11 Oct 2026 · 5 min
The Comment In The Operating Room
When no one speaks up, silence can become part of the culture of care.
Podcast · Health
Second Opinion
<p>An examination of medical ethics and the practitioners who define them. Sign up to receive the Second Opinion topics in newsletter form at kcrw.com/newsletters .</p>
- New episodes
- Weekly
- Typical length
- 5 min
- Latest
- 11 Oct 2026
- Language
- English
Latest episode
Earlier episodes 29 most recent
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4 Oct 2026 · 5 min
Want Your Doctor to Write Back?
Need to send your doctor a message? A new study suggests how you write it—not just what you say—may affect whether your doctor responds.
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27 Sep 2026 · 5 min
No Room In The Hospital
It's not the sniffles clogging our ERs. It's a hospital system with nowhere left to put people.
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20 Sep 2026 · 5 min
When Good Enough Is Never Good Enough
An A-minus isn't a crisis. But for some high achievers, it can feel like one. When does striving for excellence become something harmful?
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13 Sep 2026 · 5 min
The Pressure to Succeed
American teens are anxious, exhausted, and getting too little sleep. Are phones really the whole problem—or should we also be looking at our culture of achievement?
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6 Sep 2026 · 5 min
Would You Get Sick for Science?
They were conscientious objectors who refused to fight in World War II. So they found another way to serve: they offered their own bodies for dangerous medical experiments.
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30 Aug 2026 · 5 min
Maybe We've Been Fighting the Wrong Enemy
For 100 years we've been trying to kill mosquitoes. What if the real problem was us?
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23 Aug 2026 · 5 min
Mosquitoes Are Winning
We've spent decades trying to kill mosquitoes. So why do they seem to be getting better at living with us?
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16 Aug 2026 · 5 min
The Missing Ingredient in Fighting Ebola
You can bring doctors, laboratories, and protective equipment to an Ebola outbreak. But you can't ship trust in a box.
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9 Aug 2026 · 5 min
The Choice Dementia Takes Away
Who should make the final decision about your death? You, your family, your doctor...or a disease that slowly takes away your mind?
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2 Aug 2026 · 5 min
Evolution Never Saw this Coming
Your body was built for a world that no longer exists — and that mismatch might be making you sick.
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26 Jul 2026 · 4 min
In The Last Pew
When the family of a longtime patient invited me to her funeral, I found myself wrestling with a question I never addressed in medical school.
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19 Jul 2026 · 5 min
Before You Take That Alzheimer's Test, Ask This Question
New Alzheimer's blood tests are accurate, available, and increasingly advertised — but for healthy people, a positive result is rarely useful.
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12 Jul 2026 · 5 min
Because We've Always Done It That Way
Standard medical practice isn't the same as proven medical practice — and the difference can be deadly.
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5 Jul 2026 · 5 min
The Comfort Premium
It’s the same medicine. So why does the convenient version cost so much more?
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28 Jun 2026 · 5 min
Solving One Problem, Creating Another
From a Pacific island overrun by rats to hospital wards battling superbugs, why our best intentions so often backfire.
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21 Jun 2026 · 5 min
What's Your Pain Worth? The Ethics of Paying Research Subjects
Would you take $5,000 to be in a painful medical study? And should researchers even be allowed to ask?
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12 Jun 2026 · 5 min
Why Is She Being Blamed for Her Cancer?
We'd never ask a breast cancer patient what she did to deserve it. So why do we ask her?
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8 Jun 2026 · 5 min
Gorillas: The Canary in the Jungle
Veterinarians in Central Africa are bracing for an Ebola outbreak among gorillas. It might sound remote. It's not.
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31 May 2026 · 5 min
The Power of a Passport and the Privilege to Leave
I packed my bag, crossed the border, and eventually flew home to safety. The health care workers I left behind had no such option.
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24 May 2026 · 5 min
We Knew It Was Coming — We Just Didn't Care
From the Uganda-Congo border: a firsthand account of an Ebola outbreak, a failing response, and the political decisions that made it worse.
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15 May 2026 · 5 min
A Ship, a Virus, Nine Countries. And We Weren't There. We Built It, And Then We Broke It.
America built the global health system that protects us all — and then walked away from it.
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10 May 2026 · 5 min
Cut and No Cure - When Doing Nothing Beats Going Under the Knife
What if one of the most common surgeries performed in the world turned out to be no better than a fake one — and we kept doing it anyway?
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3 May 2026 · 5 min
Eight Legs, One Bite, Big Trouble
There's a vaccine for your dog. There isn't one for you. And that's not an accident — it's a scandal.
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24 Apr 2026 · 5 min
Who Is Qualified to Fix Your Mind?
Millions of Americans need mental health care and can't get it — so should we lower the bar on who gets to provide it?
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19 Apr 2026 · 5 min
Smarter Than Two Doctors: How AI Could Change Breast Cancer Screening
If AI can outperform two radiologists reading your mammogram, why is it still sitting on the sidelines?
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12 Apr 2026 · 5 min
The Socialized Medicine We Already Have — And It Works
We've spent decades arguing about whether government-run healthcare could ever work in America — but one system has been quietly proving it can. The answer might surprise you.
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4 Apr 2026 · 5 min
What Happened to Him? Why We Get Trauma—and Care—So Wrong
Our healthcare system often punishes behavior it doesn’t understand—and trauma is at the center of that misunderstanding.
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27 Mar 2026 · 5 min
Cruel Irony of Medical Expertise
If you've ever left a doctor's office nodding along and then lain awake at 3 am realizing you understood almost nothing — this might be for you.
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22 Mar 2026 · 5 min
Dyslexia, Shame, and the Myth of Intelligence
The same children once labeled deficient are often highly capable adults — if they survive a system that misjudges them early. Dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence, but everything to do with how badly we teach reading and judge those who struggle.
About Second Opinion
<p>An examination of medical ethics and the practitioners who define them. Sign up to receive the Second Opinion topics in newsletter form at kcrw.com/newsletters .</p>
Second Opinion is a English health podcast from KCRW. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.
- Publisher
- KCRW
- Language
- English
- Category
- Health
- New episodes
- Weekly
- Typical length
- 5 min
- Latest episode
- 11 Oct 2026
- Feed
- RSS — paste into any podcast app
- Apple Podcasts
- podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id73331693
- Rights
- KCRW 2024
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