University School of Medicine -- the largest source of doctors in the United States healthcare system -- and what sets it apart, including its island setting, its investment in teaching ultrasound, and its vision to be an international hub for the development of primary care providers. Tune in to discover what Dr. Loukas thinks students get wrong about studying, and hear about best practices for learning, including what makes visualization so powerful. Plus, hear why Dr. Loukas thinks students should be exposed to medicine before they start medical school.

Listening to veteran healthcare entrepreneur and investor Carly Stockdale, the Co-Founder and CEO of BestLife Holdings, you get the feeling she is living her best professional life. With BestLife -- a platform of age management organizations, including the Foundation for Healthy Aging and Cenegenics -- Stockdale has created a perch from which she can blend her interests in healthy aging, women’s health and hormone therapy, and have a national impact to boot. “Our north star metric is improving people's biological age through the education of other health care providers and through membership in our programs such as Cenegenics, and other programs that we're looking to start,” she tells host Shiv Gaglani. Cenegenics is a peak performance and longevity membership program with a 25-year history of developing personalized heath programs through deep analysis of biomarkers and other data it collects from members on a quarterly basis. The company plans to publish data later this year examining trend lines of improvement based on 3,500 patients who have gone through the program. Tune in to this informative conversation to learn about the unique path Stockdale has carved in healthcare, positive trends she’s seeing in women’s health, and addressing the persistent information asymmetry between doctors and patients.

“You don't have to change yourself culturally to be brilliant,” asserts Dr. Russell Ledet, a Black U.S. Navy veteran who has earned an MD-MBA as well as a PhD in Molecular Oncology and Tumor Immunology and now works to remove barriers for those who want to follow in his footsteps. In this fascinating interview with host Dr. Rishi Desai, learn how Dr. Ledet went from being a security guard in a hospital, to a medical student at that same hospital, to starting The 15 White Coats, an effort sparked by an unforgettable photo taken at a former slave plantation. The group, which provides funding and other support to aspiring Black physicians, has grown rapidly and garnered international attention in its short life. Tune in to learn how Ledet’s 9-year-old daughter provided the spark for the project, marvel at his remarkable personal journey, and learn why having more Black physicians will improve health outcomes.

Dr. Tom O’Callaghan thinks he’s already seen the future of medicine in this tech-heavy age, and it looks a lot like the personal, trusted healthcare he saw his father providing in the small community in Ireland in which he was raised. As he tells host Rishi Desai, if you have a good family doctor “you're far more likely to have a better healthcare outcome to every illness you have in your life.” It’s not that O’Callaghan is anti-technology. For one thing, he thinks wearables and remote monitoring will actually facilitate a needed transition from hospital-based to community-based care. But perhaps a greater proof point is he leads a specialty online medical education company called iHeed that leverages the latest technology, tools and educational approaches to make post graduate education for doctors, nurses and allied health professionals in 65 countries across Europe, Middle East, Asia and Africa more accessible and affordable. The company, part of the Cambridge Education Group, also develops national scale residency programs in countries including Malaysia and Saudi Arabia to spur the evolution of primary care in underserved communities. Tune into this revealing conversation for a global take on medical education, to hear why developing more nurses is key to tackling the gaping healthcare worker shortage, and for some wisdom he’s drawn on in his own career as a family practitioner that he discovered on a slip of paper in the bottom of the doctor’s bag his father carried for decades.

How can digital health benefit an ordinary patient? Today's guest, Tobias Silberzahn, enjoys taking a citizen perspective in his work in digital health—a field that, as he emphasizes, is far from a monolith, comprising over 25 categories from digital therapeutics to patient remote monitoring, to disease management. Tune in to this episode of Raise the Line with host Dr. Rishi Desai to learn how Silberzahn became interested in biochemistry and immunology and landed where he is today. Find out about the biohacking he did to uncover his own micro habits, learn what he's discovered about people's attitudes towards their personal data being used, and hear where he sees Europe and Asia in terms of digital health and well-being. Learn, too, about the phrase “digital health ecosystem” and what that model means for patients. Plus, discover how the city of Amsterdam created a multi-stakeholder alliance to achieve ambitious health and well-being goals, learn about the discussion that is currently being held in Germany about the public electronic patient record, and hear why Silberzahn is excited about digital health's future disease-prediction and interception possibilities.

Telehealth has become ubiquitous, but Andy Flanagan thinks the word telehealth will soon disappear. “It’s just care,” said the CEO of the remote psychiatry service, Iris Telehealth. Flanagan anticipates that, just as concepts like “online banking” are now indistinguishable from what it simply means to use a bank, telehealth will soon be baked into the healthcare system. “The very best of it will be integrated, and the rest will be discarded,” he tells host Dr. Rishi Desai. In the process, he hopes to help revolutionize how medical systems are structured, how patients with the most challenging mental health conditions receive care, and help doctors establish a work-life balance that is all too rare today. Tune in to hear about how telehealth services can seamlessly augment a patient’s medical team, and how Iris Telehealth works to empower its employees to take more personal initiative, and be less scared of failure.

With new medical products constantly entering the market, it can be difficult for doctors to keep up. Interventional radiologist Dr. Aaron Fritts has experienced this first hand in his career, and often found himself calling friends and former colleagues with questions about how to use new devices he encountered. Realizing doctors everywhere are in the same boat he launched BackTable, a podcast platform in which doctors from various specialties discuss the latest procedures, technologies, and conditions in their field of practice. As he tells host Dr. Rishi Desai, listenership shot up during the pandemic because for many physicians, podcasts supplanted the role of conferences where such matters are typically discussed. The still-expanding podcast network aims to connect different, sometimes-isolated aspects of the medical community and provide a new way for doctors to learn. Tune in to also hear about the power of interventional radiology, what it would mean for physicians to communicate in an open and responsible way with industry, and how to become a better communicator.

“The role we play in healthcare is so much bigger than I could have imagined, and it's just exciting to be a part of it,” says Kevonne Holloway, Managing Director for Global Content Partners at Elsevier, when reflecting on the work of her large team. GCP is responsible for 2,500 publications and other content that health educators around the world rely on to provide the foundation for medical education across multiple professional roles, and that clinicians and researchers reference in their everyday work. “In the end, we're not only meeting the needs of our customers, but we're meeting the needs of society. It seems like such a grandiose mission, but when you boil it down it's really about community and taking care of each other in the best way possible.” Part of that best way includes making sure diversity, equity and inclusion are a part of the mainstream of Elsevier’s products. “DEI is not a fad. It's not a trend. It is the solution to better healthcare,” she tells host Shiv Gaglani. Tune in to learn how Holloway’s servant leader approach to management facilitates trust and engagement, about Elsevier’s role in combating the “infodemic” of healthcare misinformation, and much more.

There is approximately $266 billion in administrative waste in the U.S. healthcare system each year, and much of it is tied to the complexity of insurance. Our guest today, Syam Palakurthy, co-founded SamaCare to help solve this seemingly intractable problem. SamaCare builds software to make the often-burdensome process of prior authorization as quick and easy as a credit card swipe, improving outcomes for patients and reducing a major administrative burden for providers. Tune in to this interview with host Michael Carrese to learn how Palakurthy approaches the challenge of threading together disparate incentives in the healthcare system to produce change. Plus, find out why he believes technology can be both a cause of fragility and a source of resilience, and learn how the type of “defragmentation” SamaCare strives for can be applied to the rest of the healthcare system.

“I think I've learned as much by watching and observing and being mentored by people as I have from any formal classes I could ever take,” says Dr. Dele Davies. Dr. Davies credits his incredible role models for teaching him that handling people well is key to a harmonious and successful work life. In this episode of Raise the Line, learn how Dr. Davies, who was born in Nigeria, became interested in medicine, and specifically, pediatric infectious diseases. Find out about the extraordinary community that supports the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and other things that set UNMC apart and have helped them navigate the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, including being home to a leading healing arts program, a campus symphony, and the Global Center for Health Security's National Quarantine Unit. Tune in to discover why Dr. Davies believes it's so important to think not globally, not locally, but glocally, and to consider health a security issue. Plus, learn about the impact a master's in healthcare management had on his career, and hear why it's so important to find balance and never stop learning.

When a young Patrick McKeown had an important exam decades ago, he prepared as society had coached him: With big, deep breaths. He entered the testing room lightheaded and scatterbrained. “It was,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani, “the worst thing possible that I could have done. In fact, I should have done the opposite.” Long after his asthma and stress inflected youth, McKeown immersed himself in the ancient—but routinely overlooked—art of low, slow, nose breathing. That technique combined with others can achieve calm, better performance, and a simultaneous state of relaxation and alertness. In his writing and classes, McKeown draws on biochemistry, physiology, and other interconnected disciplines to demonstrate how healthy, day-to-day breathing can ground us in difficult moments. “There's not a day that I don't connect with my breathing, and it has given me a softer life.” Tune in to hear how to easily measure the quality of your own breathing, why proper breathing is the key to good sleep, and how breath can help you prepare for a big presentation or, yes, a looming exam.

“The biggest things I’ve learned about improving health equity are the importance of data and relationships,” says Dr. Aditi Mallick, who, in her role at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services counts that goal as a top priority. That knowledge was largely gained last year while she was director of North Carolina’s COVID-19 Response Command Center. Data on testing and vaccination rates by race and ethnicity allowed Mallick and her team to pinpoint where outreach efforts should be targeted. Then it was a matter of communicating effectively with community organizations to drive turnout to free clinics. Those public-private partnerships are also vital to achieving progress on other priorities Dr. Mallick has related to advancing whole-person health. As she tells host Dr. Rishi Desai, when clinics are closely connected with community social service agencies, a “closed-referral loop” can develop so all stakeholders know that patient needs are being addressed. “The more we can do to encourage that model will serve us well in meeting health-related social needs.” Check out this informative conversation to learn how the nation’s largest insurance programs work and interconnect, why Dr. Mallick identifies with a “doctor plus” approach to her work, and what can help physicians get through the inevitable hard days in their profession.

On today's episode, we spotlight nursing education because trends in the profession and healthcare at large are making it more important than ever. "The job of nursing has become far more complex, and first-year nurses are being asked to make very complex decisions right away," says Brent Gordon, President of Nursing and Health Education at Elsevier. That underscores the urgency of developing clinical reasoning skills, and nursing educators have to evolve their programs in response. They are also preparing students for the updated NCLEX national licensing exam, which has been revised to assess clinical judgment skills. As Gordon tells host Shiv Gaglani, Elsevier is supporting institutions, faculty and students with these changes. Examples include newer offerings focused on skills assessment, and digital simulations solutions to augment clinical rotations. Always top of mind is the persistent shortage of nurses, with pandemic-induced burnout making the situation worse by the day. "I would argue it's a crisis, and we need governments and higher education institutions to really be innovative around how they can increase their enrollment," adds Gordon. Don't miss this deep dive into the evolution of nursing and Elsevier's partnership with the nursing education community in addressing the many challenges facing the field.

We've been fortunate to speak to many medical educators in the United States over the past two years on Raise the Line about the state of medical education and how learning has been impacted by the COVID pandemic. On today’s episode, we happily broaden our scope on these topics to Central Asia with the help of two officials from Samarkand State Medical University in Uzbekistan. Mahzuna Nasretdinova, a deputy in the Vice-Rector's Office for Science and Innovation and Dr. Muzaffar Annaev, Leading Specialist of the Department of Scientific Research and Innovations, join host Shiv Gaglani to describe an exciting period of change and growth at the institution. From just recently achieving independent status, to a renewed focus on research and international collaboration, to greater government support for educators, hospitals, and healthcare providers, Annaev and Nasretdinova have much news to share. Looking forward, they are hoping to build on existing collaborations with external partners such as Elsevier, whose ClinicalKey Student offering has been easy to integrate into SSMU’s learning system. Tune in for an interesting look at the challenges and opportunities of medical education in a critical part of the world.

“I want to be the home for the clinician in digital health,” says SteadyMD CEO and lover of complex business problems Guy Friedman. Taking care of clinicians by thinking about their needs and respecting their autonomy is key to the approach of Friedman's company, which he co-founded in 2016 as a way to improve primary care delivery. Tune in to this episode of Raise the Line with host Dr. Rishi Desai to learn how Friedman became a serial entrepreneur and what drew him into the telehealth sphere. Discover how SteadyMD acts as agent and partner to connect clinicians with digital health employment opportunities, using a technology that allows them to work for multiple companies. Learn how this approach differs from a traditional work model, hear Friedman's outlook on telehealth regulations in the U.S., and find out why he's bullish on the digital health industry in general. Plus, catch his valuable advice for digital health entrepreneurs.

Hurricane Sandy struck New York City when now-Dr. Jason Reminick was in town, interviewing for residency programs to which he’d applied. The whole process, which would shape the coming years of his life, was a huge mess. Interviews were canceled. Anxiety ran high. He remembers a fellow applicant whose car was lost in the storm. Desperate, the applicant took a cab to one interview, at a cost of $600. Reminick sought a better way, and the result was Thalamus. The platform organizes applicant information for residency programs, while facilitating the scheduling so applicants can arrange their interviews in as straightforward a matter as possible, mitigating stress and travel expenses alike. This, he tells host Dr. Rishi Desai, is just the beginning of Thalamus’s vision for making the residency application process better for applicants, programs, and the medical profession as a whole. Tune in to hear about common misconceptions about a fast-changing residency recruitment process, how programs adapted to Covid, and why doctors should not be afraid to become entrepreneurs.

“One of the pieces of advice I like to give young people is to collect knowledge, interests and a network of people you want to know. You don't know yet how you are going to use it all, but later it will become obvious which pieces fit with which,” says Youngsuk ‘YS’ Chi, Chairman of Elsevier. If you want a great example of how this approach works, you can look at Chi’s own remarkable career which took him from banking, to helping enable Amazon’s early growth, to being president of Random House to his current role at Elsevier and its parent company RELX, where he is Director of Corporate Affairs and Asia Strategy. Chi reveals to host Shiv Gaglani that what connects those disparate experiences are two people he “collected” at the start of his own career with whom he stayed connected in a mutually beneficial partnership. Seeing relationships as core to success explains why Chi makes time to be a mentor to dozens of people in a wide range of professions. Although wanting to help them on their career journeys is the prime motivator, Chi is quick to point out his mentees are a network he can tap for expertise as part of his commitment to continuous learning. The wisdom drop continues as they discuss how to help employees connect purpose to their work and how a post-COVID analysis needs to include “a humanistic re-questioning of what we do and why we do it.”

“I'm in a part of my life where I like to have an impact that disrupts an industry,” says famed entrepreneur Mark Cuban, and his new online pharmacy CostPlus Drugs is already showing signs of creating a major disruption, indeed. Here’s just one example of what his no-frills operation is making possible: a 30-day supply of the cancer-fighting drug Gleevec is usually $2,500, but on CostPlusDrugs.com the same medication is $17.10 for a month’s supply. You probably have the same question as host Shiv Gaglani: how is this possible? Cuban says CostPlus Drugs sidesteps insurance companies and Pharmacy Benefit Managers to deal directly with manufacturers. There’s a standard 15% markup to cover operational costs, a $3 pharmacy fee and a $5 shipping fee. “That's it, period, end of the story.” Word of mouth over the last two months has pushed sales to levels not expected for two years. Cuban is quick to credit co-founder Alex Oshmyansky and his team, but obviously the business acumen he’s displayed for years on the TV show Shark Tank plays a big role, as does his motivation to do something about a bedeviling problem. “The fact that people are having to choose between rent, food, or medication in this country is wrong in every which way.” Check out this fascinating analysis of the healthcare industry spiced with valuable advice for budding healthcare entrepreneurs, and find out what Cuban thinks the healthcare industry can learn from the NBA.

We’ve talked a lot on Raise the Line about the upsides of the telehealth boom, but our guest today, Dr. Mike Hoaglin, brings a new silver lining to light: it’s one way to help with the physician burnout crisis. “I've certainly been in the trenches of burnout in the past, and having the flexibility to be able to see patients when I'm at my best and when I'm able to be at home with my family is just a great setup for me to be successful, and my patients benefit.” In fact, “Dr. Mike” was an early adopter of telehealth and other medical technologies as well. Best proof point? He and host Shiv Gaglani worked together a decade ago to develop the Smartphone Physical. Add that experience to his work in federal health policy, various start-ups and a stint as the clinical director on the Dr. Oz Show, and you can understand why “Dr. Mike” is full of revelations on many subjects including on a special focus of his, the microbiome. For instance, did you know your body has more foreign cells (bacteria, fungi, protozoa, etc) than human? As Dr. Mike shares with Shiv, intensifying interest in these trillions of microorganisms in recent years has led to a deeper understanding of the wide range of impact gut health has on overall health, from diabetes to mood disorders. Check out this lively excursion through a fascinating career, and be sure to listen all the way through for Dr. Mike’s advice on the one thing you should eat more of for good gut health.

On today’s Raise the Line episode, you’ll have a unique opportunity to hear the collective voice of healthcare providers all over the world who shared their needs, hopes and concerns with Elsevier in its first-ever Clinician of the Future Global Report. Elsevier and its partner, Ipsos, engaged nearly 3,000 clinicians from 111 countries to reveal current pain points, predictions for the future, and how the industry can build a roadmap to future-proof healthcare. Join host Shiv Gaglani as he explores the fascinating findings with his Elsevier colleagues Dr. Tate Erlinger and Dr. Ian Chuang. “One of the key pieces of feedback from participants was, ‘I see the potential, I just need support. I need better training and education and skills development to align where healthcare is going,’” said Dr. Chuang, Chief Medical Officer of Global Health. “I would look at this report as a call to action,” said Dr. Erlinger, Vice-President of Clinical Analytics. There are some alarming numbers in here, but healthcare has always responded. We just need to be diligent and look for and test solutions across a broad range of concerns.” What will healthcare look like in ten years and how can we prepare clinicians for that future? Tune into this revealing conversation to learn the answers drawn from a landmark report that will shift the current conversation about global healthcare from problems to solutions.

What should oral healthcare look like in 2022? Dr. Jeremy Krell and Dr. Ro Parikh are working to figure this out and bring a new, consumer-centric dental industry into being. Through oral healthcare venture capital firms like Revere Partners, and consumer-facing companies like Quip and dntl bar, these dentists hope to forge an industry that better reflects the culture and consumer habits of the post-COVID era. “We as providers need to be able to look up from our clinical workflow and understand that we’re running a business in 2022, and that we need to meet consumer demands,” Dr. Jeremy Krell tells host Shiv Gaglani. Tune in to hear about the connection between oral health and overall health, how dentists can connect with patients reluctant to come into the office, and six major trends impacting the dental industry today.

“I think you should listen to your heart as quickly as possible,” says today's guest, Dr. Luke Murray, when asked for advice for students and early career professionals. He calls this skill ‘listening to your heart faster’ and it’s a principle that’s guided him on a zigzagging career path, from an interest in neurosurgery, to working in global health, to starting a tech incubator. As COVID was getting underway, he unexpectedly found himself building what became a very large COVID testing effort at Wild Health, a precision medicine company based in Kentucky. Now as COVID appears to be winding down, Dr. Murray is listening to his testing customers to determine next steps. Listen in as Dr. Murray tells host Shiv Gaglani about both the successes and failures in his entrepreneurial journey -- including sleeping in a garage and showering at the YMCA -- to then “drowning” in opportunity and conducting over a million COVID tests and 150,000 vaccinations. Plus, hear his valuable advice for future entrepreneurs.

You might not think flossing one tooth a day would be worthy of celebration, but today’s Raise the Line guest says that’s actually the best way to become someone who regularly flosses all of their teeth, and he has decades of research to back it up. Dr. BJ Fogg, a Stanford University researcher perhaps best known for his bestselling book Tiny Habits, says his approach is based in part on the recognition that motivation fluctuates, so setting big goals can set people up for failure. “What you need to do in the tiny habits method is set the bar low, keep it low, overachieve whenever you feel like it, but don't raise the bar.” Creating a positive emotion around accomplishing tiny goals helps wire the brain to make the behavior automatic, which in turn helps create a new identity. “Those identity shifts then lead to a cascade of other changes in your life.” Check out this truly fascinating and fun discussion with host Shiv Gaglani about how to apply these principles in your own life and guide others to do so as well. Plus, you’ll hear how the “tiny habits” model has impacted Shiv personally and been integrated into what Osmosis offers its learners. Maybe you should make listening to this one podcast your tiny goal for today. If you do, don’t forget to celebrate yourself when you get to the end!

When people hear about James Nestor’s bestselling book on breathing, he says the first question they ask is “Why the heck would I need to relearn how to breathe? I'm breathing all day long.” But as the award-winning science journalist details in Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, proper breathing is quite uncommon, which causes major health problems given its essential value to the body. Nestor laments that everyday breathing is rarely a concern of most pulmonologists and other doctors, who are generally focused on acute breathing issues. “But prevention is always so much better than treatment,” Nestor tells host Shiv Gaglani. “For the same reasons you would tell your patients to eat a balanced diet, you should bring awareness of their breathing.” Tune in to hear about how healthy breathing can help your physical endurance, sleep quality and mental health, and some easy tricks that can help you establish better breathing practices.

“We don't need physicians physically in the middle of every step that we take,” argues today's guest, former Buddhist monk and Harvard professor Dr. Michael Mina. “One of my goals has been to break down this massive wall that often exists, where physicians are the gatekeepers of people knowing about themselves in terms of their biology.” In this fascinating discussion with host Shiv Gaglani, hear how a tsunami tore Dr. Mina away from being a monk and led him to fusing together immunology and epidemiology, a skillset that proved especially valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic during which he created a large testing program that served much of the Eastern Seaboard. Tune in to discover how the eMed platform is empowering people to participate in their own healthcare by creating equitable access to actionable testing, and hear where Dr. Mina believes eMed can go from here, including involvement in clinical studies. Plus, hear his perspective on the difference between a career as an MD vs. a PhD, learn why holistic thinking is so important, and get his expert opinion on where the virus is heading.

