The Doctors’ Lounge
Where scalpels meet systems — and physicians say what they really think.
Co-hosted by Anish Koka, MD & Anthony DiGiorgio, DO. Candid talks on healthcare policy, reform, physician autonomy & patient care.
Episodes
81 episodes
From Addiction to Advocacy: Tom Wolf's Journey
SummaryIn this episode, Anthony DiGiorgio and Anish Koka engage with Tom Wolf, a recovery advocate, who shares his personal journey through addiction, homelessness, and eventual recovery. The conversation delves into the c...
You Can't HSA That Away: Rachel Rosenthal on Medicare, Trade-offs, and Zero-COVID Singapore
Episode Summary Rachel Rosenthal, an editorial board member at Bloomberg who writes on healthcare and education, joins Anthony DiGiorgio and Anish Koka for a wide-ranging conversation about healthcare reporting, COVID-era lessons, a...
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Real Doc Speaks: Bureaucracy, Bad Incentives, and the Fight to Keep Doctors in Charge
In this special add-on episode, Anish Koka and Anthony DiGiorgio welcome Dr. James O'Leary — a Mayo-trained OB-GYN with forty years of experience, former department chairman, ACO board member, and host of the Real Doc Speaks podcast — for a wid...
The Cost Cure: Ashish Jha's Case for Price Caps, Competition, and Biosurveillance
Episode SummaryAnthony DiGiorgio and Anish Koka speak with Dr. Ashish Jha, co-founder and CEO of BioRadar, senior fellow at Harvard Belfer Center, and former White House COVID-19 response coordinator, about the future of American healthcare...
Congressman Tom Oliverson on 340b, the No Surprises Act, gold carding, and more
Episode Summary In this episode of the Doctor's Lounge, Anthony DiGiorgio speaks with Hon. Tom Oliverson, MD, Texas State Representative for House District 130 and chair of the House Republican Caucus. Dr. Oliverson shares how he mo...
Vinay Prasad: COVID, the FDA, and Why Journalism Keeps Getting Medicine Wrong
The prior uploaded file had 26 seconds that was corrupted. Restored on this version!Episode Summary:Dr. Vinay Prasad joins the Doctors Lounge in a recorded in person conversation that moves from his time at the FDA to bigger qu...
The Ship Has Sailed: Mike Munger on Medicare, Markets, and Debt
Episode SummaryDuke political economist and podcast host Mike Munger (The Answer is Transaction Costs) joins Anthony DiGiorgio and Anish Koka to argue that what Americans call "health insurance" isn't insurance at all — it's a social pro...
900 Regulatory Hurdles: Why AI Isn't Replacing Doctors Yet
Episode SummaryWith scheduled guest Dr. Geoff Manley pulled away by a medical emergency, hosts Anish Koka and Anthony DiGiorgio turn the episode into a news roundtable. They open on a JAMA op-ed by Neil Khosla and Ezekiel Emanuel arguing...
Inside a $207 Million Verdict: What Every Physician Should Know About Malpractice Trials
Episode SummaryIn a special Tuesday episode, Anish Koka and Anthony DiGiorgio sit down with Heather Tereshko, a Principal at Post & Schell in Philadelphia and a 25-year veteran of medical malpractice defense, to break down...
Right-to-Try 2.0: Inside the Montana Model with Niklas Anzinger
Episode SummaryAnish Koka and Anthony DiGiorgio sit down with Niklas Anzinger, a venture capitalist and founder of Infinita VC, to unpack Montana SB535 — a new law that lets doctors administer treatments to patients that have ...
Dan Donoho on Surgical Data Science, Regulation, and the Humanoid OR
Episode SummaryAnthony DiGiorgio and Anish Koka sit down with Dr. Dan Donoho, an NIH-funded neurosurgeon-scientist at Children's National Hospital and George Washington University, and founder of the Surgical Data Science Collective an...
Dr. George Tolis on Physician Pay, Private Practice, and a Valve Gone Wrong
Episode SummaryCardiothoracic surgeon Dr. George Tolis, chief of cardiothoracic surgery in Boston, returns to The Doctors Lounge with hosts Dr. Anish Koka and Dr. Anthony DiGiorgio for a wide-ranging conversation that opens with the newl...
