HuMed with David Spiro, MD – Details, episodes & analysis

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HuMed with David Spiro, MD

David Spiro, MD | Doctor Podcast Network

Health & Fitness

Frequency: 1 episode/95d. Total Eps: 70

HuMed goes beyond diagnoses and procedures to explore the profound human experiences of medical professionals. Join Dr. Spiro as he engages in deep, candid conversations with fellow doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers. They share the often-unseen realities of their work in the demanding hospital environment – the challenging cases, the emotional toll, and the ethical dilemmas they navigate daily.

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https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp2518528
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Chiropractor Dr. Stephen Hussey: "I Had a Widowmaker Heart Attack at 34"

Saturday, October 24, 2026 • Duration 55:28

He looked fit, ate well, exercised, and had a calcium score of zero six months earlier. Then, at 34, Dr. Stephen Hussey had a widowmaker heart attack.

Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age nine, Dr. Hussey, a doctor of chiropractic with a master's in functional medicine and author of Understanding the Heart, spent his adult life trying to do everything right. In this episode, pediatric ER physician Dr. David Spiro talks with him about the heart attack he suffered alone during COVID, the frustration of feeling unheard in the hospital and being labeled noncompliant, his decision to depart from the standard medication plan, and the stress he believes set the stage for it all. David also presses him on the hard question: how can he know what actually drove his recovery? The episode ends with what nearly dying at 34 changed about his life and purpose.

CHAPTERS

0:00 "I had a widowmaker heart attack at 34"

0:16 Meet Dr. Stephen Hussey

1:39 Asthma, allergies and type 1 diabetes at age nine

2:53 "I felt like a pincushion" and the nurse with the magic kit

4:19 Giving bad news to children and families

7:25 From patient to health practitioner

9:17 What "avoiding toxins" means to him

10:33 Sauna, sweat and microplastics

14:13 A heart attack despite a zero calcium score

17:53 What a widowmaker heart attack felt like

21:28 Alone in the hospital during COVID

23:30 Labeled "noncompliant"

25:23 Why he declined the standard medications

27:00 A new blockage in his leg

29:04 Light, sauna and circadian rhythm

33:58 Semmelweis and challenging medical dogma

35:17 How does he know what worked?

37:43 Stress and the nervous system

41:38 The 36 hours before the heart attack

43:28 Heart attacks without blocked arteries

45:44 "Stay in your lane": answering his critics

47:55 Heart disease, obesity and insulin resistance

51:43 What nearly dying at 34 changed

54:44 Closing

Watch the full video on YouTube: HuMed with David Spiro, MD

Follow HuMed on Instagram: @humedpod

HuMed unveils the human side of medicine through real stories from clinicians. Guests share their personal experiences and views, which are their own. This episode is for storytelling and education, not medical advice. Talk with your own doctor before changing any treatment.

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Longevity Physician Dr. Vassily Eliopoulos: "He Looked Exactly Like Me"

Tuesday, October 20, 2026 • Duration 01:00:02

After years in emergency medicine, Dr. Vassily Eliopoulos (Dr. Vass) coded a man in a rural Wyoming ER who was his age, had no other risk factors, and looked exactly like him. That night pushed him from the ER toward longevity medicine and cardiovascular prevention.

In this episode of HuMed, pediatric ER physician Dr. David Spiro talks with Dr. Vass about why doctors neglect their own health, the "golden handcuffs" that kept him stuck, how therapy and CBT-I helped him heal from years of night shifts, and why he believes disease care and true health care are two different systems. He also walks through his longevity pyramid, built on community, purpose and sleep, not supplements and saunas.

CHAPTERS

0:00 He coded a man who looked exactly like him

0:28 Meet Dr. Vass: ER doctor turned longevity physician

2:05 The code in Rock Springs, Wyoming

4:48 Why doctors neglect their own health

8:13 The lost art of healing

11:03 "We're training technicians, not physicians"

15:07 Trapped in a broken system

18:18 The golden handcuffs

20:44 Healing from decades of night shifts

28:30 Disease care vs. true health care

35:37 Why no one told Dr. James Wittig he was sick

39:04 Advice to his younger self: don't let fear decide

42:32 Dr. Vass's longevity pyramid

44:55 What dying patients talk about

47:51 Purpose: the old dog and the rabbit

51:21 A quarterly "board meeting" with his kids

53:16 Fasting, thermal springs and community

57:54 Closing thoughts

Lifestyle Medicine Physician Dr. Melissa Mondala: "I Did Healing for Myself First"

Saturday, October 17, 2026 • Duration 54:42

"I did healing for myself first, so I could become a better healer."

