Physician's hands mid-gesture during a clinical conversation, stethoscope draped soft-focus in background

Season One · 2026

ROUNDS

Stories from the people who never leave the building.

Long-form audio journalism for clinicians

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5 Episodes
Coming Spring 2026
Physician reviewing clinical trial documents at a desk, stacks of research folders visible in background

Episode 01  ·  Health Economics

"The drug worked. We knew it worked. The committee voted no anyway."

When a Phase III trial for a rare pediatric leukemia drug showed 34% improved survival, the FDA advisory panel rejected it 8–5 on cost-effectiveness grounds. Dr. Priya Nair was in the room. She stayed in medicine. She's still not sure why.

▶62 min  ·  Audio · Transcript

Episode 02  ·  Night Shift

"At 3 a.m. on a Tuesday, I made a call that textbooks don't cover."

A second-year resident at Cook County Hospital describes the twelve-hour window in which a misread potassium panel, a sleeping attending, and a patient's own insistence on discharge converged into a decision that shouldn't have been hers to make alone.

▶78 min  ·  Audio · Transcript

Empty hospital corridor at night, fluorescent lights casting long shadows, a single gurney in the distance
Close-up of a physician's hands folded on a hospital bed railing, soft light from a window

Episode 03  ·  The Patient Who Changed Everything

"She handed me a letter on her way out. I didn't open it for six months."

After fifteen years in pediatric oncology, Dr. Marcus Webb thought he understood the shape of grief. Then a twelve-year-old with osteosarcoma taught him the difference between preparing for loss and actually surviving it — and rewrote how he delivers terminal diagnoses.

▶91 min  ·  Audio · Transcript

Episode 04  ·  Policy & the Ward

"The policy looked perfect on paper. On the floor, it cost us two nurses in a week."

When a major academic medical center rolled out a new nurse-to-patient ratio mandate in response to state legislation, no one modeled what would happen to the float pool. Charge nurse Desiree Okafor did the math — in real time, with real patients.

▶55 min  ·  Audio · Transcript

Busy nursing station with clipboards and monitors, a nurse mid-conversation in the background
Laboratory bench with test tubes and research notebooks, a researcher's hands visible turning a page

Episode 05  ·  The Failed Trial

"We enrolled 847 patients to learn something we probably already knew."

The CLARITY trial for a novel sepsis biomarker burned through $40 million, four years, and the careers of two junior investigators before the data showed what the skeptics had quietly suspected from the protocol design meeting. Principal investigator Dr. Jin-Ho Park tells it without edits.

▶84 min  ·  Audio · Transcript

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