Better Health: Smart Health Commentary Better Health (TM): smart health commentary

Article Comments

Dr. Val Meets Mort Kondracke Of The Beltway Boys

valmort

Dr. Val & Mort Kondracke

I had the recent honor and privilege of having dinner with Mort Kondracke and his gracious wife Marguerite. Mort’s TV show, The Beltway Boys, offers entertaining and insightful political commentary each weekend.

Mort and I share a common medical interest: Parkinson’s Disease. Mort wrote an excellent book about his late wife’s battle with Parkinson’s. It’s called Saving Millie: Love, Politics, and Parkinson’s Disease. My experience working with patients with the disease has led me to become a supporter of the Parkinson’s Action Network (PAN). I look forward to seeing Mort at future PAN events, and I hope that the recent increase in funding to NIH will help to advance research in Parkinson’s Disease so that we may one day find a cure.

Also at the dinner: PAN CEO Amy Comstock Rick, Robin and Brian Strongin, and my husband Steve. Mort shared some personal perspectives on the famous political figures he’s interviewed over the years – and we compared notes on what they’re really like. Of course I won’t reveal the unsavory stories, but what I can say is that we both agreed that Bob Schieffer is one of the nicest people on earth. Go Bob!


You may also like these posts

Read comments »


Return to article »

Leave a Reply

* Including links (URLs) in your comment may result in it being held for moderation

*

Latest Interviews

Rock Stars Want To Franchise Specialty Teen Cancer Centers Across America

Rock superstars Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of The Who have a new cause sparking a franchise of teen-oriented cancer treatment centers across America. To kick off the launch of Teen Cancer America Daltrey amp Townshend were featured at a conference held at the National Press Club in Washington D.C….

Read more »

Paul Ryan’s Take On Healthcare Reform

Now that Mitt Romney has announced that Paul Ryan is his VP pick I thought it would be helpful to repost some video and transcripts from a healthcare reform conference that I organized in Paul Ryan was our keynote speaker at the National Press Club and I found him to…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

See all cartoons »

Latest Book Reviews

The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

Read more »

Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

Read more »

Unaccountable: A Book About The Underbelly Of Hospital Care

I met Dr. Marty Makary over lunch at Founding Farmers restaurant in DC about three years ago. We had an animated conversation about hospital safety the potential contribution of checklists to reducing medical errors and his upcoming book about the need for more transparency in the healthcare system. Marty was…

Read more »

See all book reviews »