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 • concepts of health/disease, realism • causation and classification (DSM) • evidence, EBM skepticism, expert consensus • clinical judgment and AI • public health/COVID modeling, uncertainty, communication • race in epidemiology • overdiagnosis • vaccine hesitancy, trust • pregnancy metaphysics • delusionsThis podcast features conversations with philosophers and health scholars about foundational questions in medicine and healthcare. Across the episodes, the discussions use philosophical tools—conceptual analysis, epistemology, and social philosophy—to examine what medicine is for, what counts as health or disease, and how medical categories are constructed and contested. Recurring themes include debates over the reality and definition of disease, the causes of illness, and how diagnostic systems shape clinical practice, including in psychiatry and debates around the DSM, delusions, and the classification of mental disorders.
A substantial thread concerns medical knowledge and evidence: what “evidence” means in evidence-based medicine, why certain methods (such as randomized trials and meta-analyses) are privileged, and how uncertainty and values influence decision-making. Related episodes explore the role and limits of expert consensus, clinical judgment, and whether contemporary medical interventions warrant skepticism given concerns about research bias, methodological flexibility, and small effect sizes. The show also addresses public-facing and policy-relevant issues, including how public health models and “fast science” operate in crises like COVID-19, how expertise is communicated, and what conditions support public trust.
Social and ethical dimensions of medical practice appear through topics such as the use of race in epidemiology and medicine, questions about whether and how racial categories map onto the world, and controversies around vaccine hesitancy. The series also broadens beyond standard ethical debates by taking up metaphysical questions relevant to healthcare, such as the relationship between mother and fetus in pregnancy. Overall, the podcast presents philosophy as a lens for understanding medicine’s concepts, methods, institutions, and controversies.
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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 |