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) • evidence-based medicine, consensus, uncertainty • clinical judgment • race in epidemiology • overdiagnosis • COVID-19 policy • vaccine hesitancy, trust • pregnancy metaphysics • delusionsThis podcast explores medicine and healthcare through philosophical analysis, using conversations with philosophers to examine how medical concepts, evidence, and practices are shaped. A recurring focus is the meaning of foundational terms such as health, disease, and medicine itself—asking how diseases are defined, whether disease categories reflect objective features of the world or partly depend on conceptual and social choices, and what follows for clinical and public-health practice when definitions expand or shift. These discussions also connect to concerns about overdiagnosis and the boundaries of who counts as sick or well.
Another major theme is medical knowledge: what counts as evidence, how evidence is ranked, and how uncertainty should be handled in research and decision-making. The podcast repeatedly scrutinizes evidence-based medicine and related movements, considering the roles of randomized trials, observational studies, mechanistic reasoning, expert judgment, and expert consensus. It also addresses skeptical perspectives on the reliability and effectiveness of contemporary medical interventions, linking questions about confidence in treatments to the social organization of biomedical research and to methodological flexibility and bias.
The series pays sustained attention to the social and ethical dimensions of medicine, especially where categories and communication affect people’s lives. It examines the use of race in epidemiology and clinical contexts, probing both the reality of racial categories and the implications of employing them in research and care. It also considers public trust and science communication, including how vaccine hesitancy and public-health guidance relate to evidence, values, and institutional credibility, and how fast-moving crises like pandemics challenge standard models of “normal” science.
Mental health and psychiatry form another strand, with philosophical attention to psychiatric classification, diagnostic manuals, and the nature of symptoms such as delusions. The podcast also ventures into metaphysical questions relevant to medicine, such as the biological relationship between a pregnant person and fetus, illustrating how abstract philosophical issues can bear on concrete medical understanding and policy. Overall, the show treats medicine as an arena where conceptual clarity, epistemology, and social philosophy intersect with real clinical and public-health dilemmas.
| Episodes: |
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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 |