Fixing Healthcare Podcast

Dr. John Whyte, CEO of the American Medical Association and former FDA/CMS leader, shares what physicians and patients are telling him now. He tackles concerns about prior authorization and payment incentives. He explores Medicaid changes risking children’s coverage. He discusses AI and digital health as tools clinicians must steer, plus payment barriers to adopting effective tech.

Jonathan Fisher, cardiologist, mindfulness expert, and author, explains why empathy alone cannot carry healthcare leadership. He explores the need for strategic thinking, operational discipline, and business skills in medicine. Short segments cover burnout’s impact on strategy, why primary care is undervalued, training clinicians in finance and execution, and how attention and flow affect performance under pressure.

They discuss three looming healthcare threats: the coming affordability cliff, the chronic disease crisis, and the risk of training clinicians for the wrong future. Conversation turns to where generative AI stands now and how it could help with chronic care, reduce medical errors, and automate intake and treatment planning. Cultural barriers and early real-world pilots get highlighted as decisive next steps.

They debate a new drug discount program and whether it will actually lower prices. Federal moves to extend telehealth, hospital-at-home pilots and PBM transparency get scrutinized. Rising measles cases, falling trust in vaccine institutions, and new independent vaccine review efforts are discussed. The conversation also touches on mRNA vaccine politics and worrying health trends among younger Americans.

Grace Lynn Keller, VP at Executive Podcast Solutions and former Miss Iowa, speaks as a Gen Z commentator on health, wearables and digital behaviors. She discusses how her generation verifies health info, treats prevention as identity, uses wearables and AI first for nonemergency questions, and expects clearer, more convenient insurance and tech that provides accurate, actionable insights.

Dr. Jonathan Fisher, cardiologist, author and mindfulness expert focused on leadership and burnout prevention. He connects F1 teamwork to medicine. He explores how leadership is learned, how delivery beats content, and how to manage disruptive team members. He also discusses training clinicians for leadership, aligning departments, and planning medical careers in the age of AI.

They dig into Utah’s pilot letting generative AI renew chronic prescriptions without clinician oversight and the legal tug-of-war over regulation. They cover soaring US healthcare spending and how affordability is reshaping coverage. They flag a measles resurgence and rising vaccine-policy battles. They spotlight exercise matching antidepressants for some and AI’s promise for continuous at-home chronic disease monitoring.

This Diving Deep episode with Dr. Robert Pearl and Jeremy Corr looks at U.S. healthcare across three time horizons: past, present and future. The hosts use 2025 as a case study in disruption without reform, 2026 as a year of mounting pressure and near-term transition, and the coming decade as a period when generative AI will fundamentally reshape how medicine is practiced. Looking back at 2025 Dr. Pearl argues that despite political upheaval, executive orders, agency shakeups and constant headlines, American healthcare ended the year largely unchanged. Just more expensive and less trusted. He walks through five domains where chaos dominated but improvement failed to materialize. The throughline? Intense disruption produced little structural change in care delivery, affordability or outcomes. Turning to 2026 The conversation shifts from stagnation to pressure. Pearl identifies two forces that make inaction increasingly risky: the midterm elections and accelerating healthcare costs. He outlines how that pressure is likely to shape behavior across the system — not through sweeping reform, but through targeted, politically visible moves. Looking further ahead Pearl describes how generative AI could alter medicine at a profound level, especially through the convergence of AI and surgical robotics. He argues that autonomous surgery, once the realm of science fiction, is now technologically plausible and could upend long-standing hierarchies between cognitive and procedural specialties. Helpful links Healthcare In 2025: A Year Of Chaos, Confusion — But Little Improvement (Forbes) Healthcare In 2026: How Much Change Should We Expect? (Forbes) Will Your Next Surgeon Be A Robot? (Forbes) Monthly Musings on American Healthcare (RobertPearlMD.com) * * * Dr. Robert Pearl is the author of “ChatGPT, MD: How AI-Empowered Patients & Doctors Can Take Back Control of American Medicine.” Fixing Healthcare is a co-production of Dr. Robert Pearl and Jeremy Corr. Subscribe to the show via Apple, Spotify or wherever you find podcasts. Join the conversation or suggest a guest by following the show on Twitter and LinkedIn. The post FHC #204: Why healthcare chaos didn’t lead to change & what comes next appeared first on Fixing Healthcare.

