Health & Medicine

Dr. Farmer worked to improve health care in the developing world. He died in Rwanda Feb. 21, on the grounds of a hospital and university he helped establish. Originally broadcast in 2011.

Meghan O'Rourke says long COVID and other chronic illnesses put an unwieldy burden on patients, who have to testify to the reality of their own illness. Her new book, The Invisible Kingdom, chronicles her personal struggle to find diagnoses for her own nerve pain, brain fog, extreme fatigue and other symptoms."When you're at the edge of medical knowledge, the lack of evidence is treated as evidence that the problem is you and your mind," O'Rourke says. "I felt, in a sense, kind of locked away in a room like a 19th-century hysteric."

Shortly after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2019, architect Brian Ameche, then in his mid-60s, told his wife, novelist Amy Bloom, that he wanted to end life on his own terms, before the disease robbed him of everything.

In the memoir, The Beauty of Dusk, Frank Bruni chronicles the changes to his vision and the adaptations he's had to make in his work, personal life and attitude. The book also profiles a number of other people who've survived and thrived in ways that Bruni says are profoundly instructive.

Though he fully expected to be infected with COVID, Dr. Thomas Fisher says he was committed to providing medical care to the Black community on Chicago's South Side. His new book is The Emergency.

Medical historian and surgeon Ira Rutkow points to physical evidence that suggests Stone Age people conducted — and survived — brain surgery. We talk about the evolution of surgery from ancient societies to robotic surgery today. His new book is Empire of the Scalpel.

Adam Scott's previous credits include the sitcom Parks and Recreation, Big Little Lies and the cult favorite Party Down. He says that unlike the experience of his Severance character, in his line of business there's very little space between what he does and who he is.

When the COVID crisis hit in 2020, the federal government needed far more N95 masks and other protective equipment than it had — so it began awarding contracts to companies promising to provide them, often at a steep mark-up. J. David McSwane, a ProPublica reporter and author of the new book Pandemic, Inc: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick, says a shocking number of those companies had no experience in providing medical equipment.

Sarah Silverman is known for breaking taboos in her comedy. Her new off-Broadway musical The Bedwetter, adapted from her 2010 memoir of the same name, centers on the most humiliating part of her childhood: wetting the bed every night until she was about 16.

Author Linda Villarosa has been writing about the racial disparities in health outcomes for decades and recently covered the topic for the New York Times' 1619 Project. She says that while she used to think poverty was to blame for Black Americans' health problems, she's now convinced that bias in the health care system and the "weathering" affect of living in a racist society are taking a serious toll on African Americans.

The First World War, which lasted from 1914 until 1918, ushered in a new kind of mechanized warfare. Bodies were maimed, burned and gassed, and as many as 280,000 combatants were left with ghastly facial injuries. Medical historian Lindsey Fitzharris says soldiers who suffered facial injuries were often shunned in civilian life.

Maureen Corrigan reviews the novel Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.

In the new book, American Cartel, Higham and co-author Sari Horwitz make the case that the pharmaceutical industry operated like a drug cartel, with manufacturers at the top; wholesalers in the middle; and pharmacies at the level of "street dealers."

Maureen Corrigan calls 'The Last White Man' a deft, if narrow, Twilight Zone-type fantasy about identity.

Author Beth Macy and harm reduction specialist Michelle Mathis talk about grassroots and community efforts to address the opioid crisis. Macy's latest book is Raising Lazarus.

In 2010, Jay-Z reflected on growing up in Brooklyn surrounded by drugs and violence. "One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike."

White noise streams are a kind of sonic wallpaper. For many, they help keep some parts of the brain distracted so that other parts may better focus on things, like writing, studying or sleeping.

As an oncologist, cell biologist and hematologist, Mukherjee treats cancer patients and conducts research in cellular engineering. In his new book, The Song of the Cell, he writes about the emerging field of cell therapy and about how cellular science could one day lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer, HIV, Type 1 diabetes and sickle cell anemia.

Season two of Mike White's Emmy Award Winning HBO series 'The White Lotus' is about wealthy Americans vacationing in a luxurious hotel in Sicily and how they manage to mess up their lives

Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide have risen in recent years. NY Times reporter Matt Richtel says we lack the therapists and treatment centers to care for teens who are suffering.