Medical History

On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we discuss a work that takes a careful and long-overdue look at how caregiving and burnout so often go hand-in-hand in this country. Our guest is Kate Washington, an essayist, freelance writer, and food critic based in Northern California. Her new book, which she tells us about, is a memoir/report/study titled "Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America." As was noted by Kirkus Reviews, this book is "a biting critique of how America is failing its unpaid caregivers....

Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Bret Stetka, an editorial director at Medscape.com, which is the professional division of WebMD.com. A non-practicing physician and active freelance health/science journalist, Stetka joins us to discuss his fascinating new book, "A History of the Human Brain: From the Sea Sponge to CRISPR, How Our Brain Evolved." It's a readable and engaging history of how our most mysterious organ developed over time...from the brain's improbable and watery beginnings to the super-complex marvel that's found within the head of Homo sapiens today.

Our guest on StudioTulsa Medical Monday is Dr. Monica Aggarwal, the director of Integrative Cardiology and Prevention at the University of Florida, where she teaches plant-based nutrition while also performing various mind-body techniques with her students and patients, including yoga and meditation. (You can visit her website here.) Dr. Aggarwal joins us to discuss her latest book, "Body on Fire: How Inflammation Triggers Chronic Illness and the Tools We Have to Fight It," which came out last year, and which she co-wrote with Jyothi Rao.

Our guest is Olivia Campbell, a journalist specializing in medicine and women who has written for The Guardian, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, and several other publications. Her first book is just out, and she joins us on ST Medical Monday to discuss it. "Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine" tells how three remarkable Victorian women broke down all sorts of barriers in order to become the first women doctors, thereby eventually revolutionizing the way all women receive health care.

Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Dr. Saray Stancic. In 1995, she learned that she had multiple sclerosis. By 2003, she was walking regularly with a cane, had stopped nearly all unnecessary physical activity, and was on several medications. Flash forward to 2010, when she ran a marathon.... How'd she do this? It didn't happen overnight, of course, but -- through a series of dedicated lifestyle changes -- it did happen. Dr.

Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Dr. T. Colin Campbell, who has been for more than four decades a leading expert on nutrition research in American medicine. His bestselling book from several years ago, "The China Study," grew out of the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted, which he led. Dr. Campbell joins us to discuss both his pioneering career and his newest book, "The Future of Nutrition: An Insider's Look at the Science, Why We Keep Getting It Wrong, and How to Start Getting It Right."

On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we're looking at the connections between diet, weight control, and health.

Our guest is the author and doctor Michael Stein, who's also a professor of health law, policy, and management at Boston University. He tells us about his new book, which presents the many various moving, sobering, genuine, and often heartbreaking accounts of his patients about money...and about having (or not having) enough money to simply get by in the U.S. today. "Broke" gives us the words and thoughts of those now facing the reality of having to choose between getting medical treatments or paying their bills. As was noted of this book by Dr.

(Note: This discussion first aired back in June.) 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 this edition of ST Medical Monday is Dr. Jonathan M. Berman, who tells us about his important new book. That book is "Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement." As was noted of this work by Publishers Weekly: "Science professor Berman debuts with a useful guide for readers concerned about the opposition to vaccinations.... The book's greatest value comes from its insights into how common cognitive errors can lead even the well-informed to see false correlations between vaccination and health problems.

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.

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.

Our guest is Robert Kolker, a bestselling author and journalist who has written for New York Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, and other publications. He joins us to discuss his fascinating new book, "Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family." It's a page-turning profile -- as much a detailed group biography as it is a keen work of science journalism -- of a certain post-WWII American family in which several of the family's twelve children suffered from acute schizophrenia.

(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.

Public health officials in Tulsa -- and everywhere else, of course -- are now monitoring an outbreak of respiratory illness caused by a new coronavirus, COVID-19. This virus was first identified in China in January. Late last week, the first confirmed COVID-19 case was announced in Tulsa County: a man in his fifties who had recently visited Italy. On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we offer an update on this still-evolving, fast-changing situation. Our guest is the Tulsa Health Department's executive director, Dr. Bruce Dart, who has worked in public health for forty years.

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.

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. Jolene Brighten (author of "Beyond the Pill"): "[This book] validates what generations of women have suspected since the introduction of the pill--birth control is doing a whole lot more in our bodies than simply preventing pregnancy.

(Note: This program originally aired back in October.) On this edition of ST Medical Monday, our guest is Randi Hutter Epstein, M.D., M.P.H., who is an adjunct professor at Columbia and a lecturer at Yale. She joins us to discuss her book, "Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything." Per Publishers Weekly: "Science writer Epstein gives readers a lucid and entertaining look at the social and scientific history of endocrinology.

On this edition of ST Medical Monday, our guest is Randi Hutter Epstein, M.D., M.P.H., who is an adjunct professor at Columbia University and a lecturer at Yale University. She joins us to discuss her new book, "Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything." Per a critic writing for Publishers Weekly: "Science writer Epstein gives readers a lucid and entertaining look at the social and scientific history of endocrinology.