As part of Season 11 of Fixing Healthcare, which spotlights influential voices with large followings and direct insight into how real people experience medicine, Dr. Robert Pearl and Jeremy Corr welcome back medical historian Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris for her third appearance on the show, this time joined by her husband and creative partner, illustrator Adrian Teal. Together, Lindsey and Adrian bring a rare combination of scholarly depth, storytelling and massive digital reach. Lindsey’s work on medical history has captivated millions across books, television and social platforms, while Adrian’s instantly recognizable art has built a massive following online. Their latest collaboration is the children’s book Dead Ends: Flukes, Flops & Failures That Sparked Medical Marvels, which sits at the center of this wide-ranging and unexpectedly personal conversation. The episode begins with a deceptively simple premise: medicine advances not in straight lines but through failure. Lindsey explains her long-standing fascination with scientific dead ends and why medicine often hides them from public view. Dead Ends, she says, was written to show children (and adults) that changing guidance is not a sign of incompetence, but evidence of learning in real time. Adrian adds that humor, exaggeration and even “gross-out” visuals aren’t just entertainment. They’re how curiosity is sparked and how complex medical ideas become memorable. The discussion unfolds across centuries of medical missteps and breakthroughs. Lindsey and Adrian share favorite stories from the book, including early experiments with galvanism, the guillotine’s unexpected medical legacy and how inventions routinely escape the intentions of their creators. One standout example is Martin Couney, an outsider who used a Coney Island sideshow to fund incubator care for premature infants. His invention would go on to save thousands of lives even though the medical establishment initially dismissed the technology. Shifting from history to the present, Lindsey and Adrian reflect on what past failures teach us about regulation, ethics and risk today. While modern safeguards exist for good reason (many historical experiments exploited vulnerable populations) the group wrestles with how to encourage responsible innovation without freezing progress. They also explore how public trust erodes when scientific uncertainty is poorly communicated, especially in a media environment where misinformation travels faster than nuance. The most personal segment arrives when Lindsey discusses her own breast cancer diagnosis, alongside Adrian’s experience with prostate cancer. Their stories ground the episode firmly in Season 11’s focus on lived experience. For listeners interested in how history, art and personal experience illuminate today’s healthcare debates, this episode offers a vivid reminder that progress is rarely tidy and never inevitable. For more unfiltered conversation, listen to the full episode and explore these helpful links. Helpful links Children’s book: Dead Ends: Flukes, Flops & Failures That Sparked Medical Marvels Book: The Butchering Art Book: The Facemaker ChatGPT, MD (Pearl’s newest book)   * * *   Fixing Healthcare is a co-production of Dr. Robert Pearl and Jeremy Corr. Subscribe to the show via Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you find podcasts. Join the conversation or suggest a guest by following the show on Twitter and LinkedIn. The post FHC #203: Dead ends, failures & the unlikely path to medical progress appeared first on Fixing Healthcare.

Dr. Robert Pearl’s latest opinion poll, part of his “Monthly Musings” newsletter, asked readers about their health goals and habits for 2026 (note: studies show most Americans have already quit their resolutions for the year). The result? People want to eat better, workout more and lose weight. And yet, the behaviors that lead to those outcomes are cited as the most difficult things to maintain: good sleep, time management, stress reduction. In this episode, Pearls joins cohost Jeremy Corr and cardiologist and burnout expert Jonathan Fisher for an “Unfiltered” conversation about why so many resolutions, intentions and goals fail. The conversation quickly evolves into an evidence-based exploration of human behavior, motivation and the modern forces working against sustained change. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience and lived experience, the trio explores why knowledge alone rarely changes behavior, how digital environments hijack attention and emotion, and why willpower may be the most overrated concept in self-improvement. Along the way, the conversation touches on doom scrolling, burnout, fear, parenting in a digital age and the quiet erosion of habits that support mental and physical health. The result is a candid and deeply human examination of why change is so hard … and what might actually help. Some of the key ideas discussed: Resolutions don’t fail because people are ignorant or lack willpower. Most people already know what they “should” do to improve their health or happiness. The real challenge is not information, but the gap between intention and action. Willpower is a fragile strategy. The group challenges the idea that success depends on moral strength or discipline. Instead, they emphasize designing environments and systems that make healthy choices easier. Doom scrolling as emotional regulation. Dr. Fisher describes how endless scrolling often isn’t about boredom, but about managing discomfort, anxiety or feeling low. Identity shapes behavior more than goals. Habits are easier to sustain when they align with how people see themselves. Someone who identifies as “an athlete” behaves differently than someone who is merely trying to exercise more. Burnout is both systemic and personal. While organizational pressures matter, Jonathan argues that individual boundaries, values and behavior patterns also play a role in chronic exhaustion and disengagement. Fear is rising. Robbie reflects on the paradox of growing anxiety despite improvements in crime rates, employment and longevity — and points to social isolation as a key driver. Phones are changing how we relate to each other. Jeremy raises the now-familiar sight of groups sitting together while staring at screens. The three discuss what this means for connection, attention and the ability to tolerate boredom, especially for children watching adults model behavior. In classic Unfiltered fashion, the episode resists easy answers. Instead, it invites listeners to rethink how change actually happens: not through sheer determination, but through awareness, structure and a more honest understanding of human nature. For more unfiltered conversation, listen to the full episode and explore these related resources: ‘Just One Heart’ (Jonathan Fisher’s newest book) ‘ChatGPT, MD’ (Robert Pearl’s newest book) Monthly Musings on American Healthcare (Robert Pearl’s newsletter) * * * Fixing Healthcare is a co-production of Dr. Robert Pearl and Jeremy Corr. Subscribe to the show via Apple Podcasts or wherever you find podcasts. Join the conversation or suggest a guest by following the show on Twitter and LinkedIn. The post FHC #202: Willpower, doom scrolling & the illusion of control appeared first on Fixing Healthcare.