Site • RSS • Apple PodcastsDescription (podcaster-provided):
For the deepest problems in healthcare, philosophy is the best medicine. In this podcast series, Jonathan Fuller, MD, PhD (University of Toronto) speaks to philosophers about their work on medicine and healthcare. You will hear from philosophers on the meaning and reality of disease, on their skeptical worries about evidence-based medicine, on current movements and controversies that shake medicine to its philosophical foundations. Visit our website at www.philosophersonmedicine.com.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ philosophy of medicine • health/disease concepts and realism • causation and classification (DSM, delusions) • evidence-based medicine, consensus, clinical judgment • public health and COVID-19 science • race in epidemiology • overdiagnosis • vaccines and trust • pregnancy metaphysicsThis podcast features conversations between physician–philosopher Jonathan Fuller and philosophers whose work examines foundational questions in medicine and healthcare. Across the episodes, the show treats clinical practice and biomedical science as activities shaped not only by data and technology but also by concepts, values, and social institutions.
A recurring theme is how medicine defines and classifies its core objects: what health and disease are, whether diseases should be regarded as real entities or as products of human categorization, and how causal claims in medicine and epidemiology depend on conceptual choices. Related discussions explore psychiatric diagnosis and the role of classificatory systems in shaping research agendas and clinical identities, as well as philosophical analysis of particular psychiatric phenomena such as delusions.
Another major focus is medical knowledge and evidence. The podcast repeatedly probes the assumptions behind evidence-based medicine, including what counts as evidence, why some methods are privileged over others, and how uncertainty should be handled in decision-making. It also considers the roles and limits of expert consensus, clinical judgment, and newer “models” of medicine such as narrative and precision approaches, including how these frameworks interact with professional expertise and emerging technologies.
Episodes also address public health and the interface between science and society, using topics such as pandemic response, modeling, science communication, and vaccine hesitancy to examine trust, expertise, and the relationship between health institutions and the public. Ethical and social-political questions arise as well, particularly around the use of race as a category in biomedical research and practice, and around metaphysical questions about pregnancy that can influence how ethical debates are framed.
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Philosophy of Medicine on COVID-19 2021-Aug-28 |
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Sean Valles - Race in epidemiology and medicine 2020-Jul-06 |
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Jacob Stegenga - Medical Nihilism 2020-Jun-01 |
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Miriam Solomon - Expert consensus in medicine 2020-May-04 |
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Alex Broadbent - The causes of disease 2020-Mar-02 |
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Evidence-based medicine 2020-Jan-06 |
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Mental disorders and the DSM 2019-Nov-12 |
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Marc Ereshefsky - Primer on health and disease 2019-Oct-06 |
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Clinical Judgment 2019-Sep-02 |
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Matthew Parrott - Delusions 2019-Aug-04 |
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Elselijn Kingma - Metaphysics of pregnancy 2019-Jul-07 |
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Mary Walker - Overdiagnosis and the definition of disease 2019-Jun-02 |
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Jeremy Simon - Are diseases real? 2019-May-05 |
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Maya Goldenberg - Vaccine hesitancy and public trust in healthcare 2019-Apr-06 |
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Miriam Solomon - Pick your medicine: evidence-based, narrative, or precision? 2019-Feb-23 |
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Alex Broadbent - What is medicine? 2019-Jan-27 |
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Philosophers on Medicine - A New Frontier 2019-Jan-27 |