Bedside Rounds
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
74 - R2D2
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean when a computer can make better medical decisions than a human? The progress in large language models, and in particular the popular...
73 - Seadragon
26 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when a patient far from surgical care – say, at the bottom of the Pacific ocean on a submarine, or at a research base in Antarctica in ...
72 - Problems
20 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
American doctors spend the majority of their time during the day on the computer, either writing or reading notes about their patients; only a small f...
71 - A Doctor's Work, part 2
16 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the past episode, cultural and medical historians Lakshmi Krishnan and Mike Neuss discussed the history of the actual work of the doctor – Holmes...
70 - A Doctor's Work
19 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What do doctors actually do? Are they Sherlockian detectives, hunting down obscure clues to solve intractable cases? Are they virtuosic experts, train...
69 - The Database
31 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do doctors actually think? And if we can answer that, can we train a computer to do a better job? In the post-WW2 period, a group of iconoclastic ...
68 - The History
25 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Internal medicine physicians like to pride ourselves on our clinical reasoning – the ability to talk to any patient, pluck out seemingly random bits...
The Facemaker with Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris (#histmedconsultservice)
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Modern plastic surgery was born out of the horrors of trench warfare in World War I. In this episode, Adam interviews historian Lindsey Fitzharris abo...
67 - Fever on the Frontier
21 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 19th century, a strange new illness, seemingly unknown to medicine, ravaged settler communities in the American Middle West. As fierce de...
66 - Burnout
08 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Burnout seems to stalk healthcare workers; between a third and a half of doctors and nurses had symptoms of burnout BEFORE the COVID-19 pandemic. Majo...
65 - The Last Breath
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How can we medically tell whether or not someone is alive or dead? The answer is much more complicated than you'd think. In this episode, which is a l...
64 - A Vicious Circle
04 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
During World War II, the US Army launched a seemingly routine experiment to find the ideal way to screen soldiers for tuberculosis. Jacob Yerushalmy, ...
63 - Signals
23 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean when different physicians disagree about a diagnosis? I am joined by Dr. Shani Herzig as we explore this issue in the second part of...
62 - The Sisters Blackwell
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Blackwell -- the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States -- and her sister Emily Blackwell are some of the most important ...
61 - Etymologies
29 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Words matter. At its best, etymology gives us insight not only into the origins of words, but why they remain so important today, especially in medici...
60 - Santa's Salmonella
24 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For a special holiday treat, we're going to explore two tales of salmonella disease detectives -- the first about Mary Mallon ("Typhoid Mary") and the...
59 - Cry of the Suffering Organs
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Diagnosis is arguably the most important job of a physician. But what does it actually mean to make a diagnosis? In this episode, we'll explore this q...
The House of Pod: How medical podcasting made me a better doctor and educator … and how it might change the future of medical education for everyone
23 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I talk about my podcasting journey -- how I started Bedside Rounds for inspiration during a low period in residency, how it changed m...
58 - The Original (Antigenic) Sin
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the racial health disparities in the United States, with markedly increased mortality especially among Blacks and Nati...
57 - The Second Wave
31 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In August of 1918, a horrific second wave of the Spanish Flu crashed across the world. In this episode, the third of a four-part series exploring hydr...
56 - La Grippe
13 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The 1889 Russian Flu was the first influenza pandemic in an increasingly globalized world. In this episode, the second of a two-parter on how hydroxyc...
Introducing the Curious Clinicians!
09 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This bonus episode introduces episode four of the Curious Clinicians, about Vincent Van Gogh and digitalis. The Curious Clinicians is a new medical po...
55 - The Fever Tree
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Where did cinchona, the first medication to cure malaria, come from? This episode explores the murky history of the bark of the fever tree and its der...
54 - 1918 (guest episode with Hannah Abrams and Gaby Mayer)
18 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The 1918 influenza pandemic, or the Spanish Flu, is the obvious parallel to the COVID-19 pandemic -- a worldwide plague attacking a scientific and glo...
53 - The Antonine Plague (guest episode with Liam Conway-Pearson)
27 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Plagues have fascinated us since antiquity, but the Antonine Plague stands out because one of the most famous physicians in Western history was presen...
A short message from Adam
25 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As the COVID-19 pandemic increasingly spreads across the globe, Bedside Rounds is going on hiatus. This short message explains why and gives some hist...
52 - The Rebuff
02 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past several centuries, the medical field has established a firm graph on the domain of the human body, with one very notable exception -- th...
Winter Shorts #4 - The Backlog
04 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Did Hippocrates call consults for chest pain? Were there specialists in black bile? Where does our poetic terminology for heart and lung sounds come f...
51 - Hero Worship
16 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of 2019, William Osler's legacy is stronger than ever; he has been called the "Father of Modern Medicine" and held up as the paragon of the...