Scott Carney trained as an anthropologist, thinking the academic life would facilitate new adventures. He soon found journalism to be a better fit, moved to India, and discovered an organ tracking scandal in a village right next door. His reporting on that helped launch a career fueled by frantic curiosity that frequently centers around habit formation and how the human body integrates with the dizzying world around us, his books The Wedge and What Doesn't Kill Us being prime examples. With a new book on climate change coming out -- and many more books in development -- Carney’s writing testifies to the blurry line between objectivity and subjectivity in journalism and medicine alike. Tune in to hear about the time he partook in a clinical trial for erectile dysfunction, the thing that new research into psychedelics misses, and how Carney set off to debunk Wim Hof’s methods, only to find the real story was far more complicated.

The critical and analytical thinking required by research become habits of mind that change your approach to life, explains Dr. Bill Cullinan, dean of the College of Health Sciences at Marquette University. They force you to challenge your own biases, and ask for evidence rather than taking things for granted. That’s one reason Cullinan is pleased to offer students meaningful roles at Marquette's Integrative Neuroscience Research Center, which brings specialists from different domains into collaboration. It’s also why Marquette faculty push students beyond memorization to get them to think critically about clinical scenarios very early in their undergraduate careers. In this instructive episode of Raise the Line with host Shiv Gaglani, you’ll also learn how Marquette helps students understand inequities in healthcare delivery to prepare them for making a positive impact as physicians. The lessons must resonate, because about 40% of graduates choose positions or jobs serving underserved populations. You’ll also hear Dr. Cullinan’s advice for students, and be sure to stay tuned for a fascinating explanation of ganglia that highlights the neurological miracle of everyday actions.

A new generation of medical technology has produced endless new rivers of biometric data, and attuned regular people to their own health in new and complicated ways. On today’s episode of Raise the Line, we turn to a pioneer in connected medical devices, Dr. David Albert, to understand more about these influential trends. He founded AliveCor, whose smartphone-enabled heart monitors anticipated the remote monitoring technology that helped the medical system run during the pandemic. Dr. Albert believes the technology -- and the population-scale data it produces -- opens up new possibilities for preventative medicine and, as he tells host Shiv Gaglani, allows patients to be increasingly fluent in the dynamics of their personal health and empowered to take control of their medical future. Check out this lively discussion to hear about a “mobile-first” medical future, Dr. Albert’s early forays into inventing medical technology, and how college wrestling prepared him for healthy aging.

“In life, I feel like you always know what the right thing to do is, it's just hard,” says Dr. Omar Lateef, who runs Rush University Medical Center in the Near West Side of Chicago. Lateef has embraced the challenging path necessitated by Rush’s community-based mission which involves providing services like tutoring, food subsidies and jobs programs in addition to acute care. In this episode of Raise the Line, you’ll find out how this mission shaped RUMC’s COVID response which involved overcoming bureaucratic hurdles to take in hundreds of transfers. Learn how Dr. Lateef went from studying theology, to specializing in pulmonary and critical care medicine, to his current role as a hospital leader. Plus, learn about the importance of having reliable, open-source data on healthcare quality, and hear Dr. Lateef's advice on both addressing the public health crisis of racism, and keeping up motivation when the adrenaline and sense of community support present earlier in the pandemic has diminished.

Despite being a self-described “data geek” Josh Schoeller is well aware of the challenges in making sense of the ever-expanding amount of healthcare-related data. As he puts it, “More data doesn't necessarily mean more knowledge.” As president of Global Clinical Solutions at Elsevier and CEO of Healthcare for LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Schoeller is in a unique position to see how all of this data can be leveraged in better ways to support learners, practitioners, patients and the healthcare system at large. “On the LexisNexis side, we have a mission to create healthier communities and on the Elsevier side, it's to improve every patient outcome. So, they're very much aligned and are both mission-driven organizations built around people that are very committed to using data and analytics and content to help improve healthcare in the U.S. and throughout the world.” Check out this penetrating discussion with host Shiv Gaglani as he draws out valuable insights from Schoeller on the current and future role of data in clinical decision-making, patient privacy, health equity, the efficiency of healthcare delivery, and much more.

“Software can keep in its mind a million more things than a doctor can,” explains Dr. Tom Kelly, who started a company in Australia called Oscer that aims to eliminate misdiagnosis. It all started with Dr. Kelly's desire to improve the lives of others, after he saw first-hand the impact that mistakes in diagnosis were having in rural Australia. In this fascinating talk with host Michael Carrese, learn more about Dr. Kelly's path and the important work of his company, whose education platform is now used to teach clinical reasoning by more than 150 universities across 35 countries and counting. Listen in for a glimpse of the technology behind the scenes at Oscer, including their gigantic maps called knowledge graphs, their virtual patients, and their clinical products that Dr. Kelly says will eventually be able to consider all the symptoms a patient has ever reported and hopefully provide “a superhuman level of diagnostic support.” Plus, hear Dr. Kelly's philosophy on what humans are meant to do, and what makes this moment in time especially significant.

“We're in the business of empowering students,” explains Dr. Joshua Courtney, who joins host Shiv Gaglani on this episode of Raise the Line. Dr. Courtney's company, TrueLearn, served 60 million practice questions last year, and over 90% of osteopathic medical students use his flagship product COMBANK. If learning is a contact sport, as he likes to say, then Dr. Courtney himself has made possible some serious winning streaks. His initial draw to medicine? His own childhood struggle with leukemia. Tune in to hear Dr. Courtney's fascinating story and find out what makes TrueLearn's data-driven approach to medical exam prep unique. Listen to his take on how COVID has revealed the fragmentation of knowledge as a mass vulnerability, and find out why he thinks physicians should better understand the brain disease of addiction. Plus, hear his advice to students to seize the moment and not go it alone.

“I'm a tinkerer by nature,” says today's guest, Dr. Harsh Vathsangam. “Left to my own devices, I'll start opening up remotes and breaking apart bicycles.” That curiosity in how things work, combined with a knack for technology and drive to make a positive impact in people’s lives, led Vathsangam to focus his efforts on cardiac rehabilitation, a greatly underutilized treatment even though its effectiveness has been well-established for decades. In this engaging interview, find out how Movn -- the virtual cardiac rehabilitation solution created by his company, Moving Analytics -- creates an at-home experience geared toward making lifestyle changes that impact the whole individual. Tune in to hear how the company has overcome challenges of innovating within the healthcare space, and why he thinks there's potential to extend this model to high-risk patients. Plus, discover his advice for anyone looking to work in healthcare, including how empathy and knowing the business side of things can make you a better clinician.

Even though women are the backbone of the healthcare system in the U.S., comprising 77% of the patient-facing workforce, studies have shown they're not paid or promoted equitably and this gender equity problem extends to medical education as well. On today’s episode of Raise the Line, you’ll hear from someone who is focused on turning this around. Dr. Nancy Spector is executive director of the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) program at Drexel University College of Medicine, which has been making an impact in this area for many years. In fact, approximately half of all female deans at U.S. medical schools are graduates of ELAM. But Spector says there is much more to do. “We know that more diverse teams have better outcomes, so our main mission is to create equity at every level of leadership in academic medicine.” Tune in to learn about the challenges women face once they do make it into the leadership ranks, what can be done about the burnout crisis among women in the healthcare workforce, and how leaders are managing a state of unending crisis during COVID-19.

“The nursing workforce is truly the backbone of the healthcare delivery system,” observes today's guest, Dr. Michelle Cummings, who has straddled clinical nursing and the nursing academic world for the past 20 years. “Many people don't realize that there are four times as many nurses as there are doctors, and by 2030, we will need more than 1.3 million new nurses to address the current shortage. We really need to find some solutions.” One key approach is to make education, training and upskilling more affordable and accessible for working nurses, something she pursues in her role at Academic Partnerships which supports the online offerings of not-for-profit universities. Tune in to this episode of Raise the Line with host Shiv Gaglani to discover what Dr. Cummings believes is the biggest current concern facing the healthcare industry, and hear her advice to nurses on managing their careers in this dynamic and challenging COVID environment. Plus, find out what Dr. Cummings means when she encourages a “Pac-Man approach” to career advancement.

Early on in his psychiatry career, Dr. David Mou found to his surprise that most mental health professionals didn’t prioritize using data to measure outcomes. Today, he attributes much of the early success of Cerebral -- the new and fast-growing mental telehealth company he helps lead -- to its data-driven approach to supporting quality of care. “This is the first step towards precision psychiatry,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. Mou notes that on the basis of relatively little user data, companies like Facebook and Netflix successfully predict users’ future behavior for commercial gain. “We should just use that principle for good instead of using it to market to people,” he says. For instance, analyzing behavior patterns to predict suicide. He argues that a data-oriented psychiatric model not only opens up new research possibilities and makes for happy doctors, but also enables the treatment of the most serious mental health disorders via telemedicine, which is not currently a common practice. Tune in to hear about Olympic gymnast Simone Biles’ new role at Cerebral, why even doctors often don’t get the psychiatric care they need, and why Dr. Mou is “bullish” on the clinical future of psychedelics.

Dr. Isaac Eliaz begins his work from a place of contemplation. “Nothing is solid. Nothing stays the same,” he tells host Dr. Rishi Desai. He has focused in part on Galectin-3, which he calls the survivor protein, for its role shielding cells that decide “I’m not going to die”—cancerous cells. Yet, whether he’s operating at the level of one of the 50 trillion cells in a human body, or at the level of the human those cells constitute, Dr. Eliaz understands himself as basically treating an inability to accept change. He calls it the “survival paradox.” The idea has been central to a career devoted to the integration of the scientific and the holistic—a career in which Dr. Eliaz has incorporated Buddhist practice into his pioneering research, oncology, and more. Tune in to hear what makes the heart fundamentally different from other organs, why some doctors get worse over time, and why healing means more than simply getting rid of a disease.

“It's astonishing how many health-related questions are asked on Google every day,” observes Dr. Geoffrey Rutledge. “What we set out to do at HealthTap was create a place where people could get trusted answers.” On this episode of Raise the Line, learn about Dr. Rutledge's longstanding interest in the potential of technology to assist in healthcare delivery. Hear how Dr. Rutledge and his team saw early on the opportunity to deliver healthcare through mobile and electronic devices, and followed through to create a pioneering firm in the virtual healthcare space. Tune in to discover HealthTap's unique question-and-answer interface that features physician crowdsourcing and a peer review process, and hear about their virtual primary care clinic, where patients can have a long-term relationship with a doctor of their choice. Plus, learn why Dr. Rutledge believes technology can enable the interactions that are fundamental to the doctor-patient relationship, and why he envisions a huge role for a consistent virtual care platform in the field.

“It's interesting that it's called coaching,” says expert leadership coach Simmi Singh. “I think of it more as learning to be a better student of myself, and learning to be the mirror that others can use to learn about themselves.” Tune in to this episode of Raise the Line for a fascinating discussion with Singh and host Dr. Rishi Desai on how we can all become more effective leaders and humans, and raise more confident and secure children. Discover why Singh believes parenting should be about listening, and why she thinks curious people should pursue “nonlinear and disorderly” careers. Hear about the importance of banishing our inner naysayers, embracing experimentation and failure, and paying attention to our guts. Plus, find out why, in the socially-distanced era of COVID, Singh makes a point of taking her phone or laptop to the fridge during Zoom calls, and why she advises people to keep their kids and pets in, rather than out, of virtual meetings.

What does it mean to be a good physician, and how do you measure it? Medical educators face such questions, but few with more focus than Dr. Peter Katsufrakis who heads the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME), the organization that helps health professionals enhance and demonstrate their knowledge across the care continuum -- both in school and while practicing. As he tells host Dr. Rishi Desai, Katsufrakis sees the NBME’s mission as using assessment as a tool to drive excellence and ultimately protect the health of the public. Because these tests have huge implications for students, schools and the medical system as a whole, adjustments to them draw intense interest, as was recently the case. Tune in to hear the reaction of students to major changes in the exams, what drove the modifications, and Katsufrakis’ take on the many lessons learned from COVID.

According to a recent Kaiser Health News study, nearly 80% of Americans believe at least some of the COVID-19 misinformation that has flooded news and social media channels since the start of the pandemic. For today’s Raise the Line guests, this troubling report confirmed the urgency with which their boss, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, has tackled this challenge. Adam Beckman and Kyla Fullenwider, both senior-level advisors to Dr. Murthy, join host Shiv Gaglani to detail the “whole society” approach the Office of Surgeon General is taking which involves calling on major stakeholders in social media, education and journalism to do their part, but also providing help to local communities and individual Americans who Dr. Murthy sees as key players in this struggle. “The evidence tells us one of the best ways for addressing health misinformation is through individual, smaller-scale, intimate connections,” says Beckman. To that end, the Office of Surgeon General created a Community Toolkit to provide detailed guidance on how to have difficult conversations with friends or family about misinformation including listening without judgement, steering people to credible sources whenever possible, and avoiding shaming. Don’t miss this fascinating and vitally important conversation about what one of the most visible health figures in the nation is doing about one of the greatest challenges of our time.

Two early experiences shaped Dr. Karen Rigamonti’s career in healthcare. First, she realized she had a gift for listening when assigned to a patient on a psych floor who wouldn’t communicate with anyone else, but eventually opened up to her. The other formative experience was the premature birth of her son, which took place after an obstetrician failed to listen to her concerns. “The experience of not being heard remains vivid with me,” she tells host Dr. Rishi Desai. In the time since, she has consulted with healthcare institutions around the world to help foster more welcoming and sustainable social dynamics, sometimes overcoming major cultural gaps in the process. On this episode of Raise the Line, learn how Dr. Rigamonti forged an impromptu new life in Saudi Arabia, what producing a healthy institutional culture means in practice, and how to actually get stubborn groups of people to change their ways (hint: we are all secretly teenagers at heart).

As the exciting new relationship between Osmosis and global medical education leader Elsevier begins, Co-founder & CEO Shiv Gaglani and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Rishi Desai sat down with Jan Herzhoff, President of Health Markets, and Elizabeth Munn, Managing Director of Global Medical Education at Elsevier to discuss how the partnership will benefit students, healthcare providers, and their patients. When contemplating a potential partnership, Munn says Osmosis’ brilliance at boiling down complex topics was a key factor. “People – including us -- write whole chapters on a topic, but Osmosis can get it covered in five minutes. So, look, that's magic! That's actual magic. So, we just think it's the best thing since sliced bread to now have you within the team.” For Jan Herzhoff, bringing together the capabilities of innovative companies like Osmosis and the capabilities and assets from Elsevier to improve the lives of learners and healthcare professionals is an important focus for Elsevier. “Together with Osmosis and our other offerings, we’re here to support you through the educational journey, and through your professional journey. We're also looking forward to your ideas and your suggestions on how we can make your life easier and better.” Check out this lively conversation about navigating a turbulent time in medical education, confronting mistrust in science, and the power of innovation to enhance learning. Plus find out how Elsevier can help Osmosis meet its “big, hairy, audacious goal” of educating one billion people by 2025.

For more than two decades, the Commonwealth Fund has produced a report comparing the performance of the U.S. health system to that of 10 other high-income countries. The U.S reliably comes in last, and the margin of difference is growing such that it might be more appropriate to compare it with a different peer group altogether, says Commonwealth Fund President Dr. David Blumenthal. “Very smart people, including a lot of policymakers, will still tell you with great conviction that we have the best healthcare system in the world,” he tells host Dr. Rishi Desai. “And what they really mean by that is that they have the best healthcare in the world.” Achieving greater public understanding of this reality, and other truths about our healthcare system, and spurring better policy is the ongoing task of the Commonwealth Fund. How do we wrap our minds around the multi-trillion-dollar domestic healthcare industry? What would it mean to leverage its resources more effectively and equitably? Tune in to benefit from a deeply informed perspective on how to achieve a better and more equitable system.

Regina Herzlinger has been called “the godmother of consumer-driven healthcare” because of her groundbreaking scholarly articles and books on the subject. As a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School for nearly 50 years, her focus has supported the explosion of wearables, telehealth, freestanding urgent care facilities, and health savings accounts, among many other innovations. She's a successful medical technology entrepreneur herself, a bestselling author, and an influential voice in shaping public policy. While healthcare technology has advanced rapidly, she tells host Rishi Desai, innovation in the delivery of care and the insurance sector has fallen drastically behind. Don’t miss this unique knowledge drop on how to make innovation in healthcare happen, and how to avoid frustration and become a successful innovator yourself.

Dr. Masha Gouzman-Allouche likes to see student’s eyes, to be there with them for those “aha moments” when a difficult problem is solved. Zoom-based teaching was not without its advantages -- it ushered in a new suite of innovations that will benefit students and teachers alike, she tells host Dr. Rishi Desai -- but it undermined those human connections that for her are so essential to both high quality education and medicine. Now, she’s working with other faculty members at Tel Aviv University to harness the lessons of the COVID era, and in the process further transform her educational role from the classic didactic “sage on the stage” to something more like a “guide on the side”-- being present for students as they learn the human aspects of medicine that she believes will only become more important in the years to come. Tune in to hear about the limits of student feedback, what artificial intelligence will mean for doctors, and, how teaching helped her father avoid working with the KGB.

“We want everybody to be able to be a PA if they have the passion and the drive,” says Physician Assistant Beth Macintire. She and her colleague, Katie Bean – both of whom hold doctorates in medical science – love the profession so much they founded Pre-PA Clinic to offer guidance and mentorship for potential PAs. Tune in as host Shiv Gaglani explores their personal backgrounds, what PrePAClinic.com offers, and why they consider the PA profession to be “literally the best profession in the world.” This lively conversation includes valuable advice for getting into a PA program, specifically, why non-traditional backgrounds are encouraged, and why, as part of an admissions team, they consider failure to be a good thing. Plus, hear their take on the impact of COVID, the importance of gaining patient care experience, and their encouragement to find your deeper ‘why.’ You can also check out their own podcast, Where the White Coats Come Off or their book Secrets, Tips, Tactics & Everything You Need to Know to Get Accepted into PA School.

Early in Dr. Rahul Rajkumar’s career, he wondered how he could help improve health outcomes at a population level. An interest in public policy led him to the realization that, at least in the U.S., the financing mechanisms of the health care industry are “the main lever” that we have to this end. The question of how these mechanisms should (or could) be reengineered has guided Dr. Rajkumar through a career that has taken him from the clinic to the health insurance industry to government, where as deputy director at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, he experimented with different approaches to organizing and paying for health care systems. The problem is “really, really hard,” he tells host Dr. Rishi Desai. Every single case “is a puzzle with a human being at the center of it.” Rajkumar believes more attention should be paid to what he calls ‘the black hole of American Medicine’ – the period after a patient is discharged from the hospital when coordinating care becomes more difficult. “Is there an accountable provider, or a quarterback outside of the hospital? Someone who, beyond their professional ethic, actually cares about what happens to this patient? That's the nut of the issue.” Tune in to hear about novel payment systems emerging in the wake of the Affordable Care Act, the true social meaning of health insurance, and what other nations try to emulate about the famously dysfunctional U.S. health care system.

Dr. Donna Lamb wanted to be a surgeon growing up, but coming from a poor family in which no one had been to college, she was routed into becoming a nurse instead. Today, she leads the National Resident Matching Program which oversees The Match, a high-stakes step in the educational journey of physicians. On this episode of Raise the Line with host Dr. Rishi Desai, you’ll learn about the history of The Match, how it works today, and benefit from some myth busting about this crucial moment when doctors learn where they will do their specialty training. Dr. Lamb also addresses the key issue of student debt, the solutions to which need to transcend race and generation. “It's so much larger than just money at this point,” she says. “It has to be a larger moral justice issue that we need to grapple with as a society.” Check out this fascinating episode to find out why the NRMP is starting to collect demographic data to try to understand diversity patterns, and hear Dr. Lamb's response to what happens when applicants don't “match.” Plus, benefit from her advice to current medical students who may be approaching The Match.

Nearly half of U.S. adults work as unpaid caregivers, but the essential contribution they make is undervalued, and even often unacknowledged, by employers and healthcare professionals. Alexandra Drane could not abide this, so she co-founded ARCHANGELS, an organization dedicated to supporting and honoring the unpaid caregivers among us. As she tells host Dr. Rishi Desai in this episode of Raise the Line: “I myself have been a caregiver, am a caregiver, have needed a caregiver, and will most certainly be a caregiver multiple times over again.” Against the backdrop of a pandemic that has injected unprecedented stress and instability into the lives of millions of people in the U.S., Drane wants the swelling ranks of unpaid caregivers to understand they are not alone, and that help is available. Tune in to learn why society sees childcare in a different light than elder care, what some states are doing to help unpaid caregivers, and what Drane tells the pregnant strangers she approaches on the street.

Before he died, Saeju Jeong's father, an esteemed doctor in South Korea, passed down a question for his son to consider: "Why is healthcare overly-optimized for sick care management?" “My father encouraged me to think about how I can do something great for the community,” explains Jeong. Tune in to this episode of Raise the Line to hear how Jeong's company, Noom, uses science to help end-users unlock their potential and become better versions of themselves through improved diet, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management. Of prime importance, says Jeong, is actually believing in Noom’s end-users, and encouraging them to leave any previous “stigmatized experience” with weight loss behind. Listen in as Jeong and host Shiv Gaglani discuss the increasing emphasis on “direct-to-consumer” healthcare as technological innovation decreases the gap between patients and service providers, and hear why Noom chose a consumer-first approach in building their company. Plus, learn the backstory on their new product, Noom Mood, and discover what Jeong believes to be the silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As it trains technicians and medical professionals, many of whom go into healthcare, California’s San Joaquin Valley College focuses on the practical skills necessary to forge a successful career. But in the dramatically new context of the pandemic, the school’s leadership -- including President Nick Gomez and Provost Sumer Avila -- had to reimagine how to deliver that education. Something surprising happened as a side effect of ensuring that students and faculty had what they needed to be able to learn and teach from afar: The school developed a new competency altogether. “Now,” Gomez tells host Dr. Rishi Desai, “we can better meet students where they are, which is the key thing that we love to do.” Tune in to hear how the school triangulates the visions of students, faculty, and employers, how medical education has been transformed by new technology, and the importance of understanding how your use of technology influences how you learn.

