Health Care

It's scary, but by now it's also obvious -- our environment today contains thousands (literally, thousands) of toxic chemicals that it did NOT contain just a few decades ago. How are these chemicals affecting our health? And what can we, as individuals, do about this? Our guest on ST Medical Monday is the co-author of a new book called "Non-Toxic: Guide to Living Healthy in a Chemical World." Dr. Aly Cohen is a board certified rheumatologist and integrative medicine specialist, as well as an environmental health expert based in Princeton, New Jersey.

(Note: This interview first aired back in May.) What do we mean by the phrase "patient-centered care"? And why is this expression being used more frequently in medical circles? Our guest is Dr. Saul J. Weiner, a professor of medicine, pediatrics, and medical education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He tells us about his book, "On Becoming a Healer," which is essentially a med school-based memoir/study as well as a critique/guidebook focused on how to become a more competent, more compassionate physician.

There are many, many different skin-care products out there...and keeping skin healthy has long been a booming industry...but how did we get here? And why are there so many confusing messages from health experts regarding the care of our skin? Why are there so many ineffective treatments? Our guest is a preventative medicine physician and staff writer for The Atlantic whose new book explains the surprising (and often unintended) effects of our modern-day hygiene practices; his book also offers an introduction to the new science of skin microbes and probiotics.

Administration may be the big fight over Medicaid expansion in Oklahoma.

Lawmakers leading the discussion are confident they can use a plan vetoed by Gov. Kevin Stitt as a funding fallback. It used an increased assessment on hospital revenue to come up with around $130 million, most if not all of Oklahoma’s share of around $1 billion in expansion costs.

Our guest is Pam Fessler, an award-winning correspondent with NPR News who mainly covers poverty, philanthropy, and voting issues. She joins us to discuss her new book, "Carville's Cure," which is tells the fascinating and little-known story of the only leprosy colony in the continental United States. This facility, located in remote Carville, Louisiana, somehow became -- over the course of the 20th century -- much more of a refuge than a prison.

(Note: This interview first aired last summer.) Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Dr. Adam S. Cifu; he's the co-author of an interesting book about "medical reversal" -- i.e., what happens when doctors start using a medication, procedure, or diagnostic tool without a robust evidence base...and then stop using it when it's found not to help, or even to harm, patients.

Our guest is Dr. Syeachia Dennis, who joined the OU-Tulsa family medicine residency program in 2013, and who more recently completed a master's program from the John Hopkins School of Public Health. An Oklahoma native, Dr. Dennis is an Assistant Professor in the OU-Tulsa School of Community Medicine's Department of Family Medicine. She joins us for a candid, local-level discussion about the racial disparities that exist today in American health care: troubling, long-running disparities in access, treatment, perceptions, and outcomes. Dr.

We welcome to our show Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a physician, epidemiologist, public health expert, and progressive activist. He was appointed health director of Detroit, Michigan, at age 30, and he was formerly a professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. El-Sayed's new book, which he tells us about, is "Healing Politics: A Doctor's Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic." As was noted of this book by Bill McKibben with 350.org: "This is a very important book.

Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Dr. Jennifer Clark, a Visiting Associate Professor of Community Health at TU's Oxley College of Health Sciences; she teaches in TU's Health Care Delivery Science Program. Dr. Clark is also a contributor/commentator for the ongoing, thrice-weekly Project ECHO updates regarding COVID-19. These online, open-to-the-public updates, originating from Oklahoma State University and freely streamable, are medically-driven information sessions presented by a multi-institutional array of doctors and scientists.

The campaigns on both sides of State Question 802 have made numerous claims about the potential benefits and perils of Medicaid expansion. Independent producer Dan Epstein checked out some of those claims for Oklahoma Engaged.

Medicaid expansion is just one complex element of the larger even more complex healthcare machine. There’s not enough time  to look at every potential economic impact Medicaid expansion may have. But perhaps the best starting point is something no one disputes. Oklahoma would get a little more than one billion dollars from the Federal government.

(Note: This interview originally aired back in February.) Our guest is Dr. Adam Hill, who works in the Pediatric Palliative Care Unit at Indiana University's Riley Hospital for Children. He joins us to discuss his memoir, "Long Walk Out of the Woods: A Physician's Story of Addiction, Depression, Hope, and Recovery." As was noted of this book by Library Journal: "[Hill] shares a deeply personal story...in an effort to improve access, treatment options, and resources for all affected by similar conditions.

