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Education

Code Blue: Challenging Conventional Medical Education and Practice with Saray Stancic, MD: PYP 238

Dr Saray Stancic became an infectious disease specialist in response to the HIV and hepatitis C crisis of the 1980s and 90s. On October 11, 1995, the then-3rd year medical resident found a short nap window at 2am, and collapsed in fatigue in the on-call room of the hospital where she worked.

When she was awakened for her next shift, Dr Stancic couldn’t feel her legs. She was rushed to the ER, and an MRI revealed multiple sclerosis (MS) with multiple lesions in the brain and spinal cord. In addition to the neuropathy in her legs, it turned out that her kidneys were also failing.

She was admitted to the hospital, given an IV steroid drip and a bunch of other medications. And just like that, a young, energetic, ambitious doctor was converted into a frightened, confused, dispirited patient.

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Rip Esselstyn on Growing a Movement and Being Open to Opportunity: PYP 237

Rip Esselstyn is founder of Engine 2, a food and education company dedicated to eliminating chronic disease through a whole food, plant-based diet.

As Engine 2 continues to grow in influence and reach, Rip is stewarding the company to new opportunities. As a food brand associated with Whole Foods and an education provider to their employees, Engine 2 is poised to explode with Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods this past year.

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Tackling Our Healthcare Crisis by Growing Food with Thi Squire: PYP 228

Thi Squire is the garden manager for Homestead Hospital, located 30 miles south of Miami on Florida’s east coast.

Wait, what? Garden manager? At a hospital?

Yup. Thi (pronounced “Tee”), a longtime urban gardener and sales rep in the burgeoning farm-to-table industry in South Florida, talked her way into a position growing food for the hospital cafeteria.

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Educating a Generation of Healthy, Savvy Moms and Girlfriends with Lana Kontos: PYP 207

Lana Kontos is a naturopath and women’s health advocate who somehow managed to transcend her training and embrace the true sources of health. While still in high school, she was told by her guidance counselor that she should become an MD.

But the contradiction in her education – like the brilliant, morbidly obese dean of her state university with a PhD in nutrition who was always in pain, and whose dietary preferences consisted largely of steak and eggs – sent her into the business world.

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Jason Cohen on Taking the Wheel of Your Own Life: PYP 167

Jason Cohen tipped the scale at 297 pounds when a buddy of his moved and left him a bicycle. That, along with the death of a slightly older, leaner friend, carrot-and-sticked Jason to a weight loss journey that soon turned into much more.

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Olivia Kelly on Putting Chronic Disease Out of Business: PYP 166

Olivia Kelly is CEO of WellStart Health, a startup wellness company whose foundation is a plant-centered diet. Armed with a “why not me?” attitude, a background in fitness and health, and a dream, Olivia co-founded WellStart Health to change the game in corporate wellness and healthcare.

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Keegan Kuhn on Not Hurting Anybody and Questioning Authority: PYP 157

Keegan Kuhn was raised with two rules: don’t hurt anybody, and question authority.

Judging by what’s he’s become and what he’s accomplished, I think those two rules may comprise a necessary and sufficient philosophy of child-rearing.

Keegan is an accomplished bio-intensive farm and garden developer, a social activist, and a documentary filmmaker whose latest project, What the Health?, promises to rip the cover off the pharmaceutical / medical / agricultural conspiracy to ruin our health.

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PYP 141: Antonia Demas on Overhauling Food Education

Antonia Demas, PhD, is founder and director of the Food Studies Institute, an organization that creates and promotes nutrition-based curricula for elementary schools.

From the Food Studies Institute website: “Her curriculum, Food Is Elementary, has been used successfully in more than 3,000 schools in 33 states. She consults throughout the U.S. and abroad and trains and certifies teachers as food educators. Dr. Demas is a Visiting Scholar at Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and at the University of Illinois Medical School.”

Dr Demas was an early student of T. Colin Campbell at Cornell, and upon discovering his research, immediately began working to translate it from the Ivory Tower into the Real World.

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PYP 116: David Katz on Eliminating 80% of Disease, and Polar Bears in the Sahara

David Katz, MD, is a crusader on the front lines of health sanity in an insane culture. Somehow, he’s managed to command attention and respect from the mainstream media, as well as medical and governmental establishments, despite talking sense and not being on the take from industry.

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PYP 112: Zoe Weil on Raising a Generation of Solutionaries

One day, Zoe Weil came to the radical conclusion that the main goal of education is to produce kind people who contribute to the wellbeing of the world by tackling huge problems.

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