Ep. 130 David Howard MD, PhD. Race in America

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In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Dr. David Howard comes on the show to discuss his experiences in America, and more broadly racism in America.

Dr. David Howard was originally born in Jamaica and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of eighteen. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the Johns Hopkins University and then pursued his Md and PhD in Epidemiology through the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He completed an internship at the New York Presbyterian Hospital followed by a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He is currently a Board Certified Obstetrics/Gynecology Specialist practicing in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is affiliated with several different hospitals in the area.

GUEST:

David Howard MD, PhD: twitter

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Ep. 128 Chen Wu : A functional neurosurgeon discusses Elon Musk’s Neuralink

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Our guest is Neurosurgeon Chengyuan Wu. Dr. Wu specializes in functional neurosurgery, a field that focuses on using brain surgery to restore function to patients. He discusses Elon Musk’s initiative to create a new brain-human interface using implants in the brain that communicate with the environment.

GUEST:

Chengyuan Wu, MD: Twitter 

SHOW NOTES:

Scientific American article on Neuralink

Joe Rogan Elon Musk podcast transcript

Popular science article on Neuralink quoting Dr. Wu

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Make a small donation on our Patreon page on and join our discussion group or receive a free book.

Ep. 126. What a Retracted JAMA Paper Tells Us About the Research Enterprise

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Our guest is Eric Weinhandl, an epidemiologist whose investigation of a JAMA paper on dialysis patients lead to its retraction, and subsequent republication.

Eric discusses the steps leading to the paper’s eventual retraction, and what this signals about the larger research enterprise. Eric also discusses the role of bias, conflicts of interest, big data and home dialysis, as well as some thoughts on the field of epidemiology during the COVID pandemic.

GUEST:

Eric is an epidemiologist with 14 years of research experience in kidney disease, mostly regarding dialysis and pharmaceuticals. Eric worked at the United States Renal Data System (USRDS) Coordinating Center between 2004 and 2015 and has conducted studies with Amgen, Baxter, DaVita, NxStage, Sigma Tau, and the Peer Kidney Care Initiative.

He recently worked for Fresenius Medical Care, one of the major dialysis companies in the United States, and currently works with the chronic disease research group as part of the Hennepin County Medical Center. 

Twitter

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SHOW NOTES:

JAMA retracted and republished paper

JAMA research letter

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Ep. 123 Andrew Althouse on Clinical Trial Design and Remdesivir

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Our guest is Andrew Althouse, statistician at the Center for Clinical Trials and Data coordination in Pittsburgh. He holds an undergraduate degree in Statistics and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh. His main area of interest is the design of randomized control trials. He discusses adaptive randomized control trials, and dissects the recent news of the positive Remdesivir trial.

GUEST:

Andrew Althouse: Twitter and professional page

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Ep. 116 Nicole Saphier: Make America Healthy Again

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Our guest is Dr. Nicole Saphier. She is a radiologist and a breast imaging specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering, Monmouth, New Jersey. She appears frequently as a medical contributor on Fox News, and comments on a variety of medical as well as health policy issues. She comes on today to discuss her new book – Make America Healthy Again.

GUEST:

Nicole Saphier, MD: Twitter and Website

LINKS:

Make America Healthy Again (Harper Collins)

WATCH ON YOUTUBE:

Watch the episode on our YouTube channel

SUPPORT THE SHOW:

Make a small donation on our Patreon page on and join our discussion group or receive a free book.

Special Episode: The COVID19 Pandemic

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Anish discusses the COVID19 pandemic with Christos Argyropoulos, Chief Nephrologist at New Mexico. Dr. Argyropoulos has been warning all of us for some time about COVID19, and we discuss where his early concern emerged from, mis-steps of the US in handling this early on, and what to do now.

GUEST:

Christos Argyropoulos, MD PhD : @ChristosArgyrop

LINKS:

CDC COVID19 Website: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

Anthony Fauci MD, NIAID Director NEJM editorial : https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387

“Flattening the curve” : https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/flattening-curve-coronavirus/

South Korea’s success: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/no-panic-here-i-am-south-korea-watching-coronavirus-spread-128697

Johns Hopkins Global COVID19 tracker: https://systems.jhu.edu/research/public-health/ncov/

WATCH ON YOUTUBE:

Watch the episode on our YouTube channel

SUPPORT THE SHOW:

Make a small donation on our Patreon page on and join our discussion group or receive a free book.

Statistical Certainty: Less is More

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The day after NBC releases a story on a ‘ground-breaking’ observational study demonstrating caramel macchiata’s reduces the risk of death, everyone expects physicians to be experts on the subject.  The truth is that most of us hope John Mandrola has written a smart blog on the topic so we know intelligent things to tell patients…

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