Before Dr. Melissa Mondala treated patients with lifestyle medicine, she needed it herself. She lived with IBS and reflux from her teens, and during her training at Loma Linda she was diagnosed with an atypical breast cancer. Changing how she ate, moved, slept and handled stress changed her health, and her husband's, and it reshaped how she practices medicine.

On this episode of HuMed, Dr. David Spiro talks with Dr. Mondala, a double-boarded family and lifestyle medicine physician, fellowship-trained in integrative psychiatry and integrative medicine, about the patients who shaped her: a young single mother of three with pancreatic cancer who kept running for her kids, and a fashion designer with an autoimmune disease who got her life back layer by layer.

They also discuss:

Lifestyle medicine vs. integrative medicine, and where they overlap
Why ferritin matters even when hemoglobin looks normal
Her approach to adult behavior change: one habit, SMART goals and habit stacking
What medical training leaves out about nutrition and sleep
Advice for frustrated, burned-out physicians who feel stuck practicing reactive medicine

Dr. Mondala earned her MD at Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University. She is co-founder of the Doctor Lifestyle Clinic, a direct care practice, and author of Embody Lifestyle Medicine: How to Build a Successful Direct Care Startup.

HuMed unveils the human side of medicine through honest conversations with physicians. Follow the show so you never miss an episode.

Chapters

00:00 Cold open

00:22 Introducing Dr. Melissa Mondala

02:25 Her own health story: IBS, reflux and food as poison

04:21 Loma Linda and the Blue Zones

05:30 A breast cancer diagnosis during training

07:00 The pillars of lifestyle medicine and her husband's autoimmune disease

ER Physician Dr. Rick Pescatore: "Nobody Could Solve Her Mystery Illness"

Tuesday, October 13, 2026 • Duration 50:01

Dr. Rick Pescatore was driving to Pittsburgh with a woman he had met on Hinge, describing a kind of patient he sees every ER shift: pain, nausea, vomiting, and tests that all come back normal. She said the person he was describing "sounds exactly like my mom." A few weeks later her mother was dying in an ICU, and nobody could solve her mystery illness. The missing piece turned out to be vitamin B1 (thiamine). The woman from that drive is now his wife, Katie.

Dr. Pescatore is a board-certified emergency physician. He went through the U.S. Naval Academy, studied aerospace engineering, and served in the Navy's submarine force before medical school. He trained at Cooper University Hospital, served as Delaware's chief physician during the COVID-19 pandemic, is editor-in-chief of Emergency Medicine News, still works shifts in a community ER, and co-founded Belly MD.

In this conversation with Dr. David Spiro, he talks about helping diagnose his future mother-in-law, why so many ER patients are told they are normal when their lives are not, and how that pattern helped burn him out of full-time emergency medicine. They also get into what night shifts cost physicians, his Navy call sign, his time leading Delaware's pandemic response, and why an ER doctor who used to roll his eyes at supplements now sells them.

In this episode:

– The drive to Pittsburgh: "sounds exactly like my mom"

– An ICU stay nobody could explain, and the vitamin B1 answer

– "We tell them that they're normal, but their lives aren't"

– Disorders of gut-brain interaction and the ER

– Why he calls GLP-1 drugs some of the most revolutionary in history

– Burning out of emergency medicine, and the night-shift toll at every age

– F-18s, submarines, and the call sign "Aquaman"

– Chief physician for Delaware during COVID-19

– An ER doctor selling supplements: his answer to the eye-rolls

Chapters

Neuro-Ophthalmologist Dr. Kim Blankshain: "What Is Happening?" Her Husband's Brain Surgery

Saturday, October 10, 2026 • Duration 36:52

A Monday morning, 6:45. Dr. Kim Blankshain is changing her infant son when she hears a crash in the next room. Her husband is sitting on the edge of the bed, bleeding from a gash in his forehead. She expects a few stitches. Hours later an ER physician says the CT scan came back and he is being sent downtown to see neurosurgery right away. "What is happening?"

Dr. Blankshain is a neuro-ophthalmologist in the Chicago suburbs, a specialist in vision problems that begin in the brain and nervous system. She was in fellowship, trained to read MRIs and CTs, when the scan on the screen was her husband's: an epidermoid cyst pressing on his brainstem, and brain surgery set for the next morning. She joins Dr. David Spiro to talk about being the doctor in the waiting room, and how it changed the way she delivers bad news to her own patients.

In this episode:
- Why knowing the medicine made it harder, and the moment the neurosurgeon asked, "What do you do for a living?"
- The waiting-room buzzer three hours into a four-to-six-hour surgery: "That can't be good"
- Receiving bad news as a physician: "I wasn't really hearing what he was saying"
- How she gives hard news now: slow down, say it more than once, and sit in the silence
- Going back to work the day after her husband came home, with her time off for the year already used on six weeks of maternity leave
- Parental leave in medical training, and why she calls the culture "cruel"
- Working-mom guilt and the "have it all" lie: "Something has to give on any given day"
- Marriage after a baby: feeling like roommates, a year of couples therapy, and TV-free Thursdays
- What she tells pre-med students: "It's still just a job"

Dr. Spiro also shares how he gives bad news to families in the pediatric ER.

Chapters
00:00:00 "What is happening?"
00:00:20 Meet Dr. Kim Blankshain
00:01:50 What a neuro-ophthalmologist does
00:02:22 A crash in the next room
00:04:10 The ER and the CT scan
00:06:08 Rush University: the MRI and the neurosurgeon
00:07:27 "What do you do for a living?"
00:08:14 Brain surgery, tomorrow00:08:53 The waiting room: "That can't be good"00:09:43 Six weeks of recovery00:10:13 How it changed the way she sees patients00:11:45 On the other side of bad news00:13:04 Slow down, repeat it, sit in silence00:14:17 Dr. Spiro: bad news in the pediatric ER00:15:25 "You are so lucky that you came to me"00:16:36 Back to work the next day00:19:41 Parental leave in medical training00:22:43 Balance with a five-year-old00:23:58 The "have it all" lie00:24:39 On call on the Fourth of July00:26:37 "It's still just a job"00:27:50 Marriage after a baby00:29:23 Couples therapy and TV-free Thursdays00:32:33 Why she believes in therapy for physicians00:33:44 "Nobody says that to a mechanic"00:34:08 Why she reached out to HuMed00:35:31 Closing

Kidney Transplant Physician Dr. Aditya Pawar: "It Started From a Mistake"

Tuesday, October 6, 2026 • Duration 42:24

A resident on night call writes one word in a chart to describe his patient's husband, a man in his 90s: "senile." He thinks it means "very old." The note gets corrected, but the word stays in the edit trail, and a few days later the record shows the patient has read it. Every instinct tells him to leave it alone. He calls the family to apologize anyway.

Dr. Aditya Pawar is a transplant nephrologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. That phone call became "Safe Space," his essay in The New England Journal of Medicine. He joins Dr. David Spiro to talk about what the couple said to him on that call, why it took him years to understand it, and who a clinician's "safe space" really protects.

In this episode:
- The apology he almost didn't make, and why he says it would be just as hard tomorrow
- Why "safe space" in medicine often protects the doctor, and what a "brave space" with patients looks like
- Telling a patient you don't yet know the best approach
- Practicing in India versus the U.S.: five-minute visits that never really end, and seeing your patients at the grocery store
- Why he calls paternalism "a protective mechanism"
- What he says to kidney patients who won't let their own child donate
- What he tells first-year medical students about the 20-minute visit that needs an hour and twenty
- His uncle's lesson from Sunday evenings seeing patients in a village in India: "As a physician, we've always lost"
- Six hugs from a grieving family after one of his first codes

Dr. Spiro also shares what it was like to lead his team's debrief after a child died in his pediatric ER.

Read the essay: "Safe Space," N Engl J Med 2026;395:840-843. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp2518528

Chapters
00:00:00 "As a physician, we've always lost"
00:00:20 Meet Dr. Aditya Pawar
00:02:03 "It started from a mistake"
00:02:33 Night call, a couple in their 90s, and one word
00:04:27 The phone call he almost didn't make
00:05:11 What the couple meant by "safe space"00:06:37 Parents in the room during a resuscitation00:08:20 Who is the safe space for?00:10:03 From safe spaces to brave spaces00:12:55 Medicine in India versus the U.S.00:15:11 Sharp boundaries, and crossing the line00:17:43 "Every single cell of my body is telling me don't do it"00:21:14 What safe space meant as a child in India00:23:10 Family, elder care, and what gets lost00:28:16 Organ donation: "Do not take away that decision from me"00:30:00 Teaching first-year medical students00:34:26 Dr. Spiro: the debrief after a child dies00:38:06 His uncle, Dr. S.S. Jamwal00:39:49 One of his first codes as a resident00:41:11 "This concept of death, you have to get comfortable with it"00:42:11 Six hugs from a grieving family00:42:44 Closing

