Healthcare is Stupid
Claim This Podcastby Rahul Parikh & Jonathan Mates
Podcast Overview
<p>Physicians Rahul Parikh and Jonathan Mates explore the absurdities of modern American healthcare—what it’s like, how we got here, and what practical steps might move it in a better direction.</p>
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
2/28/2026
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Recent Episodes
July 8, 2026
Screening Strikes Back
Last episode, we sat down with Dr. TR Levin — the gastroenterologist who built one of the most effective colon cancer screening programs in the country — and worked through why screening is so much harder to understand than it looks. Some tests find things that would never have hurt you. A simple test sent to your home may work better as a screening program than a more invasive procedure, mostly because people actually do it. And we talked about how knowing more is not always better, and sometimes no test is the best test. A lot of you came back with the same question: fine, but what am I supposed to actually do? In this follow-up, we talk about how to think more clearly about screening: what questions to ask, how to think about your own risk, and how to tell the difference between a test that is worth your time and one that is mostly worth someone else's money.
June 17, 2026
Should You Get That Cancer Test?
Cancer screening saves lives, and it has been thoughtfully constructed to do so. But the version of cancer screening that some of us experience is one where nobody explains the odds, nobody mentions the alternatives, and a positive result sends you into a cascade of procedures that may or may not have been necessary. That version feels stupid. And there's another version of screening, where someone in a 60 second video sells you the idea that the medical establishment is playing it safe and you need to take care of your own health by purchasing these additional tests…that just happen to have celebrity endorsements. That can also be stupid—with a price tag. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. TR Levin [https://www.linkedin.com/in/theodore-levin-06528312], the gastroenterologist who built one of the most effective cancer screening programs in the world. He's the person who figured out that the best screening test isn't the most invasive one — it's the one people will actually do. He helps us understand how screening fits into the world of medical testing, and how we can do it better. Links: US Preventive Services Task Force [https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/]
June 3, 2026
Should AI Replace Your Doctor?
"Will AI replace doctors?" makes for a great headline, a great dinner party argument, and a great way to stress out a podcast co-host. It's also, unfortunately, the wrong question. In a follow up to our last episode, we respond to our listeners' feedback. We put co-host and radiologist Jonathan Mates on the spot and use radiology as our test case — the specialty that's been at the center of this conversation longer than any other, partly because the job looks simple from the outside. You look at pictures. AI looks at pictures. What's the problem? It turns out there are a lot of problems. We get into what radiology actually involves, why AI can be impressive and still not replace humans, and some other factors we need to consider when answering this (wrong) question. Links: Geoff Hinton on radiology [https://youtu.be/2HMPRXstSvQ]
10 total episodes available
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- What is Healthcare is Stupid?
<p>Physicians Rahul Parikh and Jonathan Mates explore the absurdities of modern American healthcare—what it’s like, how we got here, and what practical steps might move it in a better direction.</p> - How often does this podcast release new episodes?
This podcast updates daily.
- Where can I listen to this podcast?
This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
- Does this podcast accept guests?
Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.
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