Charged: Stories from the Women Leading Health Care

For years, ALS appeared to be an uncurable disease, but when others lost hope, Dr. Merit E. Cudkowicz saw the challenges of curing ALS as opportunities for scientific collaboration. She spends her days leading clinical trials and working with patients to find effective treatments. By revolutionizing ALS clinical trials, she has inspired hope that we can find a cure.

Happy Mother’s Day from the Charged team at Massachusetts General Hospital! In honor of this special day, we are celebrating the many amazing mothers at Mass General and the incredible way they manage their work and personal lives. In this special episode, we asked our guests to share stories about how they balance motherhood and their careers, the challenges of building a career in medicine while raising a family and their parenting role models. We hope you enjoy this bonus episode of Charged!

Throughout her career Angela Fitch, MD, has watched obesity treatment transform from an area of medicine rarely discussed to a dynamic, rapidly evolving practice. In episode of Charged, Dr. Fitch shares how she is helping to transform the way obesity treatment is approached by building patient-focused treatment programs and communities of support to help patients succeed in losing weight and living healthier lives.

Physicians put in a tremendous amount of work into providing quality care for their patients, but sometimes the challenges that physicians face go unnoticed. Many physicians experience burnout, which leaves them feeling stress, exhaustion and less enjoyment in their work. More women than men report feelings of burnout. In this episode, we hope to spark discussion about the challenges that the women at Mass General face. 

Psychiatrist Dr. Jacqueline Olds has spent decades working with patients of all ages, helping them through life’s challenges. While no two people are the same, she has identified one common theme among her patients—loneliness. While that feeling may not last, it can have a serious impact on our lives.

Since beginning her career in the mid-1990s, infectious disease chief Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky has witnessed the transformation of the landscape for HIV and AIDS. Though new drugs have improved the outlook, the challenges of accessing and maintaining care persist. Dr. Walensky discusses how she works to expand access to care for HIV patients through research and a willingness to understand patients' struggles.

Dr. Leigh Anne Dageforde first realized her passion for transplantation surgery during a moment in her residency when she witnessed the immediate result a transplant surgery provided to a patient. Dr. Dageforde shares her experience working in a young field and learning from role models who have forged the path ahead for transplant surgeons. She discusses the unique nature of the field, the personal connections she has with patient and donor communities and the collaborative nature of transplantation.

During her graduate studies, a training injury derailed Dr. Sara Lazar’s aspirations to run the Boston Marathon. During her recovery she discovered yoga and was surprised to find that she felt calmer and less reactive after. She and her team in the Department of Psychiatry at have investigated how meditation affects the brain and were the first to show the connection between meditation and cortical thickening. In this episode, she discusses her work and how to integrate meditation into a busy life.

When Dr. Yolonda Colson passed her thoracic surgery boards in the early 2000s, just over 100 women were in the field. Over the course of her career she’s watched the number of women in the field grow. As the chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Mass General, Dr. Colson recognizes the value of diversity in the field. She talks about how she’s improving care for lung cancer patients, her career path and the important role that fostering community and seizing opportunities have playe

Psychiatrist Dr. Jacqueline Olds has spent decades working with patients of all ages, helping them through life’s challenges. While no two people are the same, she has identified one common theme among her patients—loneliness. While that feeling may not last, it can have a serious impact on our lives. Over the past 25 years, she and her husband, Dr. Richard Schwartz, have worked to bring loneliness out of the closet. She discusses ways to combat loneliness and how to foster relationships that last.

As the opioid epidemic has increased in severity, so has the number of patients diagnosed with cancer who are also facing substance use disorders. Dr. Helen Shih is accustomed to treating patients with serious prognoses but her experience treating two young patients with brain tumors who were also facing addictions tied to opioid use shifted her perspective on her work. In this episode, Dr. Shih discusses how these patients motivated her to think about specialized care for patients w

Most of us know that a good night’s sleep can make a difference in our health and well being. Despite all the attention that sleep gets, the biology of sleep and its function is still not well understood. Dr. Richa Saxena is working to change that by studying the genetic information that makes up a person. Her team has identified dozens of genes related to sleep and their connections to other health problems. Dr. Saxena discusses her research and how she hopes it will change our relationship with

Physicians put in a tremendous amount of work into providing quality care for their patients, but sometimes the challenges that physicians face go unnoticed. Many physicians experience burnout, which leaves them feeling stress, exhaustion and less enjoyment in their work. More women than men report feelings of burnout. In this episode, we hope to spark discussion about the challenges that the women at Mass General face.

Happy New Year from the Charged team at Mass General! In honor of the new year, we’ve asked some of our past and future guests about their resolutions for 2020. We hope this inspires you as you think about your own plans for the new year.

In the United States, one out of eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime which, for many patients, can be a devastating thought. In the past two decades, treatment for breast cancer has come a long way, and Dr. Barbara Smith has been at the forefront of the movement of improving care for patients as well as being a pioneer in nipple-sparring mastectomies. In this episode, find out how Dr. Smith broke the mold to give new hope and better outcomes to breast cancer patients.