Healthy Rounds With Dr. Anthony Alessi

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  Progress With ALS and Other Neuromuscular Disorders 15.09.2026 13мин

  ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease) is a devastating motor neuron disease that effects movement, speech, swallowing, and breathing. Dr. Cristina Viguera, who practices neuromuscular medicine at UConn Health, joins Dr. Alessi to discuss some potentially promising research findings in ALS, as well as some progress in treating the genetic condition spinal muscular atrophy.  Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] Dr. Cristina Viguera:https://www.uconnhealth.org/providers/profiles/viguera%20altolaguirre-cristina Neuromuscular Medicine at UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org/neurology/neuromuscular-medicine UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date and timely medical information from national and international leaders in their field. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. It is not designed to direct your personal healthcare, which should only be done by your physician. It gives me great pleasure to have as my guest today Dr. Cristina Viguera. Dr. Viguera.is assistant professor of neurology, and she is a specialist in neuromuscular diseases that affect the nervous system. Cristina, welcome to the program. Dr. Viguera: Thank you so much for having me. Dr. Alessi: Let’s chat a little bit. You’re relatively new here at UConn Health, so can we talk a little bit about, your background? What brought you to us? Dr. Viguera: So let’s see. It was a long journey to specialize in neuromuscular medicine. So I’m originally from Spain, and I came to the United States to do a degree in neuroscience at first, actually, and then I got really interested in neuromuscular medicine, had an early interest in ALS, decided that I wanted to not just do research, but I decided to pivot to clinical work. I was at Johns Hopkins for university, medical school, and then I went to Boston to do my residency in neurology and then neuromuscular medicine, and then I came over here to do just that. Dr. Alessi: Let’s talk a little bit about neuromuscular medicine and various neuromuscular diseases. What are some of the conditions that you spend your time researching and treating? Dr. Viguera: I like to tell people in neuromuscular medicine, within neurology, there’s so many different fields. You have stroke for things related to the brain, dementias. In neuromuscular medicine, it’s really about select type of neurons that go from the spinal cord to your muscle. So I joke if it’s anything that can affect your ability to move or feel, it probably is related to neuromuscular medicine. So commonly that’s going to be neuropathies are a common condition that we see, myasthenia gravis, so that’s on the more autoimmune side, and also a lot of genetic conditions like muscular dystrophies, spinal muscular atrophy. We see all of those. Dr. Alessi: So when a patient comes to your clinic, what can they expect in terms of the amount of time they spend and what tests are typical that you might order? Dr. Viguera: So oftentimes when a patient sees a neuromuscular doctor, they’ve probably seen a couple of doctors by then. So someone has probably evaluated that person and said, “Hmm, there’s something else going on here,” or, “This is not your typical neurological condition.” And they’re suspecting maybe one of these more rare disorders. And they might order some tests in advance, they might order some MRIs to make sure that there’s not something in the brain, an EMG, an electromyography study, where they test the function of the nerves and the muscles. And then they come to our clinic. We review all the information. We take a careful history and examination, and we come up with a plan. And we order those tests as well if they haven’t been done, but it’s a very compreh
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  Great Strides in Cancer Treatment 01.09.2026 18мин

  The idea of using cells from your own tumor to develop a personalized vaccine that guides your immune system to fight your cancer goes back several decades. Today, we are on the verge of using messenger RNA to bring this concept to a new level, one that could change how we treat melanoma and other cancers. Dr. Margaret Callahan, chief of UConn Health’s Division of Hematology and Oncology and medical director of the clinical trials office, explains how immunotherapy works and why it holds so much promise. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] Dr. Margaret Callahan:https://www.uconnhealth.org/providers/profiles/Callahan-Margaret UConn Health Division of Hematology/Oncology:https://health.uconn.edu/medicine/divisions/hematology-oncology/ UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date and timely medical information provided by national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s important for me to mention that this podcast is not an indication of what you should be doing in regard to your personal health. It is only there for information, and any personal health decisions should be provided between you and your personal physician. I’m very happy to have as my guest today, Dr. Margaret Callahan. Dr. Callahan is a professor of immunology and medicine here at UConn Health. In addition, she’s chief of the division of hematology and oncology. Maggie, welcome to the show. Dr. Callahan: Thanks so much for having me, Tony. Delighted to be here. Dr. Alessi: One of the things that prompted us to do this show today has been a lot of new information for the treatment of melanoma. But before we get into that, let’s backtrack a little bit, and if you could, tell our listeners a little bit more about skin cancer and melanoma. When I think of those topics, I think, when I was young, we didn’t have SPF, right? People used to go to the beach to get tanned. Some still do. I remember people using baby oil and iodine combinations, right? And now, I mean, we have so many levels of SPF, and we are more alert to the fact of skin cancer. When did that shift change? Dr. Callahan: Well, I’d say in the past couple decades, and if we bring it to today, where I slather my kids up with, I think it’s SPF 70 now, multiple hours at the pool, some of that just comes from knowledge of the biology of skin cancers. Skin cancer is the most common cancer we see in humans, and there are two big families. There are keratinocyte skin cancers, which are basal and squamous skin cancers, and these are usually very treatable, but they are related to sun exposure, so you can save yourself some trouble by avoiding or safely interacting with the sun. The more dangerous cancer that we’re talking about today, melanoma, starts with the pigment-producing cells in the skin. Those same skin cells that give you a great tan, they produce that pigment, and the tan we’re looking for can also go awry and become melanoma. And the reason we get scared about melanoma is because if it’s not caught early, it can spread to other organs and become a bigger problem. Dr. Alessi: Maggie, are we becoming more aware of it also? Has it become more dangerous? Now, I’m talking about in the last 40 or, 40 or 50 years. Has the sun become a more potent enemy? Dr. Callahan: Oh boy, this is a little outside of my area of expertise as a medical oncologist, but I do think the evidence out there is that changes in the environment and environmental exposures are exposing us to a little bit more UV, and maybe also changes in patterns of behavior. But I do think part of the reason that we are seeing more melanoma comes from a couple of good problems we have. Firs
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  Concussions and Sports Neurology 18.08.2026 14мин

  As we get ready for football season, Dr. Alessi brings on a fellow expert in sports neurology, Dr. Stephanie Aless-LaRosa, program director of the UConn Health Sports Neurology Fellowship. They discuss not only concussions (which is more than just a football issue) but also other conditions they see in the sports context, how more folks seem be active for longer, the perspective of a team physician on the sideline, ways to possibly reduce injury risk, and other specialties involved in sports neurology,  Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine UConn Health Sports Neurology Fellowship:https://health.uconn.edu/graduate-medical-education/sports-neurology/fellowship-program-contacts/ NeuroSport at UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine/services-specialties/neurosport Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you up-to-date and timely medical information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and a grant from Coverys. It is not designed to direct your personal healthcare, which should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s great to have today as my guest, Dr. Stephanie Alessi-LaRosa, who some of you may know is also my daughter, of whom I’m very proud of her accomplishments as assistant professor of neurology here at UConn Health, and also team consultant for UConn Sports. Steph, welcome to the show. Dr. Alessi-LaRosa: Thanks for having me. Dr. Alessi: Let’s talk a little bit. You’re a sports neurologist. Can you explain to our listeners your training and what a sports neurologist does? Dr. Alessi-LaRosa: Absolutely. So I am a board-certified neurologist, and I completed a residency in neurology here at UConn, and I did a fellowship, an additional training year, in sports neurology at the Kutcher Clinic for Sports Neurology in Michigan, and now I’m a practicing sports neurologist here in Connecticut. Dr. Alessi: What are some of the conditions that you run across? I think right away when people think sports neurologist, they think concussion, but it’s obviously a lot more. So can you talk about some of the conditions people come to you with? Dr. Alessi-LaRosa: Yes. Concussion is certainly the number one thing, I think, again, like you said, most people think of, but we treat most commonly headaches or migraines. Those are the number one thing we treat outside of that. But really anything neurologic that occurs in active people is really our patient population. That could be patients who have dizziness or neurologic symptoms that we will then determine what’s the source of it, how to get them back playing and participating in their life the way that they want. Dr. Alessi: What do you find are some of the typical sports the laypeople — We know you see a lot of football players and high-level athletes, but — during the course of your day when you say active people, what are people doing now? Because it seems like people who are older and older are becoming more active in sports. What are some of the sports you see people participating in now that you may not have seen previously? Dr. Alessi-LaRosa: I think there’s all levels of participation. I do think that overall the population, especially in the aging population, has recognized that activity is very important for longevity of their life. So I do think that I see older folks even doing hockey leagues, and so there’s just quite a spectrum. Some folks do yoga and more gentle sort of exercises, but really being active does seem to be carrying people through their life in a healthy way. Dr. Alessi: Well, we’re coming up on football season, so let’s talk a little bit about football itself. Obviously, the thing we fear most and people f
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  Wide World of Western Sports 04.08.2026 14мин

  The term “Western sports” refers to events like roping, steer wrestling, bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, and bull riding — some of the most dangerous forms of competition. Applying his expertise in neurology and sports medicine to care for these athletes over the last several years, Dr. Anthony Alessi has developed a unique perspective on this world. Professional bull riders have been flying in from other parts of the Americas to see him at UConn Health since 2018, when the first two arrived, concerned they’d leave with doctor’s orders to stop competing. In this solo episode, he shares his insight on the dynamic of the Western sports culture, why many of them lie to him, and what became of those first two bull riders who came in for neurological evaluations. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine NeuroSport at UConn Healthhttps://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine/services-specialties/neurosport Western Sports Foundationhttps://wsf.org Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date and timely medical information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health. with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. It is not designed to direct your personal healthcare, which should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s great to be with you as always on this podcast. Today’s going to be a little bit different. I’m going to be talking about a program that I’m involved with here at the University of Connecticut, and it involves Western sports. Now, Western sports present a unique challenge for sports medicine physicians, and we’re going to talk about that and my work with this outstanding group of athletes. In the podcast, we’re going to define what Western sports are, talk a little bit about the historical background and the rules of Western sports, my involvement, as well as the involvement of UConn Health. So let’s get started. When we talk about Western sports, we’re talking about two different types of events. There are timed events, such as tie-down roping, team roping, steer wrestling. So basically, your success is based on the amount of time it takes you to do something. Then there’s what we call “rough stock” events. Now, the rough stock events are events that focus on riding and breaking animals, and basically we’re talking about bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, and bull riding. And we spend, most of our discussion today will be centered around bull riding. A little bit about the history: The Western sports really came to light in about the 16th century as a contest back in what was old Mexico, and it was a variant of bullfighting. So when we think of bull riding, it was a variant of bullfighting, and basically the idea was to stay on the back of the bull. It was modeled after the matadors and bullfighting itself. In 1992, 20 professional bull riders got together and formed what’s now known as PBR; it’s basically a professional bull riders tour. Bull riding was always the last event in a rodeo, and it was one that people felt was the single most exciting event. So they decided to start their own system, their own company. And because bull riding is really among the single most dangerous sporting activities in the modern era — and that’s been documented throughout the literature; it’s really an extreme sport — and people especially now are drawn to these extreme sports. So in bull riding, the rules are that the rider has to stay on the bull for a period of eight seconds. Doesn’t sound like it’s very long, but you’d be surprised when you actually watch an event. It begins when the bull’s shoulders or their hind parts break the plane of the chute. That’s when the clock starts, and it ends when the ri
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  The Brain and Spine Frontier 21.07.2026 15мин

  Neurosurgery is a relatively young discipline in medicine, one that began with a focus on survival. Today the focus goes beyond survival to restoring personalities, memories, limb function, even the ability to walk. Dr. Ketan Bulsara, chair of UConn Health’s Department of Neurosurgery, joins Dr. Alessi to discuss restorative neurosurgery, as well as UConn Health’s elite position when it comes to identifying and treating complex brain tumors, and how UConn is now attracting, training, and producing the next generation of talented neurosurgeons. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] Dr. Ketan Bulsara:https://health.uconn.edu/neurosurgery/message-from-the-chair UConn Health Department of Neurosurgery:https://health.uconn.edu/neurosurgery UConn Today: ‘1 of 4 in the US for Advanced Brain, Spine Tumor Diagnostics’https://today.uconn.edu/2026/02/1-of-3-in-the-us-for-advanced-brain-spine-tumor-diagnostics/ UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date and timely medical information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. It is not inclined to direct your personal healthcare, which should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s great to have as my guest today Dr. Ketan Bulsara. Dr. Bulsara is professor and chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery here at UConn Health. Ketan, welcome to the show. Dr. Bulsara: Tony, thank you for having me on the show. Dr. Alessi: You know, it’s always a pleasure to chat with you because it always opens new horizons for me, and one of the things I said in the teaser for this program is that people often describe the brain as the new frontier, and I’ve always felt that it’s neurosurgeons who are the new explorers, or even the old explorers, when it comes to the brain. But I really would like to ask you a little bit about your background. You know, we became familiar with each other back when you were at Yale, but if you could, talk a little bit about your training and what it took to get where you are today. Dr. Bulsara: Well, Tony, thanks a lot. I love the concept of being an explorer, and there’s nothing more exciting than being, on sort of the final frontier in terms of trying to understand the essence of what makes us who we are. And certainly, the brain and spinal cord certainly are integral to that. You know, in terms of my training, I went to medical school at Duke and then stayed there for residency. And when I was at Duke, there was this very pioneering Japanese neurosurgeon who really got me very interested in brain and spine surgery and all the technical nuances. Interestingly, the man that was named the neurosurgeon of the century had moved from Zurich to Little Rock, Arkansas, and I got to go work with him and some of the other pioneers there. When I finished there and I initially started my practice, I realized that the world was changing very rapidly, and I was at this point where I felt very, very skilled at performing micro-neurosurgery, but the world was changing, and endovascular neurosurgery was really kicking in. So after about a year in practice, a year and a half in practice, I decided to go back and do a fellowship and learn how to do endovascular neurosurgery. And the plan was always to stay, stay down South, but then, you know, I was attracted to Connecticut because I was given in New Haven the opportunity to build something that would be a legacy, and that sort of has continued in Connecticut with my move to the University of Connecticut about eight years ago. Dr. Alessi: Now, you’ve talked about interesting how in a field such as neurosurgery and even neurology, things change a great deal. I was with a cardiotho
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  Keeping Women Active and Healthy 07.07.2026 18мин

