TED Talks
Christer Mjåset: 4 questions you should always ask your doctor
"Doctor, is this really necessary?" Backed by startling statistics about overtreatment, neurosurgeon Christer Mjåset explains the power of this and other simple questions in the context of medical treatment and surgery -- and shares how...
TED Talks
Laurie Garrett: Lessons from the 1918 flu
In 2007, as the world worried about a possible avian flu epidemic, Laurie Garrett, author of "The Coming Plague," gave this powerful talk to a small TED University audience. Her insights from past pandemics are suddenly more relevant...
TED Talks
Stefan Larsson: What doctors can learn from each other
Different hospitals produce different results on different procedures. Only, patients don’t know that data, making choosing a surgeon a high-stakes guessing game. Stefan Larsson looks at what happens when doctors measure and share their...
TED Talks
TED: Why we need to fight misinformation about vaccines - Ethan Lindenberger
Ethan Lindenberger never got vaccinated as a kid. So one day, he went on Reddit and asked a simple question: "Where do I go to get vaccinated?" The post went viral, landing Lindenberger in the middle of a heated debate about vaccination...
TED Talks
TED: The US needs paid family leave -- for the sake of its future | Jessica Shortall
We need women to work, and we need working women to have babies. So why is America one of the only countries in the world that offers no national paid leave to new working mothers? In this incisive talk, Jessica Shortall makes the...
TED Talks
Dean Ornish: Your genes are not your fate
Dean Ornish shares new research that shows how adopting healthy lifestyle habits can affect a person at a genetic level. For instance, he says, when you live healthier, eat better, exercise, and love more, your brain cells actually...
TED Talks
Dean Ornish: Healing through diet
Dean Ornish talks about simple, low-tech and low-cost ways to take advantage of the body's natural desire to heal itself.
TED Talks
Catherine Mohr: Surgery's past, present and robotic future
Surgeon and inventor Catherine Mohr tours the history of surgery (and its pre-painkiller, pre-antiseptic past), then demos some of the newest tools for surgery through tiny incisions, performed using nimble robot hands. Fascinating --...
TED Talks
TED: How barbershops can keep men healthy | Joseph Ravenell
The barbershop can be a safe haven for black men, a place for honest conversation and trust -- and, as physician Joseph Ravenell suggests, a good place to bring up tough topics about health. He's turning the barbershop into a place to...
TED Talks
TED: How AI is making it easier to diagnose disease | Pratik Shah
Today's AI algorithms require tens of thousands of expensive medical images to detect a patient's disease. What if we could drastically reduce the amount of data needed to train an AI, making diagnoses low-cost and more effective? TED...
TED Talks
Thulasiraj Ravilla: How low-cost eye care can be world-class
India's revolutionary Aravind Eye Care System has given sight to millions. Thulasiraj Ravilla looks at the ingenious approach that drives its treatment costs down and quality up, and why its methods should trigger a re-think of all human...
TED Talks
Dean Ornish: The killer American diet that's sweeping the planet
Forget the latest disease in the news: Cardiovascular disease kills more people than everything else combined -- and it’s mostly preventable. Dr. Dean Ornish explains how changing our eating habits can save lives.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What is a coronavirus?
For almost a decade, scientists chased the source of a deadly new virus through China’s tallest mountains and most isolated caverns. They finally found it in the bats of Shitou Cave. The virus in question was a coronavirus that caused an...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why haven't we cured arthritis? | Kaitlyn Sadtler and Heather J. Faust
The bad backs, elbow pain, and creaky knees so common in older people often aren't just "old age." In fact, the source of this stiffness plagues many young people as well. The culprit is arthritis: a condition that affects over 90...
TED Talks
Peter Saul: Let's talk about dying
We can't control if we'll die, but we can "occupy death," in the words of Peter Saul, an emergency doctor. He asks us to think about the end of our lives -- and to question the modern model of slow, intubated death in hospital. Two big...
TED Talks
Erica Frenkel: The universal anesthesia machine
What if you're in surgery and the power goes out? No lights, no oxygen -- and your anesthesia stops flowing. It happens constantly in hospitals throughout the world, turning routine procedures into tragedies. Erica Frenkel demos one...
TED Talks
Martin Pistorius: How my mind came back to life — and no one knew
Imagine being unable to say, "I am hungry," "I am in pain," "thank you," or "I love you,” -- losing your ability to communicate, being trapped inside your body, surrounded by people yet utterly alone. For 13 long years, that was Martin...
TED Talks
Baba Shiv: Sometimes it's good to give up the driver's seat
Over the years, research has shown a counterintuitive fact about human nature: Sometimes, having too much choice makes us less happy. This may even be true when it comes to medical treatment. Baba Shiv shares a fascinating study that...
TED Talks
Alanna Shaikh: How I'm preparing to get Alzheimer's
When faced with a parent suffering from Alzheimer's, most of us respond with denial ("It won't happen to me") or extreme efforts at prevention. But global health expert and TED Fellow Alanna Shaikh sees it differently. She's taking three...
TED Talks
TED: The most powerful untapped resource in health care | Edith Elliott and Shahed Alam
Whether we're rushing a child to the emergency room after a fall or making chicken soup for a feverish spouse, love inspires us to act when a family member gets sick. Global health activists Edith Elliott and Shahed Alam believe we can...
TED Talks
Pawan Sinha: How brains learn to see
Pawan Sinha details his groundbreaking research into how the brain's visual system develops. Sinha and his team provide free vision-restoring treatment to children born blind, and then study how their brains learn to interpret visual...
TED Talks
Abraham Verghese: A doctor's touch
Modern medicine is in danger of losing a powerful, old-fashioned tool: human touch. Physician and writer Abraham Verghese describes our strange new world where patients are merely data points, and calls for a return to the traditional...
TED Talks
TED: Why civilians suffer more once a war is over | Margaret Bourdeaux
In a war, it turns out that violence isn't the biggest killer of civilians. What is? Illness, hunger, poverty -- because war destroys the institutions that keep society running, like utilities, banks, food systems and hospitals....
TED Talks
George Whitesides: A lab the size of a postage stamp
Traditional lab tests for disease diagnosis can be too expensive and cumbersome for the regions most in need. George Whitesides' ingenious answer is a foolproof tool that can be manufactured at virtually zero cost.