Hosts Anish Koka and Michel Accad discuss the influence of drug companies on physician practices
The Accad and Koka Report
Hosted by Dr. Michel Accad and Dr. Anish Koka, this podcast offers highly engaging interviews on topics that matter to doctors, including medical science, policy, economics, and ethics—always with an eye toward safeguarding the doctor-patient relationship.
To learn more, visit their website: AccadAndKoka.com.
Anish Koka and Michel Accad have a fun chat with Professor Darrel Francis on evidence-based medicine (EBM).
Anish Koka and Michel Accad discuss a “white paper” calling for some deregulation of the apparatus that rules the supply of physicians and their scope of work.
Anish Koka and Michel Accad discuss the chilling case of Alfie Evans.
Dr. Saurabh Jha discusses the philosophical question of “what is normal.”
Mandated “value-based” payment schemes have been a disaster from the get-go, but it seems that central planners never lose hope.
Anish Koka and Michel Accad discuss a tweet and a paper claiming that pharmaceutical companies don’t even need to produce effective drugs anymore.
Anish Koka and Michel Accad discuss the effects of public reporting of outcomes on the behavior of physicians, and the real-life consequences of these misguided healthcare policies.
Anish Koka and Michel Accad discuss a blog post that pushes back against “debunkers” and self-appointed guardians of “science-based medicine.”
G. Keith Smith outlines his experience founding the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and makes the case for free markets.
Shared decision-making has become a sacred cow of medical ethics almost overnight. Anish Koka and Michel Accad review the history of this concept and why it is contrary to a sound doctor-patient relationship.
What is the best way to curtail unwarranted therapies? Should there be more top down regulations or is it possible that more health care freedom will lead to less utilization?
Anish Koka and Michel Accad have fun discussing the controversies about blood pressure guidelines with guest Dr. Swapnil Hiremath.
Dr. Anupam Singh offers a sound and intelligent perspective on the proper role of clinical trials and clinical judgment in medical care.
Dr. Mary Ruwart discusses the unintended consequences of the 1962 amendments to the FDA.
Twila Brase reveals the ugly truths about electronic health records and what can be done to escape from this modern day Panopticon.
Dr. Wes Fisher outlines the new initiatives that stand a realistic chance of turning the tide against the quasi-regulatory monopoly of the American Board of Internal Medicine.
Dr. Gajendra Singh is attempting to provide affordable ultrasound, CT, and MRI imaging to his community, but the government is stopping him in an effort to protect existing providers.
Public reporting of outcomes aims to improve service quality, but has also harmed patients and doctors alike. Can any good come out of it?
Hadiza Bawa-Garba was convicted of involuntary manslaughter by a British court for her role in the care of a patient in a hospital setting fraught with system failures. Dr. Saurabh Jha shares his insights on this case.
The Swiss healthcare system is frequently proposed as a model for the rest of the world to emulate. Dr. Marc Fouradoulas explains why the country has set the precedent for a universal healthcare system.
Guest Roman Zamishka argues the libertarian case against free markets in healthcare.
Rafael Fonseca and John Tucker share their eye-opening analysis of a recent article on bribery in the medical profession.
Adam Gaffney joins Michel and Anish to defend a single-payer healthcare system.
US medical schools overwhelmingly support centralization of healthcare and health care decision-making. That is not a surprise since, over the decades, academic institutions have greatly benefited from healthcare policy.
Dr. Brahmajee Nallamothu discusses financial incentives of publishing, ideological biases in medical journals, the peer review process, the Twitter effect, and a new editorial position of independent troller!
Guest Dr. William Rothstein looks at the patterns of coronary mortality rates throughout the world over the last 8 decades and calls into question received notions about this disease.
Are doctors patsies for the medical device industry? Are patients put in harm’s way for lack of tough standards on new device approvals? We examine the question with Jeanne Lenzer.
For most doctors, Hippocrates is a quaint figure of the past with hardly any relevance to the modern practice of medicine. We may label him as the “father of medicine,” but we have no idea what really connects us to him.
Can anyone question evidence-based medicine and not be considered some kind of fringe lunatic? Fortunately it’s possible, as will be demonstrated by our guest, Mark Tonelli.
Physician burnout has attained epidemic proportions. The true causes of this epidemic remain hotly contested but our two distinguished guests have recently published an essay whose thesis has resonated with many doctors.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, a sweeping report was recently published detailing 30 years of research on the sexual harassment of women in academia.Guset Dr. Jane van Dis sheds light on the report and highlights what future steps must be taken.
