Physician · Researcher · Science Communicator
Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Yale University. Director of the Clinical and Translational Research Accelerator. I use data and evidence to separate medical fact from fiction — on Medscape, Medium, and the Wellness, Actually podcast.
01 — About
I'm a nephrologist, clinical researcher, and science communicator at Yale School of Medicine. My research uses real-time analytics and clinical decision support to target diagnostic and therapeutic interventions to patients at risk of clinical deterioration — spanning electronic alerting, rare-event prognostication, machine learning, and randomized clinical trials.
Beyond the lab, I'm passionate about helping people understand medical evidence. I write the weekly Impact Factor column and video series on Medscape, co-host the Wellness, Actually podcast with Emily Oster, and write on Medium. My book, How Medicine Works and When It Doesn't, came out in 2023.
My goal is simple: rigorous analysis, delivered accessibly. Medical news analyzed rigorously, synthesized succinctly.
02 — Podcast
Co-hosted with economist and best-selling author Emily Oster, Wellness, Actually separates fact from fiction, causality from correlation, so you can stay informed without being overwhelmed. Every episode we cover the health news of the week, take listener questions, and do a deep dive into a buzzy wellness topic — from GLP-1s to red light therapy to cold plunges.
Distributed by iHeartMedia. New episodes weekly.
Latest Episode
Rerun, Actually - What's the deal with GLP-1s? — Oct 1, 2026
Recent episode articles
October 8, 2026
Botulinum toxin is the most poisonous substance known. Here's how it went from sausage poisoning to wrinkles, migraine, and sweating, and what the evidence shows.
September 24, 2026
Cold showers, vampire facials, EMF meters, vibration plates, psyllium, salt lamps, farmed salmon, turmeric and more, sorted by what the evidence actually shows.
September 17, 2026
Do artificial sweeteners cause weight gain or cancer? What the observational data, randomized trials, and the ugly aspartame approval story actually show.
Browse by topic
Supplements & sports nutrition · Hormones & sexual health · Metabolic & diet · Biohacking & recovery trends · Injectable & regenerative therapies · Brain, mood & sleep · Environmental exposures & health scares · Health technology · Screening & diagnostics
03 — Book
Grand Central Publishing, 2023
Blending personal anecdotes with hard science, this book gives you the tools to navigate our complicated healthcare system, evaluate medical claims, and understand when medicine works — and when it falls short. From clinical trials to alternative therapies, it's a guide to becoming a more informed patient.
Buy on Amazon04 — Writing
Essays and analysis written for a general audience on Medium and Medscape — covering everything from GLP-1 receptor agonists to the neurobiology of hypocrisy. For peer-reviewed scientific publications, see Google Scholar or PubMed.
Jul 27, 2026
The trend goes against broad decreases in alcohol intake in the general population.
Jul 20, 2026
A comprehensive review from the American Heart Association praises java, pans energy drinks.
Jul 15, 2026
A study suggests nano- and microplastics may represent novel risk factors for heart disease.
Jul 7, 2026
What this recent Yale research letter revealed about the online accessibility of weight loss drugs like Ozempic
Jul 1, 2026
Evaluating LLMs on their ability to detect “missed opportunities for diagnosis”.
Jun 23, 2026
The real story here is that the analysis is… conventional.
05 — In the Media
Why the new evidence makes coffee look relatively heart-healthy, and why the way you brew it matters.
Discussing the real data linking acetaminophen use with autism spectrum disorder.
The pros and cons of removing fluoride from the water supply, with Connell McShane.
Discussing the ongoing measles outbreak with Brianna Keilar.
The Texas measles outbreak, with Brianna Keilar and Boris Sanchez.
A new study suggesting that female patients fare better when cared for by female doctors.
How the public lost trust in medicine, and what we can do to earn it back.
President Biden's checkup at Walter Reed Medical Center, with Brianna Keilar and Boris Sanchez.
Speaking with Linsey Davis about How Medicine Works and When It Doesn't and how people can know what medical information to trust. Watch video →
Joining Drs. Howie Forman and Harlan Krumholz to discuss the book and how a failing medical system makes people susceptible to misinformation.
06 — Research
I direct the Clinical and Translational Research Accelerator (CTRA) at Yale School of Medicine. CTRA is dedicated to applying discoveries from the laboratory and preclinical experiments to the design of clinical trials and patient-oriented research. Our work spans biomarker discovery and validation, interventional data science, electronic alerting, clinical decision support, and machine-learning approaches to rare-event prognostication.
Our team of physicians, scientists, and research staff is committed to demonstrating that patients directly benefit from the applied science we develop — with projects ranging from acute kidney injury prediction and treatment to heart failure management and kidney precision medicine.
07 — Teaching
Free on Coursera
How do you know if a new drug actually works? What makes a study trustworthy? In this course, I teach you how to critically evaluate medical studies — the same skills I teach Yale medical students. You'll learn about p-values, confounding, bias, randomization, and how to spot misleading claims, no medical background required.
Enroll Free on Coursera →Free enrollment · Self-paced
No prerequisites required