In this episode, oncologist Bryan Schneider and infectious disease expert Adrian Gardner from Indiana University, share what it has been like to get knocked down with COVID-19 twice, care for patients during the pandemic, lead the University’s COVID response, and even a supreme court case on vaccination. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts | Additional resources: education.asco.org | Contact Us Air Date: 12/7/21   TRANSCRIPT [MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER: The purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. This is not a substitute for medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. PAT LOEHRER: Hi. I'm Pat Loehrer. I'm a director of the Centers for Global Health and Health Equity at Indiana University Simon Cancer Center. DAVE JOHNSON: And I'm Dave Johnson. I'm a medical oncologist at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas. PAT LOEHRER: Well, welcome back to ASCO's education new podcast series entitled Oncology, Etc. Today, we'll be joined by two outstanding guests, Dr. Bryan Schneider and Dr. Adrian Gardner. We're going to do a deep dive about COVID-19. And Dave, I was thinking-- I was reflecting on my life. The thing in medicine is when new diseases come out. So in our earlier lives, when we started there, was no such thing as Lyme disease, HIV/AIDS-- tumors didn't exist. And then just in the last couple of years now, we have COVID-19, the SARS CoV 2. And I think as physicians, it's kind of exciting. What's your experience been with the COVID-19 in the wards at Parkland? DAVE JOHNSON: Well, it's been really, very challenging. You know, I don't know that the public yet has fully grasped the magnitude of this disease. I mean, 700,000-plus Americans have died of this disease. That's an astonishing number when you think about it. And I was just on the general medical wards just a couple of weeks ago with a wonderful team of residents and students. Patients with this disease are very sick. We often downplay it, but I'm telling you, these people are really quite ill and can get ill and symptomatic rapidly, within hours. So this is a serious illness. But I agree with you. One of the things I told the residents a year ago was to keep a journal, that there are a few times during the course of your training and career where a new disease emerges, and you can be part and parcel of that. And keeping a diary of what happened is something that I wish I had done when AIDS emerged back in the '80s, or other disease processes, like Lyme, as you mentioned. PAT LOEHRER: And syphilis for you, wasn't it? DAVE JOHNSON: Well, that was sort of the [LAUGHS] Hippocratic oath days, but yeah, no. I think that was-- I think-- I can't remember. We were hanging out together at the time, so I don't remember exactly. Yeah, no, it's been really remarkable. The thing that's been interesting to me is the response of individuals and their families to the disease, particularly once the vaccines came available. So maybe we can delve into that a little bit today, because I know one of our guests has actually experienced that himself, so we'll know more about that later. PAT LOEHRER: I don't think, to be honest, that we could have a better collective wisdom than we have today with Dr. Schneider and Dr. Gardner, who will talk about their personal and professional and I think the global impact of COVID. I don't think there's any two people better than that. The only thing we could do better is if Anthony Fauci was here by himself. But these guys are tremendous people. Dr. Gardner went to medical school at Brown, did his fellowship and infectious disease at Beth Israel, and then did his MPH at Harvard, and joined the faculty in Indiana University in 2012. When he was a student, he spent time in Kenya, with Joe Mamlin from Indi