“There's nothing like having agency to make you want to do something,” says today's guest on Raise the Line, influential educator Esther Wojcicki. Wojcicki has used the strategy of trusting children early to raise three remarkably successful daughters: the CEO of 23andMe, the CEO of YouTube, and a prominent pediatrician and researcher. She has also inspired thousands of students as the former head of the acclaimed journalism program at Palo Alto High School, and she now has a new project, Tract, that could inspire millions more. In this fascinating interview with host Shiv Gaglani, learn about Wojcicki's unique path as a journalist, teacher, and parent, and how it led to her current work on a platform that empowers kids as teachers and creators. Tune in to learn how parents and teachers can use Wojcicki's TRICK acronym: Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness, to help kids reach their highest potential. Plus, hear why Wojcicki believes media literacy is one of the most important things that can be taught in schools, her suggestions for avoiding fake news, and why she thinks we should look at COVID as an opportunity for learning.

Dr. Tom Insel wanted to know why life was not better for mental health patients. Neuroscience and psychiatry had made significant advances in the decades since he entered the fields. More people with mental illnesses were getting treated than ever before. “And yet,” he tells host Rishi Desai, the “outcomes were no better.” In working on the forthcoming book Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health, he found the problem was “we were aiming for the wrong target.” In our focus on reducing discrete symptoms, he says, we lost site of the more essential project: helping patients to have a life. Dr. Insel believes we have failed people with mental illnesses, and nothing short of a political movement is required to mend the social wounds that have formed out of this neglect. In the complex age of social media toxicity, mass-incarceration, and endemic homelessness, the question of treating mental health conditions, he believes, is so much bigger than one of Prozac dosages. Tune in to learn about what he thinks needs to happen now, and about MindSite News (mindsitenews.org) a new nonprofit, digital journalism project reporting on mental health in America.

“There's health equity concerns in everything,” observes Geoffrey Roche, from organ donation, to clinical care, to access of care, to quality of care. “I think everyone within healthcare needs to pay attention and be mindful of what they can do to fix that.” Join host Dr. Rishi Desai on this episode of Raise the Line as he speaks with Roche about what drew him to healthcare, his role at Dignity Health Global Education developing programs “for healthcare, by healthcare,” and his service on the National Health Equity Task Force. Hear Roche's thoughts on how COVID has caused healthcare to be further politicized, and why we need to return to the “core of service” -- the field's essential helping nature. Learn about Dignity Health's life-changing Equity Impact Scholarship, and how simulation can be an effective tool in communication training. Plus, find out why Roche believes middle schoolers should learn about the pathways of a healthcare career, and why he advises everyone to consider having a personal board of advisors.

To train flexible nurses, Dr. Lisa Urban has found, you need to be a flexible educator. As Associate Chief Nursing Administrator at Southern New Hampshire University, Dr. Urban has helped reorient the curriculum and structure of the school’s nursing programs to accommodate students and the forever-changed world of healthcare they will soon be entering. “People think of acute care for nurses, but nurses work in lots of different organizations, across lots of different types of health care,” she tells host Dr. Rishi Desai. That’s why SNHU nursing programs focus on more generalized concepts and competencies that are transferable across multiple organizations. The idea is to cross train students in a broad array of disciplines so they can thrive in healthcare systems of the future and help hospitals to be better-prepared for the crises to come. Tune in to learn what it means to earn a patient’s trust, why nursing is inextricably linked with teaching, and why, as you envision your goals, you should always write them down.

“My superpower is asking questions, and that's pretty good training for just about anything,” says Raise the Line guest Esther Dyson. She has decades of experience as an advisor to and investor in companies in a wide range of sectors -- from education, to healthcare, to information technology. Her current focus is Welville, an organization she founded that’s running a 10 year project aimed at developing models to improve health in small communities. “We're basically a coaching organization. We're not giving them fish and we're not teaching them how to fish. We're helping them build their own fishing schools.” Tune in to this episode of Raise the Line to hear Dyson speak with Osmosis Co-Founder Shiv Gaglani about her fascinating career witnessing the birth of the high-tech era and her nonprofit's current proposal to improve the health literacy of underprivileged children in Muskegon, Michigan by getting them involved in measuring their own glucose. Their ultimate goal? To help communities become healthier and more equitable places, and inspire other communities to do the same. Listen in to find out why Dyson believes the inability to think long-term has caused so many of our problems, and why the “human infrastructure” investments being contemplated n Washington are so important.

“What makes me successful? My simple answer is, 'I tried.'” Today's guest, first-generation entrepreneur Ashwin Damera, seems to embody the humility he advises to others. His personal motto? “Life is to give.” Damera's startup online education company Eruditus/Emeritus partners with top-tier universities such as MIT, Harvard, Cambridge, and Columbia, bringing accessible and affordable education to executives and schoolchildren alike, with the aim to impact one million students by 2025. Tune in to this engaging episode of Raise the Line with host Shiv Gaglani to learn about Damera's road to edtech entrepreneurship, and find out why he believes up-skilling and re-skilling may be the largest social problem of our generation. Hear about the COVID-accelerated “fundamental shift” in the way learning happens, and how the Eruditus/Emeritus SPOC model (small, private, online courses) serves the serious learner. Plus, uncover Damera's valuable tips for budding entrepreneurs on the best form of fundraising and what most influences the success of a startup.

Growing up in the Philippines, Dr. Emerson Ea’s dreams of becoming a doctor were dashed by the high cost of education. He studied nursing instead, and realized the work was more than just a science—it was an art. “That was quite a revelation,” he tells host Dr. Rishi Desai, and now he can’t imagine another path. Beyond decades of clinical work, Dr. Ea earned a Ph.D, a DNP, and became a professor at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing, where he’s now a dean. The Covid-19 pandemic upended not just his educational universe, but his advocacy and research -- often focused on health outcomes in the Filipino American community -- which the pandemic hit with devastating force. But as he envisions the road to healthcare equity, Dr. Ea focuses on the power of education to enable the next cadre of nurses to create better healthcare systems. Tune in to hear how Meyers College of Nursing made the best of online learning, the essential role of Filipino American healthcare workers, and why a nursing education opens literally hundreds of career paths.

A fascination with data drew Dr. Brian Caveney to Labcorp, a lab testing and research company which has processed more than 50 million COVID-19 tests and runs more than half a billion medical tests per year around the world. For Caveney, all of that data provides opportunities for insights into how the healthcare industry can improve. As Chief Medical Officer at Labcorp and president of Labcorp Diagnostics, Caveney considers how labs can better analyze their findings, and how to best frame and communicate these findings to healthcare workers and the public. That’s a particularly urgent task in light of the COVID-19 crises, and an attendant crisis of public confidence in the medical profession. “The lab is often in the shadows of medicine, and may go back in that regard after COVID is over,” Caveney tells host Dr. Rishi Desai. But he hopes healthcare providers retain a deeper appreciation for how, if used intentionally, lab tests can bolster patient understanding and trust. Tune in to hear why political meddling at the CDC was so dangerous, the difference between law school and medical school, and how Labcorp managed huge demand for tests amid a fractured global supply chain.

Ten years after taking his first opiate-based painkiller after dental surgery, today's guest, Dr. Richard Morgan, was arrested for conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and ultimately spent nine years in prison. “You start to do things that you can't believe you're capable of,” Dr. Morgan says, recalling the progression of his substance use disorder. Now, he is a full-time clinical instructor on track to regain his license, and was just named the coordinator of NYITCOM's Doctor-Patient Relationship (DPR) 1 course. In this fascinating and candid conversation, host Shiv Gaglani explores the moments that led Dr. Morgan down the criminal path, his time in prison, and the inspiring story of how he was able to rise from the depths of addiction to serve as a resource and motivator to others. Tune in to learn about the sometimes subtle signs and symptoms of opiate addiction, and why Dr. Morgan thinks that in order to fight the opioid pandemic, it's essential to share an opiate medicine curriculum with students early on. “I really feel this can make a difference.”

In the ongoing effort to increase diversity in the healthcare workforce, Dr. David Lenihan believes one key factor is being overlooked: medical school admission policies that prevent a broad enough pool of applicants from being considered. That’s why, when he was Dean of Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in New York, “we pivoted hard.” Mindful that less privileged students often lack the benefits of a robust childhood education, they stopped considering freshman year GPA as just one of many changes. More recently, as he tells host Dr. Rishi Desai, Lenihan has applied the philosophy at Ponce Health Sciences University in Puerto Rico. In a nation where large swaths of people lack access to quality health care, Lenihan’s long-term strategy rests on a simple theory: “If we want graduates to go back and practice in rural America or urban core America,” he says, “quite simply you have to select students from those areas.” Tune in to hear about Lenihan’s plan for a medical school in St. Louis, his run for state senate, and what the MCAT’s verbal section overlooks.

“We see a huge unmet need across the marketplace for our type of model and our service,” says Dr. Thomas Tsang of Valera Health, a provider of comprehensive mental health services on a virtual platform. Tsang says the company is filling a need for behavioral telehealth services that take insurance and treat people with mild, moderate and severe mental health challenges, which in many cases have been worsened by COVID. Valera’s services are now available to 12 million people in 14 health plans, and the company is expanding rapidly. In this episode of Raise the Line hosted by Shiv Gaglani, learn why Dr. Tsang believes we should not be operating in a fee-for-service environment any longer, and why we need to get the government on board with the shift into the digital environment in healthcare. Plus, discover how Dr. Tsang's passion for mental health and his fascination with digital solutions brought him to this point in his career, and hear his formula for a happy and a well-balanced life, in and outside of the workplace.

Helping to lead one of the nation’s most prestigious medical schools is a challenge at any time, but Dr. Vineet Arora is stepping into that role when the fight against COVID is far from over. Although her work as Dean for Medical Education at The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine is new, she is no stranger to Pritzker having served as a clinician, researcher and educator there for the past 16 years. One focus for her will be student and provider burnout and self-care, issues she is steeped in due to a research interest in sleep and her past role overseeing the clinical learning environment. “Friends don't let friends drive drowsy. Even some sleep is always better than no sleep,” she tells host Dr. Rishi Desai. Arora says one upside of COVID is that it has helped healthcare workers get in the habit of questioning their own fitness for duty. “The whole idea of a symptom check-in and not coming to work when you're sick is a sea change for medicine.” Tune in to this episode of Raise the Line to hear about her personal journey into hospital medicine, what physicians can learn from pilots, the importance of reverse mentoring and why she believes the post-COVID environment holds great opportunity for those joining the field.

To his father’s occasional befuddlement, Dr. Zeke Emanuel’s prolific, eclectic, and high-profile career in medicine, academia, and government has been driven less by strategy than basic curiosity: “I do what interests me at the moment,” he tells host Dr. Rishi Desai. The impulse has at times put him at odds with the conventional wisdom, whether it was espoused by a Harvard Medical School dean or the World Health Organization. But he says his contrarian tendencies have also helped him anticipate dramatic turns in the world of healthcare from emerging bioethical quandaries around end-of-life care, to best-practices for allocating scarce medical resources on a global scale. “Trying to anticipate our problems and trying to solve them: That's been an approach I like to say has fueled my career,” he says. Tune in to learn from one of the country’s leading authorities on healthcare reform how we can simplify the U.S. healthcare system, distribute vaccines more ethically, and why Benjamin Franklin is “the most brilliant person ever born on the North American continent, bar none.”

“If you want to reach marginalized populations in general, but in healthcare as well, you've got to build a bridge based on trust,” says Dr. David Carlisle whose mission, as leader of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, is to train people from underserved communities to return home to provide healthcare. From Carlisle’s perspective, the pandemic has highlighted the longstanding and devastating disparities in health status tied to race and ethnicity, which has added urgency to efforts to reach and improve care for these populations. As he has witnessed with testing and vaccination programs held at CDU, affinity is a key ingredient in building trust. “When the surrounding community became aware that there were people on campus who spoke the same languages, shopped at the same shopping centers and attended the same churches, our numbers skyrocketed.” Listen in to learn what how the Delta variant is impacting education this semester, and for a riveting, impassioned plea to the unvaccinated to protect themselves and their communities as well as the frontline healthcare workers who are risking their lives to treat COVID patients.

“The issue of prevention needs to be pushed harder,” Dr. Johannes Vieweg asserts, drawing from his experience growing up in Europe. Smart growth and smart leadership are two of Dr. Vieweg's favorite topics, and ones that he knows a thing or two about through his work founding a new medical school and training the next generation of healthcare leaders. In this episode of Raise the Line with host Shiv Gaglani, discover how Dr. Vieweg and his team took advantage of starting from scratch to build a unique and up-to-date active-learning-based curriculum that connects business and medicine and underscores community connection. Tune in to learn about the “threshold for innovation” and why Dr. Vieweg believes we have a way to go yet in the implementation of value-based medicine. Plus, hear his inspiring message about healthcare being a human right, not a privilege, and his advice to students on being nimble and pursuing their goals.

Discovering your ancestry through a DNA saliva test is commonplace and very popular today, but when 23andMe started offering the service to consumers in 2007, it was breaking new ground. “We started 23andMe with this mentality of being an activist brand. I want to empower people with their own genome. Then I want to empower people to essentially come together and be the world's largest community that's driving research forward,” says Anne Wojcicki, Co-founder and CEO of the company. In the past 14 years, she’s largely achieved that founding vision with 11.6 million people using the product and 80% of those consenting to have their information used in research. And, as Wojcicki tells host Shiv Gaglani, a trove of research papers and a constant stream of new genetic information is allowing 23andMe to move into developing therapeutics. The ultimate goal? “I want people to be able to use their genetic information to change their behavior and live to be 100 without any chronically-managed disease,” she says. Don’t miss this revealing discussion from a pioneer in direct-to-consumer healthcare about the impact of digital health, eliminating hierarchy in healthcare and the role providers can play in battling the swamp of medical misinformation. Spoiler: it might involve them learning to dance.

"Please don't ever forget why you are becoming a nurse," urges Bonnie Barnes of the DAISY Foundation. "Hold that in your heart always." Barnes has experienced firsthand the tremendous impact that a nurse's skillful and compassionate care can have on patients and families. In this episode of Raise the Line, join host Jannah Amiel, RN to discover how a family tragedy became the impetus for Barnes and her husband to start a foundation dedicated to recognizing and honoring the outstanding work of nurses—an organization that now partners with over 4,000 healthcare facilities in 29 countries. Tune in to learn about the strategic value of recognition, hear about Barnes' new book, Shining the Light on All the Right: Celebrating the Art of Nursing Around the World, and find out why Barnes thinks public support is essential in creating funding for nurse education. Plus, hear why Barnes believes the public ought to be listening more to nurses.

Dr. Iman Abuzeid and Rome Portlock co-founded Incredible Health after observing a disconnect: The doctors Abuzeid knew complained about understaffing at their hospitals, and yet the nurses Portlock knew complained that it could take months to get a job. “We're like, ‘Okay, this doesn't make any sense,’" Abuzeid tells host Dr. Rishi Desai. While a shortage of nurses is clearly a factor, their research determined the U.S. healthcare industry’s antiquated staffing tools were a big part of the problem. “We just figured there has to be a better way—a faster, more efficient, more scalable way to hire, and that's how Incredible Health started.” That better way involves a blend of automated screening, custom matching, focusing on ‘customer delight’ and turning the tables by having employers apply to the talent. The result is a hiring process that drops from 80 days to no more than 20. Stay tuned to find out why Abuzeid pivoted to business after earning her medical degree, the three things she thinks you can optimize for in your career, and why she considers values to be the ‘operating system’ of her company.

“I'm really proud of the global response from nurses to this pandemic. They really have stepped into a situation that is high risk, but they continue to care in the most difficult situations,” says Elizabeth Iro, a lifetime nurse and midwife who was appointed Chief Nursing Officer of the World Health Organization in 2017. Her arrival marked a new focus on nursing and midwifery at the WHO that was captured in several comprehensive reports on the challenges they face and the greater role they could play in improving global health. Based on that data, the World Health Assembly recently adopted a resolution on strengthening nursing and midwifery, something that Iro says will help guide a post-COVID future for nursing. “We have some real solid policy options that we can take in the next five years to support countries and make a difference,” she tells host Shiv Gaglani. Iro sees a future of greater connection between nurses and midwives internationally to advance their impact and also serve as a source of psychosocial support. “The pandemic tested all of us – as a profession, as a community, as family members, and as individuals.” Take advantage of a rare opportunity to hear from one of the world’s leading health officials on critical issues such as vaccine hesitancy, vaccine equity and the importance of having nurses fully involved in setting COVID response policy.

Whenever we ask Raise the Line guests about the biggest changes in healthcare during COVID, the use of telehealth is always at the top of the list. Aside from the need to keep patients and providers safe, a combination of regulatory relief, reimbursement changes and new technologies are giving telehealth a bigger role in U.S. healthcare than ever before. But this golden moment might not last. “Americans need to know that any day, the ability to use telemedicine might be taken from them if Congress doesn't act,” says Ann Mond Johnson, CEO of the American Telemedicine Association. A lot is at stake. As Mond Johnson explains to host Dr. Rishi Desai, increased use of telemedicine is filling critical gaps in access, particularly for mental health services, and can help address the health disparities the pandemic laid bare. Stay tuned to find out about common telemedicine myths, to get peek at the future of the technology and to hear about plans for the first ever Telehealth Awareness Week, coming up September 19 to 25.

“I don't want doctors to get ripped off. They are wonderful people dedicated to healing the sick and injured, and they're getting taken advantage of way too often,” says emergency physician James Dahle. His own series of bad experiences with financial advice prompted a flurry of self-education, and he decided to make a business out of sharing what he learned called the The White Coat Investor. One surprising thing he learned, which motivates his work to this day, is that even though the average physician earns $8 million over the course of a 30-year career, 25% end up with a net worth under $1 million. Why? “Doctors are busy people and we’ve got a lot on our mental plates and this is something else we feel like we have to do, so it sits in the background.” He says people also don’t realize the power of getting their finances under control. At mid-career, Dahle has achieved financial freedom and has the flexibility he thinks many doctors want and need to have at that stage of their lives. “The combination of financial literacy and financial discipline is so rare, it’s like having a superpower,” he adds. Check out this valuable conversation with host Rishi Desai for tips on managing student debt, common mistakes to avoid, and the critical importance of having a plan especially as health care careers are growing more unpredictable.

“It is the nature of our profession to be flexible, because our roles can change,” explains longtime PA and educator Dr. Kevin Lohenry. Physician assistants have had the chance to showcase that flexibility during the pandemic, quickly adjusting and moving into COVID-related roles like ICU support and vaccine efforts. In this episode of Raise the Line, learn about Dr. Lohenry's career path from the military to medicine to education, and why he thinks being a PA is such a great career in terms of impact on others and work-life balance. Listen in as Dr. Lohenry and host Dr. Rishi Desai discuss teamwork, how the approach to teaching critical thinking skills has changed over the years, and how COVID has served as a wake-up call on the need to address systemic racism. “If we don't invest heavily in a different kind of educational process to allow for equity among all peoples, I think we're hurting ourselves.” Tune in to find out more about his perspective on this, and why he advises students to stick initially with a single interest or organization.

“I don't see a scientific way of saying that one fine day COVID-19 will vanish. We'll have to learn to manage life alongside infectious diseases, whether it's COVID-19 or something else,” says Varun Khanna. As a leader of one of Indonesia’s largest hospital systems, Khanna is currently engulfed with managing the present surge there, but he’s giving a lot of thought to how things will look when the acute stage of the pandemic has passed. Among other impacts, he believes COVID has prompted significant changes in lifestyle, behavioral health needs, and how people want to interact with the healthcare system. “It’s going to be a paradigm shift in our lives.” Check out this incisive discussion for an on the ground look at the current COVID battle, the challenges of trying to care for 270 million people over widely dispersed territory and the multinational future of healthcare.

After being thrust into a caregiving role for her elderly grandmother after college, Bianca Padilla was shocked to discover how little support there was for family caregivers -- especially since relatives with no medical experience make up 90% of all senior care. She and her now-husband, Jonathan Magolnick, conceptualized Carewell on their first date with the vision of it being a one-stop shop for products and services that allow customers and caregivers to age in place safely and comfortably. Tune in to this episode of Raise the Line hosted by Shiv Gaglani to learn about the model behind Carewell's success and hear Padilla's response to caregiving initiatives promoted by the Biden administration. Plus, discover COVID's silver lining for family caregivers and hear why Padilla believes that as we enter the “age of the silver tsunami,” paying attention to the caregiver is as essential as paying attention to the care recipient.

“We have the ability within our profession to quickly pivot in our educational programs because of their short-term nature. We can set the competency and quickly change curriculum,” says Christina Robohm, Regional Dean at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. And that’s just what is happening during COVID as administrators and students adjust to online learning and the integration of telemedicine into daily practice. Robohm believes that shorter educational timeline of 27 to 36 months can also help address critical access issues in West Texas and other rural areas. Listen in as Robohm gives host Shiv Gaglani the details on a major expansion of Texas Tech’s PA program and describes how one of the nation’s fastest growing professions is adapting to and leading change.

“Question everything,” advises Dr. Hanadi Hamadi to future healthcare professionals, but “always remember your lines and your boundaries, your mental health.” In this episode of Raise the Line, Dr. Hamadi joins her colleague at Brooks College of Health Dr. Shyam Paryani and Osmosis' Shiv Gaglani to discuss current trends and recent happenings in healthcare reform and health policy. Tune in to discover what Dr. Hamadi and Dr. Paryani see as the most essential tools for future healthcare leaders. Plus, learn about Brooks College of Health's unique online Executive Master of Health Administration program directed at working professionals, the challenge for hospitals to provide population health and not just acute care as a result of the Affordable Care Act, Dr. Hamadi's research on evaluating the recent emphasis on social determinants of health, and the lasting changes that Dr. Hamadi and Dr. Paryani believe COVID will bring to the healthcare system.

