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During this intimate evening of storytelling, hear directly from health workers who are innovating and advocating every day to deliver better care to their communities. Five storytellers will share their personal stories on the challenges they face; how they are driving solutions; and how we can better support their needs to ensure that everyone has access to quality care....
With the power of a text message, the advice of a health worker fits in the palm of your hand. With innovative entrepreneurship, care becomes accessible where it previously was not. With the skill of a midwife, the pregnant woman in need of a champion thrives. Health systems may be complex, but what powers them is simple—the human beings at their backbone who are critical...
A healthcare worker shortage is today’s reality, putting safe, quality healthcare at risk for everyone. According to the US Surgeon General's Advisory on Building a Thriving Health Workforce, the realities are that many of our health workplaces and practices are exhausting and demoralizing for our talented, caring, and overworked healthcare professionals. The emotional, ph...
The nursing crisis is a healthcare crisis. Reports across the country are ominous –70% of nurses are reporting burnout, 32% are considering leaving the profession, hospital RN vacancy rates are 19% and accelerating. And the pipeline for new nurses is choked – nursing educators are leaving in droves, resulting in 80,000 highly-qualified prospective students being turned awa...
Nearly 75 percent of us experience some significant adversity by the age of 20, but these experiences are often kept secret — as are our battles to overcome them. Clinical psychologist Meg Jay, author of Supernormal, tells the tale of everyday superheroes who have made a life out of dodging bullets and seeking justice, even as they hide among us as doctors, artists, entrep...
From anxiety to focus to memory to joy, physical activity has a truly astounding number of benefits on our brain’s anatomy, physiology, and function. In this interactive session, come prepared to experience real brain change, and walk away with science-based tools you can use every day to improve your brain function.
A passion for food — growing it, cooking it, and eating it — has become one of the favorite pastimes of countless people. Did it all begin with James Beard? Learn why that claim is made in the new PBS American Masters documentary, James Beard: America’s First Foodie. Following the film, Corby Kummer, food writer for The Atlantic, will lead a panel discussion with two of Am...
In the face of a spiraling opioid epidemic, alternatives for addressing chronic pain are essential. Taking a placebo may turn out to be just the prescription we need. Neuroscientists have discovered that a pill with no pharmaceutically active ingredients can reduce responses in the brain’s pain centers, and trigger the release of endorphins, the body’s own chemical pain re...
If Black women bear the heaviest burdens of the maternal mortality crisis—they are 2.6 times more likely to die during pregnancy or shortly after childbirth—they are also the most determined to address it. Moving beyond grief and rage, their leadership is prioritizing culturally sensitive care, respect for best practices, and greater use of community-based models and licen...
The US is aging – between 2012 and 2050, the number of adults over age 60 will jump from 43 to 84 million, representing about 20 percent of the population. Meanwhile, smaller and more scattered families will mean greater numbers of people growing old alone. Fostering the social connections and cross-generational interactions that are so essential to healthy aging has becom...
Often overshadowed by terrorism, nuclear weapons, and cybercrime in the public imagination, pandemics may actually be the more existential threat to human civilization. And most experts agree: We’re woefully unprepared, and crucial funding for basic research, foreign aid, and preparedness is on the chopping block. What lessons have we learned from the Ebola crisis that can...
When Rochelle Walensky was appointed director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in December 2020, the pandemic had commandeered much of the agency’s attention. But its many other responsibilities never went on holiday. Even as the world’s premier public health agency developed guidance for COVID-19 testing, masking, quarantines, and vaccination, it...
Advances in health and medicine no longer rest entirely in the hands of scientists and clinicians. Patients and citizen activists are stepping up to influence research priorities, crowd-source data, and scour arcane medical literature in search of novel experimental approaches. Often, they are motivated by personal experiences, the refusal to accept that a disease lacks tr...
Since the 1989 release of Bill McKibben’s landmark book, The End of Nature, little has been done to tackle climate change. But McKibben says we’re finally in a moment when voters, media, and political leaders are paying attention. From school strikes to the Green New Deal, young people around the world have opened a window for action. His plea is this: Seize the opportunit...
Artificial intelligence, which recognizes patterns in data, images, and sound, is poised to move from the laboratory to the clinic and may upend health delivery in the process. Soon, AI may generate algorithms to calculate an individual patient’s risk of hospital-acquired infection, based on vital signs and other health records, and to predict when it is safe to remove som...
Knowledge about the human microbiome, those trillions of bacteria, viruses, and other microbes that inhabit our bodies, is revolutionizing medicine just as mapping the human genome continues to do. Indeed, what we are learning could take us even further because the microbiome can be altered by diet, exercise, and stress control. Computational biology, DNA sequencing, and o...
Dr. J. Craig Venter, one of the pioneers in human genome sequencing, talks about coming opportunities to use genomics, advanced technology and machine learning to custom-tailor individual care and fundamentally alter the practice of medicine.
As they celebrate the 110th anniversary of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which first regulated safety and labeling in the US, six former Commissioners of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) meet to talk about an agency with wide-ranging regulatory responsibilities. FDA has authority over many foods and virtually all drugs, devices, cosmetics, veterinary products,...
Jerome Adams, the US surgeon general and the nation's doctor, joins Patrick Harker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, in conversation. The Federal Reserve researches and works to help strengthen local economies in communities across the country. Through its Economic Growth and Mobility Project, the Philadelphia Fed focuses on turning research into acti...
Eighty percent of what impacts our health happens outside of the doctor's office: from education and employment opportunities to access to housing, transportation, and quality food. A panel of global experts will explore actionable solutions to address the root causes of disparities and how to build a path forward for collaboration, community co-creation, and a shared visi...