Food Is Medicine, Let’s Treat It That Way (feat. Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian)
The Dose
Eighty-five percent of all U.S. health care spending goes toward managing chronic diseases connected to poor diet and nutrition. Yet most doctors receive little to no meaningful training in nutrition. As a result, food and nutrition remain absent from doctor–patient conversations, with medications the default option for most ailments. On the new episode of The Dose podcast, Dr. Joel Bervell talks with Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food Is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, about why that gap exists, what it will take to close it, and what’s presently working. Increasingly,...
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New York City’s Health Commissioner Has a Plan to Protect Medicaid (feat. Dr. Alister Martin)
The Dose
The prospect of 900,000 New York City residents losing Medicaid coverage under H.R. 1, the tax and spending law passed by Republicans last year, amounts to “bureaucratic violence,” says Dr. Alister Martin. In response, he’s devised a plan that starts on the streets of Queens and builds out from there with strategically placed community health workers and people assisting with insurance enrollment. On the new episode of The Dose podcast, Dr. Joel Bervell talks with Dr. Martin, an emergency physician, former White House Fellow, and now health commissioner for 8.5 million New Yorkers. They...
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AI Has More to Offer Health Care (feat. Dr. Toyin Ajayi)
The Dose
Much of the AI used in health care today is tied up in helping the industry manage its revenue streams — think billing and coding assistance. But Dr. Toyin Ajayi knows there’s more AI can do to help manage the health of patients. On the new episode of The Dose, Dr. Joel Bervell talks with Dr. Ajayi, a board-certified family physician and CEO of the primary care provider Cityblock Health, about the ways she is using AI to make meaningful differences in the health of the most underserved patients. Dr. Ajayi’s data-driven, outcomes-based care model has already demonstrated reductions in...
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Doctor Mike on Why Ceding the Internet Is a Public Health Threat
The Dose
When people receive a medical diagnosis or experience a new symptom, the first thing many of us do is reach for our phone. If a doctor isn’t available to provide an answer, someone else is. On The Dose podcast, host Dr. Joel Bervell talks with Dr. Mike Varshavski, a primary care physician with more than 30 million social media followers, about what it takes to fight health misinformation at scale, what health institutions still get wrong about social media, and why entertainment and education aren’t opposites. Doctor Mike, as he’s known, didn’t set out to become a popular online...
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In “Deep Care,” the Family Is the Sun Midwives Orbit Around (feat. Dr. Kaytura Felix)
The Dose
Dr. Kaytura Felix didn’t set out to document the Black maternal health crisis. She set out to find the people who are already doing something about it. On this episode of The Dose podcast, Dr. Joel Bervell talks with Felix, founder of the Black Birthing Futures project, about what she discovered: a constellation of Black community midwives providing “deep care” — clinical, emotional, social, and spiritual support centered on care of the birthing family. “The family is the sun and all the providers are orbiting them,” says Felix. But keeping the family at the center isn't easy....
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Fighting Medical Debt? There’s an App for That (feat. Jared Walker)
The Dose
Four in 10 Americans have medical debt. Most don’t know there’s a federal law that could eliminate it. On this episode of The Dose podcast, host Joel Bervell talks with Jared Walker about his nonprofit, Dollar For, which has helped Americans erase more than $100 million in medical debt by connecting them to the charity care programs that hospitals are legally required to offer but rarely publicize. “These hospitals are great. They're saving people's lives every single day,” says Walker. “The problem is that they're also ruining people's financial lives.” With Medicaid cuts on the...
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The Missing Ingredient in Health Care AI? Community Voices
The Dose
Seventy billion dollars is flowing into health care AI, but the people building it and the patients who need it most are rarely in the same room. On this episode, host Dr. Joel Bervell talks with pediatrician, researcher, and tech optimist Dr. Ivor Horn about what responsible AI innovation in health care requires. Drawing on her work building open-access datasets and equity frameworks for machine learning, Horn says that rigorous research, community partnership, and critical thinking are not obstacles to the work of building powerful tools — they are the work. “If you build for the most...
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Lupita Nyong’o Is Done Accepting Fibroids as Normal
The Dose
Uterine fibroids may affect up to 80 percent of women in their lifetime, but they remain under-researched, underfunded, and routinely dismissed. Lupita Nyong’o is working to change that. “I could not believe that women were partially or wholly losing their reproductive organs because of this noncancerous tumor situation.” On this episode, Dr. Joel Bervell talks with Academy Award–winning actor and activist Lupita Nyong’o about her own diagnosis, and her decision to share an MRI of her body while launching the Make Fibroids Count campaign with the Foundation for Women’s Health. “I...
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Reimagining Birth, Restoring Trust (feat. Elaine Welteroth)
The Dose
A new movement in the United States is taking shape in maternal care, one that seeks to restore trust, center women, and protect lives. On this episode of The Dose podcast, Dr. Joel Bervell talks with author and advocate Elaine Welteroth about her own struggle finding patient-centered care during pregnancy and how the organization she founded, birthFUND, is funding midwifery care, supporting new mothers, and reimagining what safe, empowering birth can look like in America.
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A Doula Network That’s Saving Lives (feat. Omare Jimmerson)
The Dose
Across Oklahoma, a community-powered doula network is reshaping what equitable maternal care looks like. On this episode of The Dose, Dr. Joel Bervell talks with Omare Jimmerson of the Oklahoma Birth Equity Initiative about how culturally rooted doulas, smart policies, and practical supports—from rides to diapers—are helping hundreds of families thrive each year.
info_outlineA new movement in the United States is taking shape in maternal care, one that seeks to restore trust, center women, and protect lives.
On this episode of The Dose podcast, Dr. Joel Bervell talks with author and advocate Elaine Welteroth about her own struggle finding patient-centered care during pregnancy and how the organization she founded, birthFUND, is funding midwifery care, supporting new mothers, and reimagining what safe, empowering birth can look like in America.