“Leadership is a science, just like medicine, and there are theories and facts and best practices in leadership that we know work. If you understand them, then you can become a better leader,” says Dr. John Tomkowiak, who has had many opportunities to lead in his long career in medical education. Among the best practices he brought to his current role as founding dean of Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, is focusing on creating a culture that supports change, and then implementing changes in the right sequence. “For me, those two things generally lead to great results.” He also believes in making sure employees know that they need to take care of themselves and loved ones first, and only then prioritize their work. Join host Rishi Desai for a conversation full of lessons on leadership and continuous improvement, and insights on the state of medical education.

As California’s crisis of people experiencing homelessness continues to deepen, a major player in the state’s healthcare system is stepping up with a new approach to providing them with the healthcare services they need. “Homeless patients so often have distrust of the healthcare system,” observes Dr. Michael Hochman, who is leading SCAN’s Homeless Medical Group Initiative. “You've got to re-establish that trust to really be able to help them.” Dr. Hochman has long found himself drawn to caring for the underserved, and loves the feeling of watching his patients' lives get back on track. To provide effective care, he argues, doctors need to meet patients where they are, which in some cases may be a street corner or under a bridge. Tune in to this episode of Raise the Line to hear him talk with host Dr. Rishi Desai about what’s behind SCAN’s approach and the challenges of providing mental health and substance use services on the street. Learn why Dr. Hochman believes in loosening drug regulations, greater flexibility in the use of healthcare dollars for health-related social services, and higher reimbursement rates for groups caring for high-risk patients. Plus, hear his advice for students and his view on the need to radically rethink how we deliver care.

Failing out of nursing school may not be the recommended path toward starting a successful learning platform, but it worked for today's guest, Mike Linares, MSN, RN. In this episode of Raise the Line, learn about Linares' colorful path from EMT to nurse to starting Simple Nursing, a platform that has helped over 400,000 students. Listen in as “Nurse Mike” and host Dr. Rishi Desai discuss nursing school culture, how nurses “do everything,” and the problem with how diet, nutrition, and fitness are taught in nursing programs. Need some fitness and wellness inspiration? The conversation also features Linares' love of life hacks, including mental health hacks like sensory deprivation tanks, as well as his interest in longevity science. This is a fun, lively conversation you’ll want to check out.

“There was doubt that online education could work in preparation for competitive exams. That has been washed away by our pandemic experience,” says Aakash Chaudhry who helps lead Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL), a leading player in India’s high stakes test prep industry. In fact, when students were studying completely online last year, AESL had its best test outcomes in 30 years. The result is that COVID revealed a hybrid sweet spot for the company. “Students and their parents learned you don't have to go to the classroom five days or six days a week. You can study four days a week at home and you can spend a day or two with the teacher just to touch upon the problems that you are not able to understand.” Chaudhry believes if online learning is leveraged well it will empower teachers to do far more than they used to, especially in healthcare education where there is a need for expansion. Currently, a limited number of medical school slots is perpetuating a huge shortage of providers which was highlighted by India’s recent agonizing struggle with a COVID surge. Listen as Chaudhry fills in host Shiv Gaglani on a new educational model that might help alleviate the shortage, and discusses whether a merger with edtech giant BYJU might extend AESL’s reach beyond India.

“We are sitting at a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to adequately fund early childhood, K-12, and even higher education,” says Deborah Quazzo, a former investment banker with 25 years working in education innovation. “I come away incredibly optimistic, with all the money flowing into edtech, that it's going to pull out more entrepreneurs and come up with more great ideas and more great solutions.” Join host Shiv Gaglani in this forward-thinking episode as he speaks with Quazzo about the exciting field of education technology and how companies in the sphere are consolidating across the ‘pre-K-to-gray’ continuum and looking ahead to create broad-based, scaled, omnichannel learning delivery. Tune in to learn about the “Great Resignation” and Quazzo's predictions on workforce development trends. Plus, hear Quazzo's advice about risk taking and technological fluency, and find out about an exciting new learning simulation called Dreamscape that will be featured at next month’s ASU+GSV Summit.

“If you can help alleviate fear and guide people in decision-making, that's what public health people should be doing during a pandemic,” says Dr. Ashish Jha, who has become one of the leading medical figures in the nation sharing evidence-based information and insights in a clear and helpful way through hundreds of interviews with TV, print, and radio journalists. Dr. Jha, who became dean of the Brown University School of Public Health as the pandemic was getting underway, is troubled by the surge of COVID in areas with low vaccination rates and believes more must be done by social media platforms to curtail disinformation campaigns. But, he believes individuals have a role to play as well. “We have to find ways of reaching out to people who live outside our information ecosystem and engaging them. I think combatting misinformation is the biggest challenge of our time.” Check out this important episode with host Shiv Gaglani for a valuable wisdom drop on the challenges and opportunities the pandemic is presenting for patients, providers, and health systems in the U.S. and globally.

“I feel like academic medicine has had one of its finest hours and people understand its importance in a way they had not before,” says Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for Health Affairs at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and dean of its medical school. Wearing those hats, she has a ground-level perspective on how the pandemic played out in academic medical centers as well as a national view of how academic medicine and medical education fared generally due to her leadership roles with the Association of American Medical Colleges. As she tells host Shiv Gaglani, she saw an unprecedented level of collaboration and sharing of research and other information that helped advance the quality of care provided to COVID patients. “To see all the organizations in academic medicine come together around that multifaceted but singular focus was thrilling, honestly, and just amazing.” In addition to COVID response, Dr. Woodward has her hands full expanding educational and clinical offerings in a state which struggles in many areas that affect health status, and is ranked last in the country for the number of practicing physicians per capita. “We're working hard to provide all the programs we need for the education of our students, but also to answer the unmet needs for the citizens in Mississippi.”

“Students sometimes look to us for the only way to master something. We really try to guide them to their unique way of learning,” says Dr. Rivka Stone of Med School Tutors. As chief medical officer, she leads a team of over 150 tutors who provide one-on-one support to clients, and believes understanding that different people learn differently is key to exam success. In this episode of Raise the Line, she shares with Dr. Rishi Desai how MST selects its tutors, what she thinks of recent major changes to medical school testing and offers her take on medical student morale in face of COVID. Plus, hear her valuable advice on seeking out one-to-one connection and the importance of self-care.

Even though the practice of medicine has changed enormously in the past 100 years, the way medicine is taught is largely the same -- long lectures held on elite campuses in urban centers. Dr. Peter Horneffer is out to replace the “Sage on the Stage” lecture model with an experience that uses learning science and modern technology to make medical education more accessible to more aspiring physicians in more places - especially underserved areas. He saw it work while leading a program in Samoa decades ago and he’s currently pursuing that goal -- which he hopes will help address the global physician shortage -- as executive dean of the All American Institute of Medical Sciences in Jamaica and as Director of Medical Education Programs at Lecturio. Check out this revealing conversation with host Rishi Desai about a vision for a more diverse, inclusive and less expensive medical education system.

Can having a rockstar teacher make all the difference? Matt Riley thinks so. He built his company, Blueprint Test Preparation, on hiring and creating rockstar LSAT and MCAT instructors across the country. In contrast to the opinion that standardized tests are just meaningless hurdles, Riley believes that these tests serve an important function and that going through the process of preparing for and taking them “actually gets you ready for success.” Join Riley as he speaks with host Shiv Gaglani in this episode of Raise the Line to discover Blueprint's unique approach to test prep, including its recent acquisition of Cram Fighter, a service that helps students manage the resources they are using to study. Plus, learn about the Fauci and RBG effects that COVID has had on medical and law school admissions, and hear Riley's valuable advice for students preparing for exams and looking toward their future careers.

Many people involved in improving healthcare quality are looking to artificial intelligence and innovative delivery models as answers. But Dr. Richard Park, one of the country's leading healthcare entrepreneurs, sees it differently. “Before AI and all these fancy things are layered on top, we need to focus on fundamentals. It’s not sexy, but it has to be done,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. The fundamentals Park is talking about center on standardizing processes, clinical protocols, computer programs, workflows and metrics to reduce variation. Decreasing variation and aligning doctors to work consistently and predictably is something Park learned building CityMD, a provider of urgent and primary care in New York and New Jersey. Park and his team grew the company from a single location in 2010 to nearly 150 sites today where more than 4 million patients receive treatment. He's also CEO of Rendr Care Physicians, a multi-specialty group catering to 100,000 underserved patients, primarily of Asian descent, in 30 locations in New York City. Tune-in to this fascinating conversation about changing physician behavior, his cultural roots in entrepreneurship and why every doctor who wants to improve the quality of care should study McDonald's restaurants.

“I think today’s young doctors will lead the digital health revolution. They've grown up with the technology and they understand the power of connectivity and social media and being on all the time, but in a good way,” says Jeff Arnold, a digital information pioneer with decades of success creating and leading companies that leverage technology to provide easy access to knowledge, including WebMD and HowStuffWorks. Since 2010, he's been Chairman and CEO of Sharecare, a leading health and wellness engagement platform that provides people with personalized information, programs, and resources to improve their health -- whether they download the Sharecare app themselves or access its platform through a self-insured employer health plan or, coming soon, health system. This week, the company will begin trading on the NASDAQ exchange. In this revealing conversation with host Shiv Gaglani, Arnold describes the company’s goal to be a one-stop-shopping platform to connect people to their doctor, health plan, employer, and help them navigate their well-being. You won’t want to miss this chance to learn about where digital health is going in the next decade.

In his book, Rich & Dying: An Insider Calls Bullsh*t on America's Healthcare Economy, Sutter Health|Aetna CEO Jeb Dunkelberger uses his unique position as head of a company whose clients are some of the largest employers in the world to reveal what is going on behind the scenes in healthcare. Find out in this episode hosted by Shiv Gaglani why Dunkelberger believes neither free-market economics nor “Medicare For All” is a workable solution to our nation's healthcare crisis, and why it's so important for providers to understand the flow of funds in the insurance sector. Plus, learn about aligned incentives, why the post-COVID environment might be a good time for people to accept new ideas, and why the future may not be as telemedicine-dependent as some predict.

“Information that you don't use regularly, you will quickly forget,” says Dr. Jason Ryan, “no matter what it is.” Accepting that reality, he argues, is a good way to form an effective study plan. Tune in to this episode of Raise the Line to hear more of Dr. Ryan's valuable advice and learn how he came to start Boards and Beyond, a platform that helps medical students prepare for board exams. Listen in as he and host Dr. Rishi Desai discuss Continuing Medical Education (CME), the pros and cons of recertification exams, and strategies to address the problem of burnout. Plus, discover Dr. Ryan's arguments for open-book testing and learn why becoming a “cookbook practitioner” in the medical field is definitely something to avoid.

Telehealth has emerged as one of the biggest “winners” of the pandemic if you measure that in terms of a huge jump in awareness and amount of use. People most often associate it with video conversations, but telehealth also includes phone calls, remote monitoring, emails and sharing of images. Our guest on this episode of Raise the Line thinks there are real advantages to patients in actually foregoing video in favor of an asynchronous exchange of information. Varsha Rao is CEO of Nurx, a rapidly growing health tech company which has its roots in the prescribing and at-home delivery of contraception. “There's a lot of people who still don't feel that comfortable talking about contraception with their provider. One thing we've tried to do is create modalities that reduce friction, whether it's stigma or logistics, because those can be barriers to care.” Rao says patients feel more comfortable asking sensitive questions in writing, and benefit from the deep experience Nurx providers have on the limited health concerns they treat. “We've really focused in a number of areas and gone deep in them. That’s why we get thousands of comments from patients saying they learned more from our providers than they ever got from their in-person doctors.” Check out this episode to learn more about a different take on telehealth.

Communicating accurate, vital healthcare information to the public has seldom been more important than during the COVID 19 pandemic. As we’ve all seen, the challenges of doing that well have been a major factor in the spread of the disease and participation in vaccination campaigns. Watching all of this carefully is cardiologist, researcher and public health expert Dr. Garth Graham, who was chosen earlier this year to lead a new health partnerships team at Google/YouTube to create high-quality health content for viewers around the world. Graham will work with an impressive coalition of organizations including the Mayo Clinic, National Academy of Medicine, Harvard School of Public Health (and Osmosis!) to extend evidence-based clinical information beyond the exam room in a way that meets the evolving digital health needs of consumers. “The challenge that we're taking on is how to deliver public health information to empower communities across the world to live their healthiest lives. We’re using the power and reach of YouTube to engage people directly with health information in a way that they’re used to receiving other information in their daily lives.” Check out this lively conversation with host Dr. Rishi Desai to learn about the importance of providers seeing life through the eyes of the patient and community, and why the healthcare system sometimes resembles a stampeding elephant.

With just 30 minutes of physical activity every day, says Dr. Bernadette Melnyk, or “Bern,” as she's known, 80% of chronic disease could be totally prevented. Unfortunately, though, most people will not make changes in their behavior unless they are in a crisis or have raised emotions. Join Dr. Melnyk on this episode of Raise the Line as she speaks with Dr. Rishi Desai about her work at Ohio State - and worldwide through the Fuld Institute for Evidence-based Practice - finding and implementing evidence-based solutions to wellness, including decreasing the high percentage of burnout, depression and suicide in clinicians. Tune in to hear why self-care is not selfish, and how focusing on kids and pets can help people better care for themselves. Plus, discover Bern's “magic formula” to get people to change.

“I'm a huge fan of progress, not perfection. Small steps lead to transformation more often than large steps.” David Kopp has not only experienced this personally as an effective approach to positive behavior change, but as former CEO of Healthline Media, he knows the scientific literature supports it as well. Kopp refers to the key factors in achieving wellness as MENDS: mindfulness, exercise, nature, diet, and sleep. “If you can create new routines around those things, it will really make a difference.” Because diet is such an important driver in many chronic conditions, Kopp says it deserves much more attention from the healthcare system, but knows that’s an uphill battle. “You have to spend a lot of time to understand a patient's diet and nutrition, and our whole system is based on ‘you've got 11 minutes to spend with patients.’ Check out this episode of Raise the Line as Kopp joins host Rishi Desai to discusses other structural impediments to better health, the evolving acceptance of plant-based diets, and the role passion and purpose can play in creating resilience to get challenging work done.

Andrew Grauer was just trying to solve his own problems with finding study help as a student at Cornell University, but it turns out his initial solutions, and those that followed, have also worked for millions of students. The company Grauer co-founded, Course Hero, provides an online learning platform where students access millions of course-specific study resources contributed by a community of students and 65,000 educators. The popular site also offers 24/7 tutoring. “We were helping students to anytime, anywhere, go connect to the knowledge directly that came from others. Getting more accessible, on-demand quality help to learn was the problem and the opportunity.” As for faculty – who were not uniformly positive about the service when it started catching on – Grauer and his team realized that they needed support as well to find the best instructional materials. “We also believe in amplifying great teachers and great teaching resources.” Check out this episode to learn more about how today’s students learn and the long-range implications of the pandemic-driven pivot to online instruction. Also hear what personal quality Grauer thinks, in addition to passion, is “super important” to building a successful business.

“Everybody deserves access to care, and it's up to us to find a way to provide that,” says Dr. Jean Sumner. She and her team at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia take their mission of serving rural and underserved populations very seriously. “Almost,” says Dr. Sumner, “as a sacred trust to serve our state.” That could entail bringing diabetes and hypertension training to church on Sunday, taking phone calls at night, advocating for primary care patients in emergency rooms, or partnering with rural-county pharmacists and physical therapists. She believes being responsive to the community is key to gaining trust and providing good care. In this episode of Raise the Line, learn about Dr. Sumner's inspiring career dedicated to bringing attention to the issues of rural health, and how the pandemic has drawn attention to the lack of primary care in rural communities. Discover why observation over time is such an important and overlooked tool, how having a broad range of skills can save lives, and how telehealth can best be used as a tool to expand access to those in need.

If you have a sense of dread about what impact AI will have on healthcare providers and quality of care, you should listen to today’s episode of Raise the Line. Dr. Marc Triola, who spends a lot of time contemplating how data analytics is going to impact medicine as director of The Institute for Innovations in Medical Education at NYU Langone Health, likens AI to a valuable new member of the healthcare team that will give physicians superpowers. “Many physicians think they have those superpowers now -- such as the ability to see patterns, to know what to ignore and know what to look at, and to be able to make the right decision for the right patient -- but limitations on our ability to manage data, cognitive biases and other factors get in the way.” Adding to his excitement about the possibilities for AI is that patients will have access to many of the same tools. Tune in to gain insights from Triola on the welcome waning of ‘one-size fits-all’ medical education, the positive disruption of shifting to online learning, and to learn about a project with Osmosis and NYU Langone to serve up content to medical learners based on diagnoses they are making.

“Being a nurse practitioner was just a great fit for me. I'd wake up every morning with just a great deal of enthusiasm,” says Dr. Ric Ricciardi. But, he notes, “That was before managed care came in.”  As the time to see patients was cut down from 30 minutes to 10, Ricciardi realized he wanted to be involved at a policy level to make healthcare better. While serving in the military, he earned a PhD and worked his way into leadership positions in the Department of Defense and at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality where he pursued the integration of primary care delivery, among other efforts. While encouraged by some innovations forced by COVID, he believes there is much more to be done to improve care, and in this lively conversation with host Jannah Amiel, RN he is full of encouragement for nurses to find their natural place as leaders.  “Decide what change you really want to contribute to, be curious about what policies are out there, and who's working on it? That's what's great about professional organizations. You can hook up with people that are like-minded on a specific policy and then work on it together.”

“There is a lot of distrust for the medical profession, and certainly, for, I think, science in general,“ observes Dr. Michael Whitt. How to rebuild that trust? Dr. Whitt believes the answer is teaching. Join him in this episode of Raise the Line as he speaks with host Dr. Rishi Desai about vaccine development and his team's role in COVID vaccine testing, as well as best approaches and practices to fighting misinformation. Find out about the amazing developments that have been made over the past five years in vaccine technology, and the important part Dr. Whitt believes physicians should play in combatting fear and social weariness and rebuilding trust in science. Plus, learn about what it means for COVID to be with us for the long haul, and the challenge of messaging—here and across international borders—to get everyone working effectively toward the same goal.

“We really see frontline healthcare workers as a segment of the population that has been uniquely impacted by the pandemic, and we recognize that they need some mental health supports,” says Sara Sarkey who, as vice president of Neuroscience and Vaccines for U.S. Medical at Takeda, is involved in a variety of initiatives to address the unmet needs of people with health challenges. The latest is a virtual coaching platform developed in partnership with Takeda, Lundbeck, Pack Health and Osmosis. “It's for anyone who self-selects for mental health issues. We're just trying to make sure we get the supports to the people who truly need them right now.” Check out this episode of Raise the Line with host Shiv Gaglani to learn more about this one-of-a-kind program as well as the mission of Takeda, which includes going beyond providing medications to building an ecosystem to support patients and destigmatize mental health.

When Dr. Abdul El-Sayed realized that he could travel 15 hours to visit family in Egypt or drive 15 minutes away in Detroit and traverse the same 10-year life expectancy gap, the deeply political aspects of medicine and public health really hit home for him. In a broadly-spanning career with roles in medicine, activism, education, and politics, Dr. El-Sayed has endeavored to fix the problems in the U.S. healthcare system that contribute to this gap. In this important interview, Dr. El-Sayed speaks with host Dr. Rishi Desai about the power of storytelling, the immoral foundation of our healthcare system, and the need to step beyond institutional measurements to decide what matters. Tune in to discover the powerful influence his grandmother has had on his life's work, why Dr. El-Sayed believes that Medicare for all is not only the ethical way to go, but also “extremely technically possible,” and what he sees as the next step toward removing corporate dominance from our healthcare system.

You might say Osmosis and SketchyMedical share some DNA. Both learning platforms were started by medical students seeking a better way to manage the avalanche of information they had to memorize; both companies use animated videos with an approachable style; and both root their content in learning science. Sketchy’s key approach borrows from a method developed by the ancient Greeks that relies on visual-spatial memory to acquire and retain knowledge. They also keep fun front and center. “That fun aspect is harder to be objective about and to judge,” says co-founder Andrew Berg, “but we found that the more fun we're having when we're creating content, that translates into more fun the students are having and very likely makes it more effective as a learning tool.” Check out this fascinating (and fun!) discussion about the power of visual lessons to increase speed of learning and retention, the myth of learning preferences, and plans to apply the approach to non-medical subject areas.

Suzanne Miyamoto's appreciation for healing and personal connection started while volunteering at a hospital in high school, and has been central to her life ever since. She has spent most of her career working in policy, and now leads the American Academy of Nursing, which endeavors to improve health equity by impacting policy through nursing leadership, innovation, and science. Join Miyamoto and host Jannah Amiel in this episode of Raise the Line to learn how nurses can be—and in Miyamoto's view, should be—front and center in the struggle to improve health equity. Tune in to soak up Miyamoto's valuable advice on forming partnerships, using good evidence, and seeking out opportunities outside of healthcare. Plus, learn about the need for better representation at the decision-making tables and the importance of educators encouraging and nurturing student ideas early and often.

We’re all aware that during last year’s massive shift to virtual learning, many colleges and universities scrambled to acquire technology and to help instructors get good at using it to teach and assess their students. Now that the dust is starting to settle on the crisis, many are looking at how all of this worked, and what adjustments need to be made. “I just think there's so many programs that are struggling to figure out what do we do now,” says Sebastian Vos, a veteran of the EdTech space. “I think they're looking at what is actually making a difference. How am I taking my students from novice to expert and what tools are facilitating helping the students along that journey, or helping my faculty to help my students along on that journey?” His company Turnitin helps educators mine data from its assessment tools to evaluate how students are progressing, but also whether the questions they are asking on exams are well-designed. Check out this episode of Raise the Line with host Rishi Desai to learn why Vos thinks micro-assessments -- multiple brief evaluations throughout a course – are gaining momentum over just relying on a few big projects and tests, and why educators should embrace data the same way retailers like Amazon do. “Educators can have that kind of knowledge without being creepy about it, and can share that with you so you can grow on your personal journey.”

“Safety is the number one element of quality,” says Dr. Daniele Rigamonti, who has spent his career trying to find solutions to one of the profession’s biggest challenges. In this episode, the veteran Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon joins his former student Shiv Gaglani to discuss the meaningful lessons he learned about safety while leading the healthcare organization for Saudi Aramco, one of the largest energy companies in the world. “I realized there is a gap between what people know and what people actually do. You can teach a lot of things, but unless people actually practice what they learned and make that experience a habit, there are situations in which bad things can happen.” Listen in as he explains the key to effective crisis response, how to create safe environments and the importance of team-based work in what he describes as “a beautiful profession.”

“It has always really been about making things better for people,” says Dr. Valerie Weber of the various roles she has held in her distinguished career. “As somebody who is fortunate, you must use your role to help others and to make the system better.” In this episode of Raise the Line, Dr. Weber joins host Shiv Gaglani to discuss current challenges and new models in medical education, the impact of COVID, and pandemic silver linings. Tune in to discover how Dr. Weber's mother's passion for caring for community elders inspired her daughter's journey to leadership in healthcare, a field that Dr. Weber considers “the best career in the world.” Learn why Dr. Weber is a staunch advocate of community-based medicine and believes it is essential for medical schools to lead the way in championing health equity. Plus, find out what she thinks may prove to be the “discovery of the century.”

“We just need to work in partnerships with the goals of family-sustaining wages, economic development, and health for everybody.” That broad perspective and desire to improve people’s lives is what drives Dr. Angela Kersenbrock in her work as President of the Community College Baccalaureate Association. She is constantly seeking partnerships with policymakers, industry leaders and other higher ed stakeholders so that community colleges can fulfill their potential as engines of economic development. In this episode, she joins host Rishi Desai to discuss some of the common misconceptions about baccalaureate degrees, as well as the steps CCBA is taking to make these life-altering credentials more accessible. “We're not saying everybody has to have a baccalaureate degree, but we're saying everybody should have the opportunity to do that.”

"Healthcare needs to become distributed, digitally enabled, and decentralized.” That’s the core message in the new book Care After Covid: What the Pandemic Revealed Is Broken in Healthcare and How to Reinvent It, by Dr. Shantanu Nundy. Between his work as a primary care physician, lecturer in health policy at George Washington University Milken Institute for Public Health, advisor to the World Bank on digital health and innovation and role as chief medical officer at Accolade, Nundy brings a lot to the national conversation about improving healthcare. Although plenty needs to be done by regulators, policymakers and other stakeholders, Nundy is also looking to his fellow providers to drive change. Taking the trajectory of telemedicine as an example he says, “we could have moved to virtual care sooner. Part of it was regulation, but part of it was us. We could have been giving our patients' blood pressure cuffs to take home with them. Part of it was regulation, but part of it was us. I think the pandemic has shown that you don't have to wait for someone in DC to solve a problem for you. There's so much that we all know because we're in exam rooms every day and there are things we can do to make care better.” Tune in for a trenchant discussion with host Rishi Desai on removing barriers to change, patient empowerment, changing medical education, training doctors to be mass communicators and much more.

As chronic conditions like diabetes continue to rise, so does the importance of getting people to stick to the treatment plans laid out by their doctor. That’s where health coaching companies like Pack Health come in. “We serve as almost a concierge service to help people address their healthcare goals in between visits to their providers,” says Brantley Fry, the company’s vice president of Health Equity and Community Engagement. Patients (who are referred to as members) are assigned a health advisor to help establish trust and consistency. The advisors tailor communications -- which can take the form of texts, phone calls, video sessions and other methods -- to member preferences. “We see advisors as accountability partners, not as somebody who's just going to ping you with a reminder. It is a caring relationship. There's a trust and empathy that's established which really supports the overall achievement of the goals.” Join host Rishi Desai and Brantley Fry as they explore the growing role of health coaching in helping people change their behavior and lead healthier lives.

“We need to make sure everybody understands telehealth technology,” says Dr. Beth Smolko. Representing over 150,000 PAs in the US who work in every medical specialty and setting, Dr. Smolko and her team at the American Academy of PAs empower their members to advance their careers and enhance patient health. In this episode of Raise the Line, hear about Dr. Smolko's personal journey to leadership and how the “broad universe” of technologies and approaches to care that make up telehealth are driving up efficiency in the care system. Discover why Dr. Smolko refers to the cell phone as a great equalizer in patient care, and why she believes it's so important for organizations to more clearly define the role of telehealth and create friendly “digital front doors” for their patients. Plus, learn more about the intensive PA training program and why being a PA is a terrific, and uniquely flexible, career path.

At the New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing, you can find Dr. Mary Brennan working tirelessly alongside her colleagues and students to ensure the future of healthcare lands in capable hands. Her dramatic efforts as the Director of the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care NP Program (AGACNP) in New York have earned her the Osmosis Raise the Line Faculty Award for 2020. As she shares with host Lindsey Smith, her life experiences have taught her to push those around her to be the best they can be, but supporting enough to give them the opportunity to rise to those expectations. Dr. Brennan also has an interest in using innovative technologies to enhance students’ experiences around the world.

“We can conduct research, perform lab procedures, order and interpret tests, assist in surgery, and even own our own medical practices in some states,” says Brianna Cardenas, director of Clinical Education of the Physician Assistant Program at Keck Graduate Institute. Sonia Otte, founding program director for the MS Program in PA Studies at KGI says that range is a big draw for prospective students once they are introduced to it. “I think just knowing that the PA profession is as versatile as you want it to be is what is the most exciting thing about it,” she says. Both see building awareness of the many dimensions of PA practice, especially among younger people and those from diverse communities, as a key part of their mission. Another is teaching cultural competence and the kind of listening skills that allow providers to see the whole lives of their patients. “We teach our students to learn from their patients’ stories and experiences. Oftentimes, you can find the thing you’re looking for in these types of conversations because they reveal their circumstances and abilities.” Join host Rishi Desai for this illuminating conversation about an occupation that, as Cardenas happily points out, ranks #1 on the U.S. News & World Report “Best Jobs List.”

Don't let the system beat the humanity out of you, urges John Driscoll. His company, CareCentrix, wants to help people heal and age at home by reimagining home healthcare and focusing on the patient—the whole patient—first. In this inspiring interview, Driscoll speaks with host Rishi Desai about the problem, pervasive in the medical field, of turning the personal into the technical. Listen in as they discuss the new approaches CareCentrix is bringing to patient care, including focusing on behavioral challenges and the often-overlooked connection between healthcare problems and larger social issues. Learn about the debate over whether the phrase “social determinants of health” might better be called poverty, and discover why, in Driscoll's view, care plans need to be aligned with patient goals, cares, and dreams.

Scott Becker took an interesting path on the road to becoming an influential voice in the U.S. healthcare ecosystem. With an education in accounting and a law degree from Harvard in hand, Becker was attracted to the idea of building his legal practice around a “niche” and gaining deep expertise that others would find valuable. The ever-changing, fast-paced nature of healthcare caught his attention, and he’s never looked back. He eventually added media and communications to his skill set by founding Becker’s Hospital Review and Becker’s Healthcare – leading publications in the industry. In this episode of Raise the Line, Becker shares his keen insights with host Rishi Desai on the greatness and flaws in our system, meeting the demand for more clinicians, the political struggles over coverage and access, and the impact of COVID, among many other topics. Don’t miss this valuable discussion with a powerfully positioned observer.

Dr. Zsa-Zsa Booker received many nominations for the Osmosis Raise the Line Faculty Awards, and the overarching theme was how much passion and light she brought with her to Wayne State University every day. There, she serves as a Learning Skills Specialist for the Office of Learning and Teaching where she does as much as possible to give back to the industry that has given her so much. Recognizing the generosity of others is what gets us through these tough times, Dr. Booker tells host Lindsey Smith that she hopes to instill that sentiment in her students so countless future generations can benefit and flourish from her example.

Healthcare workers are three times more likely to experience violent episodes on the job than workers in all other industries combined. Still, argues Tony Jace, there is no reason why they should be going home at night bruised or abused. He and his team at the Crisis Prevention Institute train professionals worldwide in nonviolent techniques, strategies, and interventions that can help them manage “life's daily crisis moments.” In this episode of Raise the Line, Jace and host Dr. Rishi Desai discuss CPI's inspiring work and why it's so important to get this knowledge out, not only to healthcare workers and families, but to all citizens. Listen in to discover how empathy and controlling our own behavior can greatly improve outcomes. Plus, learn about deinstitutionalization, the impact of COVID on the field of mental healthcare, and the importance of being a continuous learner and working as a team.

As soon as the early 1990s, Brian Mueller and his team were confident that people could learn very well online -- especially working professionals. Three decades later, buoyed by the COVID pandemic, others are finally catching up. Mueller believes the way forward in education is to have multiple delivery models, flexible to students' goals and lifestyles. The small and elite is out; the large and flexible is in. In this episode, Mueller joins host Rishi Desai to discuss the future of higher education in America, the challenge of career readiness for students, the importance of soft skills, and his own career path, which included coaching basketball at the high school and college levels. Listen in to discover how Grand Canyon University is creating practical methodologies for people to re-career and helping make education affordable to all socioeconomic classes of Americans.

Dr. Mark Slivkoff is an Associate Professor of Physiology at the Idaho College of Medicine, where he teaches his students not only how to be valuable contributors to society, but also the importance of staying humble in their career and spreading positivity whenever and wherever they can. Many of his peers and students recognized his efforts at ICOM and flooded Osmosis with nominations for the new Raise the Line Faculty Award. Listen in as he tells host Lindsey Smith about the mission of the Biomedical Sciences Department at ICOM, and of osteopathic medicine.

Today's guest, Mike Mutka, would rather employ someone with no formal education who deeply cares about customers than a PhD who doesn't care that much. In this episode with host Dr. Rishi Desai, learn why being mission-driven, caring, and empathetic are the most important qualities Mutka looks for in a team member, and hear the lessons he's learned from his company's rapid growth in the technology and teaching sphere. Tune in to discover how Relias approaches helping people to accelerate learning, the benefits of keeping a long-term perspective, and the importance of rapid sharing of best practices in healthcare. Plus, benefit from Mutka's advice for any organization looking to improve company culture and support the wellness of caregivers.

There are over seven million disabled children in the U.S. public education system who are required to be served by speech therapy, occupational therapy, or other types of counseling through their schools, explains Kate Eberle Walker, but a lot of those needs have been going unmet. In this episode, discover how Walker's interest in the intersection of technology and education brought her to work for PresenceLearning, a company whose proprietary teletherapy platform bridges this gap by connecting kids to a network of 1500+ speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, and school psychologists around the country. Join Walker and host Dr. Rishi Desai as they discuss the growing acceptance of teletherapy and how it can benefit students and parents alike. Plus, learn about Walker's new book, The Good Boss, and hear her advice on how managers and companies can do a better job of supporting women in the workplace.

AT Still University (ATSU) Physician Assistant Program Professor Dr. Raymond Pavlick, is one of Osmosis’ Raise the Line Faculty Award winners for 2020! Dr. Pavlick hopes his students see his teaching efforts as his way of paying it forward. “The way that I work with them and the way that I treat them, that's what I want the students to do with the patients in their future career,” he tells host Lindsey Smith. While teaching for ATSU, Dr. Pavlick also trains paramedics at the nearby Mesa Community College.

“We've got great doctors, we just need to give them the right ecosystem to work in,” says Bhavdeep Singh, a deeply experienced leader in the healthcare and retail sectors in the U.S. and India. Singh joins Raise the Line today to share the innovations he’s hoping to bring to the healthcare experience with his company HealthQuarters, which is developing a delivery model that combines physicians and other types of providers in one location, with an emphasis on wellness. They’ve just opened a location in New York City in partnership with Mount Sinai, offering convenient access to a wide array of services from primary care to mental health counseling, physical therapy, nutrition education and acupuncture. “The idea is to make what otherwise is such a challenging, sometimes painful experience for people into something where people are comfortable, respected, and they walk out saying, ‘Well, that wasn't so bad. They took care of me and at least I know what I'm doing, and I feel better about it.’" In short, make healthcare as customer-centric as the best retail experiences. Part of the challenge, as Singh sees it, is raising people’s expectations for what their healthcare experience should be like, and creating a mindset of wellness and prevention, something which COVID is helping to spur. Check out this insightful discussion about the many ways we can raise the bar (while we’re raising the line) in healthcare delivery.

“Most of the time, things that make sense are probably going to find their way to the top, and value-based care just makes so much sense,” says Dr. Tobias Barker, chief medical officer of Everside Health (formerly Paladina Health). Barker has been exposed to many approaches to delivering care in a career that has taken him from under-resourced areas around the globe to VA hospitals to the retail giant CVS. What makes so much sense to him about value-based care, which pays providers an upfront fee every month for the patients they treat and rewards quality of care, is it allows them to do what will help patients be as healthy as possible without worrying if it fits a billing code. Everside uses this approach providing primary care to the employees of self-insured employers, and it has proven to reduce the total cost of care. It has also proven to be a resilient business model during the pandemic. Providers still in the traditional “fee for service” system were hit hard when patients stopped showing up because there were fewer services to bill for, while those in the value-based system could rely on the steady upfront payments. In this episode of Raise the Line, Barker is full of interesting examples and anecdotes as he recounts to host Shiv Gaglani his circuitous educational and career path, experiences at CVS Health and working early in his career with Dr. Anthony Fauci.

“Know the ins and outs of your job extremely well,” advises Derek Apanovitch, “but make sure you're curious, that you want to learn more about that entire ecosystem.” In this episode of Raise the Line, Apanovitch draws from his experience in law, entrepreneurship, and business to share career advice and reflect on his work as CEO of Global Safety Management, a cloud-based provider of software solutions. Listen in as he and host Dr. Rishi Desai discuss the invariable importance of personal engagement and the challenge of relationship building in the remote work environment. Plus, discover what Apanovitch believes is the most important thing to know coming out of school, his advice for increasing effectiveness in your healthcare role, and his tips for investors looking at early-stage tech companies.

“If we're going to solve these intractable problems that have been exposed by COVID,” asserts Dr. Ami Parekh, “we're really going to need people who can lead across disciplines.” Dr. Parekh always knew she wanted to solve hard problems and make systemic change, but pursued a nontraditional track, including law school and work for McKinsey & Company, to get to where she is today. In this episode, discover her unique career path and learn about the work of Grand Rounds Health, a national technology company that works to raise the standard of healthcare and currently delivers expert medical opinions to over 6 million Americans. Tune in to learn about the combination of expertise, navigation, and virtual care that Grand Rounds offers and how their patient-centric model has changed the trajectory of care across populations. Plus, hear Dr. Parekh's advice on the importance of keeping an open mind, a human perspective, and aligning your job with your values.

Dr. Sharon Goldfarb, Former Dean of Health Sciences at College of Marin in Kentfield, CA, very much considers herself a lifelong learner; one of the many qualities that earned her the first ever Osmosis Raise the Line Faculty Award! From humble beginnings, she has found purpose in helping spread the joy of being a contributing part of the medical industry. On top of her current role at College of Marin, she is also the President of the California Organization of Associate Degree Nursing which supports many nursing schools in the state. As she shares in this interview with Lindsey Smith, Dr. Goldfarb hopes people of all ages that are looking for great careers find their calling in the vast, booming field of medicine.

“Starting my career as a registered nurse really made me aware of the dedication and the heart that it takes to serve others in the healthcare environment,” says longtime nurse and healthcare leader Jennifer Sheets. She’s carried that awareness with her through a career that took her from the ICU to being a hospital CEO. After her father unexpectedly passed away as a result of a clinical error, she shifted her career focus to home care and hospice as a way to have the greatest impact possible on the quality of care delivered, and now enjoys having a global impact helping lead a company that serves hundreds of thousands of people in more than 500 locations from the U.S. to Europe to Australia. In this episode, Jennifer joins host Jannah Amiel, RN to discuss the surprisingly wide range of care being provided in the home, where good leadership comes from, and how her companies and employees overcame the unique challenges COVID posed for home healthcare delivery.

“I believe the need to foster civility and healthy work environments has never been greater,” says veteran nurse Dr. Cynthia Clark. Add incivility to the stress of the pandemic, and you get not only lower morale, but also reduced productivity and higher turnover rates. Dr. Clark, whose work has received international attention, maintains that this is something we can change. On today's episode of Raise the Line, she joins host Jannah Amiel, RN to discuss how nursing educators and practitioners can work together to create more positive and productive work environments. Tune in to learn how her team has been helping to heighten safety and lower stress in academic and practice settings. Plus, discover the technique of cognitive rehearsal and hear Dr. Clark's wisdom on the need to “give ourselves and each other the gift of grace” as we navigate uncertain waters.

Dr. Arif Nathoo has always been passionate about addressing the unmet needs of humanity and fundamentally disrupting the way medicine is being practiced through better technology. In this episode, he joins host Shiv Gaglani to unpack the steps his company Komodo Health is taking to better predict disease and ensure better patient outcomes. " I feel lack of data consciousness has not just permeated the profession of medicine, but it's in all aspects of policymaking in healthcare. We just have a huge opportunity to use data to get better at how we make decisions." Listen in as they discuss trends in telemedicine, how data can be used to reduce bias in care, and what Komodo has learned about how deferred care during COVID will impact the healthcare system going forward.

The way we organize our medical system is a disaster, says Dr. Rushika Fernandopulle. When he and his team started thinking about this problem 17 years ago, they asked, "What if we actually tore down the system and started over, and built it on relationships and not transactions?" Iora Health, founded in 2010, now operates 47 practices in 10 different markets across the country and is part of a sea change of technology-driven, value-based care that puts primary care at the center of the health system. In this episode, Fernandopulle joins host Shiv Gaglani to illuminate the Iora Health model of care and explain why it is so needed. Learn about Iora's care collaboration platform, Chirp, that features a medical record open to patient viewing and input, and their omnichannel delivery model that cares for patients with an average of 19 encounters per patient per year. Plus, hear Fernandopulle's thoughts on COVID, the “moral injury” that leads to burnout, and the problematic vaccine rollout.

The enormous disruptions in healthcare caused by the pandemic have given Eric Larsen plenty of occasions to recall some wisdom he once heard from a pastor: “In times of volatility and upheaval, learning has to be greater than or equal to the rate of change.” So that’s one reason why as president of the Advisory Board, Larsen spends about 25 hours per week studying changes in the healthcare system. Its incredible complexity is one reason the Advisory Board has long been valued by healthcare leaders as a disseminator of deeply-researched best practices. An alliance with Optum forged in 2017 is providing opportunities to be more involved in actually enabling change, something which Larsen says has been energizing. One of his roles is to regularly advise CEO’s of the 100 largest systems in the country who control a huge swath of the $1.3 trillion sector. “We try to be at the epicenter of all of this dynamic energy in healthcare to understand where the innovation is happening, where the disruptions are emerging and how do we understand them and harness them,” he says. Check out this penetrating discussion with host Rishi Desai to get a view into what structural shifts are underway, and what kind of support providers need to become more efficient and patient-centered.

“One of the first questions we ask in job interviews is, tell us about your core values." For Blake Thiess, aligning employee and company values is one of the keys to retaining high quality workers. As Director of Talent Acquisition at Prestige Care, Inc., which operates more than 80 senior care communities throughout the Western United States, Thiess and his team are constantly on the lookout for people to join the thousands of employees serving their residents. The other key alignment for Thiess is between people’s career goals and what Prestige can offer. In this episode of Raise the Line, Thiess details the company’s promote-from-within culture, their structured interview program, and how their organization integrates its core values of integrity, trust, commitment, and respect into day-to-day operations. Plus, he offers predictions for the labor market in healthcare, and explains how “personal branding” is key to a successful, fulfilling career.

As more students seek to join the healthcare field in response to COVID, the problem of student debt is rising once again to the fore. Enter Stride Funding, which offers a more flexible alternative to traditional student loans via income share agreements (ISAs). Stride CEO and Founder Tess Michaels joins host Shiv Gaglani on today's episode of Raise the Line to explain what ISAs are and the benefits they provide to students. Tune in to learn about Stride's multifaceted approach to career support and how they not only finance educations, but also partner with students to set them up for success. Plus, hear Michaels' motivating and practical advice on career planning and the “ride” of venturing in the healthcare space.

“It’s not going to be Big Tech solving some of these intractable healthcare problems,” says investor Deena Shakir. In her experiences at Google Ventures and elsewhere, she’s seen how much more impactful and efficient small teams of start-ups can be in moving innovation forward. Now at Lux Capital, she’s seeking out and supporting entrepreneurs tackling a wide range of issues from home diagnostics to women’s health to making clinical trials more accessible and equitable. It’s perhaps not a surprise that she’s drawn to people with diverse backgrounds and believes in the power of intersectionality in healthcare. Her own non-traditional path to VC included experiences as a journalist, diplomat, aid worker and technologist, including a post at the State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Check out this fascinating conversation with host Shiv Gaglani for a peek into the promising work being done at the intersection of business, investment, technology and healthcare to improve lives and livelihoods.

“There are all these medical schools and users out there that are hungry to reduce bias in medicine,” says Dr. Art Papier. “We have to get the word out there.” With thousands of users across the globe and the world’s largest, most equitable medical image collection, VisualDX is providing clinicians with important software tools to help improve diagnostic and treatment decisions. In this episode of Raise the Line, Dr. Papier joins host Shiv Gaglani to discuss racial and gender bias in medicine, the causes of diagnostic errors, and how his company is working to shift the educational paradigm and train students in the spectrum of disease in order to avoid future mistakes. Tune in to hear Dr. Papier's advice on the importance of staying clinically engaged, and discover how digital health may help prevent the next pandemic.

There is a missing layer of education in schools on topics like financial literacy, African-American history, college readiness, and compassion, which leads to growing inequality, says Tom Davidson. He and his team are working hard to see that gap filled. Davidson started out as a state legislator, but now runs EVERFI, a leading education technology company that drives social change through education. In this episode, he joins host Shiv Gaglani to discuss EVERFI’s progress and goals, including their recent announcement of a $100 million commitment to building and expanding their K-12 courses. Tune in to discover the secret to EVERFI's growth, the fundamental decision Davidson believes Americans need to make with regard to the Internet, the similarities between being an elected official and running a business, the impact of COVID on policy issues, and why Davidson believes the education system desperately needs innovation and private sector players.

