Raise the Line

What does it take to compete on the world's biggest stage and then pivot to one of the most demanding training paths in professional life? Today's guest, Samantha "Sammy" Kolowrat, has done both, and she has some fascinating insights into the commonalities of those two worlds on this episode of Raise the Line. “Something that really drew me to medicine is the team atmosphere that’s there as you work towards a common goal, and there's this level of intensity that’s very reminiscent of the experiences I had as a professional athlete.”

Originally from Prague, Kolowrat represented Czechia at six IIHF Women's World Championships and the 2022 Beijing Olympics, and also captained the Division I women's hockey team at the University of Vermont while earning degrees in biology and pharmacology. 

As she starts an anesthesiology residency at Vanderbilt University, she credits her athletic career with shaping how she handles pressure, feedback, and teamwork in medicine. "The more I improve, the more knowledge I acquire, the more skills I hone, the better care my patients get," she tells host Lindsey Smith, describing what drew her to a field that rewards the same relentless fine-tuning as elite sports.

This engaging conversation also explores:

How crippling performance anxiety as a Division I athlete ended up preparing Kolowrat for the operating room;

Why she was drawn to anesthesiology's "well-oiled machine" atmosphere;

The mentorship gap she's working to close for the next generation of athlete-physicians.

Mentioned in this episode:

Vanderbilt University Anesthesiology Residency Program

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An 11-year-old boy in rural Zambia once told Dr. Genesis Mwamba that he was about to attend school wearing shoes for the first time in his life. That moment, Dr. Mwamba says, crystallized why he started the Lead Me Back Foundation to provide school supplies and other support to marginalized communities in his native country.  

As you’ll learn in this inspiring installment in our NextGen Journeys series, Dr. Mwamba started the foundation in 2021while still a medical student because he had experienced the power of education as an “equalizer” in his own life, taking him from humble roots to a career in medicine.

He and his colleagues have grown the bootstrapped organization to a point where it now provides hundreds of thousands of people across the country with educational access, climate education and community health clinics. “I've always been drawn to opportunities and initiatives that bring help to humankind,” he tells Raise the Line host Dr. Parsa Mohri.

This episode also explores:

What building "with" a community rather than "for" it looks like in practice;

The storytelling strategy that attracted donors and partners;

How his mother’s untimely death inspired his commitment to preventive medicine.

 

Mentioned in this episode:

Lead Me Back Foundation

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"We have an untapped army of 200,000 PAs that really could step up and drive some change in the healthcare system if we weren’t restricted,” says Dr. Jennifer Kolb, capturing her motivation for pushing to update practice regulations for physician associates that date back more than 50 years. 

As Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Clinical Affairs at the American Academy of Physician Associates, Dr. Kolb has been in the middle of the fight at the state and federal level to grant PAs more independence from physicians, full billing rights, and the increased ability to practice across state lines, among other changes. 

In this pertinent conversation with Raise the Line host Lindsey Smith, Dr. Kolb explains how these updates could help close huge gaps in access to healthcare, better manage the fight against chronic diseases and improve patient outcomes.  

Dr. Kolb also addresses: 

Why the name shift from "assistant" to "associate" took her years to fully appreciate;

How a 10-year gap in life expectancy across Chicago zip codes shapes her view of health equity;

Why PA’s shouldn’t wait for permission to start making change in their communities.

Mentioned in this episode:
American Academy of Physician Associates

 

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Most adults who smoke want to quit, and about half try to do so in any given year, yet fewer than one in ten succeed. That persistent gap between intention and outcome is one of the central challenges in public health, and it's exactly the kind of problem that calls for new thinking about how to communicate with people to support behavior change. 

Dr. Amanda Graham has been a leading force in doing just that in her role as chief health officer at Truth Initiative, the nation's largest non-profit public health organization dedicated to preventing addiction among young people and helping people of all ages to quit tobacco. On this episode of Raise the Line from Elsevier, Dr. Graham, who holds a PhD in clinical health psychology and has done 25 years of NIH-funded research focused on technology-based cessation interventions, helps us understand the interplay between behavioral science and digital communications in the field.

"A well-timed message can really be powerful in interrupting what for many people is kind of an automatic behavior, especially via text, which data tell us is an extraordinarily powerful modality,” she explains to host Lindsey Smith. 

Tune-in to understand where the field is heading, and to learn about:

Why "push" technology may work better than apps and websites when it comes to breaking automatic behaviors;

How the rise of e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, and heated tobacco has scrambled decades of public health messaging;

How highschool smoking rates plunged from over 30% to less than 2%.

Mentioned in this episode:

Truth Initiative

Program with Mayo Clinic

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast

"I always remember feeling like I was part of the clean plate club," says Dr. Christle Guevarra, recalling a childhood spent quietly convinced that her weight was a matter of willpower. That belief followed her through a competitive powerlifting career and medical practice until she finally tried a GLP-1 medication herself and, as she describes it, the constant mental noise around food quieted down.

Now a board-certified family and sports medicine physician, traveling team doctor for U.S. Figure Skating, and author of The Beginner's Guide to GLP-1s, Dr. Guevarra brings a rare combination of clinical authority and lived experience to the conversation around obesity medicine. 

In this episode of Raise the Line from Elsevier, host Lindsey Smith talks with her about what's actually changed in how physicians understand the issue and what it means for patients. "The biggest thing is reframing how we approach weight loss. It's not just a willpower problem, it is a neurobiological problem."

Tune in to learn about:

Why she said no to a GLP-1 prescription for two years and what finally changed her mind;

The real story behind concerns about muscle loss on these medications;

What happens when the “food noise" goes silent and a new set of challenges takes its place.

 

Mentioned in this episode:  Dr. Christle's website

If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast