Dr. Derek Angus launches health-centered podcast on JAMA Network

Title card for Healthy Dialogue podcast
Title card for the Healthy Dialogue podcast. (Courtesy: JAMA Network)

HPM alumnus Derek C. Angus, MD, MPH, FRCP, (MPH '92), has held many titles during his distinguished clinical and academic career, but never figured a podcast host would be one of them.

“I was asked to do it by JAMA’s editor-in-chief, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo,” said Angus, who is Senior Editor at JAMA. “I decided that I should say ‘Yes’ for three reasons: I cared about the problem of how to make science more accessible to broader audiences.  I was also about to step down as department chair and knew I’d have more time on my hands, and as part of my ‘post-chair’ life, I thought it would be good for my neuroplasticity to take on a task for which I really had no training.”

With that, Healthy Dialogue was born.

The goal for each episode, according to Angus, is to host conversations with leading experts on important topics in health and health care and make the content accessible and digestible to a broad audience.

“I’ve felt for a while that the gradual loss of trust by society in science and in institutions has been a corrosive and increasingly worrisome trend,” said Angus, adding that after a career of research that he hoped was relevant to society, it was a depressing thought that all of that effort by he and colleagues might “end” with publication in a peer-reviewed journal without further dissemination.

Episodes typically begin with setting the stage about the topic by working to answer the question: “How did we get here?” followed by discussion of what makes the topic worthy of discussion at this particular time – for both good and bad – and then what will happen next.

So far, Healthy Dialogue has hosted top experts on subjects like autism, AI, dementia care and private equity in health care, something Angus credits to having the support of JAMA.

“We’ve had Lasker award winners on the show already, and I’m kind of hoping we’ll have some Nobel prize winners too at some point,” he said. “It is of course both exciting to talk to these incredible people and pretty petrifying – but despite any anxieties I might have ahead of time, every guest so far has been quite lovely.”

In addition to drawing in health and health care leaders as guests, Angus says being under the JAMA umbrella was something that appealed to him too. “They have a wonderful multimedia team in Chicago, and they really deserve the lion’s share of the credit.”

With seven episodes out and many more on the way, Angus says he and his team are continuously working to improve it, trying to strike a balance between informative and highly entertaining and accessible.

“I think that latter means having a casual, informal and friendly banter on the show – which of course isn’t always easy when talking about serious health conditions with people I’ve never met before,” he added.

So, who can listeners expect to hear?

“I have a long list of wonderful biomedical scientists on our wish list,” said Angus. “But, for example, I’d also love to chat with people who hold huge sway over current healthcare delivery, like U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Mehmet Oz or U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.”

As a career health care professional, Angus says the podcast is more about health than just health care, hence the title.

“I’m also really interested in it being a dialogue – regardless of my own views. I’m hoping that the podcast can showcase all pertinent viewpoints on any given topic. Again, hence the title”


- Mike Friend

 

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