During his third year in university, John Baker knew he wanted to create an impact on the world. Searching for the biggest problem he could solve, he discovered that nothing would make as big an impact as transforming the way the world learns. It was then that he created D2L. In this episode, he joins host Jannah Amiel, RN to discuss what the company has accomplished thus far and what lies ahead as COVID-19 has made online learning a necessity. “The goal isn't just to embrace technology, it's to leverage the technology to make the educational experience more human,” says Baker. You will learn what Baker believes will be the next transformation in online learning, the power of a mastery-based approach, and the importance of pursuing your passions.

Dr. Justin Barad has a sobering and perhaps surprising observation to share on today’s episode of Raise the Line: there is nearly a complete lack of assessment of technical skills for healthcare professionals, surgeons included. Noticing this gap, Dr. Barad walked away from a full-time career as an academic surgeon to start Osso VR, a surgical training platform that employs the latest in virtual reality technology. Join Barad and host Jannah Amiel, RN as he explains the three core problems in training and assessment for technical skills in healthcare and how these can be solved using virtual reality. Discover how a background in video game programming influenced Dr. Barad's career path, learn about some of the impressive results his company's technology is already achieving, and stay tuned to check out his advice for healthcare students.

How can frontline workers become the best versions of themselves? For Gary Johnson, the answer often lies in creating a more supportive and less hierarchical work environment. In his work for the consulting firm Monarch Pathways, he’s encountered organizations where empowered employees accomplish amazing things. “What could be better than a secured dementia unit where the psychotropic use is eliminated, antidepressant use is significantly decreased, and the residents are running their own store without any staff interaction? When you allow people to blossom, it's pretty neat what they become.” As he tells host Jannah Amiel, RN in this episode of Raise the Line, Johnson has devoted his life to using his skills and talents to help people less fortunate or less privileged to level the playing field. Listen in as he shares the data that proves how beneficial it is to have staff who feel like their opinions count. “Thirty percent of employees across the country are “engaged” in their work and their organization. 70% are not. You’ve got to have something radical to change that.”

“We're missing purpose,” says Dr. Christopher Chen. By squeezing its caregivers, doctors, and nurses for volume, Chen believes the major healthcare systems strip health workers of their dignity. He wants to help them get it back. After his father’s unsatisfactory experience with the healthcare system, Dr. Christopher Chen started ChenMed, which operates nearly 80 medical centers focused on serving the elderly, poor, and chronically ill, and is probably, he says, “the first truly scalable, value-based care platform in the country.” Under ChenMed's compensation model, if the patients do well, everybody does well. Tune in to this important interview to learn about the cost, outcome, and equity issues facing our healthcare system, why ChenMed puts all of their practicing clinicians through business training, and how they pursue — and achieve — lower costs, better outcomes, and social justice, all at the same time. Plus, hear Dr. Chen's inspiring words of encouragement to students to push the envelope and look for alternatives to working under a failing healthcare model.

“At the end of the day,” says Luke Bonney, “everybody should be asking, 'What does the patient want? Where should that data go in order for that patient to get the most value, to receive the best care?'” COVID has shifted our relationship to our healthcare data, argues Bonney, making the ability to share patient information with a core clinical team essential. In this episode, Bonney joins host Shiv Gaglani to discuss how Redox is changing the game in digital health by providing a cloud-based platform that makes it easy for digital health companies to integrate with electronic health records at hospitals and clinics. Tune in to hear Bonney's take on the benefits of the shift to electronic health records and why he sees folks in medical school and recently out of medical school as the most necessary change agents for healthcare. Plus, hear him address fears around security and patient privacy.

“When you have multiple vaccines, managing the second shot becomes more critical because a Pfizer dose has to be followed up with a Pfizer dose. You cannot substitute one for the other,” says Dr. Suman De, head of Government Healthcare Solutions for Infosys Public Services. Add other logistical, clinical and communications challenges to the mix, and it becomes clear the COVID vaccine rollout is an enormously complex undertaking in need of systems and processes that can handle all the complexity. That’s where Infosys and Simplus come in. As De and his colleague Dr. Amy Osmond Cook describe in this episode of Raise the Line, the companies have developed a platform in partnership with Salesforce designed to help government agencies, hospitals and others manage the various aspects of this vaccination effort from public engagement to supply chain to scheduling to data management. It’s modular, so users can pick and choose which capabilities fit their needs. Tune in as host Shiv Gaglani explores the strategy behind tackling the most important and unique public health effort of our time.

Imagine community health workers, nurses, and physicians meeting patients at Walmart, and making recommendations about tortillas, shoes, or exercise equipment. By meeting people where they are and taking that to scale, explains Dr. Ali Khan, Oak Street Health seeks to make broad societal impact. Dr. Khan has spent his career blending his interests in medicine, entrepreneurship, and public policy to improve access to high-quality healthcare. In this episode, he joins host Shiv Gaglani to discuss his passion for removing the “scar tissue” that has built up after years of distrust in the American medicine industry. Tune in to learn what Oak Street Health is doing to ensure that people who have all too often fallen through the cracks of American society don't fall through the cracks with them. Plus, discover how Oak Street was able to continue engaging with patients through the COVID crisis, and why Dr. Khan believes there's never been a better argument for value-based care delivery. (For more information visit https://www.oakstreethealth.com)

Accelerating knowledge. Reducing obstacles for students in reaching graduation, and helping faculty be more effective. These are the occupations of Ascend Learning, a leading learning technology company that helps people in healthcare and other professions attain their career goals through education, training, and certification. Ascend CEO Greg Sebasky has worked for over 30 years in the medical device, healthcare services, and education services markets at leading firms such as Hewlett Packard and Phillips. In this episode of Raise the Line, he joins host Shiv Gaglani to discuss Ascend's business model, the impact of COVID-19, and the lasting changes he predicts on the healthcare system as a result of the pandemic. “It’s all about treating patients well,” he says, “showing empathy, but at the same time having the right skills to deliver care in a cost-effective way.” Listen in to discover what Sebasky thinks will reduce friction when it comes to people accessing care, hear his take on empathy and the economics of healthcare, and more.

Finding herself overwhelmed and confused while navigating the health system during a long recovery from a bad car accident, Geri Baumblatt quickly recognized the lack of communication and understanding there was for patients simply trying to get better. She works to help deliver effective education to patients both before and after visits through her work with the free, social good Docola platform (www.doco.la). And as care increasingly falls to family members, the majority of whom are also trying to hold down a job, Baumblatt is tackling that problem through an organization she co-founded called The Difference Collaborative (https://differencecollaborative.com) which supports people as they try to manage the steep challenges of working and providing care. In this episode, she also shares with host Shiv Gaglani why she believes that by normalizing the questions most patients have, you will gain a better understanding of what their goals of care might be and be able to provide them with the care they’re searching for. “I think what we learn from patients is often really simple, but really surprising at the same time.”

“This is a raging fire of infection across the country right now, and the vaccine is the equivalent of so much water, but really not enough right now to hold it at bay.” In this episode, Dr. Dan Durand joins host Shiv Gaglani to discuss his role as Chief Innovation Officer for LifeBridge, a $2.5 billion, continuum-based health system in Maryland, and the adjustments his company has had to make due to COVID. Listen in to discover how, through a partnership with UnderArmour, LifeBridge was able to have every member in their facility masked in a short amount of time, how they are approaching vaccine distribution, and what these vaccines mean (or don’t mean) for our immunity. “There's nothing more potentially wasteful in this time in history,” says Dr. Durand, “than someone getting one COVID vaccine shot, and not following up with the second shot.” Plus, learn about the apps monitoring vaccine recipients, and how Dr. Durand's background in radiology drew him to recognize the importance of technology within healthcare.

“This pandemic has presented a tipping point for emergency physicians,” says Dr. Mary Nan Mallory. “It's a stressful profession to begin with...but as time has gone on, I think we're gaining control.” Dr. Mallory, who is also President of the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM), often describes her interest in emergency medicine as accidental tourism. Working in the industry for over 30 years, her specialty is only the second youngest in the house of medicine. In this episode, Dr. Mallory joins host Jannah Amiel to discuss the importance of time-sensitive care and why this industry has become even more critical during the pandemic. Tune in to learn about the importance of ABEM certification, the increasing involvement of emergency physicians in public health, and how COVID has brought different professions together. Discover, too, Dr. Mallory's advice to “focus on the medicine” and seize this moment to lean into your education.

Think about the implications of this: research indicates people forget up to 85% of what doctors tell them during an appointment. Imagine how health might improve if patients remembered and understood all of those crucial conversations? Well, Dr. Shiv Rao and his colleagues at Abridge have created a solution that doesn’t require reliance on memory. Their app makes it easy for patients to record the conversation on the spot, provides a transcription, and layers education on top of it to enhance understanding and follow-through. The company is also looking at how this information can provide a source of feedback to clinicians to improve the quality of their patient interactions. Check out this fascinating episode of Raise the Line with host Shiv Gaglani to learn about Abridge’s privacy-first approach, the importance of patients controlling their own medical data and why start-up companies are like ICU patients.

One thing we probably all understand better because of COVID is how a crisis can create opportunities for improvement and change. The unprecedented speed with which vaccines were developed is but one example. Dr. Jay Feldstein, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, sees this playing out with his students as they train in clinical settings. “This crisis forces you to be nimble. It forces you to be creative. It forces you to be the person you really want to be in healthcare.” As you’ll learn in this episode of Raise the Line, Feldstein is future-focused and welcoming of creativity, so much so that he helped establish one of the only venture capital funds operated by a medical school in the U.S. His partner in that endeavor, Dean Miller, joins Feldstein and host Shiv Gaglani to provide insight on emerging trends in healthcare entrepreneurship and innovation particularly in primary care, digital health and the “consumerization” of healthcare.

Put down the stethoscope and look patients in the eye, urges Dr. Toyin Ajayi. To really improve health outcomes, you've got to seek a fuller understanding than just organ systems and diseases. Dr. Ajayi grew up in Kenya, where she learned early the large role that income plays in health and social outcomes. The social justice and service ideals rooted in her childhood accompanied her through and post-medical school, when, working as a physician and hospitalist, she felt a calling to try to fix what she experienced as a broken system. Three years ago, she co-founded Cityblock Health, a New-York-based health and social services company that serves low-income Medicaid populations. In this fascinating interview, Dr. Ajayi shares Cityblock's innovative trust-based, value-based care model, which features full integration of behavioral health, an actively anti-racist company culture, technology tools that seek out the full 360-degree view of a patient and their risk factors, and omnichannel access that meets people where they are, be that in their homes, a cafe, or elsewhere in their community.

Early in his career as an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. John Fulkerson was attracted to focusing on a small part of the knee called the patellofemoral joint because he felt it was overlooked and little understood. Decades later, there is still much to be learned and he’s leading a new program at Yale to advance the understanding of anterior knee pain and how to treat it. It’s actually a common problem in the general population and is responsible for more than 30% of complaints at sports medicine clinics. Despite this, many people never get relief. Check out today’s episode to learn more about this issue, the role of technology in orthopedic surgery, and the importance of perseverance, integrity and honesty in medicine.

How can we maintain the spirit of innovation virtually? Today Dr. Daniel Kraft, a driving force in healthcare innovation, joins host Shiv Gaglani to share his thoughts on this, as well as how he is helping seek solutions to address COVID-19 and improve our ability to predict, prevent, and respond to future pandemics. Listen in to learn how to spark new ideas and collaborations with people outside of your normal orbit, the importance of staying curious and trying things out whenever you can, and more. As Kraft puts it, “COVID is a bit of a catalyst. Just as Sputnik sparked the space age, COVID in a sense can spark a true health age in that hopefully some of the collaborations and innovations that come out of this horrible pandemic will lead to much better health and health equity and technology and solutions across the healthcare continuum.”

There's a reason why nursing is typically the most trusted profession in the world, says Dr. John Smith-Coppes, Vice President and Executive Director of Nursing at Rasmussen University It has to do with a genuine desire to serve others. Smith-Coppes and his colleague Dr. Joan Rich, Vice President of Nursing, are doing everything they can to sustain that trust. The goal of their nursing program at Rasmussen University is to turn out the very best, most competent nurses, no matter what the circumstances. In this episode of Raise the Line, Rich and Smith-Coppes share how they embrace innovation and find solutions in face of the challenges posed by COVID-19. Tune in to learn more about the broad range of programs that Rasmussen offers, with paths of all kinds for people with different needs and seeking different degrees and certifications, from LPN through DNP. Jannah Amiel, RN, facilitates as Rich provides a public health perspective and Smith-Coppes an operations perspective on the state of the healthcare system today, a unique time when there is at once a nursing shortage as well as renewed interest in the field.

Carlos Reines and Gil Addo share a passion for leveraging technology to drive change in healthcare. Their web-based e-consult service, RubiconMD, seeks to improve access to the right medical expertise to positively influence patient outcomes. In this episode, Carlos and Gil join host Shiv Gaglani to discuss how RubiconMD helps primary care practitioners attain better results as well as their initiatives to ensure equal access of their platform to communities of color. Listen in to hear their thoughts on where we are in the evolution of primary care and their advice for those considering a career in healthcare today.

“If you're in a situation where you can help others, that's going to be the biggest thing towards having a long and stable career,” says Dr. John Dayton, who follows that advice himself as an emergency physician, investor, and entrepreneur. His non-clinical focus is on improving healthcare through innovative medical devices and digital health, and his company Medforums.com does just that by helping physicians nationwide find the best educational resources. On this episode of Raise the Line he joins host Shiv Gaglani to discuss what led him to a career in emergency medicine, his experience working as a physician on the Navajo reservation in Arizona, and his goal to be a “translational physician” helping other doctors take their ideas to market. Listen in to also learn about the importance of being open-minded while studying medicine in order to find your professional passion so you can help other people while doing what you love.

“With health coaching, what's often most rewarding is how you will grow and be transformed to be a person who is stronger and more confident.” That observation comes from today’s guest, Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum (also known as Dr. Sandy), a PhD clinical psychologist with more than 30 years in practice and a global leader in functional medicine. Her company, the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy, helps prepare learners to collaborate with providers and patients to resolve underlying causes of disease and promote wellness. Listen in as Dr. Sandy joins host Shiv Gaglani to discuss what led her to pursue a career in medicine and psychology, as well as why it’s so important to focus on what’s right with you instead of what’s wrong. You’ll learn what functional medicine is, the growing demand for health coaches, and why being scared can be a good thing.

“Instead of trying to teach your body to recognize cancer, which is very difficult to do, we forced the cancer to look like something you've already been vaccinated against.” This is the “elegant” concept and technology upon which Christopher Bradley and his co-founder have built Loki Therapeutics. Easier said than done, of course, but Bradley is encouraged by results in animal testing and is putting the pieces in place for a phase one clinical trial. It’s not his first attempt to tackle a difficult problem in healthcare. He previously co-founded Mana Health which was focused on the interoperability of medical record systems, but he realized his true passion is to help people with treatments and cures. Join Bradley and host Shiv Gaglani as they explore the value of vaccinations, cost of healthcare, benefits of sharing data with patients, and using psychology to get people to do what is in their best interests.

“People used to say, I don't understand science or I don't like science but now people are saying, I don't trust science.” As a physician and healthcare communicator with a global audience, that reality is both frustrating and concerning to Dr. John Whyte. He’s chief medical officer at WebMD, the leading healthcare website in the United States with nearly 130 million users viewing billions of pages each month. Overcoming this skepticism during a pandemic has become a necessary part of the mission for Whyte and his colleagues. “How do we help them understand what are trusted sources? We're trying to do that, and we're also trying to meet people where they are.” Whyte is well-positioned for this once-in-a-lifetime communications challenge. Before coming to WebMD, he was Chief Medical Expert and Vice President for Health and Education at the Discovery Channel and spent many years in government service at the FDA, as well as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He joins host Shiv Gaglani on this episode of Raise the Line to discuss his career journey, the power of media and the importance of connecting content to care in a way that is credible and respected.

Tammy Sun has always been interested in impacting change at scale and as Co-Founder and CEO of Carrot Fertility, she’s found an innovative way to do that through employee benefits. Carrot offers a customizable fertility benefit solution for employers, including egg freezing, in-vitro fertilization, and other fertility care with a goal of making that coverage as standard as medical, dental and vision in employee benefit plans. Today she joins host Shiv Gaglani to discuss her unconventional path through politics and entrepreneurship, the surprising percentage of men who use the benefit and why, and her company’s efforts to make sure traditionally disadvantaged populations have access to providers they trust.

To create behavior change, like getting people to wear masks, it's not enough just to give people information, you also need to communicate that information effectively. Facebook's Kang-Xing Jin -- who espouses an interdisciplinary approach across public health, communication, behavioral science, and technology -- believes that Facebook is uniquely positioned to have positive social impact, including in the sphere of public health. In this episode of Raise the Line, he speaks with Shiv Gaglani about his work and career, including how Facebook Health has helped spur blood and organ donations, and how his team has shifted priorities in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Tune in to learn about the data tools such as large-scale surveys that Facebook has been providing to health experts, policymakers, and researchers to help them understand symptom trends and make better decisions. Jin also shares his belief that the crisis has brought about more cross-sector collaboration and sharing of perspectives, something he hopes will continue after the COVID threat has subsided.

Ever since his youth, making the biggest difference he can in the lives of others has been what motivates Dr. Henri Ford. It’s why he chose to go into medicine, why he chose surgery, and why he’s devoted much time and effort to providing care and training surgeons in Haiti, his native country. “People were dying there from problems we treat routinely in the United States and for which the survival is almost 100%. So, it’s been particularly exciting for me to see that our Haitian surgeons now are able to address many of those surgical emergencies.” He’s also making an impact at home as dean of the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine where he helped ensure that students and residents stayed actively engaged in providing care during the pandemic without adversely impacting their own health. Check out this thoughtful conversation with host Shiv Gaglani on following your passion, pursuing excellence and the quest for significance in medicine and in life.

The explosion in the use of telemedicine during COVID-19 has introduced many challenges for providers, some of whom had little experience with the method before the crisis hit. Among them is developing a good “webside” manner, the virtual equivalent of bedside manner. Our guest, Dr. Mia Finkelston, was a self-described “brick-and-mortar” family physician for many years before incorporating telemedicine into her practice. She found it was a good way to have “touchpoints” with elderly patients who had concerns and questions that didn’t require an in-person visit. Before long, she joined Amwell as medical director and has become more convinced over time of the benefits of this approach as she provides care to patients throughout the country. Check out this episode of Raise the Line as Dr. Finkelston joins host Shiv Gaglani to provide advice and tips on how to have successful patient encounters via Zoom or other platforms. She also provides a big picture view of the trends in telemedicine that she thinks will outlast COVID, shares what her patients say about the telemedicine experience, and offers reassurance for those wary of trying this technology.

“In our system, if you are not at the table, you are on the menu, politically. So, in order to make our healthcare system work better for vulnerable people, we have to organize them politically.” That’s the clear-eyed view of Dr. Alister Martin an emergency physician and faculty member in the Harvard Medical School Center for Social Justice and Health Equity. He’s also the founder of VotER, a nonpartisan effort to use healthcare settings as a place where people can register to vote. While COVID created obstacles to using the self-serve registration system he’d put in place, it also generated deep frustration among providers about the lack of a coherent public strategy to fight the pandemic, which he harnessed to redirect the program using a safer approach. Beyond increasing voter turnout, he’s also aiming to help providers learn some of the fundamental skills of community organizing. His passion for health policies that empower patients also informs another project he created called Get Waivered, which aims to expand access to treatment for those struggling with opioid use disorder. This inspiring conversation with host Jannah Amiel is packed with passion, pragmatism, and hope for creating a better healthcare system for vulnerable communities.

“I always think about careers as some mixture of careful career planning and then leaving tremendous amounts of space for serendipity,” says Dr. Peter Buckley, whose career as a researcher, a physician, academic leader, and health system leader includes membership on the Board of Directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges. In this episode of Raise the Line, Dr. Buckley shares with Shiv Gaglani how he became drawn to psychiatry, academic leadership, and the issue of schizophrenia, specifically, and discusses the increased importance of mental healthcare now as a result of COVID. What are the changes that VCU School of Medicine has had to make due to the pandemic, and which of those are here to stay? What is behind the increase in medical school enrollments and med school philanthropic giving? Tune in to discover answers to these questions, Dr. Buckley's advice to students, and his optimistic take on the ongoing transformation of the healthcare industry in America.

How can a barbershop be an access point to care? It's a question that Taylor Justice and his company, Unite Us, are figuring out on the ground in certain communities in North Carolina, and a model they are looking to expand, collaborating with various kinds of community organizations to build infrastructure by meeting patients where they're comfortable. Recognizing that so much of a person's overall wellbeing happens in their home community, Justice founded the technology platform Unite Us in 2013 to extend the traditional clinical care coordination network by connecting health, human, and social service organizations to securely exchange data around a shared patient. Initially focused on the veteran and military population, Unite Us now serves all citizens and is active in over 42 states across the country. In Justice's estimation, COVID has highlighted the lack of appropriately collaborative public health infrastructure. “I think that's one of the big learnings that we've seen from the pandemic,” he says. “No one can do this alone.” Tune in to this episode of Raise the Line to learn why Justice believes some of our nation's massive healthcare spending should be reallocated to human and social services, and why he predicts that these services will become bigger parts of the healthcare ecosystem going forward.

Dr. Mark Schuster has asked students in the entering class at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine to write a letter to themselves about their passions and goals that will be returned to them at graduation. After an extremely competitive, yet holistic admissions process to a program that has waived students' tuition with no strings attached, the admitted applicants “are the kinds of students who want to save the world,” Dr. Schuster boasts. He doesn't want the med school journey to burn out any of their spark. In addition to his role as Founding Dean and CEO of the Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, Dr. Schuster is recognized as an international leader in research on child, adolescent and family health and is also a member of the prestigious National Academy of Medicine. In this episode of Raise the Line, he speaks with Shiv Gaglani about his journey into pediatrics and leadership roles, how Kaiser Permanente has met the challenge of opening a medical school during a pandemic, and how COVID-19 has been an opportunity to teach about health disparities. Tune in for an inside glimpse of the school's unique admissions process and hear Dr. Schuster's advice on serving patients by viewing them as whole people in the full context of their lives.