  You don’t have to be an athlete to benefit from the expertise of sports medicine physicians. While Dr. Allison Schafer and Dr. Katherine Coyner are team physicians for UConn athletics, they also run the Women’s Center for Motion and Performance at UConn Health, a collection of coordinated services to keep women of all ages active and healthy, athlete or not. They join Dr. Alessi to discuss the advantages of this care model, how their individual specialties with sports medicine fit into it, and how women tend to be more susceptible to certain orthopedic injuries. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine Women’s Center for Motion and Performance at UConn Healthhttps://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine/womens-center-motion-performance  Dr. Allison Schaferhttps://health.uconn.edu/find-a-provider/physician/Schafer-Allison  Dr. Katherine Coynerhttps://health.uconn.edu/find-a-provider/physician/Coyner-Katherine  Women's Center for Motion and Performance nurse navigator:860-679-6330
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  Retraining the Brain With Advanced Neurosurgery 16.06.2026 17мин

  Already on the leading edge of electronic stimulation for new applications like stroke recovery, UConn Health's Dr. Christopher Conner, who specializes in stereotactic and functional neurosurgery, is on the verge of another one! He joins Dr. Anthony Alessi to explain how Vivistim has been opening new doors to regaining function after stroke, who the best candidates are, and how a similar concept for autoimmune disorders may not be far behind. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] Dr. Christopher Conner:https://www.uconnhealth.org/providers/profiles/conner-christopher UConn Health Department of Neurosurgery:https://www.uconnhealth.org/neurosurgery The Brain and Spine Institute at UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org/brain-spine UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine “UConn Health Neuromodulation Center of Excellence for Veterans” (UConn Today, June 17, 2025):https://today.uconn.edu/2025/06/uconn-health-neuromodulation-center-of-excellence-for-veterans/ “Grateful Stroke Survivor Shares How New Technology Is Transforming His Recovery” (UConn Today, Nov. 25, 2024):https://today.uconn.edu/2024/11/grateful-stroke-survivor-shares-how-new-technology-is-transforming-his-recovery/ UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date and timely medical information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. It is not designed to direct your personal healthcare, which should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s great to have as my guest today Dr. Christopher Conner. Dr. Conner is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery, and he specializes in stereotactic and functional neurosurgery. Chris, welcome to the show. Dr. Conner: It’s fantastic being here, Dr. Alessi. Dr. Alessi: Let’s talk. Can you explain to our listeners what is stereotactic and functional neurosurgery? Dr. Conner: The simple answer is that I get paid money to put wires and batteries into people’s bodies, which is a really weird thing to do with your day-to-day work, but it is what it is. What it really means, though, is that a majority of what I’m doing is trying to improve people’s day-to-day lives. That’s kind of the functional aspect of it, and that can encompass a lot of things. It can encompass chronic pain. It can encompass stroke recovery. It can also involve Parkinson’s disease or movement disorders, and even epilepsy. And so these are some diseases that you might sometimes think of as not something that surgery can, can treat, but this is kind of where someone like myself comes into play. Dr. Alessi: That’s great. Now, let’s go back a little bit. I want to talk, you brought up several different topics, and I know we covered this about two years ago when you were on my radio show. So I want to touch base. Let’s go to Parkinson’s disease, doing deep brain stimulation. You were just starting that at the time here at UConn Health. Where are we with that program? Dr. Conner: The program has really gotten its feet underneath it. We’ve done upwards of, I think, about 25 or 30 patients with deep brain stimulation, primarily for Parkinson’s disease, although we also treat patients with essential tremor and some other disorders with that here at UConn Health. But at this point in time, we have a, a really full-fledged program. My movement disorder neurologists, like Dr. [Sarah] Mancone, Dr. [Bernardo] Rodrigues, Dr. [Chindhuri] Selvadurai, and I, we’re really proud of what we can accomplish here, and we can offer kind of a full-stack treatment for people who have advanced Parkinson’s disease. And again, that deep brain stimulation, when I use that term, sti
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  Kids on a Pitch Count 02.06.2026 14мин

  In 1974, a 31-year-old pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers underwent a new procedure to repair the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his left elbow. His name was Tommy John, and so would become the name of the surgery. Today, it’s not unheard of for baseball players to get Tommy John surgery before they turn 20. One factor is, it’s become the norm for many child athletes to specialize, for example, playing baseball not just during Little League season, but throughout the year. With that has come an upward trend in upper extremity injuries, and elbow and shoulder surgeries as adolescents. Dr. Cory Edgar, UConn Health orthopedic surgeon and co-director of the UConn Institute for Sports Medicine, joins Dr. Alessi to discuss youth sports injuries, the risks of playing a sport year-round with no downtime, the importance of pitch counts, and what parents might consider when it comes to their children’s participation in youth sports. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] Dr. Cory Edgar:https://www.uconnhealth.org/providers/profiles/edgar-cory UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine UConn Institute for Sports Medicine:https://sports.institute.uconn.edu  “The Story Behind ‘Tommy John Surgery’” (UConn Health Blog, Oct. 22, 2018)https://health.uconn.edu/health-blog/2018/10/22/the-story-behind-tommy-john-surgery  UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date, timely medical information provided by national and international experts in their field. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. It is not designed to in any way direct your personal healthcare, which should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s great to have as my guest today Dr. Cory Edgar. Dr. Edgar is an MD, Ph.D. He is associate professor of orthopedic surgery here at UConn Health, where he also serves as co-director for the UConn Institute for Sports Medicine. He’s also a team physician. Cory, welcome to the show. Dr. Edgar: Thank you, Tony. Always a pleasure to talk to you and be on the show. Dr. Alessi: Let’s talk a little bit about Little League sports. And something we’re always hearing about is throwing injuries in athletes who are younger and younger, and I know that you treat a lot of these in athletes — We talk about Little League, but in all throwing sports. So I really want to emphasize today on upper extremity injuries. My first question is, are we seeing an upward trend in these injuries in general, and especially in a younger population? Dr. Edgar: Yeah, great question. So overall, we have been seeing a trend in injuries, specifically around the elbow, and also the shoulder, with an uptick in people that need surgical intervention. Interestingly, some of the newer data that’s come out suggests that this is trending surgery towards a younger throwing athlete, such that up to 60% of all the UCL reconstructions or Tommy John surgeries that we do on the young throwing elbow is now in the age bracket of age less than 20. So we’re seeing an uptick in injuries to the elbow and the shoulder in younger athletes for a variety of reasons. Dr. Alessi: Let’s talk a little bit about the reasons. Is it because, I mean, it used to be, people played Little League, children played Little League, and that was it, the end of the season, some playoff, everybody got a trophy. But now we’re hearing a lot about travel, and you and I have talked about this at ringside and on the sideline over the years. I mean, it’s now Little League, sectionals, championship, travel, things like that. And in addition to increased expense for parents, it’s also been increased wear and tear on these arms. Is that one of the reasons that we’re facing this
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  Hantavirus: How Worried Should We Be? 19.05.2026 11мин

  An outbreak of an uncommon but not unheard-of illness is responsible for the deaths of at least three people who were on an international cruise ship. With the rest of the passengers and crew under observation in their home countries — including 18 Americans who went to a quarantine facility at the University of Nebraska — how worried do we need to be about hantavirus? Dr. David Banach, UConn Health infectious diseases physician and hospital epidemiologist, explains what we're dealing with, the public health implications, and how, unlike COVID, the medical community at least has some history with this virus. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] Dr. David Banach:https://www.uconnhealth.org/providers/profiles/banach-david UConn Health Infectious Diseases Division:https://www.uconnhealth.org/infectious-diseases UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date and timely medical information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. It is not designed to direct your personal healthcare, and that should only be done with your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s great to have as my guest today Dr. David Banach. Dr. Banach is an infectious disease specialist and he is head of the infection prevention program here at UConn Health. David, welcome to the show. Dr. Banach: All right. Thank you. Dr. Alessi: Let’s talk. I mean, there’s a lot of information out there about the hantavirus and how this all came about. Let’s go back and really address how this infection developed. What does it mean to our listeners? Dr. Banach: Sure. So, kind of taking it back to the basics, hantavirus is a virus that we’ve known about now for many years, even maybe upwards of decades, that exists in the rodent population. So it’s primarily circulating among rodents, particularly in certain geographic areas. And then on certain situations it does infect humans, typically humans who are in close contact with rodents or rodent excrement. It causes what we call a zoonotic infection, where a virus that typically is present in animals moves into a human host. And in most situations, those are one-offs. Someone will have some sort of environmental exposure, could be in any part of the world, could be here in Connecticut, getting sick from this particular virus, and not pass it on to anyone else. But occasionally we do see it occur in clusters, and that’s what’s happened with this most recent situation on the cruise ship that returned and several individuals on that ship became sick and were eventually diagnosed with hantavirus. I think in terms of the big picture, again, this does seem to have caused a bit of an outbreak on that ship. What it means for the larger public, I think we’re still kind of keeping an eye on it right now. I think the general feeling is that the risk for the general population is low, but I think it’s something that we’ll have to keep a close eye on in the coming weeks. Dr. Alessi: What’s interesting when we talk about hantavirus, I’d never heard the term until Gene Hackman died of it, right? In the, in the past year, right, Gene Hackman and his wife die of hantavirus, and now we hear about hantavirus again. What’s the difference? He wasn’t in South America. Can you talk a little bit about why he’s dead and now these other people are dead. Dr. Banach: Sure. I think the illness that his wife, I believe, contracted was the hantavirus, and that, there’s different strains of hantavirus. This particular strain, on the cruise ship, is the Andes virus. That’s like a type of hantavirus, if you will, that causes a specific illn
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  Stroke Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery 05.05.2026 13мин

  Gone are the days of stroke having only two outcomes — death or disability — now that we have a window of time to treat what still is very much a medical emergency. For Stroke Awareness Month, Dr. Priya Narwal, medical director of UConn Health’s stroke program, joins to discuss how stroke care, recovery, and even prevention have evolved over the years, how the UConn Health Stroke Center harness that expertise, and why it remains critically important to “BE FAST.” The UConn Health Stroke Center is certified as a Primary Stroke Center by the Joint Commission. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] Dr. Priya Narwal:https://www.uconnhealth.org/providers/profiles/narwal-priya  UConn Health Stroke Center:https://www.uconnhealth.org/neurology/stroke  UConn Today: “First in Connecticut: Ischemic Stroke Survivors Have Renewed Hope with the Vagus Nerve Stimulation Device Now Available at UConn Health”https://today.uconn.edu/?p=214132 UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up to date and timely medical information provided by national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. This podcast is not designed to direct your personal care in any way, but that should only be done in conjunction with your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s great to have as my guest today, Dr. Priya Narwal. Dr. Narwal is an Assistant Professor here at UConn Health in the Department of Neurology. She’s also director of the stroke program. This is especially timely because the month of May is stroke month where we raise awareness about stroke and the treatments for stroke. And what better than to have an expert in that field with us. Priya, welcome to the show. Dr. Narwal: Thanks, Tony. Dr. Alessi: Let’s talk a little bit about your directorship of the stroke program. Again, that’s a fairly new term in terms of having a program in neurology to direct one specific entity. Can you talk about the stroke program here at the University of Connecticut? Dr. Narwal: Sure. So when we say a stroke program, it means that the hospital is equipped to provide specialized stroke care and meet the needs of patients who have stroke or are experiencing stroke-like symptoms. So, what that entails is being able to identify stroke symptoms, realizing how urgent it is to address stroke symptoms, and also have a team in place, a team that consists of different specialties and departments such as emergency department, radiology, neurology, neuro intervention, ICU, to be able to provide expedited care to these patients. Dr. Alessi: Let’s back up a little bit. Let’s define stroke because it’s an old term. We’ve been using this term for many, many decades, and yet it’s still so relevant. Can you share for our listeners a little bit about the specific types of stroke? Dr. Narwal: Sure. So, a stroke is a medical emergency that is caused by interruption of blood flow to the brain. When we typically use the term stroke, in general, we are alluding to ischemic stroke or strokes caused by a blood clot interrupting the blood flow. However, strokes can be ischemic due to lack of blood flow or hemorrhagic or bleeding types of strokes that are caused due to rupture of blood vessels in the brain. Dr. Alessi: So, when we talk a little bit about the history of stroke itself, I’m still old enough to know when it was an untreatable condition, right? Where you brought someone to the hospital and you had them do some physical therapy, but there was nothing to do, right? And then we went to baby aspirin or using aspirin only, and now we’re using terms like “neuroplasticity” and “penumbra” and “antith
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  Tony’s Take: Acetaminophen Myths, Messenger RNA 28.04.2026 14мин

  In between studio guests, Dr. Alessi brings new information to earlier conversations about messenger RNA and how it’s showing promise in treating pancreatic cancer, a study further debunking the Trump Administration’s assertions about the safety of Tylenol, and whether reasonable solutions to physician licensing challenges could improve access to care. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] Jan. 27, 2026, with DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani:https://healthyrounds.podbean.com/e/the-impact-of-public-health/  Jan. 13, 2026: with Dr. Andy Agwunobi, UConn Health CEO:https://healthyrounds.podbean.com/e/premiere-with-dr-andy-agwunobi-uconn-health-ceo/ Feb. 24, 2026: with DSS Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves:https://healthyrounds.podbean.com/e/medicaid-myths-keeping-ct-families-healthy/ UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicinehttps://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date, timely medical information brought to you from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. It is not designed to direct your personal healthcare, which should only be done by your physician. I am your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and this week we’re going to chat a little bit about some topics that, some of which we’ve talked about in the past, but now we have new information on, and I think it’s information that we need to provide you, our listeners to provide best healthcare overall, and really pay attention to what’s going on that is publicized and how it affects all of you. And there are three specific topics I want to touch on. The first is pancreatic cancer. I also want to talk a little bit about a exciting study that was just published in The Lancet on Tylenol use in pregnancy, and then we’re going to talk about physician licensing in the United States. So with that, let’s get started. This week at the National Oncology meetings, they presented new data on the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with pancreatic cancer, it is one of, if not the most deadliest cancer, and the reason being that typically by the time you find evidence for the tumor, it has already metastasized, it is already spread to vital organs. So with that, it’s very difficult to treat. In the studies published, one in particular I want to talk about, they use messenger RNA as the vehicle for treatment. Now, I know I’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating messenger. RNA is just that, it’s a messenger, and we chatted with Dr. Juthani about this. It does not alter your DNA in any way, shape or form. So the best analogy I could come up with was, it’s a messenger. So if you get a delivery, right, to your house, whether it be from Amazon or GrubHub, a messenger comes and delivers a package, then they leave. That’s exactly how messenger RNA works. So when the messenger comes to your house, they don’t go in your house and start rearranging your furniture, right? And I think that’s the misunderstanding here is they think the messenger RNA goes in the cell and starts mixing things up. That’s not the case. But what it does do, it brings a message that trains your immune system to fight the cancer with your own body. Your own T cells are now redirected to fight the tumor. So in the case of pancreatic cancer, what they do is they go in, a surgeon goes in, removes the tumor. They take the tumor and use material from the tumor to create your own personal vaccine through messenger, RNA, which is injected by infusion. And the cases that were presented, it’s typically eight infusions. And the results have been fairly astounding. Now it’s a small, early study and only 16 people were studied, but eight of those
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  The Silent Success of Public Health 21.04.2026 17мин

  It’s impossible to definitively measure how many lives were saved or prolonged, or how much illness or disease prevented or made less severe, as a direct result of public health initiatives. Douglas Brugge, chair of the UConn School of Medicine’s Department of Public Health Sciences, explains the “invisible” benefits of things like policies that regulate toxins in our water or pollution in our air, and discusses how COVID changed the perception of public health (and lessons learned from that). Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] Douglas Bruggehttps://health.uconn.edu/public-health-sciences/person/doug-brugge/ UConn School of Medicine Department of Public Health Scienceshttps://health.uconn.edu/public-health-sciences/ UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicinehttps://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date, timely medical information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. It is not designed to direct your personal health care, which should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it gives me great pleasure to welcome as my guest today. Dr. Doug Brugge, who is professor and chair in the Department of Public Health Sciences here at the University of Connecticut. Doug, I really wanted to have you on the program today to talk a little bit about public health initiatives. You know, it’s been public health initiatives that have provided what are among the greatest contributions to humanity and medical sciences in general. When we think of sanitation, water purification, vaccines, these are all things that make people safe and healthy. And yet I don’t think a lot of people understand and appreciate that these are public health initiatives. Dr. Brugge: Yeah. Thank you for that. And I certainly agree with your introduction to public health. Public health is, I think frequently does not get the attention it deserves because the benefits are more invisible to people. If you have an illness, if you have a heart attack, or you have cancer and you go to a hospital, and you receive treatment, and you get good treatment and it makes you better, that is really tangible. You know that somebody has saved your life or improved your life. If you don’t get cancer or don’t have a heart attack because someone, as you said, regulated toxins in the drinking water, or in my field, the pollution in the air, it’s invisible. You just don’t know that it happens. And so, I think we in public health work in a bit of a obscurity and underrepresented the impact we have now. That said, we have a really nice department here at UConn Health. We’re a very, very vibrant and enthusiastic department within the medical school. We have over 30 faculty. We have over a hundred students in our graduate programs and we represent a very broad range of approaches to research and education, as well as topical foci, in terms of public health, including those you mentioned, but others, substance use, diet, and nutrition, many, many other things as well. And so, I’m proud of the department that I chair. I’m really privileged to sit here and be in this position. Dr. Alessi: Yeah. What’s interesting to me is actually your background and your background was in biology and chemistry. You got a PhD in biology and then went into industrial hygiene. Can you tell us about what pointed you in that direction personally, to go to industrial hygiene? Dr. Brugge: Yeah. From third grade onward, I wanted to be a biologist, basically. And in third grade I thought it was a naturalist, but I didn’t know the difference. But, and I pursued that all the way through college. And at some point in grad scho
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  Bonus Episode: Quality, Patient Safety 14.04.2026 9мин

  This week we revisit the conversation with Dr. Scott Allen, UConn Health’s chief medical officer. Dr. Alessi digs deeper into what we mean by the terms “quality” and “patient safety,” exploring the patient experience as well as how to measure quality and how the increasing complexity of medicine makes safety such a priority. He also differentiates between internists and family medicine practitioners. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] Dr. Scott Allen:https://facultydirectory.uchc.edu/profile?profileId=Allen-Scott  UConn Today: Make It 10 Straight A’s for UConn Health’s Hospital Safetyhttps://today.uconn.edu/2025/11/make-it-10-straight-as-for-uconn-healths-hospital-safety/  UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicinehttps://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date, timely medical information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. It is not designed to direct your personal health care, which should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s great to be with you to really dig deep into some of the topics we discussed last week with Dr. Scott Allen. As you’ll recall, Dr. Allen is the chief medical officer here at UConn Health. He is an internist and specializes in primary care internal medicine, and was he went over his personal history, we can see that he’s always had a passion for improving the quality of medical care, and it has really evolved as, that’s almost as a subspecialty of medicine has evolved. But what was also interesting, and I wanted to clear up some things, is that he is a specialist in primary care internal medicine, and that differs from primary care family physicians. There’s different training involved. So family physicians are primarily people who do general medical care, but includes things like obstetrics and gynecology, different subspecialties may be doing some minor surgeries and other areas, so it’s a more broad field and it’s truly family medicine because they also treat children, so they treat the entire family. And it came about really in people in rural communities as well as now we see more and more this has developed to folks in bigger cities as well, where it’s hard to get access to care. So there’s a difference between primary care family medicine and primary care internal medicine, whereas internists treat adults only, and also a broad range of treatments for those adults. And among the things he talked about and that I really got out of this was the approach to quality of care and patient safety. These are things that I wasn’t familiar with in terms of how they relate to the patient. And as you’ll recall, he talked about the first of the three phases being the patient experience, followed by the quality of care and followed by safety. As he explained it, for patients who come to receive medical care, they want to be treated well; they want high quality care, so they want to get better; and more importantly, they don’t want to be hurt. So let’s talk about the patient experience itself. That’s a lot to do with actual having contact with the patient, that initial contact. And there are a lot of things that I’ve learned over the years that help that contact. So even today when I see a patient, I’m asking things like, “Who sent you here?” “What do you like to do?” try to make things conversational. At the same time. I’m trying to identify the patient, speaking to the checklist that we talked about with Dr. Allen. Things like what side is being affected, right versus left, instead of asking again for their date of birth. Now people ask the date of birth a lot ‘cause that’s a big identifier, but I’ll
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  Inquiring About Quality and Patient Safety 07.04.2026 18мин