In a matter of a couple of decades, the concepts of population health and population medicine have taken center-stage in healthcare, displacing the traditional aim of medicine and distorting the doctor-patient relationship.
The arcane procedure patients must follow to file out-of-network claims is an important obstacle for a more widespread embrace of a third-party free medical practice. Could that process be made less daunting?
One of the most fundamental questions that a doctor may be asked to answer is the following: Is this man or is that woman dead? Guest D. Alan Shewmon offers a compelling rebuke to the principal arguments put forth to defend the concept of brain death.
The life of a clinical trialist involves juggling multiple demands. Beyond the purely scientific questions are the clinical interests of the patient and the personal demands on the physician.
Peer review by colleagues is an important process by which doctors who misbehave or malpractice can be held accountable and, if necessary, prevented from harming patients. Unfortunately, the process can also be used in bad faith.
Support for a single-payer healthcare system in the United States seems to be growing inexorably. Before we resign ourselves to the inevitable fate of “Medicare-4-All,” it may be prudent to remind ourselves or understand better the arguments against a single-payer system.
A recent US Supreme Court decision has struck down the “professional speech doctrine”. This decision may have far reaching implications across a number of human activities, including health care.
What’s the professional life of Canadian doctors really like? Guset Dr. Shawn Whatley informs us about the realities of healthcare in Canada.
Could pushing policy levers on a grand scale conceivably have negative unintended consequences?
Bureaucratic appeal to measurement as a check on personal judgment rules the medical field but also permeates our entire culture. Guest Jerry Z. Muller brings a valuable historical perspective to the subject.
Should doctors have something to say about guns? If so, what should they say?
Economic knowledge should not be the sole province of technical experts, but it is. The price we pay for this ignorance is that most people can easily fall prey to the political class and to the technocrats whose economic theory is generally far from sound.
We revisit the question of brain death, this time with a more practical focus. What should doctors tell families of patients who fulfill neurological criteria for brain death?
The reform of medical education is a usually boring conversation that needs its own reform. The discussion we have on this episode does just that.
Patients come in all sizes and shapes, and with varying tolerance for complications and risk. Is it plausible that a single dosing regimen can optimize treatment for everybody?
Can scientists step into the same data pool and obtain the same research results twice?
Dr. Lee Gross is a pioneer in the most hopeful trend in health care today: the Direct Primary Care movement.
Are bioethicists too complacent about their grasp of economics? A fascinating discussion with Dr. Tom Koch.
Doctors are increasingly asked to follow decision rules, guidelines, and “evidence-based” algorithms. Is that the right approach to take care of patients? Are cognitive errors over-emphasized in healthcare?
Dr. Accad and Dr. Koka discuss the pros and cons of healthcare policy—and of a doctor’s involvement in such policy—with Aamir Hussein, a fourth year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.
Is our inability to articulate what "health" is precisely the reason for our insanely dysfunctional healthcare systems?
Is it possible to operate a medical practice outside of the mainstream "insurance-contracted" healthcare system?
Michel Accad and Anish Koka discuss the “Less-Is-More” movement with Dr. Lisa Rosenbaum, one of the best medical writers of our generation.
Anish Koka and Michel Accad reveal some uncomfortable truths about conflicts of interest in healthcare.
Billions of healthcare dollars hinge on theories from a field of human inquiry that combines the precision of mathematics with the accuracy of astrology. Michel Accad and Anish Koka interview Dr. Michael Acree, a data scientist and a teacher of statistical science.
Dr. Milton Packer traces the history of the American medical school from its humble beginnings to its present day turmoils.
Defense attorneys Kyle Clark and Andrew George shed light on the legal procedures, tactics, and tricks that can send physicians to federal prison.
Dr. Ethan Weiss, an accomplished clinician-scientist, discusses what led him from the lab bench to an interest in dietary interventions.
Drug pricing seems to be an irrational and incomprehensible aspect of our economy. Healthcare economist Amitabh Chandra offers some clarity on the matter.
Radiology holds a special place in the medical ecosystem. Michel Accad and Anish Koka discuss what its future holds with Dr. Saurabh Jha, Associate Professor of Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.
Who should represent physicians when doctors may hold very divergent views on matters of politics, economics, ethics, and even science? Michel Accad and Anish Koka interview Dr. Jane Orient.