Cremieux on FDA Reform, Fake Data, and the Columbia Admissions Hack
Episode SummaryDrs. Anish Koka and Anthony DiGiorgio sit down with independent science writer Cremieux, the pseudonymous Substack author known for auditing primary data and calling out flawed research. The conversation ranges from FDA ...
Scott Becker on Building Becker's Healthcare, Physician Supply, and Private Enterprise
Episode SummaryAnish Koka and Anthony DiGiorgio sit down with Scott Becker, founder of Becker's Healthcare and partner at McGuireWoods, on the business of medicine — his path from healthcare lawyer to media mogul, the real story behind...
Martin Shkreli on Drug Pricing, Prison, and the Fraud That Shook Pharma
Episode SummaryAnish Koka and Anthony DiGiorgio sit down with Martin Shkreli — the former hedge fund manager and pharma executive best known for the 2015 Daraprim price increase and his subsequent prison sentence — for a wide-ranging c...
Do No Harm: Inside the Fight to Get Identity Politics Out of Medicine
Episode SummaryDr. Stanley Goldfarb — nephrologist, former Associate Dean for Curriculum at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine, and founder of Do No Harm — joins Drs. Koka and DiGiorgio to trace how medical education drifted from clini...
The Myocarditis Double Standard: COVID, the Vaccine, and the Pediatric Deaths That Went Unreported
Episode SummaryDr. Tracy Beth Høeg returns alongside Dr. Venkatesh Murthy, NIH-funded cardiologist at the University of Michigan, to dissect the Senator Ron Johnson congressional memo detailing pediatric deaths following COVID-19 vacci...
David Zweig on Schools, Science, and the Media's COVID Failure
Episode SummaryInvestigative journalist David Zweig joins Anish Koka and Anthony DiGiorgio to discuss his book An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, The Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions — a heavily cited account of how p...
Drug Pricing, Broken Incentives, and the 340b program Fixes Washington Won't Touch
Episode SummaryRyan Long — former senior policy advisor to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and current non-resident senior scholar at the USC Schaefer Institute — joins Drs. Koka and DiGiorgio for a deep dive into the structural failures driving ...
The Atom Bomb Speaks: Tracy Høeg on COVID, Myocarditis, and the FDA From the Inside
Episode SummaryDr. Tracy Høeg — physician, epidemiologist, and former Acting Director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research — joins Drs. Koka and DiGiorgio for her first interview since being fired from the agency in May...
The ER Doc Who Quit the System - and Built His Own
Episode SummaryDr. Noah Kaufman - board-certified emergency physician with 20 years in the ER, seven seasons on American Ninja Warrior, and a new direct acute care practice in Denver - joins Drs. Koka and DiGiorgio to talk about why he w...
The Cholesterol Debate: What the Keto Influencers Get Right (and Wrong)
Episode SummaryDr. Greg Katz, preventive cardiologist at NYU Langone and co-host of Beyond Journal Club, joins Anish to dissect the online cholesterol debate — specifically the claims made by science communicator Nick Norwitz, who...
Gaming the System: LTACHs, Guidelines, and the Evidence Problem in American Medicine
Episode SummaryDr. Anil Makam — hospitalist, health services researcher at UCSF, and faculty at Zuckerberg San Francisco General — joins Drs. Koka and DiGiorgio for a wide-ranging conversation on the hidden mechanics of American h...
The FDA, Unicure, and the Limits of Accelerated Approval
Episode SummaryAnish sits down with Adu, a med student and biotech investor, to work through the FDA's contested handling of Unicure's AMT-130 — a gene therapy for Huntington's disease delivered via stereotactic brain injection. They deb...
Salty About Medical Education: Bryan Carmody on What the System Gets Wrong
Episode SummaryPediatric nephrologist, medical educator, and "Sheriff of Sodium" Dr. Bryan Carmody joins Drs. Koka and DiGiorgio to challenge some of the most persistent narratives in American medicine. From the AAMC's physician shortage...
