Deviate With Rolf Potts

“We need to avoid cherry-picking pandemic data that suits our personal narrative of what we think is going on.” –Dr. JP Santiago In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Dr. JP Santiago talk about how the “existential threat” of pandemic is changing the way family-practice doctors are dealing with patients right now (1:40); the role of data in medicine, the definition of “observer bias,” and how the willingness to arrive at conclusions that contradict one’s initial hypothesis is essential in a medical context (9:30); a history of the shortcomings and dangers of naming infectious diseases after animals, people, or geographical places (20:00); how capitalism can be a force that can both enable and compromise solutions during a pandemic (33:30); and Dr. Santiago’s advice on how people should respond to the pandemic (40:00). JP Santiago has been a family medicine physician in private practice in Dallas/Fort Worth for nearly 20 years. He earned his medical degree in 1997 from the University of Texas Southwestern in D