Random Epidemic Podcasts

Stories of my life on my path to becoming an epidemiologist and stories from my adventures as one. I was born in northern Mexico many, many years ago, and life has brought me to the northeast United States. I’m now and American, a husband, and so many more things than I was when I left the US-Mexico border to seek a better life and expand my career. In 2003, while working full-time, I started an adventure into being an epidemiologist. I learned about diseases and conditions and how to study them and combat them. It was rough, and I sometimes thought I wasn’t going to make it. I got my master of public health (MPH) degree in 2007. I then worked for a state health department for six years before being accepted into the doctor of public health (DrPH) program at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. I’m in my second year there now, and that has been an adventure as well. The purpose of this blog is to practice my public speaking skills and my ability to tell stories. While a lot of public health work is about collecting and analyzing data, a lot of it should be how to interpret the data and explain it to people who need to know. That requires the skill of telling a coherent story. This podcast is my attempt at getting better at it. So what will you hear? You’ll hear tiny stories from my life as well as some presentations I’ve given on different epidemiological and public health subjects. It goes without saying that the content of the podcasts does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of my school, my employers, my friends, or my family. It’s all me. Thanks for listening, and enjoy.

Categories: Society & Culture

Tags: Education, epidemic, epidemiological, Epidemiology, health, hopkins, interview, Journal, Medicine, najera, outbreak, public, publichealth, ren, rfnajera, science

Eve’s been struggling since her retirement. Cancelling appointments, forgetting simple things…sleeping an awful lot. Her three kids are worried. When the oldest decides to check in on Eve before heading off to an important work dinner, the simple visit turns into something much bigger, and darker, than anyone could have predicted. Through found audio – phone calls, Facetime, Skype, live social media posts and recordings caught by unwitting bystanders – listen in as Abi, Kay and Joey work with, and sometimes against, each other as they try to piece together what happened…and who’s to blame.

Categories: Fiction

Tags: darkhumor, drama, epidemic, family, fiction, MYSTERY, opioid

Helpful discussions of challenges commonly faced by health care clinicians when prescribing opioids. Hosted by Dr. Daniel P. Alford, MD, MPH, Director of the Safe and Competent Opioid Prescribing Education program (SCOPE of Pain) at Boston University’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine.

Categories: Uncategorised

Tags: addiction, chronic, doctor, drugs, epidemic, opioids, overdose, Pain, pain-killers, painkillers, patient, prescribe, prescribing, prescription, SCOPE, scope of pain

In “Plague” journalist Michael O’Loughlin investigates stories of the AIDS epidemic and the Catholic Church. Mike is America’s national correspondent and he’s covered Catholicism for more than a decade. Mike is also gay and Catholic—and he’s curious how others manage this sometimes complex identity. No time in modern history has been more volatile for gay Catholics than the height of the AIDS epidemic. So he spent the last few years interviewing people who were right in the middle of it. People who fought, worked and grieved through it.

Categories: History, Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture

Tags: AIDS, catholic, church, epidemic

I’ve been told my whole life that I’m a little blunt, not sharp, blunt. I simply lack the finesse required for sharpness. Maybe it’s because I’m a Sagittarius or the fact that I am a sensitive bitch, nonetheless my mind is both a scary and enlightened place, sometimes my mind is kind to me, sometimes it hates me. I sometimes like it here, I sometimes don’t, and the older I get the more I’m fucking okay with that. I don’t have all the answers, nor do I claim to (well to be fair sometimes I really do have the answers, I just don’t like them). I’m on a learning, discovering, and enlightenment journey. I have questions, many questions, for life and the experiences it encompasses. Something I say a lot is the expression “that makes no sense” and usually it slips, sometimes I scream it out, sometimes under my breath when I come to the realization that there is a bigger picture. That many of the things we are raised to believe make sense really don’t. I love love these moments because it means I’ve been given a chance to learn, listen, and grow from someone’s story, experiences, and existence. In these moments my mind got bigger, my capacity for understanding and knowledge expounded and my empathy beamed. So this podcast will simply be me asking a lot of questions, talking, and learning about whatever I want. So come along! You may agree or you may disagree BUT just remember life is full of glitter and glue and we ebb and we flow!

Categories: Society & Culture

Tags: 20s, 30s, 40s, addiction, african, african experience, american, anxiety, Asian, black, black experience, Blunt, Books, BTS, careerchange, careers, cash, Casual, chatting, cold, coming of age, commentary, common sense, crisis, crown, Culture, cursing, dating, death, depression, divorce, dont touch my hair, easy, empowerment, Enlightenment, epidemic, evolution, expectations, facebook, fast, fast listen, feeling, female, feminism, feminist, for men, for women, Fun, future, Gen X, genx, genz, growth, happiness, hard, instagram, King, Korean, Kpop, life, life crises, life-style, loss, love, Love is Blind, lust, marijuana, marriage, melenin, men, menstruation, mental-health, Mid life crisis, Millennials, mind your own business, miscarriage, Money, music, myob, Numb, numbing, ok boomer, on the go, opinion, Pain, parenting, parents, periods, phenomenon, poetry, political opinion, political stances, pop culture, power, privilege, Psychology, quarter-life crisis, queen, quick, quick listen, race, Reading, relatable, relationships, religion, Rich, sadness, sex, sexuality, shopping, short, signs, slay, snowflake, social media, Society, speaking out, spitiruality, star sign, Stories, story-telling, swear words, teens, tinder, travelling, tribalism, trigerred, triggering, Twitter, unpopular opinion, vagina, wakanda, wakanda forever, warm, Wealth, weed, white privilege, wine, woman, women, worth, young man, Young Women, youtube