The Brain Surgeon's Take

Dr. Rick Komotar

The Brain Surgeon's Take is a discussion based podcast where experts in every field from Nobel Laureates to Navy SEALS to NASA Astronauts to NFL Athletes sit down and talk with world renowned Neurosurgeon and Professor of Neurological Surgery Dr. Rick Komotar.

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Episodes

Dr. Lewis Cantley: Diet and Cancer - is sugar toxic?
Mar 21 2024
Dr. Lewis Cantley: Diet and Cancer - is sugar toxic?
Lewis C. Cantley, PhD, is a Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. Prior to this appointment, he was the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor and Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College/Ronald P. Stanton Clinical Cancer Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital (2012-22). Dr. Cantley is a graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan College, obtained a PhD in biophysical chemistry from Cornell University, completed postdoctoral training at Harvard University, and subsequently taught and conducted research in biochemistry, physiology and cancer biology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. His laboratory discovered the PI 3-Kinase pathway that plays a critical role in insulin signaling and in cancers.Dr. Cantley was elected to the National Academy of Inventors in 2020, the Institute of Medicine in 2014, the National Academy of Sciences in 2001, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999. Among his other awards are the ASBMB Avanti Award for Lipid Research in 1998, the Heinrich Wieland Preis for Lipid Research in 2000, the Caledonian Prize from the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2002, the 2005 Pezcoller Foundation–AACR International Award for Cancer Research, the 2009 Rolf Luft Award for Diabetes and Endocrinology Research from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, the 2011 Pasrow Prize for Cancer Research, the 2013 Breakthrough in Life Sciences Prize and the 2013 Jacobaeus Prize for Diabetes Research from the Karolinska Institute and the 2015 AACR Princess Takamatsu Memorial Lectureship.
Kasie Hunt - What Is It Like to Undergo Brain Surgery?
Jan 12 2024
Kasie Hunt - What Is It Like to Undergo Brain Surgery?
Kasie Hunt is a CNN anchor and chief national affairs analyst. She hosts Early Start with Kasie Hunt weekdays from 5-6am ET on CNN and State of the Race with Kasie Hunt weekdays from 11am-12pm ET on CNN International, also available on CNN Max. She appears on and reports for CNN US, covering national and breaking news. Hunt joined CNN in 2021 after more than eight years at NBC News where she most recently anchored Way Too Early and served as a regular contributor to Morning Joe after anchoring KasieDC on Sunday nights. Hunt also served as NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent and played a lead role in 2020 election night coverage for the network. She joined NBC News as an off-air reporter and producer covering Congress and politics and started appearing regularly on MSNBC as a political reporter and later a political correspondent before becoming an anchor. At NBC News, Hunt covered insurgent and establishment candidates on both sides of the aisle in 2016 and 2020. She sat down with Donald Trump in Iowa back in 2013 — and was the first correspondent to interview him after he announced his presidential bid in 2015, where she pressed him in his Trump Tower office about his incendiary claims about Mexican immigrants bringing drugs and crime across the border. In 2020, she interviewed now-President Joe Biden live on the air from South Carolina at a critical moment in his bid to regain momentum and come back from behind to win the 2020 nomination.
Dr. Eben Alexander - Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife
Dec 11 2023
Dr. Eben Alexander - Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife
Eben’s career includes decades as a physician and professor at Harvard Medical School. He was once staunchly committed to the materialist world view -- the belief that the physical world is all that exists. His scientific belief system was altered by his 2008 transcendental near-death experience (NDE), an odyssey into another realm during a week-long coma. Despite a bleak medical prognosis, Dr. Alexander awoke to make an inexplicable return to full health. His medical case and recovery were validated in the peer-reviewed Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. Since his NDE, Dr. Alexander has been reconciling his rich spiritual experience with quantum physics, cosmology and the philosophy of mind. Dr. Alexander speaks around the world to educate about the role that consciousness plays in wellness, healing and recovery.A pioneering scientist and modern thought leader, Dr. Alexander has been featured in more than 400 media interviews including for ABC-TV’s Good Morning America and 20/20, The Dr. Oz Show, Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, Larry King Now, Fox and Friends, Discovery Channel, Biography Channel and numerous international radio, digital and podcasts.His books are available in more than 40 countries: Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife, The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion, and Ordinary People Are Proving the Afterlife, and Living in a Mindful Universe: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Heart of Consciousness, co-authored with Sacred Acoustics co-founder Karen Newell. http://ebenalexander.com/
Dr. Julio Frenk - The University of Miami: Future Directions
Nov 21 2023
Dr. Julio Frenk - The University of Miami: Future Directions
Dr. Frenk is the 6th President of UM. He is also Professor of Public Health, Health Sector Policy, and Sociology. Prior to joining the UM, he served as Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and Professor of Public Health at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Julio was the Minister of Health of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. He was also the founding director-general of the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico, executive director at The WHO and senior fellow in the global health program of the Gates Foundation.Dr. Frenk holds an MD from the National University of Mexico, as well as an MPH/PhD from the University of Michigan. His scholarly production, which includes over 180 articles, has been cited >23,000 times. In addition, he has written three best-selling novels. He serves on the board of the United Nations Foundation and the RWJ Foundation and has chaired the board of the Institute for Health Metrics at the University of Washington. Dr Frenk is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico. He was elected as a member of El Colegio Nacional, one of the most prestigious learned societies of Mexico.He received the Clinton Global Citizen Award, the Yale University Bouchet Medal, the Welch-Rose Award, and the Columbia University Frank Calderone Prize.  He has honorary degrees from Universities in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, and Mexico.
Dr. Bruce Greyson - Near Death Experiences: The Science Behind The Phenomena
Oct 18 2023
Dr. Bruce Greyson - Near Death Experiences: The Science Behind The Phenomena
Dr. Bruce Greyson is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia.  He was previously on the medical faculty at the University of Michigan and the University of Connecticut, where he was Clinical Chief of Psychiatry. Dr. Greyson has consulted with the National Institutes of Health and addressed symposia on consciousness at the United Nations and at the Dalai Lama’s compound in Dharamsala, India. He has earned awards for his medical research and was elected a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the highest honor bestowed by that organization.Dr. Greyson’s interest in near-death experiences began just a few months after graduating from medical school, when he treated an unconscious patient in the emergency room who stunned him the next morning with an account of leaving her body. That event challenged his beliefs about the mind and the brain, and ultimately led him on a journey to study near-death experiences scientifically, leading to more than a hundred publications in medical journals. He co-founded the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS), an organization to support and promote research into these experiences, and for 27 years edited the Journal of Near-Death Studies, the only scholarly journal dedicated to near-death research. Dr. Greyson is the author of After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond.