As patients, we often wonder what our role should be when it comes to getting better. Should we research options, get second opinions, and ask lots of questions? Or should we sit back, and let the health care professionals take charge? When does it make sense to push, and when is it best to do less?

On this episode, we examine our role as patients, the choices we make, and charting our path toward better health. A reporter gets a wake-up call while looking into diabetes rates among Latinos in Oklahoma, we hear about one woman’s choice to forgo cancer treatment — and how her family and doctors responded, and we explore a controversial proposed diagnosis for severe, long-term anorexia. 

SHOW NOTES:

• First Juliet Wayne's brother died from cancer — then her long-term partner broke up with her. That was followed by a deep depression; and then, the nightmares started. We talk with Wayne about how these nightmares affected her life, why doctors said she couldn't take a drug designed to stop them, and how a chance encounter finally led her to relief.
• Historian Joy Lisi Rankin talks about her mother’s choice not to pursue treatment for breast cancer — and how Rankin’s own experience years later with breast cancer treatment changed how she felt about her mother’s choices. You can read Rankin’s essay about her mother at Stat News.
• Anorexia has one of, if not the, highest mortality rates of any mental illness, with a relatively low recovery rate. Patients and their families suffer deeply from this illness, which can last for decades. In 2022, a paper proposed a new and controversial diagnosis: terminal anorexia. Reporter Elizabeth Zwerling tells the story of how this diagnosis came to be proposed, and the difficult conversations it kicked off in the world of eating disorder treatment.

In 1973, Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan published a bombshell paper called “On Being Sane in Insane Places.” In the paper, Rosenhan described faking symptoms to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and recruiting several other pseudo patients to do the same. Could staff tell they were faking? What was it like to be a patient in an institution? The “Rosenhan experiment,” as it came to be known, created a major stir, sparking public debates over the validity of psychiatric diagnoses and contributing to a shift away from institutionalization. Decades later, when journalist Susannah Cahalan began looking into the experiment, she made a startling discovery about Rosenhan’s famous research; he had made up most of it.

On this episode, we explore what happens when long-held narratives are upended. For the first time, we hear the voices of the pseudo patients who participated in the famous study, and find out why Cahalan was so passionate about finding them. We’ll also hear a story about one woman’s decades-long search to investigate the Oklahoma City bombing that killed her two grandsons.

SHOW NOTES:

• The reason Susannah Cahalan was so interested in the Rosenhan experiment was personal — she had her own brush with the mental health system. Check out this week’s edition of KQED's Snap Judgment, where she tells that story. It starts with Cahalan waking up in a hospital room, and having no idea why she’s there. 
• Kathy Sanders’ grandsons, Chase, 3, and Colton, 2, were killed in the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995. Sanders felt numb with grief and sadness — but soon, another emotion crept in: doubt. She felt that the federal investigation was dropping leads, and not pursuing important clues. Reporter Grant Hill talks with Sanders about what she found in her own investigation, and why, 30 years later, she’s still looking for the truth. 

Over the course of 20 years, writer Neil Shea explored the awe-inspiring landscape of the Arctic. He saw narwhals poking their tusks above the water, herds of caribou moving across the tundra, and majestic white wolves raising their young. He documents this fragile beauty in his new book, “Frostlines.” We talk to Shea about his adventures, and how climate change is transforming the region.

So often, our relationships take a backseat to everything else on our to-do lists — but new research shows that nurturing personal connections plays a central role in our health and well-being. On this episode, we explore the science of connection, from why it’s important, to how we can make it a priority in our lives.

Ahead of Thanksgiving, we do a deep dive into what we actually know about diet, and what we should and shouldn’t be eating. We talk with a nutrition and metabolism scientist about recent diet trends and how they affect our health, hear from several chefs about how they balance nutrition and taste, and find out how the avian flu outbreak could be affecting this year’s turkeys.

How do our dreams connect to health, and how could “dream engineering” help people get over nightmares? Researcher Michelle Carr writes about that in her new book “Nightmare Obscura: A Dream Engineer's Guide Through the Sleeping Mind.” We talk with Carr about why we dream, the benefits of lucid dreaming, and what she’s learning about our ability to “engineer” our dreams.

Chatbots don’t have feelings of their own, but they’ve been stirring plenty of emotions in us humans. On this episode, we explore how AI is making us feel, and what those feelings say about us. We hear about using ChatGPT for DIY therapy, what kinds of personalities we prefer in our chatbots, and how both the market and online culture is responding to the spike in AI-generated content.

On this Veterans Day episode, we explore the invisible wounds of war — and the different paths veterans take to heal them. We talk with a Marine Corps vet about how ceramics helped him reconnect with civilian life, a retired Navy SEAL about his experience with psychedelic-assisted therapy, and a Vietnam vet who, decades after the war, found peace in an unexpected place.

Cybercrime has been around for as long as computers have — but over the past 20 years, it's exploded into a global threat, with staggering financial, political, and even personal consequences. On this encore episode, we hear about the virus that ushered in the age of social engineering attacks, the history of cybercrime, and what led one man to become a hacker.

Coca-Cola is launching a cane sugar version of its classic soda in the U.S. after President Donald Trump urged a switch from high fructose corn syrup. The effort supports the administration's “Make America Healthy Again” initiative — but many experts argue that it won’t make a difference.  On this episode, journalist Murray Carpenter discusses his new book, Sweet and Deadly: How Coca-Cola Spreads Disinformation and Makes Us Sick.

Ghosts seem far out of the realm of science. But small groups of investigators remain committed to proving — or disproving — the existence of paranormal phenomena. On this episode, we find out what motivates these investigators, and we’ll hear about a lab on the UCLA campus that studied paranormal activities.