  We hear a lot in health care about patient safety and quality. While those terms would seem like a given, when it comes to patient care, they in fact are very strategic and measured. As Dr. Scott Allen, UConn Health’s chief medical officer, explains, much has to do with acknowledging the possibility of human error and how to mitigate its impacts, with practices such as daily safety huddles, checklists, empowerment to “stop the line,” and even use of artificial intelligence that can lead to an earlier diagnosis or assist with documentation in real time and enable physicians to focus more on the patient. It’s part of why UConn John Dempsey Hospital is in the running for an 11th consecutive “A” grade from Leapfrog for patient safety. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] Dr. Scott Allen:https://facultydirectory.uchc.edu/profile?profileId=Allen-Scott  UConn Today: Make It 10 Straight A’s for UConn Health’s Hospital Safetyhttps://today.uconn.edu/2025/11/make-it-10-straight-as-for-uconn-healths-hospital-safety/  UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicinehttps://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up to date and timely information that’s brought to you by national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, in addition to a grant from Coverys. This podcast is not designed to direct your own personal medical care, and that should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it gives me great pleasure to have as my guest today, Dr. Scott Allen. Dr. Allen is the Chief Medical Officer for the University of Connecticut here at UConn Health. He’s also a specialist in internal medicine and specifically in primary care internal medicine. Scott, welcome to the show. Dr. Allen: Thank you for having me. Dr. Alessi: Scott, can you tell our listeners a little bit about your background and how you got here? Dr. Allen: I’m a general internist by training. I actually trained at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, came down here in 1994, mainly as a medical educator, also functioning as a primary care physician. And over time, I took on responsibilities within residency programs, became a residency program director for eight years, and then really had the opportunity about 15 years ago to kind of morph into the quality world. Became a medical director for our quality department when it was first initiated, and then became the first chief quality officer, now as first chief medical officer. Dr. Alessi: Now, we hear a lot of these terms as physicians here in practice. We hear about quality, we hear about risk management, we hear about patient safety. Can you address those terms and what they all mean to us? Especially patient safety. I find that to be an odd term, right? Because it gives the impression - do you mean it’s not safe? So, can you talk a little bit about those programs and those terms and what they mean to the public as well as physicians? Dr. Allen: So, when patients come to see a physician or a practitioner or come to the hospital, they really are looking for three things. First, “be nice to me”, which really is the patient experience piece of health care. Dr. Alessi: Sure. Dr. Allen:, The second is “heal me”. Maintain my health or restore my health. And that’s really the quality component of health care. And then the last is, “don’t harm me in that process”. So that’s really sort of the patient’s safety. So, all three are really connected to one another. So, the safety piece is really keeping people from harm. And so designing systems of care to allow that. Health care is a very complicated world. It’s high risk. And so, as humans, we’re always subject to making human mistakes, errors
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  Bonus Episode: Dementia Deep Dive 31.03.2026 9мин

  Dr. Alessi goes more in-depth on the topic of dementia in follow-up to his earlier conversation with Dr. Kristina Zdanys, geriatric psychiatrist at UConn Health and co-director of the James E. C. Walker Memory Assessment Program in the UConn Center on Aging. He takes a closer look at the multifaceted nature of an effective memory assessment program, the role of imaging and monoclonal antibodies in slowing dementia’s progression, reducing dementia risk with lifestyle choices such as the “MIND diet,” misleading medication marketing, and the challenges of decisions around continuing to drive. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] March 24, 2026, Episode: “Dealing With Dementia” with Dr. Kristina Zdanys:https://healthyrounds.podbean.com/e/dealing-with-dementia/  Dr. Kristina Zdanys:https://www.uconnhealth.org/providers/profiles/zdanys-kristina UConn Center on Aging:https://www.uconnhealth.org/geriatrics-healthy-aging UConn Center on Aging’s Memory Assessment Program:https://www.uconnhealth.org/geriatrics-healthy-aging/services-specialties/memory-assessment-program Geriatric Psychiatry at UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org/behavioral-mental-health/services-specialties/geriatric-psychiatry  UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicinehttps://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date and timely information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. This podcast is not designed to direct your personal health care, which should only be done by your physician.  And today we’re doing what we call the deep dive where we look back at, in this case the interview we did with Dr. Kristina Zdanys. Dr. Zdanys is a geriatric psychiatrist and she’s associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut. She’s also the director of the James E.C. Walker Memory Assessment Program at the UConn Center on Aging.  It was great to chat with her and I think there were several points worth discussing. First of all, her directorship in a memory assessment program. I think this goes back to things that we’ve discussed before, and the fact that approaching a problem now is not the purview of one single specialty. And the fact that these programs are multidisciplinary and involve a variety of specialists, typically they will have a geriatric psychiatrist.  You can have neurologists as well as support staff, nurse practitioners, nurse navigators, as well as neuropsychologists as being part of the team. Radiologists who specialize in various imaging studies of the brain, as she discussed, are all part of a program and a multifaceted approach to a problem, in this case, the problem being dementia.  And dementia, as she mentioned, affecting currently 7 million Americans, with the thoughts that that’s going to go up to 14 million Americans over the course of the next several decades, so again, that multidisciplinary approach and making funds available for more research in the field of memory disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.  She also talked a lot about imaging, and it’s something I just mentioned with neuroradiologists, because now we can get images due to PET scanning that look for amyloid, which is one of the main culprits that we find in the brains of people who have dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. So the fact that we can do a scan and look at these deposits and where they’re located helps us a lot in terms of planning for treatment.  Now we do have some new treatments, and those are in the form of the monoclonal antibodies. In this case, and we hear that term a lot, monoclonal antibodies are used for a variety of problems, typically autoimmune problems,
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  Dealing With Dementia 24.03.2026 16мин

