When a social media-savvy friend first suggested to Eve Glazier, MD, that UCLA Health start a podcast, Dr. Glazier thought, “Does the world need another podcast?”
But the more she considered it – the incredible range of providers and specialists that could be featured, all the practical and reliable health information that could be shared – the more excited she got about the possibilities.
“Medically Speaking with Dr. Eve Glazier” premiered in March. Journalist Katie Couric was the first guest, talking about the importance of colorectal cancer screenings. Subsequent episodes have addressed integrative medicine and “What Your Gyno Wants You to Know.” Starting in July, new episodes will drop weekly.
“In a way, it’s like a public service,” Dr. Glazier says. “I just feel strongly – as a person, as a physician, as a mother – that knowledge shouldn’t be inaccessible or too precious, and it shouldn’t be so rarified. That’s why the slogan of the podcast is: You shouldn’t have to go to medical school to know how your body works and be empowered by knowledge.”
Dr. Glazier, a primary care doctor based at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center, says she hopes the podcast demystifies medicine and makes health information easier to understand.
While she appreciates that medicine is moving away from its “paternalistic” origins, where providers tell patients what to do, and toward more dialog and shared decision-making, “it’s pretty hard to make a shared decision without understanding what’s going on with your body,” she says.
When you know nothing about cars, for example, you agree to the mechanic’s recommendations, Dr. Glazier says, “so I think we should share knowledge and make it accessible and really make these (medical) decisions together.”
Exciting topics and experts
Her enthusiasm for the podcast is palpable as she discusses her plans, rattling off a long list of experts she’d like to speak with and topics she wants to cover. She’s approaching the project with curiosity and a desire to educate, describing herself as “the interlocutor questioner.”
Dr. Glazier says there will be episodes on advance care planning, sports medicine, menopause and andropause (“how the male body changes and evolves,” she says). She’s planning conversations with social workers, physical therapists and pediatricians, along with an “asking for a friend” segment to address particularly sensitive topics.
“Let’s ask it. Let’s debunk it,” she says. “Let’s address it with respect and critically think about it together.”
Dr. Glazier is also excited about talking to a wide swath of UCLA Health colleagues, learning what motivated their professional paths, and “just celebrating and highlighting the amazing work that our providers do every day.”
“Medically Speaking” is available on all podcast platforms, as well as on YouTube. “We just really want listeners to walk away with knowledge that’s going to help them in their life,” Dr. Glazier says.
‘Ask the Doctors’
“Medically Speaking” is like an expanded digital iteration of the “Ask the Doctors” column, which features expert answers to reader-submitted questions that Dr. Glazier and her UCLA Health colleague Elizabeth Ko, MD, have been writing since 2018.
A professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Dr. Glazier also serves as president of the UCLA Health Faculty Practice Group, overseeing physician support services, managed care contracting and the Office of Population Health and Accountable Care.
“I really love what I do,” she says. “I feel so, so lucky and fortunate.”