50 - I Know Nothing
28 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to know something in medicine? In this episode, we'll explore this question by developing a historical framework of medical epistemo...
49 - The Ether Dome
30 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The world before anesthesia was brutal -- surgeons inflicted torture on largely conscious patients, hoping to finish an operation as quickly as possib...
48 - Micrographia (FIXED AUDIO)
29 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Because of dad brain, the original musical tracks for episode 48 were offset by almost 30 seconds (even more embarrassing, because I actually LISTENED...
48 - Micrographia
28 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Germs are regarded today with a combination of fear and disgust. But mankind's first introduction to the microbial world started off on a very differe...
Summer Shorts #3 - Insulin Drama
26 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Bedside Rounds is on a summer vacation! In the meantime, I'm joined by journalist Dan Weissmann of the podcast An Arm and a Leg to talk about the tawd...
47 - The Criteria
24 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Can we ever know what causes a chronic disease? In this episode, I'm joined again by Dr. Shoshana Herzig to finish a three-part miniseries on Bradford...
46 - Cause and Effect
20 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Does smoking cause lung cancer? How could you ever know? The second in a three-part series on causality, I'm joined by Dr. Shoshana Herzig to discuss ...
45 - The French Disease at 500
22 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1495, a mysterious and deadly plague struck the city of Naples. Over the next 500 years, the medical attempts to understand and treat this new dise...
44 - The Great Smog
25 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What was behind the mysterious increase in lung cancer deaths at the turn of the 20th century? The first of a three-parter investigating the cigarette...
43 - The Cursed
18 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What killed Charles II of Spain, the inbred monarch whose autopsy famously showed a heart the size of a peppercorn, a head full of water, and a bloodl...
42 - The Lady with the Lamp
14 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Florence Nightingale stands as one of the most important reformers of 19th century medicine -- a woman whose belief in the power of reason and statist...
41 - Animal Magnetism
17 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mesmerism has had an outsize influence on medicine, despite the rapid rise and fall of its inventor Dr. Franz Mesmer and hostility from the medical es...
40 - Phage
12 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Bacteriophages -- viruses that target and kill bacteria -- were one of the most promising medical treatments of the early 20th century, and were used ...
39 - The White Plague
08 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Tuberculosis has been humanity's oldest and greatest killer. Starting at the turn of the nineteenth century, the White Plague was decimating entire ge...
0 - Introduction
10 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Many podcasts start with an "Episode 0", basically a mission statement for the podcast. Well, better late than never! This episode explores why I make...
38 - Blood on the Tracks (PopMed #2)
10 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The first population study in history was born out of a dramatic debate involving leeches, "medical vampires," professional rivalries, murder accusati...
37 - Let It Bleed (PopMed #1)
06 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
For thousands of years, bloodletting was the standard of care for any number of medical conditions, but at the turn of the nineteenth century, often a...
36 - Filth Parties
05 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The southern United States was hit by a dramatic epidemic of a mysterious disease called pellagra in the early twentieth century. This episode discuss...
The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
04 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle considered The Adventure of the Speckled Band to be his best Holmes story, and Adam does too. Meant to be a companion to Episod...
35 - Sherlock
04 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Why do doctors love Sherlock Holmes so much? In this episode, we'll explore this endearing, nerdy obsession with the good detective, from Holmes' medi...
34 - The Physical
04 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The physical exam has become a ritual of the modern doctor's appointment, with pokes, prods, and strange tools. How did this become a normal thing to ...
33 - Alexis and William
04 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Alexis St. Martin and William Beaumont have one of the strangest relationships in the history of medicine -- a young French-Canadian fur trapper with ...
32 - The Humors
03 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Four Humors are probably the longest-lasting idea in the history of medicine, even though they've been more or less completely abandoned for the p...
31 - Malariotherapy
02 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Malariotherapy -- infecting comatose syphilis patients with malaria to cure them of the disease -- was once the cutting edge of medicine, and earned i...
30 - The Orphan Vaccine
05 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Two hundred years ago, a few doctors, a matron, and 22 orphans set sail in a gutsy attempt to spread the new invention of vaccination across three con...
29 - Curse of the Ninth
13 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Did the famous composer Gustav Mahler work his fatal heart murmur into his final ninth symphony? To try and answer this question, I'm joined by Dr. Ke...
28 - Smallpox Blankets
09 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The story of smallpox blankets offered as gifts to indigenous peoples as a weapon of war is ubiquitous -- but is it based in truth? And did our increa...
27 - The First Opiate Epidemic
06 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The United States is in the midst of an epidemic of addiction and overdose deaths due to opiate painkillers. Its causes are varied, but there's no que...
Summer Shorts #2 - Corrupted Blood
09 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In 2005, a mysterious plague called Corrupted Blood hit the online denizens of World of Warcraft, ripping through cities and decimating player charact...
26 - The God Squad
31 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The invention of dialysis -- essentially artificial kidneys for people with kidney failure -- revolutionized medicine. It also started a debate about ...
Summer Shorts #1 - The Eclipse
18 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The eclipse is coming! Get out your eclipse glasses (or your camera obscura, if you didn't prepare like me), and enjoy a review of the medical literat...
25 - Salt Water
01 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Intravenous or IV fluids are a ubiquitous treatment in medicine, and one of the most cost-effective treatments that we have, costing less than a cup o...
#TipsforNewInterns and Introducing Summer Shorts (NOT AN EPISODE)
28 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In this month's #AdamAnswers, he discusses his #TipsforNewInterns (seriously, it's trending on Twitter). And we introduce the Summer Shorts for this s...
24 - W56.22xA (The Making of A Disease)
22 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a disease? And who gets to decide? Producer Cam Steele brings us a story that spans migrating uteruses in ancient Egypt, a disease that mak...
23 - Bone Portraits
31 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A darkened laboratory with an eerie green glow; a photograph of the bones of a woman's hand published on the front pages of newspapers throughout the ...
22 - The Assassination
24 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A mortally wounded American president and the quest to find his assassin's bullet unexpectedly opened up a potentially new era of medical diagnostics ...
21 - Renegades
25 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Does medicine have a place for renegades who play by their own rules? Producer Cam Steele brings us a story about medical mavericks drinking toxic coc...
20 - Buried Alive
21 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The nineteenth century was struck by a collective panic about being buried alive, leading to a bevy of new laws, regulations, and inventions like the ...
19 - Of Madness and Moons
19 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Can the moon make you crazy? The superstition is rampant in medicine, but the idea that a full moon awakens psychiatric pathologies traces back thousa...
18 - Dr. Livingstone, I presume?
30 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
By the time that David Livingstone died on the banks of Lake Bangweulu, his name was already legend -- first, as a great explorer, becoming the first ...
17 - The Iceman
25 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In 1991, two hikers near the Austrian-Italian border discovered the 5,000 year-old mummified body of Otzi the Iceman buried in a glacier. What have we...
16 - Phineas
26 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone knows the story of Phineas Gage, the young man who had a tamping iron shot through his brain in a freak accident and miraculously survived, o...
15 - Innumeracy
04 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Understanding statistics has never been more important for the practice of medicine. Unfortunately, innumeracy plagues the medical field. Listen to E...
14 - The First Trial
23 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) is the gold standard for how we know something works in the world of medicine. But how did we get to this point...
13 - The Oath
30 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Doctors recite an oath, often the Hippocratic Oath, when they graduate medical school, swearing to serve their patients and to do no harm. The common...
12 - P.I.M.P.
31 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Pimping ain't easy, especially when it happens on rounds. Where did the peculiar medical tradition of "pimping" come from? How did it get its name? Is...
11 - Frank's Sign Redux
12 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Celebrate ten episodes of Bedside Rounds with a rerecording (with new material) of the first episode, Frank's Sign! The most powerful man in the world...
10 - Car Talk
28 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
On episode 10, I discuss one of the best public radio shows of all time, Car Talk, and how it's an awesome example of clinical reasoning. I also talk ...
9 - Laennec's Cylinder
18 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In the beginning of a string of podcasts about sound in medicine, Bedside Rounds goes back to the beginning, with the invention of the stethoscope b...
8 - I will harm
29 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In Episode 8 of Bedside Rounds, we explore the mysterious world of the nocebo effect, where words can literally hurt -- or kill. It's all in the mind,...
7 - The Medicine of the Empire Strikes Back
26 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In Episode 7, we take you to a galaxy far, far away to explore the medicine of the best Star Wars film, the Empire Strikes Back. How close are we to r...
6 - The Number Needed to Treat
19 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Bedside Rounds, we discuss how risks and benefits are communicated by scientists and physicians, and why those numbers you see in a...
5 - Beachside Rounds
16 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In Episode 5, I present Beachside Rounds, a fun activity for the whole family this summer, and a brief introduction into interesting physical exam fin...
4 - Happy Birthday
16 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In Episode 4, I wish a hearty 202nd birthday to the New England Journal of Medicine, and look at how much things have changed over the centuries by lo...
3 - Dark Winter
16 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In episode 3 of Bedside Rounds, I talk about the human triumph of small pox vaccination, and discuss the government exercise called Dark Winter which...
2 - Full Code
16 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In episode 2 of Bedside Rounds (though still technically untitled), I talk some about the myths and realities of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) ...
1 - Frank's Sign
16 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
A re-recording of the very first episode of Bedside Rounds! Learn how we can use the physical exam to help solve the mysterious, 2000 year-old death o...