On this edition of ST, we're talking about State Question 802, the Medicaid expansion initiative that Oklahoma voters will cast ballots for or against on Tuesday of next week. This measure, per ballotpedia.org, would "expand Medicaid in Oklahoma under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. It would provide Medicaid coverage for certain low-income adults between 18 and 65 with incomes at or below 133% of the federal poverty level (FPL).

Our guest is Dr. Vinayak K. Prasad, a practicing hematologist-oncologist and internal medicine physician based in San Francisco. He joins us to discuss his important new book, "Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People with Cancer." This work explains how hype, money, and bias can -- and often do -- mislead the public into thinking that many worthless or unproven cancer treatments are effective. As noted by Dr. David P.

Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Dr. Bon Ku, an ER doc and Assistant Dean for Health and Design at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. Dr. Ku is also the co-author of a new book, "Health Design Thinking: Creating Products and Services for Better Health." This novel and fascinating work argues that the principles of human-centered design can and should be applied to today's health care challenges. The book's focal points range from the design of drug packaging and exam rooms to the use of internet-connected devices for early detection of breast cancer. As Dr.

What happens when a woman seeking an abortion in the U.S. is turned away? Our guest is Diana Greene Foster, PhD, who set out to answer this question as definitively as possible.

Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Mikkael Sekeres, a leading cancer specialist who writes regularly for The New York Times. He tells us about his new book, "When Blood Breaks Down: Life Lessons from Leukemia." This work carefully examines leukemia in its different forms as well as the development of drugs to treat it.

What do we mean by the phrase "patient-centered care"? And why is this expression being used more frequently in medical circles? Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Dr. Saul J. Weiner, a professor of medicine, pediatrics, and medical education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He tells us about his new book, "On Becoming a Healer," which is essentially a memoir/study/critique/guidebook focused on how to become a more competent, more compassionate physician. As was noted of this work by Dr. Ronald Epstein, of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry: "Dr.

(Note: This program originally aired back in the fall.) Our guest is Dr. Sarah E. Hill, a professor at TCU in Ft. Worth, Texas. She's seen as an authority on evolutionary approaches to psychology and health, and her new book, which she tells us about, is "This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences." As was noted of this work by Dr.

On this edition of our show, we explore the "Moral Injury of Healthcare." Our guests are Dr. Wendy Dean and Dr. Simon G. Talbot, who have together created a new nonprofit aiming to (as noted at the nonprofit's "fix moral injury" website) "help all of us change the conversation about healthcare. This is NOT about burnout. It is about taking care of ourselves by taking care of patients.... The crisis of clinician distress is not just a professional issue for [Dean and Talbot]. It is also a personal issue.

Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Dr. Adam Hill, who works in the Pediatric Palliative Care Unit at Indiana University's Riley Hospital for Children. He joins us to discuss his new memoir, "Long Walk Out of the Woods: A Physician's Story of Addiction, Depression, Hope, and Recovery." As was noted of this book by Library Journal: "[Hill] shares a deeply personal story...in an effort to improve access, treatment options, and resources for all affected by similar conditions.

Our guest is Dan Weissmann, a public-radio reporter/editor/producer whose work has appeared on Marketplace, Planet Money, 99 Percent Invisible, and NPR’s Morning Edition. He once again joins us on ST Medical Monday to give an update on An Arm and a Leg, his widely acclaimed podcast about the various price tags that come with health care in the U.S.

On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we learn about The Prism Project, a far-reaching, recently-released needs-assessment survey that was commissioned in order to better inform the Greater Tulsa community about issues related to our LGBTQ+ neighbors, friends, and fellow citizens. As per the Prism Project website, Tulsa Reaches Out (which is an advisory council within the Tulsa Community Foundation) "commissioned The Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa to conduct the survey within Tulsa's LGBTQ+ community.

As many of us return home for the holidays, we might see certain signs that our parents are not only aging but also, perhaps, are in declining health. What are those signs, and what should we do if we see them? Our guest has some answers. He's Tulsa-based attorney Todd Whatley, and he's with the Oklahoma Elder Law Group.

On this edition on ST Medical Monday, we learn about Sick, a podcast from WFYI and Side Effects Public Media (with help from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PRX). This podcast, per its website, "is a new investigative [series concerning] what goes wrong in the places meant to keep us healthy. The first season explores the complications of fertility medicine, one Indiana doctor's abuse of power, and the generations of lives he affected." Our guests are the two reporters behind Sick, Lauren Bavis and Jake Harper.