Helping Nurses Find Their Voice - Rebecca Love, IntelyCare

On today’s Raise the Line, we continue our Next Gen Journeys series featuring conversations with learners in medical professions around the globe. Our special guest is Omer Rott, a longtime participant in our Osmosis Medical Education Fellowship and Osmosis Health Leadership Initiative programs. Omer will soon be earning his medical degree from Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. In addition to pursuing a career as a pediatrician, he’s an aspiring diversity and inclusion medical educator who has founded DiverseMedEd, an organization dedicated to improving how healthcare professionals interact with and treat patients from different backgrounds. “There is a big gap in medical education about diverse patient populations. I think healthcare providers and many other people are afraid about how to approach someone or how to ask about their situation, which might lead them to not say anything or not even act the way they think they might need to.” Through a website (link) and social media posts, Omer has already built a following, many of whom are patients happy to be seeing these issues addressed.  Join host Hillary Acer for a refreshing look at how the healthcare provider community can be more inclusive, and what lessons Omer has drawn from his extensive work mentoring fellow students over the past five years.

Mentioned in this episode:
DiverseMedEd

Equity Graphic

Elsevier Blog - Is Wearing Pins Appropriate?

The importance of understanding the connections between animal and human health reached new heights due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but this has long been a rich area of study and it’s also the foundation of the long and impressive career of today’s Raise the Line guest, Dr. Sue VandeWoude, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University.  Before assuming that role, Dr. VandeWoude was Director of CSU’s One Health Institute, an interdisciplinary center dedicated to advancing translational science. In this revealing conversation with host Hillary Acer, you’ll learn about developments in research and teaching in this area, what’s behind a curricular overhaul at the school, and about plans to enhance collaboration between basic science faculty and clinical instructors at CSU. 

Mentioned in this episode: https://vetmedbiosci.colostate.edu/

Raise the Line has been honored to be part of Osmosis from Elsevier’s Year of the Zebra campaign and we’re happy to share that this successful effort will continue throughout 2024. To mark that commitment and to celebrate Rare Disease Day, we have a very special episode of the podcast for our listeners in which, for the first time, we interview a child faced with the challenge of living with a rare condition.  She is Maddie McNeer, a seven-year-old from Kansas who developed a rare eye disorder called Coats disease which is characterized by abnormal development of blood vessels in the retina. According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders, affected individuals may experience loss of vision due to changes in the retina and, in severe cases, retinal detachment. Maddie and her mom, Loren McNeer, join host Lindsey Smith to share their family’s journey with Coats disease including the multiple treatments she’s had, the challenges in finding information and support, the positive experiences with healthcare providers and Maddie’s remarkable ability to rise above it all and, as she says, not let Coats disease hold her down. This is a super informative and inspiring episode that you won’t want to miss. 

Mentioned in this episode:

https://www.coatsdiseasefoundation.org/

https://www.osmosis.org/zebra

“I feel like I'm living a dream in many ways. It's really gratifying to be working in this area,” says 

Dr. Peter Hendricks, a clinical psychologist at University of Alabama Birmingham who is pursuing a long-held interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. In addition to being chair of Psychiatry there, he is also a professor in the Center for Addiction and Pain Prevention and Intervention which explains why he is researching the use of psilocybin in patients with fibromyalgia, a condition which commonly involves chronic pain. “Pain involves a physiological sensation but also a psychological reaction to that pain. If we can alter psychological processes, we might be able to help people better cope with the experience of pain,” he tells host Michael Carrese. Although Hendricks has been excited about the prospect of being able to add this “new” tool to help treat addictions, PTSD, depression and other mental health conditions that are not well served by current therapies, he realizes the dangers of hype and the need for a balanced perspective. “I think it’s important to note that those of us who were enthusiastic were never under the impression that this would cure everything for everybody. It could really change your life or it may not -- and that's OK -- but it would be nice for that to be an option for those who could benefit from it.” Tune in for a super thoughtful Raise the Line episode on both the promise and challenges of psychedelics and the daunting amount of work left to be done to develop sustainable therapeutic protocols and business models. 

Mentioned in this episode: https://www.uab.edu/cappi/

After many months of emotionally wrenching, exhausting work on the frontlines of COVID, and the unexpected death of his mother, Dr. Michael Foti found himself in an emergency room dealing with what he suspected was a heart attack, but it was actually a panic attack caused by untreated anxiety and depression. “As healthcare providers, we're afraid to speak up about our mental health because it's seen as a weakness,” he explains. He’s trying to change that culture in his role as a clinical assistant professor of Internal Medicine at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine. One key message he tries to get across to students is that healthcare providers have to be healthy themselves before they can do the most effective job possible helping patients. As he tells host Michael Carrese, he’s also urging providers experiencing mental health issues to speak up to help normalize the experience. “The more that we can share these stories amongst colleagues, then they will feel more empowered to get the help that they need.” On this insightful episode of Raise the Line, you’ll also have the opportunity to hear Dr. Foti describe Touro’s standardized patient program and its efforts to increase self-directed learning and interdisciplinary education. 