“Why can't we get better health when we're spending two to three times as much money as any other high-income nation?” asks Dr. Vivian Lee, as so many other Americans have asked for so many years. But not many have developed answers as compelling as hers, making Lee one of the leading voices on healthcare reform in the country. Lee’s perspective, shaped by a rich set of experiences as a clinician, leader and academic, is strengthening a movement to make healthcare more centred on helping patients be as healthy as possible instead of being geared to just treat them when they are sick. Her influential book “The Long Fix” lays out an action plan to create a less costly system and a healthier population. As she explains to host Shiv Gaglani, positive change will depend in part on clinicians knowing as much as possible about the business of healthcare, and also about what other providers do. “You need to understand what every person's role is on the care team. Until you can make the most of every person, how can you drive value?” After running a highly-respected academic health system, Lee is now making an impact in the private sector at Verily Life Sciences, part of the Google family of companies. Listen in to learn how Verily is using digital health and data analytics to support schools, employers and patients during COVID, and the impact it is hoping to make long-term.

What a difference a day makes. As we spoke to Dr. Chelsea Clinton the morning after President Biden’s first day in office, the public health activist, academic and author was reveling in the quick action he was taking to change course in the U.S. approach to fighting the coronavirus pandemic. “There’s so much good news this morning. Long overdue news, but still very, very good news.” Clinton, who is vice chair of the Clinton Foundation and teaches at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, also sees the need for a new direction in communications around the COVID-19 vaccine and vaccines in general. As you’ll learn in this insightful conversation with host Shiv Gaglani, Clinton's portfolio is diverse. She’s also involved in efforts to improve economic opportunity and inspire civic engagement across the U.S. and around the world, and has a special interest in promoting early brain and language development through the Too Small to Fail initiative. Clinton is also a best-selling author of children’s books including "She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World." Be sure to listen to this special episode to learn more about her work, her advice for healthcare learners and workers, and the ‘profoundly moving’ experience of watching the Biden-Harris inaugural with her three young children.

Early positive experiences working with seniors in assisted living and a very troubling health care experience with a family member combined to drive Dr. Jennifer Billingsley into medicine, and nursing in particular.  After working as a nurse practitioner and becoming an administrator and academic, she’s assumed the role of Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at United States University in San Diego. In this episode of Raise the Line, Dr. Billingsley joins host Jannah Amiel to discuss why she has dedicated her career to providing quality education to the next generation of nurses, and the important place nurses occupy as role models.  She also describes with pride how her program responded to COVID, offering virtual clinical options and partnering with organizations such as the American Advanced Practice Network to develop more clinical sites and telemedicine options for students.

Peter Frishauf’s message for today’s medical trainees and early career professionals is rooted in the zeitgeist of challenging the status quo he absorbed coming of age in the 1960’s and 1970’s. “If they think there is a better way of doing something, they should investigate that. You owe it to the universe of people out there to test out your ideas and push on them a bit and see what proves out.” For instance, it was “rebellious people” in the 1960’s, he argues, who developed the professions of Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistant and elevated emergency medicine to specialty status. Pushing a bit on his own ideas led to a storied career in which he made a lasting mark as a pioneer in information and technology.  In the early 1980’s, he founded a medical journal company which developed a collaborative “electronic news room” model far ahead of its time. He made perhaps his most important contribution by launching Medscape in the internet’s infancy which has gone on to become the most visited professional medical website in the world, informing millions of clinicians and consumers alike. He's still at it, serving as an influential advisor, investor, board member and leader in New York's vibrant startup culture in healthcare media and life sciences.  But to host Shiv Gaglani, and the entire Osmosis team, he’s the “Godfather” of Osmosis. This is a special opportunity to hear from a visionary whose grounding and enduring mission has been improving health and healthcare for all.

A strong, sustained sense of purpose is the bedrock of a successful company, with everything else flowing from that. So says Omar Ishrak, one of the most influential figures in medical technology and healthcare in the U.S. and globally. He earned that role in part by being Chairman and CEO of Medtronic, the world's leading medical technology company, from 2011 to 2020, but he was also president and CEO of GE Healthcare Systems earlier in his career. When it comes to having a durable purpose, Medtronic is hard to beat. Founded in the late 1940’s, the company has kept the same mission for more than 60 years – to apply biomedical engineering to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life. Ishrak considers a major part of his legacy at Medtronic to be successfully stewarding that mission and making it possible for his successors to carry it forward for decades to come. Of course, there were other accomplishments in his tenure including the acquisition of Covidien, a $10 billion global manufacturer of surgical products and supplies, marking the largest medical technology acquisition in the history of the industry. In this thoughtful discussion with host Shiv Gaglani, Ishrak talks about drawing encouragement from how quickly different parts of the healthcare industry came together in response to COVID, and what he hopes the lasting improvements will be from this crisis. He also makes the case for shifting the focus of healthcare at both the industry and individual worker level to successful patient outcomes. “No matter what you do in healthcare, having a line of sight to improving outcomes is important. Tie your work to how people's lives get better.”

One positive side effect of the COVID crisis you may not have heard about is a significant increase in applications to medical school. As many of those would-be physicians are learning right now, it’s not an easy process as today’s Raise the Line guest can tell you. Laura Turner is the long-time executive director of the Student Doctor Network, one of the most popular resources for those navigating this challenging journey. “It'll be interesting to see how many of those folks were serious applicants prior to COVID and that this is just a continuation of their plan, and how many folks really saw the heroic work that was being done by healthcare providers and were like, ‘I want to be a part of that’,” says Turner. In this episode, Laura joins host Shiv Gaglani to describe the many resources SDN offers to help guide people through the process of getting into not only medical school, but also programs for optometry, physical therapy, dentistry and other specialties. She also discusses her work as executive director of the Health Professional Student Association to drive more students from diverse backgrounds into healthcare professions to increase medical availability in underserved communities, and offers advice for success in a post-COVID health career.

“In less than a month we went from zero COVID patients to 285, and we’re only a 300-bed hospital,” says Dr. Brian Radbill, recalling the early weeks in March and April when coronavirus stormed New York City. As chief medical officer, Radbill oversaw the Manhattan hospital’s transformation into a COVID care facility, which required a lot of on-the-fly innovation. “It was a real team effort. I have to say, every single person stepped up in the hospital and we met every challenge.” For example, they had to get creative to maintain line of sight to critically-ill patients in spaces that were not built for it -- which initially included the use of baby monitors and iPads – and also had to figure out ways to create more negative pressure space, all while reacting to daily changes in their understanding of the disease. Listen as Radbill brings host Shiv Gaglani inside the early days of the COVID struggle and reflects on what lasting impact he thinks this experience will have on his hospital and the healthcare system at large. He also discusses ongoing work to improve the quality of care and patient flow and shares his perspective on the role of hospitals in the changing healthcare landscape.

“Often, the real answer is at the bedside,” says Dr. Thomas Rebbecchi, who has worked as an ER doctor at Cooper Hospital in Camden, New Jersey for 23 years. “If you ask the right questions to people, they're going to tell you directly or indirectly what's going on with them.” Dr. Rebbecchi's educational mission is to teach students to focus less exclusively on technology and take the extra time for compassionate interaction with patients. In addition to his role on the National Board of Medical Examiners, Dr. Rebbecchi is also a scientific advisory board member at the Glut1 Deficiency Foundation. In this episode of Raise the Line, he speaks with Dr. Rishi Desai about his family's journey to discover their son’s diagnosis through genetic testing, improved COVID outcomes, and the need for better mental healthcare, especially as a result of the mounting psychological effects of pandemic life.

COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on dentistry, says Eve Cuny, who has worked in the area of dental infection prevention and patient safety for the past 30 years. Many dental procedures create fine mists and sprays, including respiratory secretions, that can travel long distances, so dental professionals have had to go to great lengths to adapt. Throughout the pandemic, Cuny has been a guiding voice in dentistry, counseling a number of professional organizations, including the American Dental Association. In this episode of Raise the Line, she speaks with Jannah Amiel about the airborne precautions dentists have had to adopt, and the permanent changes to dentistry that she envisions with regard to ventilation, PPE, and sick worker protocol. Tune in to hear Cuny's take on the pandemic-driven renewal of interest in the crossover between medicine and dentistry, as dentists are increasingly performing oral diagnostics and even administering vaccines. Plus, learn what drew Cuny to dentistry and hear her advice to those new to the field.

If you’re one of the millions of Americans who just received a smart speaker as a holiday gift, you’re joining an enormous group. Earlier this year it was estimated that 90 million people in the U.S. own one, and that number is growing fast. They offer an easy way to get news, weather, listen to music and control functions in your home, but there are many other uses for these devices and health care is one area where they may play a major role, according to our Raise the Line guest Rachel Jiang who is Head of Alexa Health & Wellness at Amazon. COVID has only underscored this potential. “More than ever it's really important to help people remotely manage their health care needs, and we think Alexa is in a great position to do that,” she says. In fact, Jiang and her team have been working closely with health care providers to develop “skills” (the equivalent of an app on your smartphone) to facilitate safe care both in clinical settings and at home. As Jiang shares with host Jannah Amiel, RN, the video capability of the Echo Show adds power to the instructional value of these interactive devices. For instance, imagine videos showing post-op patients how to change a dressing or do physical therapy while at home. Check out this fascinating discussion to learn more about how this technology might help both patients and providers, how privacy concerns are being addressed and the role software developers will play in tapping what Jiang sees as the endless possibilities ahead.

Sara Miller’s advice for those in training to be healthcare professionals is fairly simple. “This is your opportunity to learn to be nimble and develop a spirit of innovation.” Miller believes taking this approach early leads to embracing lifelong learning, the benefits of which can be implemented in a provider’s job everyday. As Senior Director of the Quality Improvement Institute at Med-IQ, a leading healthcare improvement company, Miller's work centers around helping healthcare systems identify areas for improvement and to develop and evaluate programs addressing those needs. She has obviously had her hands full helping providers rapidly adjust to the challenges of COVID-19, and believes healthcare professionals and consumers should demand that things not return to business as usual after the pandemic. COVID has revealed too many inadequacies in the old “normal” with regard to emergency preparedness, structural racism, senior care services, and approaches to mental health and substance abuse, she says. In this episode of Raise the Line, Miller also tells host Shiv Gaglani about her work and career, including programs that helped organizations shift Hepatitis C care from specialized settings to primary care, and a popular question/answer series that Med-IQ ran in response to COVID.

Although the dental industry is not usually the first thing that comes to mind when you think of tech entrepreneurs, this is precisely where Alex Frommeyer has found himself. Frommeyer is the CEO and co-founder of Beam Dental, one of the country’s fastest-growing dental benefit providers offering employers a unique approach to coverage by incorporating dental hygiene behavior into policy pricing. This behavior is determined using artificial intelligence to interpret data gathered from the smart toothbrushes used by members. In this episode, Frommeyer describes to host Shiv Gaglani how Beam is trying to make dental hygiene more enjoyable, how their business has adjusted to the pandemic, and why you should aspire to be a disruptor in your field.

Battling stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma as a teenager exposed Dr. Omar Dawood to many flaws in the healthcare system and sparked a desire to find ways to improve them. Although his early experience in medicine was in the public health realm, he eventually saw how he could blend his clinical expertise and strategic mindset to make an impact in the business world, thereby expanding the positive difference he could make in people’s lives. He had opportunities to do just that in leadership positions at Ginger IO and AliveCor -- two of the leading companies in digital health – and has brought that experience plus decades of work as a clinician and researcher to his post as Chief Medical Officer and Head of Sales at Calm. It’s not exactly surprising that this hugely popular app has seen usage grow due to pandemic-related stress. In this episode, he joins host Shiv Gaglani to talk about Calm’s commitment to addressing clinician burnout, its growing work with employers to offer Calm to employees, the launch of Calm Coaching and the wisdom in building mental fitness and resiliency to handle whatever life throws at you.

Dr. Benjamin Young knows what it’s like to confront a pandemic early in one’s medical career but in his case, we’re talking about AIDS, not COVID-19. Trained as an enzymologist, Young was studying drug resistance in cancer cells, but he quickly pivoted to become an HIV specialist when AIDS surfaced in the U.S. “You would have to have a heart made of a lump of coal not to understand the human spectrum and burden of what it meant to live and die of AIDS,” says Young, who is now the Head of Global Medical Directors for ViiV Healthcare, a pharmaceutical company focused on advancements in research and development of new medicines for people living with HIV. After decades of work in science, medicine, policy development and human rights, Young sees all of these fields as being very closely connected. “The distance between discovery in the basic science lab, what happens in the clinic, what happens in therapeutics, what happens at the governmental level and what happens in a social, racial, or judicial justice environment is very short.” Join Young and host Jannah Amiel to learn about the current state of the global AIDS fight, and lessons from the long HIV journey that can apply to today’s struggle with COVID and pandemic battles yet to come.

Have you wondered what it was like for the doctors who treated the very first COVID-19 patients when so little was known about the disease? Well, you can find out directly from the source in this episode of Raise the Line. The initial cases were in Seattle where Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips works as the chief clinical officer at Providence Health, one of the nation’s largest health systems. In that role, she was deeply involved in quickly creating protocols to triage, test and treat the COVID patients who started to flow in. She was also involved in making masks for providers in the basement of the hospital as the crisis took hold. The COVID experience has deepened her commitment to make great healthcare available and affordable for everyone in the U.S., and in this insightful conversation with Shiv Gaglani, she shares many examples of the innovations Providence is employing to reach that goal.

“When you realize you're learning from someone who's never been in school, that is a powerful experience,” says Dr. Glenn Geelhoed who has been bringing medical students to remote and underserved areas of the world for more than 40 years. Geelhoed, a professor of surgery at George Washington University Medical Center and founder of Mission to Heal, says the trips have two main goals: providing treatment in the short-term, and building local capacity to provide treatment going forward. But they also achieve something else: all of the 2,300 students who have done Mission to Heal trips have gone back to the communities they visited to continue contributing to improved care. In this powerful episode, Geelhoed shares stories of his travels and what he’s learned with host Shiv Gaglani, and his admiration for how people in such remote areas manage to take care of bigger problems with far fewer resources than we have in the U.S.

When helping out at his family's small nonprofit in India during college, Shantanu Nundy quickly realized the magic doctors can work in a relatively short amount of time, especially when caring for people who are medically underserved. That formative experience led to a career in primary care medicine that’s been shaped by his aptitude for engineering and “building things.” In fact, in his first week of medical school he devised a new pharmacy sorting system to reduce medication errors. Among the most interesting stops in his career is the Human Diagnosis Project -- sometimes described as “the Wikipedia for medicine” -- which combines input from providers around the world with machine learning to build an online system that maps the best steps for patients to follow. Helping patients figure out what to do next is also part of his work as chief medical officer at Accolade, a company that works with employers and health plans to make it easier for people to understand and use their benefits, hopefully leading to improved health. Listen in as host Shiv Gaglani taps Nundy’s expertise blending innovation and medicine to take a look ahead at healthcare in a post-COVID world, including the risk that the rise in virtual care will create even greater fragmentation and complexity for patients.

If you’re curious about the impact “big box” retailers are going to have on healthcare delivery in the U.S., this episode of Raise the Line has some answers. Host Shiv Gaglani welcomes Marcus Osborne, a senior leader at Walmart Health, who is helping to build a new approach that could shake-up the whole industry. “If we can create a model that is actually compelling for consumers, and consumers are willing to pay for it, then we don't really care what the payers do about us,” says Osborne, who has plenty of other candid insights to share. For instance, he believes the challenge the U.S. is facing is a “vast underconsumption” of healthcare, not overconsumption as many healthcare policy experts contend. His point is that too many people simply don’t get the care they need due to the cost and complexity of the current system, and that delay inevitably drives costs up over time. He’s hoping to change that with in-store clinics that will offer a variety of medical and dental services under one roof at an affordable price. Check out this fascinating discussion as Osborne speculates that worsening shortages of healthcare workers will make it necessary to find new ways to leverage new technology and types of providers, and that much greater accountability for the quality of care delivered will be a reality sooner rather than later. This is a great opportunity to get a peek at the future of healthcare.

Two out of three doctors did not vote over the past decade, laments Dr. Atul Nakhasi, a Los-Angeles-based physician and policy advisor who the Wall Street Journal once dubbed “Campus Kingmaker” for his role as head of the Iowa College Democrats. This represents a lower voter turnout rate than that of the general population, and in Dr. Nakhasi's estimation, it's got to change. Dr. Nakhasi believes the role of the physician should expand outside the exam room into Congress and City Hall. In this episode, he shares personal stories of patients dealing with poverty, talks about why national leadership matters, and calls for “brilliant” people to enter the healthcare profession. Tune in to learn more about this winter’s potential “twindemic,” some potential challenges of a COVID vaccine, the need for better public communication to combat misinformation, and the ripple effect of the pandemic on underserved populations.

One of the most dramatic changes to the field of telemedicine since COVID began is the shift from it being a facility-based to a primarily home-based service, and that’s been good for patients, says Samir Malik. It’s unknown if the emergency repeal of longstanding federal rules that previously limited the use of telemedicine will stay in effect in a post-COVID world, but Malik is hoping so because “patient-centeredness” is key to the work of his company, Genoa Telepsychiatry, which serves patients in all 50 states. In this episode of Raise the Line, Malik speaks with Dr. Rishi Desai about the increase in anxiety, depression, and loneliness brought on by COVID, the disproportionate impact that mental health is having on underserved populations, and the destigmatization of mental health in countries like India, Brazil, and China. Tune in to this informative episode in which you’ll also learn about the passion for patient service at a community mental health agency on Long Island, and discover resources for further information on psychiatry and wellness.

While serving in the army decades ago, Dr. Larry Benz noticed the importance of bedside manner and other nonclinical factors in determining clinical success. Keeping that top of mind has served him well over his 30 years as a physical therapist. In fact, he argues that these so-called “soft skills” can be even more important in affecting outcomes than clinical skills. Benz is the author of the newly released book Called to Care, about putting the humanity back in healthcare. His curriculum by the same name has been adopted by many PT schools around the country and even some medical schools. In this interview with Shiv Gaglani, Benz talks about the need to be intentional about empathy and compassion -- to exercise the “caring muscle” as you would any other muscle. Tune in to learn about how Confluent Health measures compassion, the impact of COVID on the field of physical therapy, the difference between dehumanization and burnout, and why Benz considers patient loyalty to be the key data point in an organization's success.

As a pediatrician, Dr. Ryan Padrez was frustrated by the challenges of navigating education and health systems to get his patients the services they needed – whether it was speech therapy, mental health counseling or other important care. That’s why he’s gratified to be involved in building a model for early education, developed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, that integrates learning with health care and family support services. Padrez is medical director of The Primary School which is currently serving two lower income communities near San Francisco, but has ambitions to develop best practices that will be adopted nationally. The emphasis is on supporting all of a child’s needs from very early in their life and working closely with parents to build child and family well-being at the same time. COVID has increased the challenge because many of the school’s parents have lost jobs and health coverage, and levels of stress are on the rise. Padrez, who is also an assistant clinical professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University, says COVID has shined a light on just how much schools do to support the health needs of children and families, and the connection between the two systems needs to be strengthened going forward if kids are going to thrive. Padrez and host Dr. Rishi Desai also touch on trauma-informed care, the trust schools need to build with families, and what the evidence says about the safety of opening schools in the midst of COVID.

“The whole point of robotic medical devices is to reduce the role of the surgeon as a "mechanic' and enhance their role as a strategist, thinker and designer of the therapy which is best for each patient,” says David Fischel who first became aware of the medtech company Stereotaxis as an investor. Fast forward a few years, and he is now the CEO, and very passionate about the possibilities of robotic devices and digitized operating rooms. For instance, a surgeon with vast experience in a certain procedure could be in one location guiding multiple other surgeons in underserved areas with less experience, thereby extending access to the highest quality of care. “Once you digitize OR information and put the physician behind a computer, you allow for a whole range of additional capabilities that can enhance surgery and improve care,” he adds. In this fascinating look at the future of medicine, Fischel and host Shiv Gaglani explore his company’s technology -- which uses magnetic fields to permit finer control of the tips of surgical catheters -- and the uses it could have beyond its current application in treating cardiac arrythmias. Fishel also explains how a small company gets the word out while being dwarfed by giant global medtech companies, and why it makes sense for medical students and early career professionals to think like investors.

Dr. Chuck Cairns enjoyed practicing emergency medicine early in his career, but he soon realized he could have a bigger impact by focusing on how clinical care, education and medical research is organized, and how advancements in all three can be applied to benefit patients, especially those from underserved populations. That started him on a leadership path that wound its way around the country at several prestigious institutions culminating in his current role at Drexel University College of Medicine. It’s a good fit because Drexel has a longstanding commitment to serving populations in need, and Dr. Cairns finds working among students and researchers who share that mission to be very rewarding. He and his team are devoted to proactive approaches to healthcare that address social determinants of health. In fact, Drexel recently purchased a bankrupt hospital in North Philadelphia and partnered with the City to provide COVID-19 testing to that economically challenged community. In this conversation with Dr. Rishi Desai, Dr. Cairns reflects on his work partnering with local governments to bring the best of academic medicine into communities, how his school is addressing the challenge of staying connected across multiple locations, and shares his three key pieces of advice for medical students.

As a young professional in Chicago in the early 1990’s, Tim Barry happened upon a poster in a store one day that simply stated, “You just can’t fake love, man”— and it was at that moment he realized he would focus only on things he was passionate about moving forward. After trying his hand as a tech entrepreneur, a friend convinced him to take a job in healthcare insurance, and he got hooked on the opportunity to impact the lives of others. Fast forward to seven years ago when he helped found VillageMD, which now provides thousands of primary care physicians with technology, staffing, and other support to help them provide better patient care. Village MD has also developed primary care clinics of its own, and announced this summer Walgreens is investing over $1 billion to build hundreds of clinics next to its pharmacies over the coming years. In this revealing episode, Tim is joined by host Shiv Gaglani to discuss his vision for transforming primary care and what the Walgreens partnership signals about how healthcare delivery in the U.S. is changing. Tim also shares his advice for anyone considering a career in healthcare, including the importance of diving into the data you have at your fingertips.

