Justice in Healthcare: Who Deserves to Be Healthy?Top of Mind with Julie Rose • Season 2026, Episode 7
Mar 30, 2026 • 54m
Who deserves to be healthy—and who’s responsible for making that possible?
In this episode of Top of Mind, we explore one of the toughest questions in modern healthcare: how we decide who gets care, compassion, and lifesaving treatment.
A doctor reflects on a moment with a patient that changed his understanding of kindness in medicine. A widow shares the devastating consequences of a transplant policy that kept her husband from getting the organ he needed. And a bioethicist walks us through the uncomfortable reality of deciding who gets lifesaving care when resources are scarce.
Original airdate – March 13, 2023
GUESTS
Dr. Michael Stein, primary care physician and Chair of Health Policy at the Boston University School of Public Health (https://www.michaelsteinbooks.com/home)
Debra Selkirk, Chief Advocacy Officer at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and widow of a liver failure patient (https://centerforhealthjournalism.org/debra-selkirk)
Dr. Jacob M. Appel, psychiatrist and bioethicist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (https://jacobmappel.com/)
Dr. Dayna Bowen Matthew, Dean of the George Washington University Law School and expert in public health and civil rights law (https://www.law.gwu.edu/dayna-bowen-matthew)
CHAPTERS
(0:00) Introduction
(0:57) Beatrice and the Broken Promise
(3:17) Kindness Over Judgment
(5:47) Empathy Improves Outcomes
(8:35) Public Health vs Individualism
(13:03) Alcohol and Transplant Fairness
(26:09) Social Worth Taboo
(27:32) Stewardship and Past Choices
(29:07) Vaccine Refusal Priority
(31:28) Manufactured Medical Scarcity
(34:27) Just Health and Family Story
(47:16) Racism Stress and Community Action