The Preventive Medicine Podcast

Policy, Technology, and Reaching The Masses – Dr. John Whyte MD

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Episode notes

John Whyte M.D.

If you’ve heard of a little website called WebMD, you have seen the work of Dr. John Whyte who is currently the Chief Medical Officer behind the online health behemoth. Dr. Whyte has had a tremendous career already completing his internal medicine residency at Duke University before completing his MPH at Harvard. He has worked in both the private and public sectors as well as spending time in academia at Stanford University. He has been passionate about health policy since his early days in medical school and continued to work in the field through positions at the FDA, medicare and medicaid, The Discovery Channel, and now WebMD. Despite all of his commitments and contributions to the field of health policy, the most amazing of all is that he is still a practicing physician in the Washington D.C. area.

In this episode, we discuss the numerous aspects to preventive medicine from the perspectives of the patient, healthcare provider, and the healthcare system itself. During the podcast we also discovered Dr. Whytes enthusiasm and passion for providing his patients with strategies to improve their health and fitness with a sustainable approach. Of all the subjects in this podcast, the conversation tends to come back to the importance of communication on all fronts. Tune in for this lively and illuminating conversation with Dr. John Whyte!

Show Notes

(1:00 – 10:00) – Introductions

Question 1: How did you career get started, what are you doing right now, and what are your goals for the future?

(10:00 – 21:00)

Question 2: What does preventive medicine mean to you?

Question 3: What is the most important aspect of preventive medicine?

(21:00 – 33:00)

Question 4: What is the role of large media corporations in preventive medicine?

Question 5: How do physicians or other evidence-based practitioners on social media combat the spread of misinformation over both traditional and social media?

Question 6: How do you balance the role of websites like WebMD in providing information to patients versus them self-diagnosing and using it in a manner it wasn’t designed to be used?

(33:00 – 39:00)

Question 7: What is the role of technology in advancing healthcare and what will the role of AI be in aiding physicians?

(39:00 – 46:30)

Question 8: Do you see preventive medicine taking a much larger role in our current healthcare system?

(46:30 – 57:00)

Question 9: How do you communicate preventive lifestyle measures to patients?

(57:00 – 1:03:00)

Question 10: If you were in a coffee shop with 2 minutes to spare and someone asks you how to get healthy, what do you tell them?

Question 11: Do you think how a patient views self is ultimately the most important thing when it comes to making the right decisions moving forward?

(1:03:00 – 1:12:00)

Question 12: What was your role with The Discovery Channel as their Chief Medical Expert and VP? What was that like?

Question 13: You are an incredibly busy person as are most physicians, how do you take care of yourself?