Cancer Surgeon Dr. James Wittig: "I Was Hanging On by a Thread"

Saturday, October 3, 2026 • Duration 45:54

Dr. James Wittig built his career saving children's limbs from cancer. Then a heart scan he asked for himself led to a catheterization that found a 99% blockage in his left anterior descending artery. "I was hanging on by a thread."

Dr. Wittig is an orthopedic oncologist and sarcoma surgeon with more than 25 years in limb-sparing surgery for bone and soft tissue tumors in children and adults. In this conversation with Dr. David Spiro, he traces his path from Paterson, New Jersey, where his father was a police officer and his mother a hairdresser, to the mentor who drew him into limb-sparing surgery for childhood bone cancer.

He describes chairing a department of 120 orthopedic surgeons while starting a residency program, sleeping about five hours a night for 30 years, and the blood pressure and cholesterol numbers that kept getting explained away. He talks about the stretch of roughly 180 hours of surgery in two weeks that ended in kidney failure, his decision to resign, the chest pain on the treadmill, and the procedure where he went into ventricular tachycardia before three stents opened the artery. He also shares what he would tell his younger self, why doctors treating doctors can be a trap, how he rebuilt his sleep, and why he is now studying hypnosis and mind-body medicine for cancer patients.

(00:00) Cold Open: "Hanging On by a Thread"
(00:18) Welcome & Meet Dr. James Wittig
(02:03) Growing Up in Paterson, New Jersey
(04:28) The Mentor Behind Limb-Sparing Surgery
(06:01) From Amputation to Saving the Limb
(08:53) Why Bone Cancer in Kids Gets Missed
(10:22) The Heart Scan He Asked For
(11:48) 80-Hour Weeks and Five Hours of Sleep
(14:11) A 70% Blockage
(15:06) 180 Hours of Surgery, Then Kidney Failure
(16:30) Chest Pain on the Treadmill
(18:28) 99% Blocked
(19:25) V-Tach on the Table and Three Stents
(20:53) What He'd Tell Himself 20 Years Ago
(23:48) Solo Practice, On Call 24/7
(25:40) Purpose, Prayer, and Learning to Say No
(27:34) Why Nobody Said "This Is Too Much"
(29:27) The Trap of Doctors Treating Doctors
(31:47) Finding a Mentor Who Advocates for You(32:42) "It Wasn't Human"(33:40) Life After the OR: Hypnosis and Mind-Body Medicine(37:00) How He Rebuilt His Sleep(42:10) Getting the Phone Out of the Bedroom(44:09) His Advice for Physicians in Their 50s(45:08) New York vs. New Jersey & Goodbye

Allergist Dr. Lauren Fine: "Stop Asking for Permission"

Tuesday, September 29, 2026 • Duration 46:31

Dr. Lauren Fine had a thriving allergy practice, a faculty position and patients lined up at the door, and she still felt she needed someone's permission to change. Her answer now: "Stop asking other people for permission."

Dr. Fine is an allergist and immunologist, a teacher, a clinician at the VA in the Fort Lauderdale area, and a life coach. In this conversation with Dr. David Spiro, she tells the story of a patient who casually asked her to check a biopsy result that wasn't hers to deliver, and what happened when she opened his chart. She talks about why she prefers shared decision-making to "doctor knows best," how she delivers bad news by letting patients say it first, and why, for her, burnout comes down to losing connection with patients. She also explains why reinventing yourself is "like erasing a chalkboard," what a life coach actually does (hint: it isn't giving advice), and why nobody hands out awards for answering a portal message at 9 p.m. She closes with her view on rising food allergies, how she introduced peanuts to her own kids early, and why community matters more than balance.

