The Pursuit of Health Podcast

On this episode of The Pursuit of Health Podcast we dive further into the realm of public health by pausing to learn about the invaluable role of the Physician Assistant. We are fortunate to have a frontline clinician, educator and pioneer, Joseph M. Daleo, as our guest to take us through this topic.
Major Daleo is an active member of the US Army Reserve and holds a Doctorate Degree of Physician Assistant Studies from Touro University. He wears many honorable hats including an Assistant Professorship and the Directorship of Clinical Operations at NY Touro College’s Physician Assistant Program. He is a Clinical Instructor for SUNY Stony Brook’s Family Medicine and Nurse Practitioner Program as well as the Supervising Physician Assistant for the American Family Care’s Covid-19 Mitigation and Vaccination Program.
Major Daleo begins our discussion by taking us through his often bumpy personal journey to pursue a health career as a practicing Physician Assistant and educator. In so doing, he emphasizes that Physician Assistants are a vital and unique profession within the US healthcare system. He explains the honorable history of the Physician Assistant profession in the US and marvels at the exponential growth of this field both domestically and globally over the past few decades.
Our guest sheds some very important light on the misconceptions about the Physician Assistant model, stressing that this model supports a complementary, not adversarial, interaction of healthcare professionals on behalf of the patient. He provides us with a sobering reminder of the serious gaps and failures of our current system and provides much needed recommendations to make healthcare partnerships stronger to address the disparities of acute and chronic disease. He sees physician assistants as one of the critical “force multipliers” of a potentially robust approach to healthcare reform.
We finish our fascinating discussion with Major Daleo wisely advising us all to continue to adopt the pioneer spirit that made our health system exceptional in the first place. He urges us to remain open-minded so that we may learn and apply new preventative and treatment modalities to the benefit of our patients, clinicians and society.
Dr. Fethke and the team at The Pursuit of Health Podcast look forward to our audience’s feedback. We can be reached @drfethkemd on Facebook and Instagram, and our upcoming website - drfethkemd.com.
References:

1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236248847_Origins_of_the_physician_assistant_movement_in_the_United_States
2. https://pahx.org/timeline/
3. https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/clinical-care/why-physician-assistants-and-nurse-practitioners-need-supervision-say-physician-groups
4. https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/01/stop-the-war-on-pas-and-nps.html
5. https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/physician-assistants-and-their-role-primary-care/2012-05
6. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/physician-assistants.htm

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook @ericfethkemd and checkout my website at www.EricFethkeMD.com.
My brand new book, The Privilege of Caring, is out now on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP6H6QN4

In our second Take A Step Back episode we take the opportunity to look back over and comment upon Episodes 4 through 7. Our host, Dr. Fethke, is joined by a fourth year medical student, Kevin Kriege, and an experienced pediatrician, Dr. Dominic Berlingieri. Together, they reflect on the lessons gleaned from these four episodes, including;

Episode 4 (Part 2) - Schools play a vital role as entry points into the U.S. Healthcare System and as part of the ongoing health team for children.

Episode 5 (Parts 1&2) - Time is a more valuable commodity than money. When this Time and the role of the physician are appropriately valued, this can strengthen the Patient Physician Relationship. In the end, Trust and Mutual Respect actually reduce costs and allow health providers to provide better care.

Episode 6 (Parts 1&2) - When the different components of the healthcare system do not communicate well with each other, the patients suffer tremendously. The transition of care for a patient is a weak point in our current healthcare system which is urgently in need of improvement. Taking full responsibility for our patients’ is paramount if we are to learn from the many pitfalls revealed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Episode 7 (Parts 1&2) - We all have varying degrees of Implicit Bias which we must consciously recognize and not ignore. However, it is just as important to good patient care that we consider and respect our unique cultural, racial and socioeconomic differences. We must address the “whole” patient.

This hour long reflection from the frontlines was once again captivating. There was a refreshing level of honesty and insightfulness that expanded our horizons. The dynamic of student and seasoned physician provided constructive advice that will benefit us all. Take A Step Back has once again proved to be a great success. This retrospective format from physicians young and old forms the glue that binds our episodes into a collection of works that will Empower our audience.
You can follow Dr. Eric Fethke on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok @drfethkemd
(This episode is also available in video format on Youtube @drfethkemd).

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook @ericfethkemd and checkout my website at www.EricFethkeMD.com.
My brand new book, The Privilege of Caring, is out now on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP6H6QN4

Dr. Eric Fethke begins this first episode with an introduction to the mission and philosophy of The Pursuit of Health. As our host, he invites us to recognize the role that our healthcare system plays in promoting the value of every individual’s life, so that we as a people may rediscover the revolutionary principles of our founding fathers.

