The Life Medical

This week, we kick off an exciting new segment, Anatomy of a Case, where doctors share their most difficult and unusual clinical challenges. We begin with Dr. Katherine Teter, a vascular surgeon at NYU, describing her first night on-call as an attending. She was asked to manage an uncontrolled hemorrhage resulting from another doctor’s procedural complication. We hear the initial details in her own words, and she leaves us with a cliffhanger before heading to the operating room . My cohost Todd Berland - clinical professor and host of the Vascular Surgery show on SiriusXM Doctor Radio - and I do not know the outcome of the case, but we make some educated guesses before Katherine joins us and reveals the outcome. It’s a gripping yarn! If you’re a physician with a case you’d like to share, please email me at: peter@thelifemedicalpodcast.com

Frank Veith has had a remarkable seventy-year career in vascular surgery, pioneering techniques that transformed the field from open to endovascular procedures. His book, The Medical Jungle, details the genesis of these innovations, while candidly describing his battles with an establishment that sought to either block or take credit for his progress. His story will motivate anyone who has faced adversity to stand up - to be radical - even when it is unpopular.

Neurosurgeon Nicholas Theodore opens the episode by taking us through the decision calculus of spinal cord decompression surgery. We then inaugurate our Life Medical Book Club with two distinguished physician authors. The first is Malcolm Ogborn, whose book Sudden Leadership is subtitled A Survival Guide for Physicians. Then Michael Zema, the author of Modern Healthcare Delivery - Deliverance or Debacle, gives us a a view from the inside out of the history of the modern medical system in the United States.

Last week, the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency. For perspective, we talk with Dr. Mario Ramirez, an emergency room physician whose varied career has included a stint as Acting Director of the Office of Pandemics and Emerging Threats at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We also revisit the caselog of our friend, neurosurgeon Dr. Martin Lazar, who brings us into a nail-biter of a spinal tumor case. We share his operative video, with permission, on our website and all our social channels. The picture is truly worth a thousand words, on the latest episode of The Life Medical podcast.

Imagine you’re a medical student choosing between a career in medicine or surgery. Your teachers and mentors can be crucial to your choice. In this episode, we highlight two fine exemplars of both disciplines. Internist Danielle Ofri describes the journey that led her to become an attending at Bellevue Hospital, a widely-published author who writes movingly about the doctor-patient relationship, and a founder of the Bellevue Literary Review. Neurosurgeon Martin Lazar takes us back to the beginning of the modern neurosurgical era. He details his efforts to save the life of a young patient with impaired circulation to the brain, performing one of the first extracranial-intracranial bypass cases for Moyamoya disease in the United States. Please spend some time with two of the most accomplished and thoughtful physicians we have met, in this long-awaited episode. Listen to all The Life Medical episodes at https://www.thelifemedicalpodcast.com/the-life-medical

This week, we take an epic deep dive into the life and work of Dr. Adam Gazzaley, professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. Adam is helping usher in a future where video games will be prescribed like medicine, the Star Trek holodeck will be across the threshold, and psychedelic agents will help treat depression, addiction and other mental illnesses, at less cost and with less reliance on chronic medications. You can learn more about his research at: https://neuroscape.ucsf.edu/ We begin with memories of high school science fairs, and end with his globetrotting work as an academic polymath. Our conversations took place over the past year, and we have included prior segments into this inaugural Citizen Science program. For more information on Adam and that of all our correspondents, please visit our website at www.thelifemedicalpodcast.com

The Dr. Death case exposed faults in the medical system that have yet to be repaired. We conclude our special two-part episode of The Life Medical podcast by meeting a group of medicolegal advocates who were instrumental in helping to convict Christopher Duntsch, and continue to address the institutional loopholes that enabled him to inflict his neurosurgical malpractice. This expert panel also reveals unique, behind-the-scenes details of the Dr. Death saga not presented in the podcast or streaming series.

We begin a special two-part episode of The Life Medical by examining the case of Christopher Duntsch, a.k.a. Dr. Death, the subject of the wildly popular podcast and recent docudrama on the Peacock streaming service. In less than two years of neurosurgical practice in Dallas, Duntsch amassed an 87% complication rate, meaning that 9 out of 10 of the patients he operated on were either maimed, paralyzed or killed. We analyze this staggering statistic with the help of one of the country’s foremost neurosurgeons, and then hear a first-hand account from the spine surgeon who operated on one of Duntsch’s complications. That case served as the basis for his conviction and life sentence. Even if you think you know all there is about the Dr. Death story, you’ll find there’s much, much more to uncover.

On this episode of The Life Medical, we see the pandemic’s effect on medical care through the eyes of “emergentologist” Dr. Calvin Sun, as he works shifts in emergency rooms and urgent care centers across New York City. He discovers anti-vaxers getting vaccinated in secret, discusses the future of emergency medicine, and describes the travels that have taken him to over 190 countries in the last decade. We then continue our conversation with pioneering neuroscientist, Dr. Adam Gazzaley in our recurring segment Citizen Science. He charts how his team took the idea of a therapeutic video game from the lab to FDA approval to clinical use. And stay tuned for upcoming episodes of the podcast, where we explore the Dr. Death case from the neurosurgeons’ perspective.

In this double-length episode, we follow Dr. Yasmin Meah on her home visits in East Harlem NYC from the height of the pandemic to the present. Her experience is raw, unfiltered, and intensely personal. We also reconnect with Dr. Paul Lynch, an anesthesiologist from Arizona who served on the front line at Bellevue Hospital during the brutal first wave of the pandemic, treating COVID patients day and night, until he became infected himself. He discusses the disease’s aftermath from a patient’s perspective, and shares his thoughts on the path forward.

The Life Medical marks National Nurses' Month by speaking with two nurses who have served in intensive care units since the start of the pandemic. Their emotional stories highlight the personal cost of this demanding work. We are then taken step-by-step through a harrowing brain surgery case, through the eyes of the operating neurosurgeon. Finally, we kick off a recurring segment on scientists exploring the cutting edge of the latest medical research.

In March of 2020, The Life Medical Podcast began recording Season One with doctors, nurses, and hospitals across the East Coast of the United States. It just so happened that this was also the moment that COVID-19 hit America. The virus landed in New York City, and The Life Medical was there recording real audio during the first wave. Meet brain surgeon and show host Dr. Peter Zahos as he introduces eight working doctors and nurses, who we will follow throughout the first season. Join these frontline heroes as they pursue their medical calling, and face the arrival of one of the deadliest virus to hit America since the Spanish Flu.

In March of 2020, The Life Medical Podcast began recording with medical professionals in hospitals across the East Coast of the United States. It just so happened that this was also the moment COVID-19 hit America. When the virus landed in New York City, The Life Medical had audio devices in the hands of doctors and nurses on the front line. The first season of The Life Medical follows eight working professionals in their calling to medicine, and how they dealt with the arrival of COVID-19 as it hit the United States for the first time.