Outspoken Oncology

Colleen Farrell (@colleenmfarrell), MD, internal medicine resident in NYC, shares the stresses experienced by medical residents treating COVID-19, the physical impact of being on the front lines with extended hours, and a harrowing personal story of the emotional toll of being engrossed in the hospital environment during these times.

Emily Landon, MD, executive medical director of infection prevention and control, University of Chicago, makes her seventh appearance on the show to discuss phased plans to reopen across the country, including how to keep the spread of the virus under control while interacting in indoor settings (eg, barber shops, gyms, airplanes, and restaurants), the importance of furthering contact tracing, and more.

Anita Gruninger, RN and certified case manager, discusses the difficulty of not being with her husband when he receives cancer treatment due to COVID-19, argues that "family" and "visitors" need to have different definitions when it comes to hospital visitation as well as exceptions that should be made for critically ill patients, and more.

Ethan Weiss (@ethanjweiss), MD, associate professor, Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California at San Francisco, tells his story of volunteering to treat patients in NYC during the COVID-19 outbreak, including expectations of the work he was to do in advance of volunteering, adjusting to a new hospital environment, deciding to chronicle the volunteering experience and subsequent work, and the viral Twitter picture he posted on a crowded plane as he flew home. Dr Weiss’ bio can be viewed at https://profiles.ucsf.edu/ethan.weiss

Nilay Shah, PhD, chair of the division of health care policy and research, Mayo Clinic, explains the information and factors that go into the predictive models for the impact of COVID-19; examines the reliability of the Susceptible, Exposed, Infected, and Recovered (SEIR) model for policy decisions; breaks down some of the confounding effects of various input assumptions on the models; and more.

Barron H. Lerner, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine, bioethicist, and 5-time book author at New York University, shares his personal journey of contracting and being treated for COVID-19, thoughts on the usefulness of antibody tests and convalescent-based plasma treatment, ethical considerations of treating patients with experimental therapy, and the balance between patient autonomy and physician paternalism.

Emily Landon, MD, executive medical director of infection prevention and control, University of Chicago, makes her sixth appearance on the show to discuss practical considerations for "ramp-up" testing, what a negative test result really means (or does not mean) and how often to repeat the test, updates on data for remdesivir, and more.

Adam Feuerstein, national biotech columnist, STAT, provides a look into the complexity of reporting on biotech and health care advancements, the shift in STAT's editorial focus to COVID-19 coverage from a science and biotech perspective, and other topics.

Michael Sinha, MD, JD, MPH, research fellow, Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science, dissects the legality of international and domestic travel bans from a health policy perspective, the nuances of state-level authority to enforce a lockdown, the rights of health care workers to refuse reporting to work in the absence of ample and appropriate PPEs, and more.

Seth Trueger, MD, MPH, FACEP, emergency physician at Northwestern University, shares the steps taken in an emergency room setting to prepare for an influx of patients, screening processes for patient admissions, triage steps for patients who arrive at the door, and concerns of misdiagnoses, among other topics.

Emily Landon, MD, executive medical director of infection prevention and control, University of Chicago, returns to discuss crucial considerations for reopening the country, reactions to the way infection control experts have handled new information, and the overreaction to a recent preliminary report from the University of Chicago on a potential treatment option.

Vincent Rajkumar, MD, and Rafael Fonseca, MD, both multiple myeloma specialists at Mayo Clinic, discuss the prospect of opening the country before a vaccine is developed for COVID-19; whether the decisions should be made on a county-, state-, or regional-level; and the critical need for a "TTP" approach: widespread adequate Testing, contact Tracing, and PPEs.

Alison Bateman-House, MPH, PhD, department of population health, NYU Langone Health, returns to discuss the ethics of "expanded access" and "Right To Try" when treating COVID-19, health care workers refusing to report to work if proper PPEs are not available, medical students graduating early to join the frontlines, practicing selective care due to scarce resources, and more.

Nurses from Chicago and California join Chadi to discuss when their institutions began preparing for an influx of COVID-19 patients, conflicting information from their institutions regarding PPE supplies, ease of complying with CDC/WHO guidelines for sanitizing used PPEs, and more.

Emily Landon, MD, executive medical director of infection prevention and control, University of Chicago, returns for her fourth update on COVID-19 testing options and timeliness, whether asymptomatic patients with the disease can transmit it to others, a simple and helpful practice to keep patients needing more oxygen off the ventilators, and more.