Can we ever go back to a time when communities took care of the medical needs of their members without the intervention of governments and without the corrupting influence of health insurance? Accad and Koka interview Dale Bellis, founder of Liberty Healthshare.
James Heathers and his fellow data vigilantes captured the limelight after exposing problems in the work of a world-famous nutrition researcher, which led to the retraction of five papers.
Dr. Rishi Wadhera on how rigorous science can put healthcare policy under scrutiny and show that the wisdom of the wonks frequently falls short.
Dr. Arvind Cavale, an entrepreneurial endocrinologist from Pennsylvania, explains how a small private practice can remain nimble, adopt technology, and deliver high quality care efficiently.
Dr. Molly Rutherford illustrates what can be accomplished when physicians are free to care for patients privately, without the stigma associated with addiction and rehabilitation clinics.
The effort to extend the scope of practice of nurse practitioners and physician assistants worries many doctors, who are concerned that patients are getting short-changed in the process. Are these concerns simply motivated by protectionist interests? Dr. Rebekah Bernard discusses this massive push.
Mention the phrase “industry-sponsored clinical trial” and many eyes will immediately roll back. But, is the reaction justified? Dr. Milton Packer explains.
Is there a way forward? Accad and Koka interview Paul McHugh, MD, one of the most important figures in academic psychiatry of the last thirty years.
Bryan Carmody, MD, discusses the machinations that constitute licensing examination in the United States.
Is there a conservative path to universal healthcare? Avik Roy certainly believes so.
Are public health concerns about unvaccinated children sufficient to trump individual liberty? Accad and Koka interview Dr. Niran Al-Aqba, a board-certified pediatrician in Washington State.
Today's guest is Dr. Pritpal Tamber, a physician who has devoted his career to better understanding what it means to live in a healthy community.
A short episode commenting on a recent piece in Medscape by Arthur L. Caplan, one of the most influential bioethicists of the last forty years.
Two distinguished guests — Dorit Reiss and Jonathan Howard — join the show to debate the issue of vaccine mandates.
Accad and Koka have a fascinating conversation with Ben Harder, an expert in hospital and physician quality ratings.
Accad and Koka interview Dr. Victoria Sweet, author of the best-sellers God’s Hotel and Slow Medicine, two of the most important books on medicine in recent times.
How should physicians act within the problematic framework of “organized medicine” to tangibly improve medical practice? Accad and Koka interview Dr. Marcelo Hochman.
Accad and Koka interview Jacob James Rich.
Accad and Koka discuss with Bob Murphy the common belief that healthcare is a sector plagued by “market failure”.
Accad and Koka discuss with Bob Murphy how economists conceive (or misconceive) of medical care, and what the implications are for the US healthcare system as a whole.
What can we learn from the experience of a 90-year-old patient who is told point-blank, “You’ll be dead in a year!”—and who survives to tell the story?
Dr. Lee Gross discusses Trump's recent Executive Order on health care transparency, and the implications for the growth of the Direct Care Movement.
In this interview with Anish Koka, John Chamberlain relates how his attempts to "do right by the patient" became increasingly arduous.
Dr. Joel Topf shares his insights on the good and bad of Trump's executive order, and on the state and future of kidney disease in the United States.
Dr. Keith Smith offers insights into the chasm that exists between the way healthcare policy makers conceive of medical practice and how ordinary patients actually seek the best possible healthcare value.
Bob Graboyes on why American healthcare is stuck in a hundred-year-old mentality that stifles innovation, constrains medical advances, and yields low quality care.
Jay Kempton shares insights from his recent efforts to turn employers away from the wasteful and corrupt health insurance benefit model.
Big Pharma is abandoning its R&D efforts for antibiotics. What are the regulatory, scientific, and economic factors responsible for this potentially dangerous trend? Accad and Koka interview Dr. David Shlaes.
Can a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School hold on to free market principles? Accad and Koka discuss health policy and economics with neurosurgeon Dr. Richard Menger.
Are out-of-network physicians deliberately trying to price-gouge patients in need of emergency care? Will “surprise billing legislation” solve the problems of narrow networks?
Accad and Koka interview Dr. Cecile Janssens, whose research concerns the translation of genomics research to applications in clinical and public health practice.
Do hospital-based physicians benefit from being out-of-network? Are policy wonks who attack “surprise billing” fully aware of the relevant factors?
Peter Klein discusses “evidence-based economics” and the relative place of randomized trials in economics and medicine.
What is the outlook for the science of mental illness and the practice of psychiatry? Accad and Koka interview Dr. George Dawson.
A health policy of choice—not of constraints—is what we need, says guest David Balat.
Generic drug use has been encouraged through decades of favorable legislation and subsidies. What should doctors and the public know about generic drug manufacture?
Medicinal chemist John Tucker, PhD, and hypertension specialist Swapnil Hiremath, MD, share their perspectives and impressions on the unsettling question of generic drugs.
Should the medical school curriculum include health inequity, climate change, and gun control? Accad and Koka discuss the politicization of medical education with Dr. Stanley Goldfarb.
Accad and Koka interview the widely respected blogger who writes anonymously under the pen name "Skeptical Scalpel".
Accad and Koka welcome Dr. Adam Cifu to discuss a difficult question.
Dr. Bob Gill, producer of the documentary The Great NHS Heist, discusses his fears of what is undermining the mission of the NHS.
Dr. Accad critically examines the “Population Health” movement.
Hordes of independent nurse practitioners are on the horizon. Many physicians are raising the alarm bell, but Dr. John Mandrola views things differently.
Dr. Anish Koka discusses the COVID19 pandemic with Dr. Christos Argyropoulos, Chief Nephrologist at the University of New Mexico.
Dr. Anish Koka Anish discusses the COVID19 pandemic with Dr. Daniel Jafari, an emergency physician and surgical critical care specialist in New York.
Dr. Paul Offit shares with us his thoughts on the response to the COVID pandemic: a response that should take into account the health costs of a severe economic downturn.
Dr. Mark Tonelli shares how the Seattle area medical community has responded to the first US cluster of COVID-19 cases.
Dr. Aaron Kheriaty addresses the possibility that a surge in demand for intensive care due to the coronavirus pandemic will outstrip the supply of equipment and staff.
Accad and Koka interview Per Bylund, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University.
Dr. Nicole Saphier discusses her new book, Make America Healthy Again.
Jeff Deist addresses the unprecedented governmental response to COVID, in unintended consequences, and the inability of local communities to set their own course.
Accad and Koka interview Ryan McMaken.
Should we wait for COVID testing benchmarks to be met before we can reopen the economy? Avik Roy, head of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, discusses FREOPP’s plan to bring people back to work.
Dr. Anupam Singh discusses the surprising aspects of the pandemic in the Indian subcontinent.
Accad, Koka, and guests discuss the controversies surrounding the COVID-related opinions and research findings of John. P.A. Ioannidis, the notorious Stanford data scientist and physician.
Can tort law play a positive role in how we deal with infectious diseases? Accad and Koka interview Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Hastings College of the Law.
Dr. Andrew Althouse dissects the recent news of the positive Remdesivir trial.
Dr. Adam Rodman, host of the podcast Bedside Rounds, sheds light on the COVID-related challenges that clinicians are now confronting.
Gregg Gonsalves, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Yale University Medical School, explains what a strategy of testing and contract tracing might look like.
Accad and Koka interview Eric Weinhandl, an epidemiologist whose investigation of a JAMA paper on dialysis patients led to its retraction—and subsequent republication. They also discuss the field of epidemiology during the COVID pandemic.
What does it mean to promote a politically conservative vision for healthcare? Accad and Koka interview Dr. Leo Valentin.
Neurosurgeon Chengyuan Wu discusses Elon Musk’s initiative to create a new brain-human interface using implants in the brain that communicate with the environment.
Mary Davenport and George Delgado developed a treatment protocol that can reverse the effects of the abortifacient mifepristone and be given to women who change their mind after a medical abortion.
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Dr. David Howard comes on the show to discuss his experiences in America, and more broadly racism in America.
Dr. Sunil Rao discusses his perspective on the recent retractions of papers involved in the Surgisphere scandal.
Dr. Marilyn Singleton joins the Accad and Koka Report to discuss the deleterious effects of race victimization manifest today.
Dr. Rohin Francis joins Accad and Koka for a wide ranging discussion on racism in medicine, COVID in Britain, and how minority groups have fared in Britain.
Dr. Leamer is a Professor of Economics and Statistics at UCLA who comes on the show to discuss the recent arrival of econometric analyses in medicine.
FREOPP, a non-partisan think tank founded by Avik Roy recently released a plan for reopening schools. We discuss some of the data from around the globe, as well as practical considerations related to opening schools.