  There are many disorders that can cause memory problems, which fall under the category of “dementia” when those memory problems interfere with daily living. The most common dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, which afflicts more than seven million people in the U.S. As Dr. Kristina Zdanys, geriatric psychiatrist at UConn Health, explains, we can’t cure dementia; our best bet is to try to slow its progression, or even delay its onset with healthy habits in our younger years. Dr. Zdanys, who co-directs the James E. C. Walker Memory Assessment Program in the UConn Center on Aging, also discusses with Dr. Alessi how genetics factor into dementia, the “mind diet,” the challenge of taking away a loved one’s car keys, and what drew her into the field of geriatric psychiatry. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds: [email protected] Dr. Kristina Zdanys:https://www.uconnhealth.org/providers/profiles/zdanys-kristina UConn Center on Aging:https://www.uconnhealth.org/geriatrics-healthy-aging UConn Center on Aging’s Memory Assessment Program:https://www.uconnhealth.org/geriatrics-healthy-aging/services-specialties/memory-assessment-program Geriatric Psychiatry at UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org/behavioral-mental-health/services-specialties/geriatric-psychiatry  UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicinehttps://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up to date timely medical information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery in addition to a grant from Coverys. It is not designed to direct your personal healthcare, which should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it gives me great pleasure to welcome today, Dr. Kristina Zdanys. Dr. Zdanys is a geriatric psychiatrist here at the University of Connecticut where she serves as an associate professor of psychiatry. Kristina, welcome to the show. Dr. Zdanys: Good morning. Thanks for having me. Dr Alessi: Let’s talk. Can you describe your background and what it takes to become a geriatric psychiatrist? Dr. Zdanys: Absolutely. So, after medical school, I completed four years of a general adult psychiatric residency down at NYU. And treating adults, you also treat older adults, but I wanted to really enhance my understanding of working with the older adult population, so I went to Yale for a fellowship in geriatric psychiatry, which focuses on the mental health of folks who are 65 and over generally. And that may be a primary psychiatric problem like depression or anxiety or a sleep disorder, but it can also be dementia, which I think we’ll talk about quite a bit today. Dr Alessi: Why did you choose that field? Dr. Zdanys: Well, I think going back a long way, I’ve always been very connected to older adults in my family and my community, and have really enjoyed listening to their stories from when they were growing up and when they were younger adults and raising their kids, and there just seemed to be just this, you know, beautiful tapestry that every individual can present to you that I just found so enticing. So that’s how I initially got that interest. But at the same time, I also was really interested in the idea of memory problems because when you think about illnesses that affect older adults, you can kind of wrap your head around, okay, somebody’s heart’s not working the way it’s supposed to be, or somebody’s kidneys aren’t working the way they’re supposed to be, and you can kind of point to what that is. But a memory problem seems much more abstract. And, not just abstract, but I also think it affects the individual in a way that’s so unlike any other illness because in a way it robs them of their core identity and I just felt very compell
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  Bonus Episode: Remarkable Advances in Spine Surgery 17.03.2026 10мин

  A glimpse into the future of surgery came last year, when a surgeon in Orlando operated on a patient 7,000 miles away! Yet diagnosing a painful disc still comes with a number of challenges. Could figuring that out lead to better decisions on surgery versus conservative management? Dr. Alessi revisits his conversation with Dr. Moss, chair of UConn Health’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, particularly in the area of advances in spine surgery, including robotic and augmented reality procedures. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds: [email protected] Dr. Isaac Moss:https://www.uconnhealth.org/providers/profiles/moss-isaac UConn Health Comprehensive Spine Center:https://www.uconnhealth.org/spine The Brain and Spine Institute at UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org/brain-spine UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicinehttps://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date, timely medical information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. This podcast is not designed to direct your personal health care, which should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and today what we’re doing is what has come to be known as our deep dive, where we talk a little bit about the previous week’s interview. And in this case, it was done with Dr. Isaac Moss, who is professor and chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Connecticut. He’s also a fellowship-trained spine surgeon. And there were several issues that he brought up that I feel need further attention and I went back and dug out a little bit more information on that I’d like to share with all of you. I think one of the things he talked about is comparing our system with that in Canada, where we have so many spine surgeons in Hartford as opposed to Montreal, and he talks about increased access here in the United States to surgery. And I think that that’s important because, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but nevertheless, it has us shy away from conservative management. In many cases, when he discusses diagnostics, it appears that over a period of time where you may be waiting for surgery, your symptoms resolve. What I found also interesting was that from a diagnostic standpoint, we really can’t diagnose a painful disc, and I see that in electrodiagnostics all the time in EMG, which is what I do, in the sense that I’m going to see someone who has a painful disc and you would think that would have neurologic impairment and does not. By the same token, you’ll see somebody who has a horrible MRI and has no pain at all, but clearly has neurologic deficit on their exam and on the electrodiagnostic studies. So he raises such a good point with respect to how we are lacking in the field of diagnostics. We haven’t really figured that out yet. And as he points out, as you get to over the age of 50, you’ve got a 50% chance of having an abnormal MRI. So is it an imaging issue? Is it a clinical issue? And I think we really have to resolve that if we’re going to be treating the right patients with surgery or conservative management in order to make that decision. The other thing, the two other things actually I wanted to talk about: First, he talked about these enabling technologies, and I thought that was a good way to put it. You know, we’re dealing a lot with robotics now and how much that has really changed the practice of surgery, and medicine in general. But in terms of surgery, with these enabling technologies that we are fortunate to have here at the University of Connecticut through UConn Health, it really gives you a totally different image. Now, he brought up something I didn’t know ab
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  Spine Surgery’s Advances and Promising Future 10.03.2026 17мин

