Between soaring health insurance costs, confusing updates about changes to health care policy, and the ever-evolving threat of medical misinformation, it’s a good time to brush up on your trusted sources. These six podcasts all deliver expert knowledge about the past, present and future of medicine in America, encompassing storytelling, investigative journalism and tips on how to take care of your own health.
‘This Podcast Will Kill You’
Three years before the Covid-19 pandemic forced us to develop at least a passing interest in epidemiology, this podcast began with the goal of putting a mainstream spin on the subject. Hosted by experts Erin Welsh (disease ecologist and epidemiologist) and Erin Allman (epidemiologist and family medicine doctor), the show delivers dense and potentially grim subject matter in an accessible and entertaining way. Episodes often focus on a specific disease, like the flu, the plague or monkeypox, typically kicking off with a real-life story from someone affected by the illness before delving into its history, biology and epidemiology (that is, how it spreads). In other weeks the focus might be a specific type of medication, like S.S.R.I. antidepressants, or a treatment like I.V.F. The Erins also spend a lot of time debunking myths and correcting the record on false claims, a mission which has only become more vital since the podcast’s launch in 2017.
Starter episode: “Childhood Vaccine Schedule 1: Let’s give it a shot”
‘Bodies’
This is a thoughtful, insightful series from KCRW about the internal and external forces that shape a human body, with an emphasis on how inequality can add fuel to the fire of illness. Created and hosted by Allison Behringer, a journalist, “Bodies” ran for four seasons between 2018 and 2023, delivering firsthand accounts of medical experiences from women, people of color and other groups who are disproportionately likely to experience poor treatment and worse health outcomes. The maladies spotlighted are generally stigmatized or poorly understood conditions — chronic pain, postpartum mental illness, autism — with the emphasis as much on the sickness in the system as in the individual. An intimate mix of first-person storytelling and investigative reporting, this is the kind of journalism that public radio does best.
Starter episode: “Anxious Mess”
‘Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast’
Therapy is more popular than ever in the U.S., with nearly one in four adults engaging in some form of mental health treatment according to a 2021 CDC report. This boom has also fueled a rise in mental health content on platforms like TikTok, where therapists and armchair experts alike share advice of wildly varying quality. The “Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast” is a helpful resource for anyone trying to cut through the noise and develop a better understanding of psychology. The show consists of conversations between the host, Dr. David Puder, a practicing psychiatrist, and fellow mental health professionals with various fields of expertise across clinical and research work. Episodes might focus on a specific therapeutic approach like cognitive behavioral therapy or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (better known as E.M.D.R.), a single diagnosis like bipolar disorder, or broader topics like the much-contested link between cannabis use and psychosis.
Starter episode: “A.I. Psychosis: Emerging Cases of Delusion Amplification Associated with ChatGPT and L.L.M. Chatbot Use”
‘Sawbones’
The history of medicine is replete with inspiring tales of innovations which have saved countless lives and also with stories of so-called remedies so bizarre and horrifying that they sound more like methods of torture than treatments. For the past 10 years, this funny (its subtitle is “A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine”) but educational podcast has been digging into the strange ways that physicians have conceptualized and treated illness since the dawn of civilization. Dr. Sydnee McElroy is a family medicine doctor, while her co-host and husband, Justin McElroy, is a comedian. Their expert/everyman dynamic makes for entertaining listening as they talk about historical treatments like bloodletting, lobotomies, and trepanation (drilling a hole into a person’s skull). They also trace how early ideas about physiology became building blocks for modern medical knowledge, investigate anecdotes about medical mysteries, and tackle modern pseudoscience and misguided medical trends.
Starter episode: “Mercury”
‘Emergency Medicine Cases’
If you can’t get enough of “The Pitt” and its visceral depiction of life on the front lines of the E.R., this podcast just might fill the weeklong void between episodes. It’s primarily designed as an educational resource for physicians, nurses and paramedics, with most episodes focusing on how specific medical situations are assessed and treated, with a round table of experts discussing their own experience. But there’s plenty to learn and enjoy for civilians too, especially the installments that offer insight into the daily lives of E.R. physicians, like how to handle cognitive overload during a 12-hour shift and the sleep deprivation that comes with shift work.
Starter episode: “Cognitive Decision Making and Medical Error”
‘The Pulse’
This weekly podcast from WHYY explores a wide variety of questions about health and medical science, in service to understanding why the American health care system operates the way it does. Recent topics of conversation between the host, Maiken Scott, and medical professionals, researchers and everyday people have included the boom of urgent care centers over the past decade and how it’s changing American medicine, the implications of people relying on A.I. chatbots for therapy, and the decades-long race to decode the human genome. There’s also plenty of helpful advice on how to optimize your health, inject more happiness into your daily life, and navigate our labyrinthine health care system.
Starter episode: “How Noise Affects Our Health”
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