Dr. Jerry Balentine thinks a lot about the qualities successful medical students and physicians need. “I think all medical schools wish there was a way of testing who's going to be a great physician, but there's just no such test, so we use markers such as the MCATs to make sure that they're successful academically.” But he knows those markers don’t capture aspects of a person’s competence, character or experience that would make them a good fit for the profession. Qualities such as empathy, passion and grit are high on his list. In fact, he believes empathy is so important to practicing medicine that it’s both a research interest and something he builds into the learning experience at New York Institute of Technology’s College of Osteopathic Medicine from “day one.” Join Balentine and host Shiv Gaglani as they explore the growth of DO programs, the challenges of COVID, and NYIT’s success in building provider capacity in rural Arkansas.

“Science transcends politics,” says Dr. George Daley. “My hope is that physicians and scientists will, in fact, be a force for global harmony, and that will be a silver lining to come out of the pandemic.” In this important conversation with Shiv Gaglani, Dr. Daley, who is an internationally recognized leader in stem cell science and cancer biology, describes his collaboration with recent Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna and others to call for restraint in experimentation with stem cell technology, and decries the current tension between the U.S. government and the scientific community. He also shares how, in response to COVID-19, he and his team were able to connect and mobilize disparate research communities -- including Chinese and European colleagues -- to develop the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness. Tune in to hear more about these critical topics and discover Dr. Daley's circuitous path to medicine and his perspective on COVID as a defining experience for this generation.

Kids without regular access to healthcare are obviously at higher risk for developing health issues, but it also makes them more likely to face long-term consequences such as dropping out of school, having trouble finding work and ending up in jail. What’s the connection? Poor health access can lead to chronic school absenteeism, which can start a downward spiral. That’s where Hazel Health fits in, a medtech start-up which uses telehealth to connect kids on demand to providers during the school day. The company currently serves 60 districts nationwide with 1.5 million students, focusing on the underinsured and those from disadvantaged communities, many of whom have no steady arrangements for primary care. Students can also access Hazel Health while at home, extending the reach of school health services. Like many companies in the telehealth space, Hazel Health has experienced turbocharged growth due to COVID. In this episode of Raise the Line, CEO Josh Golomb and Jeannie Chen, the Head of Clinical Operations and People, describe to host Shiv Gaglani what it’s been like to scale at that pace, the importance of building trust with schools and families, and the special combination of qualities and experience they seek in their providers.

As a child in rural southeastern Turkey, Eren Bali knew that people died needlessly for lack of access to healthcare. This explains his passion for making affordable healthcare available to everyone, the mission of his successful start-up Carbon Health. Bali and his team took a fresh look at every aspect of primary care delivery with an eye toward efficiency for both patients and providers, and built a new process from the ground up. Patients book appointments and onboard themselves using a mobile app, increasing their convenience and reducing the administrative workload. Mobile clinics in multiple locations handle routine needs using nurses or medical assistants, with physicians joining appointments via video as needed. AI predicts diagnostic tests needed before appointments so clinicians can discuss results when the patient comes in for their visit. Carbon leveraged these and other innovations during COVID, becoming a sought-after provider of testing and other services. This year’s 800% growth rate may not be an aberration as the company plans to grow to 1,500 locations in the next several years. Join Bali and host Shiv Gaglani as they dive into the emergence of “omni-channel care”, his mission to protect providers from unnecessary administrative work, and why 98% of the job offers Carbon makes to clinicians are accepted.

“I think it's an enormous gift to pursue medicine and particularly academic medicine,” says former philosophy major Dr. Steven Scheinman, a distinguished researcher in the genetics of inherited kidney disease and dean of the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. The school in its current form is only a few years old, having not had a clinical system partner prior to 2017 when it aligned with the highly-ranked Geisinger Health System. Scheinman is thrilled with the learning opportunities the partnership is providing due to the health system’s emphasis on prevention and primary care. Forward-thinking programs in home care, geriatrics, whole genome screening and pharmacy innovation provide a rich grounding in population health for learners, and a generous scholarship program aimed at boosting primary care underscores the school’s commitment to a health management approach. But, as Scheinman enthusiastically says to host Shiv Gaglani, “Wait, there’s more!” Their expansive conversation also includes an overview of COVID’s impact on learning -- including a new “e-ICU” program and how med students will make better use of their 4th year. Speaking of which, Scheinman also shares valuable insights from his perch as Board Chair of the National Residency Match Program.

While building her own successful career in the health insurance industry, Beth Bierbower developed a passion for being an advocate, mentor and sponsor for colleagues, especially women, in their pursuit of professional development. Not wanting her recent retirement to put an end to that role, she started her own podcast, B-Time, on which senior executives and founders of startups share insights from their leadership journeys as well as insights on business trends. In this enlightening conversation with Shiv Gaglani, Bierbower boils down key lessons from her own journey including the importance of knowing yourself -- both strengths and weaknesses -- in order to optimize your potential, being a “go-to” person and joining cross-functional teams, and never losing a personal growth mindset. Or as she puts it, “the minute you think you're the smartest person in the room, you've stopped learning, and that's a problem.”

If you’re wondering why the U.S. has had such a hard time during the pandemic keeping frontline health workers supplied with the protective equipment they need, or what is being done to improve the situation, Mike Alkire has some answers for you. He is president of Premier, Inc. which helps more than 4,000 hospitals and health systems improve efficiency and clinical outcomes through supply chain management and other strategies. He’s intimately familiar with the global medical supply chain and where the breakdowns and problems are that need to be addressed. Perhaps the most important change needed, he says, is manufacturing more of these critical items in the U.S. In this episode, Alkire and host Shiv Gaglani also discuss the use of AI in the health system, standardization of care to improve quality and safety, and the potential to share best practices across industries. Discover, too, why the key words for Alkire are humility, courage, and humanity.

We've featured a lot of newer companies on Raise The Line, but today we have the pleasure of talking to someone who represents an organization that was founded in 1534. Mandy Hill is the managing director of Academic Publishing at Cambridge University Press, where she is responsible for the quality, development and performance of the publishing programs worldwide. Mandy has worked for some of the most prestigious publishers in the world, including Oxford University Press and Elsevier, starting her career with a focus on medicine and science. In this unique episode with host Shiv Gaglani, we discuss the evolving role of medical authors as well as how the Press manages to select medical and science content with so much volume coming its way. Mandy also shares how COVID has led to changes in the publishing process, and spurred new thinking about how publishers and contributors should interact going forward.

The mouth is a window to the body, says Dr. Abhishek Nagaraj of TruBlu Dentistry. Seeing the dentist can be an important component of preventative care, as oral health has links to heart disease, kidney disease, liver disease, cancers, and even COVID. Nagaraj and his partner, Dr. Anushka Gaglani, are co-founders of TruBlu Dentistry, which has multiple locations in Illinois. In this episode of Raise the Line, they speak with Dr. Rishi Desai about the distinction between general and cosmetic dentistry, their experience operating their own practice during COVID, and the lessons they've learned in their careers. “Thinking with our heart is a huge thing for us,” says Gaglani. In addition to brains, she and Nagaraj emphasize, dentists and doctors need a patient-first philosophy and a willingness to put their lives on the frontline.

Healthcare needs to do a much better job of marketing truth, argues Dr. Keith Smith. Drawn to working with adult learners in the online world, Smith now oversees about 7,000 students across twenty programs, including medical assisting, health and wellness, public health, a military-only associate’s degree, and a master's in health informatics -- a field that Smith sees as key to helping citizens understand and respond to statistics they hear about during public health threats. In face of the COVID pandemic, Purdue was fortunate to already be an online institution, yet it still had to pivot in some ways to enable students to continue their studies. In August, they launched a telehealth micro-credential in recognition of that technology’s growing importance. Purdue allows credentials like that one to “stack-up” with other courses all the way up to earning master's degrees. In this episode with host Shiv Gaglani, learn why Smith calls COVID a “phenomenal wake-up call” to traditional higher education, why teaching online requires new -- not just transferred – instructional methods, and why folks entering the healthcare field should commit to lifelong learning.

“I think our educational model, our mission and our tradition are ideally suited for this moment of crisis,” says Dr. Mark Schweitzer. “The Wayne State graduate is always a doctor who rolls up his or her sleeves and gets things done regardless of the environment.” With a diverse student population that Schweitzer describes as coming from “the 99 percent”, the medical school he leads is intent on adding can-do leaders to the corps of can-do providers it sends out into the world. “I think ‘the 99 Percent’ should be the leaders in healthcare. So we've started an organized curriculum to train students on all the skills they need to be leaders in medicine that are separate from the science of medicine.” From his point of view, the best part about being a leader in academic medicine is the ability to create an environment where high level clinical care, teaching and research can touch the lives of so many. In this incisive discussion with host Shiv Gaglani, Schweitzer also provides his take on what the lasting impacts of COVID might be, his core educational objective, and what good can come when you combine mission and ambition.

Dr. Sachin Jain has always been drawn to taking "big swings" at tough problems, and the disconnect between care delivery and care administration is one of them. As a leader in various capacities in government and the healthcare system, he's tackled this and other complex issues at a high level, but he has also has maintained his clinical practice in order to stay grounded. In this engrossing interview, Dr. Jain speaks with host Shiv Gaglani about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which have included an exacerbation of the loneliness epidemic, as well as renewed confidence in both the American biotech sector and the ability of the healthcare system at large to change. Tune in to this episode to hear Dr. Jain's arguments for more investment in prevention and primary care, the benefits of giving doctors an upfront budget with spending caps rather than paying on a fee-for-service basis, and why he’s worried about “big box” retailers getting into healthcare.

Described as “Bill Gates' favorite teacher” in Fortune Magazine, Salman Khan started his now-famous Khan Academy by tutoring his cousins long-distance in 2004. Since then, Khan's non-profit educational organization has evolved from experimental YouTube videos recorded in a bedroom closet to a standalone platform that has educated tens of millions of people. In this episode of Raise the Line, Khan speaks with Shiv Gaglani about the near-viral growth of Khan Academy and the recent impact of COVID-19 in accelerating that development. Listen-in to learn about the benefits of competency-based pathways and transcripts, the digital divide as the “dark cloud” of COVID, the growth of opportunities at the intersection between health and education, and the importance of having the right mindset for the medical profession.

Starting a traditional degree program can be a “risky proposition,” says Burck Smith, founder and CEO of the student success and college readiness company StraighterLine. For many, it makes sense to have low-cost, low-risk entry points where they can test the waters and prove themselves before diving in. Smith has a background in public policy, where he first became concerned about the burden caused by the rising price of college, and before StraighterLine, in 2009, he co-founded SMARTHINKING, the largest online tutoring provider for schools and colleges. In this episode of Raise the Line, he speaks with host Shiv Gaglani about stackable credentials, the disintegrating barrier between skills and a degree, and how COVID may affect consumer pricing expectations for online delivery. Tune in to learn why Smith believes the balance of power has shifted away from schools to students, and hear his counsel to students to consider options other than straight enrollment.

“It seems counterintuitive, but I believe we can use technology to enhance the humanity in medicine and get back to the deep connection with patients we used to have,” says Dr. Eric Topol, one of the most cited researchers and influential thinkers in the field. In a series of bestselling books on the future of medicine, Topol laid out that digitization of health information would lead to democratization of data and patient empowerment, and that applying machine learning and other technologies in the right ways could actually create room to enhance the level of humanity in medicine – something he feels has been lost over the years. “The reason we went into medicine was to care for patients, and if you feel you can't provide care because of all of the demands modern medicine places on clinicians, that's when you get depressed, and you get disenchanted, and you lose your sense of your mission.” In this fascinating dialogue with host Shiv Gaglani, Topol talks about the potential of Artificial Intelligence and deep neural networks to “get us out of the mess we’re in and usher in the most exciting time in medicine.” They also touch on COVID and highlights of his career including starting a medical school, being editor in chief of Medscape, and his research work in genomics.

Dr. Kathy Winston's passion is to help the next generation be successful in the delivery of care. The key to nursing education, she says, is balancing the old with the new. As we embrace technological advances in the field, we need to also keep the basic tenets of safety and compassion at the forefront. Dr. Winston started her 30-plus year career at age 19 as a critical care nurse, and then, interested in the prevention of illness, moved to the public health arena before shifting to nursing education. In her view, the COVID-19 pandemic has not only caused educational institutions to become more agile, but has also revealed the need for greater focus on community and public health. In this conversation with Dr. Rishi Desai, she asks us to reach back over 200 years ago to Florence Nightingale for advice that is still applicable to the crises we face today.

“Nothing crosses borders in our polarized world like a willingness to care for critically ill children,” says Dr. Jeffrey Burns, a former medical liaison for the US State Department. In addition to leading critical care at Boston Children's Hospital and teaching at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Burns is also the founder and co-program director at OPENPediatrics, an innovative, open-access online community where healthcare professionals from around the world share resources and best practices. Join us for a treat as Dr. Burns talks with Osmosis Chief Medical Officer Dr. Rishi Desai, a former student of his, about the OPENPediatrics platform's international COVID-19 discussion group and how this collaboration brought about the discovery of the potentially fatal MIS-C inflammatory syndrome. In this episode, Dr. Burns not only shares critical information about MIS-C, but also reflects on his career and work with the CDC, addresses public mistrust of vaccines, and encourages others to join the healthcare field.

“If a patient feels like their doctor knows them as a person, they're eight to nine times more likely to follow through with their treatment instructions,” says Dr. Ken Johnson. Creating that kind of connection is more challenging in a virtual visit, he worries, not to mention the reduced opportunity to take the actual “hands-on” approach to care that osteopathic physicians practice. But schools of medicine like the one he runs at Ohio University are finding ways to teach telehealth skills, and Johnson has confidence the students will make it work. “Students have great ideas about how to evolve things, and I challenge every single class that comes in to give us feedback to improve the process for them,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. Embracing the sudden ascendence of telehealth is just one of the major adjustments today’s medical students are having to make in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic, and Johnson sees building their resilience to manage the stressful and unpredictable nature of a career in medicine as a key objective, which he says can be accomplished if you create an “environment of support.” Catch this conversation with host Shiv Gaglani as Johnson discusses how that can be done, strategies for serving rural communities and why so many schools of osteopathic medicine are located in relatively small towns.

The “morass of healthcare misinformation” surrounding COVID-19 created the need for a clear, definitive voice to help fill the knowledge gap, says Dr. John Danaher. His company, Elsevier, stepped up. In response to the pandemic, Elsevier launched three COVID resource sites providing free information and research tools that were used by healthcare providers all over the world to help treat and manage the disease. Elsevier, an information and analytics company with roots in publishing, produces a quarter of the world's healthcare information. With this scope of impact, and a career that spans all sides of the healthcare delivery continuum, Dr. Danaher has some valuable perspective to share. Listen as he speaks with Dr. Rishi Desai about his own background, providing curated clinical guidance at the point of need, meeting the demand for clinical training opportunities, and the need for frontline providers to take care of their mental health.

It's time to change the narrative on menopause, says Jannine Versi. Women in their 40s, 50s and 60s aren't fading from relevance, they're discovering greater freedom and creativity, and looking to the future. Versi's company, Elektra Health, is facilitating this shift, offering a platform for women navigating hormonal health that features education-focused, highly individualized care. In this episode of Raise the Line, Versi speaks with Dr. Rishi Desai about the multifaceted nature of menopause and how underemphasized it generally is in physician education and patient care. Tune in to learn more about Versi's career, Elektra's approach, and the connection of menopause to long-term health outcomes.

Mental illness was on the rise in the U.S. even before COVID-19 hit, and studies show a majority of Americans say their mental health has been negatively impacted due to worry and stress over the coronavirus. In the absence of definitive blood or genetic tests for mental health disorders, and given the acknowledged limitations of self-reporting and questionnaires, there is certainly room for new screening and diagnostic tools. Work is underway to test the effectiveness of brain scans, mobile device data and other modern technologies for diagnosis, but turning to one of the oldest forms of communication might also yield valid clinical results: analyzing speech. That's the focus of Mainul Mondal, CEO and Founder of start-up Ellipsis Health, which is aiming to create a new vital sign for behavioral health by using AI to analyze just a few minutes of speech. "We want to be able to measure depression and anxiety objectively in a scalable, engaging way so you can quantify it and manage it," Mondal tells host Shiv Gaglani in a thoughtful discussion that also touches on the "trust factor" with AI, patient privacy, improving access to care and other potential applications for this approach.

You can make purchases, travel plans and dinner reservations in a few clicks, but being able to pay your hospital bill with similar ease is a rarity. That's where Cedar comes in, a "fintech" start-up bringing personalization and transparency to the notoriously cumbersome world of healthcare, especially when it comes to billing and payment. Among the improvements Cedar enables are personalized reminders and payment plans, bill tracking, a customer service chat bot, and translation of indecipherable billing codes into understandable language. CEO Florian Otto, who holds an M.D., D.D.S. and PhD, started his business career as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Company and is a former executive at Zocdoc. Check out this episode of Raise the Line with host Shiv Gaglani to hear more about his fascinating career, his predictions for the post-COVID healthcare landscape, and how Cedar assisted healthcare systems communicate with patients during the COVID crisis.

Community colleges are often described as the gateway to higher education because they are often the most affordable option. But they’re also the gateway to careers because of the many internship, certificate and shadowing programs that are typically arranged with local organizations. The Maricopa Community Colleges District, which serves 200,000 students on ten campuses in Arizona, is a poster child for this kind of community-based access and career training. Two leaders in the Maricopa system join Raise the Line host Shiv Gaglani to share how the system rallied to retain students thrown off-course by COVID, describe new partnerships spurred by the Black Lives Matter movement, and talk about the innovations in their nearly 50 healthcare programs to keep learning on track despite a reduction in clinical training opportunities.

"If we do things right, this will be your last job." That's the message Dr. Bradley Younggren has for physicians applying to join his company 98point6, which offers a text-based, AI-powered mobile app for delivering primary care. For Younggren, getting it right involves making doctors full-time employees with equity in the company, and encouraging them to innovate. "Providers know what the problems in healthcare are," says Younggren. "The key is creating a physician workforce that's allowed to impact change." His own impact includes service as a decorated Army combat physician and being at the center of handling one of the first major outbreaks of COVID in the U.S. as medical director of emergency preparedness, trauma and urgent care at EvergreenHealth in Seattle. Check out this interview with Shiv Gaglani packed with insights on how telehealth can be leveraged to increase patient and provider satisfaction, and be utilized to achieve the goal of making primary care universally accessible.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Thomas Mohr has helped start three medical schools and over 25 different residency programs, so he's in a good position to help launch the first medical school in Idaho, a state with a very low number of physicians per capita. In this fascinating talk, Dr. Mohr shares his take on the difference between osteopathic and allopathic medicine – a distinction that has become less obvious over time, he notes, as more MDs embrace a holistic approach to treating patients. The division is perhaps most clear on the training level: whereas most MDs train in large academic medical centers, osteopathic medical schools like ICOM are smaller and feature a “distributed model” of medical education in which third and fourth year students train in community-based hospitals and smaller rural posts – placements that strongly influence where students will later practice as professionals. Tune in to hear how COVID is impacting the teaching of osteopathic principles and practices, the importance of high-touch techniques in treating COVID patients and the opportunities to make a difference through medicine.

Despite being integrally involved in making diagnoses and treatment plans, pathologists remain fairly invisible to most patients. According to pathologist Greg Osmond, some of his colleagues don't mind staying behind the scenes, but out of concern that the profession in undervalued and at risk for automation, he's sees an opening for greater relevance in having pathologists provide a coherent picture to the wider care team of the many diagnostic and prognostic test results any given patient may have. In addition to considering that new role, the profession is also facing a deluge of digital tools and techniques that are coming online. Osmond, despite co-founding a digital pathology company, shares with host Dr. Rishi Desai that doctors really need to understand the limits of AI and other emerging modalities that are sure to change the practice of pathology in the coming decade.

People with Atrial Fibrillation, or AFib, just have to learn to live with it, right? Wrong, says Dr. Aseem Desai. While AFib, which he calls "the electrical epidemic”, can be a challenging condition to treat, there is much that can be done to tame symptoms and improve quality of life even for those with "permanent" AFib. In this episode of Raise the Line, Dr. Desai talks with host Dr. Rishi Desai about the origins of his interest in cardiology, his new book, Restart Your Heart: The Playbook for Thriving with AFib, and the fascinating brain-heart relationship. He also shares how meditation has been a game changer for him personally, and offers valuable advice for those entering the healthcare field.

We've all heard the U.S. population is aging, but even so, this is a pretty eye-popping statistic: 50% of people born in the U.S. in 2007 will live to be 100. Perhaps more surprising is the lack of products, services and experiences designed for older adults to help them live their "best lives." Filling that gap is the new focus for two veteran entrepreneurs and business leaders, Alan Patricof and Abby Levy, who joined forces this year to launch the investment firm Primetime Partners. As they explain to host Shiv Gaglani, they are finding plenty of founders who have ideas to serve the needs of this population -- from telehealth to support for caregivers to addressing financial issues -- who also want to serve a purpose. As Abby Levy puts it, "if we don't have a positive social impact, then we won't have succeeded either on the investing side or on the mission." Check out this episode for a fascinating glimpse into the future of senior living and what caregivers -- professional and otherwise -- should keep in mind as they interact with "the ageless generation."

Dr. Lawrence Chin loves telehealth and sees it as a positive byproduct of the COVID-19 pandemic, for providers and patients alike. Still, he admits, “You can't learn to be a doctor virtually...it is a social job.” In steering 500 faculty members and over 700 students through the COVID crisis, Dr. Chin and his team have had to re-evaluate what is truly essential to delivering a high quality medical education. Join him as he speaks with host Shiv Gaglani about the shift to online learning, the lasting changes COVID is making to the medical curriculum, providers as role models of compassion, and why he believes now is one of the best times to enter the medical field.