'Not Going to Change a Hardened Racist': What We Heard This Week

— Quotable quotes heard by 's reporters

MedicalToday
A female reporter holding two microphones takes notes on a pad

"Taking some dippy course is not going to change a hardened racist." -- Marilyn Singleton, MD, a Los Angeles-based anesthesiologist, discussing implicit bias training as part of continuing medical education course work.

"It would be very helpful to be able to tell my patient 'lay off of the sugary sodas, but if you need a fizzy drink -- here's one that may be good for you!'" -- Chagai Mendelson, MD, of MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, discussing a small study of people with type 2 diabetes who drank kombucha for a month.

"These are people whose lives have unraveled." -- Harlan Krumholz, MD, SM, of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, about expanding the LISTEN study to include people with adverse events that rarely emerge after COVID-19 vaccines.

"That was a complete 180, a completely wrong type of answer." -- Peter Zhao, MD, of New England Eye Center at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, on the response an artificial intelligence chatbot gave to a question about central serous chorioretinopathy.

"This intervention could be easily used by clinicians." -- Johan Siebert, MD, of Geneva Children's Hospital in Switzerland, on how exposure to outdoor cold air helped improve kids' croup symptoms when paired with oral dexamethasone.

"It would take a very motivated person to be making dietary changes based on a CGM [continuous glucose monitor]." -- Yael Harris, MD, of Northwell Health in New York, discussing a social media trend in which people without diabetes wear continuous glucose monitors.

"Not only are [companies] filing and getting more continuation patents, they're actually litigating these patents." -- S. Sean Tu, JD, PhD, of West Virginia University College of Law, discussing how such patents on FDA-approved drugs have risen in recent years.

"The nurses ... were very surprised at how much easier their patients slept during the night." -- Ismail Azizi-fini, PhD, of the Kashan University of Medical Sciences in Iran, on the benefits of inhaling peppermint essence after open heart surgery.

"These decisions are often made in incredibly stressful moments of a patient's life." -- Matthew Hoffman, MD, MPH, of Christiana Care in Delaware, discussing educational videos to help families make medical decisions about antenatal care for preterm babies.