Mentioned in this episode: https://tourocom.touro.edu/

Our guests today have set a big goal to tackle a big problem. Jack Needham and James Naylor co-founded Sanctuary Health to build the largest video library for patient education motivated by the fact that patients forget approximately half of what doctors tell them in appointments. The young British entrepreneurs are aiming to move the healthcare system beyond the practice of handing every patient with a new diagnosis the same generic pamphlet as they leave an appointment. Based on research, they’ve chosen short-form video as the most effective vehicle. “Studies have consistently shown that if you break a video down into small topics with one learning outcome, then information recall and confidence levels around that information are consistently higher,” Naylor tells host Michael Carrese. And thanks to recent advancements in AI technology, videos can be easily translated into multiple languages, creating efficiency for providers and relevance for patients. Having built a presence with providers of virtual healthcare, Sanctuary is now working to license its ready-to-use content to payers, hospitals, and other stakeholders. Tune-in for a lively discussion the various ways Sanctuary Health is helping healthcare providers tackle this critically important problem.  

Mentioned in this episode: https://www.sanctuaryhealth.io/

Due to rising awareness of the importance of nutrition to good health and patient demand for alternatives to so-called Western medicine, the number of medical schools offering naturopathic programs has grown in the past two decades in the United States. Today on Raise the Line, we're going to learn more about this approach to medicine, the education and training involved, and where the field is heading with Dr. Kristina Conner, Dean of the School of Naturopathic Medicine at Bastyr University. As she explains to host Michael Carrese, Dr. Conner believes the rising interest is partially rooted in people wanting to have an array of options to improve their health. “They understand ‘maybe I do need to be on this medication for the rest of my life, but what else can I do to optimize my day to day life’ and that's where we can fill in the gaps as naturopathic doctors because we do have a different tool set and a different approach.” Tune in to learn about the similarities and differences in training compared to more traditional medical professions, the different modalities naturopaths use, and the challenges and opportunities involved in expanding the profession. “I think there's better understanding about naturopathic physicians and our level of training and the role that we can play within the healthcare system.”

Mentioned in this episode: https://bastyr.edu/academics/naturopathic-medicine

Today we continue our series Next-Gen Journeys, featuring conversations with students, residents, and early career medical professionals around the globe to get their fresh perspectives on education, medicine, and the future of healthcare. We’re delighted to do that today with Dr. Josh Bliss, a third-year internal medicine resident at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine, who will continue his training there next year as a hematology-oncology fellow.  Josh was actually one of the first Osmosis Medical Education Fellows, later transitioning to a role creating and editing pharmacology content with our education team. In this heartfelt conversation with host Hillary Acer, Josh shares how his mother’s death from cancer when he was young spurred his interest in medicine and how his passion for the field has expanded over time to include the relatively new science of exercise oncology. “We are starting to look at exercise both in the lab and in clinical trials with patients where you could potentially dose exercise like you would a drug. You can measure it and standardize it and look at clinical effects.” For those hoping to build a multi-dimensional career in medicine, there is plenty of inspiration to draw from in this episode. 

Mentioned in this episode: https://www.nyp.org/

About one-third of Californians live in areas where there's a shortage of primary care providers, and this gap is especially apparent in what's known as the Inland Empire -- a rural region in the southern part of the state. As we’ll learn on today’s episode, the barriers to access this creates might only get worse because population is expected to grow sharply in that area. Our guest, Dr. Timothy Collins, has the challenge and opportunity of developing solutions to these thorny problems as CEO of UCR Health, a clinical enterprise affiliated with the University of California Riverside School of Medicine. “I think tremendous opportunities exist to create a more integrated network that's focused on quality and access to be able to address all of these challenges,” he tells host Michael Carrese.  Strategies including connecting with K-12 students to get them to see themselves as future physicians and helping to clear the pathways to med school. “You can change the game if you can move backwards to create opportunities for individuals that may not see a pathway towards success.” Tune in to learn about other tactics being used -- including debt forgiveness and optimizing healthcare teams -- and find out how UCR Riverside is working to increase the level of engagement by patients in their own care.

Mentioned in this episode: https://www.ucrhealth.org/

How do we solve for nursing shortages in a thoughtful way in which we're reinventing the way we deliver care? That question is asked and answered on today’s episode of Raise the Line by Mandy Richards, Chief Nursing Executive for Intermountain Health which operates thirty-three hospitals in seven states. The veteran nurse leader believes the go-to strategies of doing a better job at recruitment and retention, while important, will not be enough, so it will be necessary to reskill the current workforce and redesign nursing education. Or as she puts it to host Michael Carrese, “Are we ensuring that our students in nursing school are getting taught and equipped with what they're going to need when they come out?” Richards is also keenly interested in improving the transition from education to practice -- in fact she’s pursuing her PhD at Yale on that topic -- especially at the very start of the clinical work experience to avoid what is known as “transition shock.” As part of her academic work, she’s created a research project featuring a dedicated educational unit that trains new graduate nurses in cohorts in the first month on the job. In addition to reinforcing critical thinking skills, the experience helps establishes peer relationships the new nurses can rely on going forward. Tune-in for a wealth of other ideas and insights on this key challenge in modern healthcare including establishing travel pools within health systems and the potential for ambient listening technology to improve nursing efficiency.  

Mentioned in this episode: https://intermountainhealthcare.org/