Manny Sethi, a trauma surgeon running to be the next senator from the state of Tennessee, discusses his journey from medicine to politics, as well as his views on healthcare.
Joshua Gottlieb is an economist who co-authored a recent paper examining the effect of government policy and physician income.
Anish Koka and Michel Accad discuss lockdowns in light of the experience of the last few months.
Dr. Marion Mass and Dr. Rupali Chadha join the show to discuss the role of middlemen in healthcare, and how the recent White House executive order to eliminate middlemen will change the healthcare landscape.
A recent article authored by Dr. Norman Wang on the history and current state of affirmative action programs in medical schools and cardiology departments has led to a storm of controversy and to Dr. Wang’s demotion as fellowship program director.
Dr. Gabriela Gomes joins the show to discuss how herd immunity thresholds are estimated, and why she thinks classic models are flawed and must incorporate a measure of variation in individual susceptibility.
Our guest is Amy Wax, Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Robert Yeh is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He joins the show to discuss the challenges of outcomes research and his excellent work to improve the reliability of observational studies.
Our guest is Adam Mortara, lead trial counsel in the case of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University. We discuss the legal aspects of affirmative action in light of the paper by Dr. Norman Wang that set off a storm of controversy in academic medicine.
Dr. John Mandrola returns to the show to discuss why doctoring and politics shouldn’t mix and how he got into hot water on Twitter for holding that unacceptable view.
Dr. Damian Carabello discusses the depths insurance companies go to make sure they end up on top.
Our guest is physician and author Sally Satel, MD. She has written widely in academic journals on topics in psychiatry and medicine, and has testified before Congress on veterans’ issues, mental health policy, drug courts, and health disparities.
Professor Heymann and Professor Fine, along with colleague Ken Eames, have co-authored an landmark review paper on the concept of herd immunity.
Does it matter if we call irreversibly comatose patients “dead?” Our guest is Doyen Nguyen who authored a 600-page monograph that takes a critical look at brain death from a variety of perspectives.
Our guest is Professor Stephen Senn, a world renowned statistician whose career has spanned the gamut of activities that involves statistical analysis in medicine, from teaching to research to consultancy.
Our guest today is Terence Kealey, Professor Emeritus of clinical biochemistry at the University of Buckingham in the United Kingdom, and Research Fellow at the Cato Institute.
Our guest is Elise Amez-Droz, program manager for the Open Health program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where she also manages the health policy portfolio.
How do we identify good nutritional and exercise habits? Amongst the myriad of fads, what rules should guide one’s health choices and behaviors?
Christopher Snowdon joins the show to discuss his position on lockdowns, which has surprised many and put him at odds with other libertarians.
Dr. Accad interviews Dr. Koka regarding his latest article entitled “Correlative Adventures with COVID”
Our guest is Shawn Whatley, a physician in Canada who is the author of the recently released book When Politics Comes Before Patients: Why and How Canadian Medicare Is Failing.
Dan Morgan, MD, joins the show to discuss a recent paper he co-authored about probabilistic diagnostic reasoning among clinicians.
Professor David Heymann shares his perspectives on post-pandemic life and on opportunities for the public health sector.
Ted Okon, a nationally recognized expert on the policy and politics of cancer care, joins the Accad and Koka report.
A patient, an electrophysiologist. and an Associate Professor of Radiology join Accad and Koka to discuss implantable defibrillators.
Our guest is Euzebiusz (Zeb) Jamrozik, MD, PhD. His academic work on infectious disease ethics is focused on vaccines, vector-borne disease, and drug resistance.
Our guest is Euzebiusz (Zeb) Jamrozik, MD, PhD. His academic work on infectious disease ethics is focused on vaccines, vector-borne disease, and drug resistance.
Jenin Younes joins Dr. Accad and Dr. Koka to discuss her involvement in advocacy and in legal challenges against vaccine mandates.
Our guest is Ben Recht, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley, who recently got hold of and analyzed the raw data from the Bangladesh cluster randomized control trial of masking which made headlines in September.
Our guest is Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD, who has made remarkable research contributions pertaining to SARS-COV2 transmission in schools and to vaccine-related myocarditis.
Our guest is Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, author of the recently-released T ake Two Aspirins and Call Me By My Pronouns, a book that details the intrusion of critical race theory and identity politics into medical education and medical practice.
