Earlier this year, Wendy shared a post from a physician friend who saw news of a door blowing off a Boeing 737 as a metaphorical omen for the state of US healthcare.  That post struck a nerve. So, we wanted to talk to someone who’s been on the frontlines at Boeing – someone who saw that lives were at risk and spoke up – someone who the healthcare industry can learn from.  Ed Pierson, a former Senior Manager in the Boeing 737 MAX factory, joins us to talk about how the drive for increased production schedules and profits trumped safety and experience.  Sound familiar?

Last week, we aired a show about a rural hospital in Ohio.  As it turns out, the former CEO of that very hospital, Phil Ennen, was listening.  And he called in.  Here is our conversation.

Brian Alexander, author of The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town, joins us to talk about how rural hospital culture and independence are collapsing under pressures to consolidate and corporatize, and how, ironically, those epicenters of care have precious little control over the factors most important for health.

Why, as doctors, do we do what we do?  Through a series of personal stories – from Matt, Wendy, and several of our listeners, we’ll take a look at the human experience of clinicians. We’ll talk about the stories, emotions, experiences – and patients – we carry with us and how that impacts who we are and how we care for others.

Dr. Fred Liss is an orthopedic surgeon outside Philadelphia. When he couldn’t change the hospital where he worked to deliver better care, he built his own. For the last twenty years, he has been a tireless advocate for physician-led care and patient choice.

How much is enough?  How much too much?   In the last hundred years, healthcare has experienced an unprecedented boom in innovation, technology, and… cost.  Wendy and Matt explore the origins of the rising price of healthcare – who pays, who benefits, and how good ‘ole fashioned greed interferes with the patient/doctor relationship.

No matter where you work, everyone – patients, physicians, other clinicians – has their own sh*t, and inevitably, we bring it into the exam room. In this episode, Matt and Wendy sit down with Deborah Morris, a consultant clinical psychologist, and Jon Taylor, a consultant forensic psychologist and psychotherapist, to talk about vulnerability and finding a bit more compassion for each other’s sh*t. And we learn that, if you think the grass is greener on the other side of the pond, just try walking through it without stepping in some . . . piles.