(00:00) Cold Open: "My Heart Just Sunk"
(00:27) Welcome & Meet Dr. Lauren Fine
(02:13) The Biopsy Result She Wasn't Supposed to Read
(05:00) A Road Trip Across America
(05:50) Paternalism vs. Shared Decision-Making
(09:31) Why She Chose to Tell Him
(10:34) How She Delivers Bad News
(13:38) Getting to Know Patients as People
(16:10) Burnout Is About Connection
(18:04) Why Life Coaching?
(19:23) Stop Asking for Permission
(20:30) Reinvention Is Like Erasing a Chalkboard
(23:07) What a Life Coach Actually Does
(26:40) Why We All Need to Slow Down
(29:03) Phones, Boundaries, and the 9 PM Email
(33:49) Diet, Processed Food, and Disease
(36:22) Are Food Allergies Really Rising?
(39:03) Peanuts and Early Introduction
(41:55) Allergist, Teacher, Coach, Mom: How She Does It
(43:59) Community and Giving and Receiving Love
(46:18) Closing Thoughts

This episode is also available on video on Apple Podcasts. Follow HuMed so you never miss an episode.

ER Physician Dr. Mark Pappadakis: "Medical School Rejected Me Three Times"

Friday, September 25, 2026 • Duration 56:19

Rejected from medical school. Failed anatomy. Failed his emergency medicine boards by two points, then by one. Today Dr. Mark Pappadakis teaches at the medical school that turned him down three times.

Emergency physician Dr. Mark Pappadakis joins Dr. David Spiro, MD for an honest conversation about failure, resilience, and the human side of medicine. He shares:

- Why he applied to only three medical schools, and what failing a post-bacc year taught him

- How five years as an ER tech made him fall in love with emergency medicine

- Getting off a waitlist three weeks before classes started

- Failing his boards twice by a total of three points, and passing on the third try

- Why he tells patients "I don't know," and why a bounce-back can be a success

- A mentor's line that stayed with him: "All of us carry a graveyard"

- Imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and being the doctor to his own parents during COVID

- Why he started his own podcast to fight medical misinformation

Dr. Pappadakis trained at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed his emergency medicine residency at Metropolitan Hospital in New York City, where he served as chief resident. He is a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine, serves on the board of the Bucks County Medical Society, and hosts the JAFERD Cast podcast.

Chapters

0:00 The school that rejected him three times

1:47 A story about failure

3:55 The post-bacc year and failing anatomy

5:50 Five years as an ER tech

10:15 Off the waitlist three weeks before classes

16:21 Failing the boards by two points, then one

18:28 Passing the boards and going full circle

Cardiologist Dr. Jaya Mallidi: "The Trust I Had With the Universe Lay Broken"

Tuesday, September 22, 2026 • Duration 50:43

"How can a child be taken away from the mother?" When cardiologist Dr. Jaya Mallidi lost her daughter, Saachi, at 19 weeks, the trust she'd always had with the universe "lay broken like a vase in an empty room."

In this deeply honest conversation, Dr. Jaya Mallidi joins host Dr. David Spiro to explore the human side of medicine from the other side of the bed. She shares surviving a rare, life-threatening hemothorax from thoracic endometriosis, leaving the interventional cardiology she loved, enduring nine cycles of IVF, and grieving a pregnancy loss while a profession built on duty pulled her back to work a week later. She also shares how she slowly rebuilt her faith — through the Japanese image of Jizo, a practice of "forgiving the universe," and a hard-won belief that in medicine, presence matters more than any prescription.

A conversation about grief, resilience, womanhood in medicine, and learning that it's okay to take up space.

Dr. Jaya Mallidi is a Professor of Clinical Medicine and cardiologist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where she serves as Director of Clinical Cardiology and Site Director for the UCSF Cardiology Fellowship. Her JAMA "A Piece of My Mind" essay reflects on the loss of her daughter and how medicine and society recognize — or fail to recognize — the grief of pregnancy loss.

In this episode:
00:00 "My trust with the universe lay broken"
03:40 Becoming the patient: a rare, dangerous hemothorax
06:10 Thoracic endometriosis and two lung surgeries
08:54 Leaving interventional cardiology and finding new purpose
11:11 Losing Saachi at 19 weeks
16:09 Why doctors return to work too soon
19:14 Medicine's missing backup system
22:24 The IVF journey: hope, failure, and nine cycles
28:36 When social media makes grief worse
30:48 A spiritual reckoning: finding a mental model
37:03 Jizo: the image that finally gave her peace39:00 "Forgiving the universe"41:09 How grief changed her as a teacher and clinician45:07 A marathon, not a sprint47:47 Presence over prescriptions in the age of AI

HuMed with David Spiro, MD – Details, episodes & analysis

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HuMed with David Spiro, MD – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

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