Hard Call

How special are health care workers?

COVID Quandaries – the Hard Call team is back at work, producing a series of special episodes exploring some of the toughest ethical decisions facing patients, clinicians, health systems and policymakers as all confront the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic.

Max got what he wanted, but it didn’t work out as he’d hoped. In the final episode of our pilot season we ask several guests, was it worth it? What is the value of a few extra months of life, when those months include indignity, suffering and pain? Drs. Daniel Ariely, Steven Pearson and Larry Allen contribute their answers to this very hardest of all hard calls.

Max wants to terminate his treatment and have his LVAD turned off, but stopping the LVAD means he would die almost immediately. His doctor is morally opposed to stopping the device, or even to finding another doctor to do it, as he feels this would be tantamount to murder. Who decides?

ax isn’t the only one with a decision to make. Even if he wants an LVAD — a partial artificial heart that plugs into an electrical outlet — his medical team has to agree he’d be a good candidate to get one. And it’s not just his medical condition they need to figure out — it’s whether his daughter is capable of handling a heart pump in an emergency.

Episode 1 of The Electronic Heart follows the stories of two patients, Carl and “Max,” both with severe congestive heart failure. For Carl, who is on the list for a heart transplant, the choice was clear. But for Max, who isn’t eligible for a transplant, there are no guarantees and only a murky unknown future on the horizon. Still, Max will have to make a Hard Call.

Electronic Heart | Trailer by University of Colorado

Jeff’s chomping at the bit to start a new venture. There’s just one thing...he’s tried to start two businesses before, and ended up strapped to a gurney in a mental hospital both times. What would you do?

Once upon a time, Jeff loved his work. He lived for it. Now it’s killing him. For real.

Jeff is spending thousands to see a psychiatrist in a tony midtown Manhattan office — all the while dealing with potential bankruptcy. In this episode: mental illness meets money. Who wins?

Derailed, a 5-part podcast series, helps to break the silence by bringing to life the authentic experience of one man suffering from mental illness, including the excruciating dilemmas – the “hard calls” — that face everyone in his circle — partners, kids, relatives, colleagues and doctors. Shining a light on these dilemmas, and on a broken system, is a first and important step toward change.

Jeff encounters stigma and wants to face it down. On the one side is his integrity; on the other, millions of dollars, many jobs, and the very survival of his company. Should Jeff reveal the truth?

Jeff Zinn is is a mega-productive, millionaire entrepreneur, a charmer who is the subject of fawning stories in the press. He’s the epitome of success. Or is he? We explore the troubling line between a “big” personality and mental illness. Who decides what dangerous means?