Opinion: Listen: Empathy should be the first response to people with vaccine injury, fears
For scientists and medical professionals well versed in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, it…
Category: First Opinion Podcast
Opinion: Listen: Anthony Fauci on presidents, bird flu, and turning down a multimillion-dollar job
Anthony Fauci can’t pinpoint the most meaningful dinner he’s ever had — every time you…
Opinion: Listen: Why is eugenics still alive and well in scientific publishing?
While the bogus science of eugenics — the idea that the human race can be…
Opinion: Listen: Rep. Diana DeGette on why reproductive freedom must be protected
It has been two years since the Supreme Court made the historic decision to overturn…
Opinion: Listen: Why Long Covid can feel scarier than a gun to the head
Millions of people around the world are living with long Covid, a medically perplexing, and…
Opinion: Listen: Among pregnant people, active treatment for addiction shouldn’t trigger a call to child protective services
Methadone and buprenorphine, both FDA-approved drugs, are considered the gold standard for treating opioid use…
Opinion: Listen: What happens when kids become caregivers?
When it comes to childhood and young adulthood, most people in the U.S. think of…
Listen: A conversation with researcher Kevin Esvelt on the urgency of improving biosecurity measures
If you ask a chatbot how to cause a pandemic, it will suggest the 1918…
Opinion: Listen: Free medical tuition alone isn’t enough to close gaps in primary care
In 2018, New York University became the first U.S. medical school to go tuition free….
Opinion: Listen: Why rehabilitation engineers need to listen to patients and their families
In 2020, James Sulzer’s personal and professional lives suddenly intersected after his then 4-year-old daughter…
Opinion: Listen: How a new death penalty method undermines physician authority
Joel Zivot is a practicing clinician and associate professor of anesthesiology and surgery. He is…
Opinion: Racism infects neuroscience’s past and present. What about its future?
De-Shaine Murray is working at the cutting edge of neurotechnology. As a postdoctoral fellow at…
Opinion: Listen: When do tests hurt more than help?
Manil Suri and Daniel Morgan are an unusual team: Manil is a mathematics professor and…
Opinion: Listen: Rep. Raul Ruiz on going from the emergency room to Congress
Before he joined Congress, Rep. Raul Ruiz, a Democrat from California, worked in another chaotic…
Opinion: Listen: What we take for granted after 30 years of Prozac
When Prozac first entered the psychiatry scene in in the late ’80s, the profession was…
Opinion: Listen: Living in cancer limbo
Fifteen years ago, Mara Buchbinder and colleagues came up with the concept of the “patient…
Opinion: Listen: The true costs of mediocre insurance plans for medical students
For the many high-achieving perfectionists who enter medical school each year, the stakes of their…
Opinion: Listen: Putting an end to a racist ‘diagnosis’
The term “excited delirium” has been used for years by law enforcement and other first…
Opinion: Listen: Sniffing out the power, and limits, of the placebo effect
Have you ever taken phenylephrine for a stuffed-up nose and then felt better? If so,…
Opinion: Listen: Why don’t the rules of war protect health care workers and facilities in Gaza?
In just two weeks, the brutality of the Israel-Hamas conflict has shocked the world. But…
Opinion: Listen: Why long Covid might predate the pandemic
Since the early days of the pandemic, long Covid has haunted us: Even a mild…
Opinion: The Wegovy shortage is part of a much bigger problem with weight loss drugs
After physically debilitating cancer treatment, Laurie Brunner encountered another medical hurdle: She had developed lymphedema…
Opinion: Listen: How two abortion providers grapple with their post-Roe reality
Physicians Alison Block and Nikki Zite knew what they were getting into when they became…
Opinion: Why physicians should let patients call them by their first names
Stephanie W. Edmonds and Ginny L. Ryan are both doctors. Edmonds, a registered nurse, has…
Opinion: Listen: Dance helped this nurse heal from trauma. Now she’s bringing it to others
“You can’t pour from an empty cup” is what registered nurse Tara Rynders learned the…
Listen: One Duchenne patient’s bittersweet hope for new treatment
Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a devastating disease and, until very recently, was one without much…
Opinion: Listen: Is the medical system ready for Alzheimer’s drugs that work?
An effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has long been a holy grail in the pharmaceutical…
Opinion: Listen: Cancer drug shortages should be causing more outrage
Drug shortages are a growing problem in the U.S., and a shortage of livesaving cancer…
Opinion: Listen: How to save PrEP access — and even expand it
Under the Affordable Care Act, health insurers are required to cover all costs associated with…
Opinion: Listen: Physicians have a moral and professional obligation to get into ‘good trouble’
Just days after the end of Roe v. Wade, Caitlin Bernard, an OB-GYN in Indiana,…
Opinion: Listen: Why forced treatment can’t fix substance use disorder
When a loved one is living with serious substance use disorder and refuses to get…
Opinion: Listen: Ezekiel Emanuel explains why cancer patients shouldn’t pay out-of-pocket costs
The high cost of cancer treatment in the U.S. is literally killing people. “Over a…
Opinion: How ‘screen and refer’ systems fail to help patients
We’ve all had the experience of a doctor or other health care worker staring at…
Opinion: Do chatbots have more time to be empathetic than physicians?
As an oncologist, Jennifer Lycette gets to know her patients particularly well. She’s doubtful that…
Opinion: Listen: The coercion built into medical privacy consent forms
Alex Rosenblat is particularly careful when it comes to her digital privacy. She requests to…
Opinion: Listen: Two medical residents debate their hospital’s unionization drive
In training to become a physician, medical residency can be a grueling period. Residents and…
Opinion: Listen: Big changes for First Opinion
After two years as host of the “First Opinion Podcast” and many more as the…
Opinion: The real experts: people living with mental illness
When Ken Duckworth was a child, his family didn’t talk about mental health, especially not…
Opinion: Listen: The ‘First Opinion Podcast’ live from Boston: Jay Baruch returns
In a special event as part of STAT’s Open Doors initiative, the “First Opinion Podcast”…
Opinion: Listen: Covid is not a ‘racial equity success story’
The idea that the narrowing gap between Covid-19 deaths among white Americans and Americans of…
Opinion: Listen: Will opioid settlement money actually go to opioid prevention? Here’s hoping
As states begin to receive money from the multitude of lawsuits and settlements the opioid…
Opinion: Listen: Home health care is facing devastating ‘clawbacks’
Terry Wilcox’s grandmother lived in an isolated house at the top of a hill overlooking…
Listen: What makes food ‘healthy’ and why we don’t prioritize nutrition
After years of deliberation, the FDA recently announced a new set of rules it proposes…
Opinion: Listen: The Supreme Court set public health back 50 years. The next term could be even worse
It took the U.S. Supreme Court just seven days last June to set back public…
Opinion: Listen: Wheelchair users and Medicare disagree on what’s ‘primarily medical in nature’
Modern wheelchairs have amazing capabilities. At the push of a button, they can position a…
Opinion: Listen: How the Dobbs decision could affect how and where clinical trials are conducted
The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade opened the door to allow states…
Opinion: Listen: Polio is back in the U.S. Two physicians offer ways to fight its spread
Polio has exploded back into Americans’ consciousness after being out of the spotlight in the…
Opinion: Listen: A pediatric doctor on the life-or-death decisions some prospective parents must make
Christopher Hartnick never expected his work as a doctor to intersect with political discussions about…
Opinion: Listen: A doctor with ALS laments the slow pace for drug approval
During his long career as a pediatric oncologist and cancer researcher, William Woods thought highly…
Opinion: Listen: Covid-19 is leaving millions of orphaned children behind
The number of children who become orphans because of Covid-19 rises each week: Over 10.5…