Podcast: NEJM--Not Otherwise Specified

Podcasts can dive deeply into one field or jump around between many fields, and/or help highlight the intersections and contradictions between domains of interest. In this series of New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) podcasts, Dr. Lisa Rosenbaum takes a look at how medicine and healthcare interacts with patients-- the good, the bad, and the why? I listened to the first podcast in this series--The Muffin Question.  A funny name for a podcast about healthcare--so of course I had to see what it was about. In this podcast Host Rosenbaum interviews Dr.Shekinah Elmore about her insights into healthcare from both sides of the stethoscope. Dr. Elmore  is a radiation oncologist at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, as well as an assistant professor in both radiation oncology and urology. Her research examines health disparities as well as global health inequities. Dr Elmore has Li Fraumeni syndrome, a genetic predisposition to cancer that gives women a greater than 90% chance of developing cancer within their lifetime. Dr. Elmore describes how she survived two rhabdomyosarcomas, as well as simultaneous primary breast and lung cancers. She does not let those cancers define her, but the experiences she had as a patient have been invaluable for informing her as a doctor. So where does the muffin come in? I will let you listen and find out, but I can tell you that the story of the muffin shows how the practice of medicine is much more than syringes and pills, scalpels and bandages.