After this introduction, Dr. Fethke kicks off the main content of the Pursuit of Health Podcast by sharing the experiences of his own patients within the current healthcare system. He tells the remarkable stories of two of his patients with chronic medical conditions, who must overcome unforeseen obstacles in the US healthcare system just to stay alive.
He also provides a brief but thorough history of our American insurance system over the past century. By exploring the initial altruistic goals of this system, Dr. Fethke reveals how we have lost sight of the original pursuit for comprehensive and equitable access to high-quality medical care.
Dr. Fethke continues this discussion in Part 2 of this first episode, where he analyzes the efficacy of our current healthcare system and outlines some of his suggestions for how we can improve.
You can follow Dr. Eric Fethke on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok @drfethkemd

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook @ericfethkemd and checkout my website at www.EricFethkeMD.com.
My brand new book, The Privilege of Caring, is out now on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP6H6QN4

As we start 2022 we are honored to begin the second year of the Pursuit of Health Podcast with a very special guest - Dr.Tolu Bakare. She is an American Board Certified urologist with a special focus on Male Infertility. Currently she is an Assistant Professor at UT Southwestern where she cares for patients, teaches students and does clinical research. She is a graduate of the medical school at Penn State College of Medicine, after which she completed her General Surgery and Urology training at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and finally a Fellowship in Male Infertility at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
It is also notable that she is a woman of color in a male-dominated field of medicine who is intent on improving the diversity of physicians entering Reproductive Urology. She believes we need to open up her field to other female physicians of color in order to establish a more balanced representation of the community of patients she serves.
Dr. Bakare begins the discussion with an introduction to the field of Male Infertility also referred to as Reproductive Urology. She outlines the statistics regarding the prevalence of Male Infertility which are strikingly similar to that of Female Infertility. Most importantly, she emphasizes that Male Fertility needs to be viewed by professionals and lay people alike as a legitimate disease worthy of the American health care system’s full attention.
Dr. Bakare reviews the numerous social and medical misconceptions around Infertility in general and Male Fertility specifically. This includes the inappropriate, harmful and overused application of testosterone treatments. She stresses that the best way to address Male Infertility is to approach it as a Family or Couple’s problem, not the fault of the individual man. Dr. Bakare wants everyone to know that “When we treat Male Infertility appropriately as a serious illness, we also are treating men’s overall health”.
Dr. Bakare finishes our eye-opening discussion with her efforts to ensure that state-of-the-art training and medical care becomes the standard for all physicians treating Male Infertility. She reinforces the need to expand the number of female and colored physicians in her field. Only in this way does she believe that both high quality and equitable access to such quality care can be assured for everyone regardless of gender or race. Ever the optimist, Dr. Bakare sees a bright future for those treating people with Male Infertility.
We at the Pursuit of Health Podcast wish Everyone a Happy New Year. We look forward to a full line up of exciting guests with very provocative and stimulating discussions. We can be reached through Facebook and Instagram @drfethkemd and soon on our website at drfethkemd.com.

References:

• Fainberg J, Kashanian JA. Recent advances in understanding and managing male infertility. F1000Res. 2019;8:F1000 Faculty Rev-670. Published 2019 May 16. doi:10.12688/f1000research.17076.1
• Roozbeh N, Amirian A, Abdi F, Haghdoost S. A Systematic Review on Use of Medicinal Plants for Male Infertility Treatment. J Family Reprod Health. 2021 Jun;15(2):74-81. doi: 10.18502/jfrh.v15i2.6447. PMID: 34721595; PMCID: PMC8520662.
• Krausz C, Riera-Escamilla A. Genetics of male infertility. Nat Rev Urol. 2018 Jun;15(6):369-384. doi: 10.1038/s41585-018-0003-3. PMID: 29622783.

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook @ericfethkemd and checkout my website at www.EricFethkeMD.com.
My brand new book, The Privilege of Caring, is out now on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP6H6QN4

On this episode of The Pursuit of Health Podcast, we continue our visit with Dr. Elizabeth Sassi, a Nurse Practitioner on the front lines of the Covid-19 pandemic in a large public school system just outside New York City. As a nurse with 38 years of experience, including 20 years in critical care and a background in Epidemiology, she brings a unique perspective to the role that public education plays in balancing health and education in these difficult times.
In Part 1, we followed Dr. Sassi and her colleagues through their arduous and compassionate efforts to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic. In Part 2 she provides keen insights on facing the pandemic through the Winter and into the Summer of 2021. She remembers some of the emotionally trying moments with her students, their families, and her colleagues.
Dr. Sassi dives further into the role of public education as an entry point into the U.S. Healthcare System, particularly for the underserved such as America’s newest immigrants. She shares the story of one particular young immigrant student who left a lasting impact on her life in response to a moment of kindness from Dr. Sassi and her family.
We discuss the myriad obstacles that new Immigrants face as they try to reach for a better life. Dr. Sassi has seen the lack of access to medical services, inequities due to language barriers, the fear of losing a job at odds with the needs for accurate reporting of health status, and the effects on health due to limited housing.

Dr. Sassi reminds us that we are a land of immigrants and that it takes a community to raise a child well. She asks us all to prioritize our health above the fears that we face daily. She makes us believe again that together we can go beyond fear and build a better community and society.

Dr. Elizabeth Sassi and the resources of her school system can be reached at www.mw.k12.ny.us.
You can follow Dr. Eric Fethke on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok @drfethkemd
(This episode is also available in video format on Youtube @drfethkemd).

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook @ericfethkemd and checkout my website at www.EricFethkeMD.com.
My brand new book, The Privilege of Caring, is out now on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP6H6QN4