  More than eight in 10 of us have had or will have back pain, but far fewer will have surgery for it. Those who do have surgery enter a realm of innovation like few other areas of medicine. That’s what drew Dr. Isaac Moss into the specialty, yet he says there’s still so much we don’t know. Dr. Moss, renowned spine surgeon and the chair of UConn Health’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, discusses the advances in spine surgery, its promising future, and the importance of academic medicine, and offers his first-hand perspective on the health care systems in the U.S. and Canada. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] Dr. Isaac Moss:https://www.uconnhealth.org/providers/profiles/moss-isaac UConn Health Comprehensive Spine Center:https://www.uconnhealth.org/spine The Brain and Spine Institute at UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org/brain-spine UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicinehttps://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up to date and timely information that’s brought to you by national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, in addition to a grant from Coverys. This podcast is not designed to direct your own personal medical care, and that should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s great to have as my guest today, Dr. Isaac Moss. Dr. Moss is professor and chairman of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery here at the University of Connecticut. He is also a fellowship trained spine surgeon. Welcome to the show, Isaac. Dr. Moss: Thank you, Tony. Great to be here. Dr. Alessi: First of all, let me thank you for your support of this podcast, which we’re looking forward to really furthering medical information coming from our institution. To begin, I want to go back a little bit, back to 2019. Here you are at the University of Connecticut. You’re a very successful, well-known spine surgeon. You have grant support and suddenly you are thrust into the limelight of being chairman of one of the largest departments at the University of Connecticut, certainly one of the busiest. Walk me through that. I mean, did you want to become a chairman because you were fairly young at the time? And when I think of chairs, I mean, they’re usually older folks. Dr. Moss: So, I appreciate first of all that shout out and calling me young. I’ll let my kids know. But yeah, I think I was a little, I was typically a little bit younger than the average person who takes this kind of job on, but, you know, sometimes kind of opportunities come your way and they’re hard to say no to. And this particular opportunity, you know, we’re lucky. We have a tremendous, tremendous orthopedic department, all specialties, great people, great education, great research. And at the time there was a transition at the health center and the leadership came to me and said, “Hey, you know, we need some leadership in the department at this time, we think you’re well suited to do it.” And that was flattering, first of all, and somewhat hard to say no to, especially if you ask my mom. But, you know, so I took a step back and said, okay, is this something, well, you go from a sort of your own practice to leadership, you have to change your focus from what’s good for you and what’s good for your patients is obviously your main focus, to what can you do for everybody else? And, you have to be at a certain point in life where you can do that, first of all, and a certain attitude to do it. And, so actually the first thing I did was I sat down with a group of orthopedic surgeons. I said, “Hey guys, is this something you want me to do?” Right? Because one of the great things we have in a department is we have a tremendous team,
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  Bonus Episode: Social Services Deep Dive 03.03.2026 12мин

  Dr. Alessi drills down on a number of topics discussed with Connecticut's Social Services Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves, including Medicaid truths, social determinants of health, and how the ACEs survey fits into overall health. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] DSS Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves:https://portal.ct.gov/dss/knowledge-base/articles/home/dss-commissioner UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Support from UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date and timely medical information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. It’s not designed to direct your personal health care, which only you should work out directly with your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s great to be with you for what has come to be known as our deep dive, and that is where we look at the most recent podcast we did and try to drill down on some of the topics that were only able to glance over. This particular podcast was done last week with Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves. Ms. Barton Reeves is the commissioner for the Connecticut Department of Social Services. That is the part of our state government that oversees Medicaid, and Medicaid is a pretty general term here in Connecticut. We refer to it as HUSKY, but we always think of it as just being this kind of handout program where it just takes care of one thing, like doctor’s visits. Medicaid is an all-encompassing program, and it’s done in conjunction with the federal government for people who qualify economically. Now these are people, many of whom work, but they don’t make enough. They are below what is determined as the poverty line, and when you’re below that, you’ll need some assistance in order to provide meals for your family, to provide health insurance or health care, which is the HUSKY program, and some of it is hospitalization. It is used for durable goods, such as crutches and canes. It’s used for home health care, so there are a lot of different facets of it. Among them is also the nutrition program. We call it SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program here in Connecticut. People refer to it as food stamps in the past, or an EBT card. This also provides free breakfast for children. So it looks at a lot of different aspects, and there are over a million people who’ve received some form of Medicaid in the state of Connecticut. So that’s a big part of our population and it has a $9 billion budget. But as I mentioned, it’s got a lot to do with a lot of different services. One of the things we talked about is the importance of those services in terms of childhood development and the risk factors going forward. I brought up the idea of childhood separation, which is something we’re hearing a lot about with people who might be undocumented immigrants who came here trying to find a better life for themselves now being separated from their children. And it brought to mind something we mentioned, which is the ACEs score, the Adverse Childhood Experiences score or survey. And this is a survey that was designed to look at experiences in childhood before the age of 18 that may in some way impact the future of children, specifically with respect to health. There are a lot of variations on the ACEs survey, but particularly what they look at are childhood experiences related to trauma, meaning death in the family, shooting. Was a parent or a close relative put in prison or incarcerated for a long period of time? Was there a lot of divorce or fighting in the family? Was it a broken home in some way, shape, or form? So these are all experiences. Also more violent ones: Were they witnes
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  Medicaid Myths, Keeping CT Families Healthy 24.02.2026 17мин

  Recognizing and addressing social determinants of health can have a great impact on our overall well-being. That also goes for the people who are responsible for the care of others, be it their children or an aging or sick relative. Connecticut has a number of services and programs available to help, and Department of Social Services Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves joins Dr. Alessi to explain them, clear up misconceptions around some of these programs, and discuss some of the challenges around social services in 2026. Commissioner Barton Reeves recently joined the UConn Heath Board of Directors. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds:[email protected] DSS Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves:https://portal.ct.gov/dss/knowledge-base/articles/home/dss-commissioner UConn Health:https://www.uconnhealth.org Support from UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine Grant support from Coverys:www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide up to date, medical and timely information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. It is not designed to direct your healthcare, which should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it gives me a great pleasure to have as my guest today, Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves. Commissioner Reeves is the commissioner for the Department of Social Services here in Connecticut. She’s also a recently appointed member of the Board of Directors of UConn Health. Welcome to the podcast. Commissioner Barton Reeves: Thank you for having me. Dr. Alessi: Let’s start out. You’re an attorney. What drew you to your career in advocacy? Commissioner Barton Reeves: I would say that my parents were always, they were people that were very clear that we owed more to our community than just being three privileged children. So my father was a physician, he was a board certified child and adolescent psychiatrist, and my mother was a nurse. She held a master’s degree and she taught at Columbia and worked at a large hospital in New York. But they were immigrants. They came really with nothing and worked very hard to get their own educations and to educate my brothers and I. But in the course of that, they made it clear that they actually had careers and, you know, in the medical profession that gave back to people. And because so many people had made their lives and the success in their lives possible, that we had a responsibility to do that as well. So I think it’s been ingrained from the time I was very young. It’s my nature and all my brothers and I, we all are in similar fields in the helping professions and do very similar work. Dr. Alessi: What a great legacy for your parents. You might be wondering why I’m having you on. Most of our guests have been physicians, but I wanna let you know that I firmly believe that the key to better health starts with the social situation of patients, whether they’re homeless, whether they have enough to eat, and now we’re hearing a new term, right? The social determinants of health. Commissioner Barton Reeves: That’s right. Dr. Alessi: And with that here in the state of Connecticut, we have a Medicaid program. Can you talk a little bit about the program and somewhat profile the people who are on it because there’s so much misinformation and disinformation out there. I read a recent opinion piece where they touted the fact that the people on Medicaid are here illegally, they are undocumented people. And I know that for a fact that that is not the case. So can you really talk to us a little bit about who are the people on Medicaid in Connecticut? Are they working? Who are these people? Commissioner Barton Reeves: Sure. And thank you for this opportunity because there is so much disinformation and really I