Random Acts of Medicine

A Substack exploring the hidden forces that shape our health

We’re excited to introduce this brand-new newsletter and online community, launching alongside our book, Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health! The book—which comes out July 11th and is available now for purchase—examines the hidden side of medicine and how unexpected, but predictable, events can profoundly affect our health.

Health care is advancing rapidly. To us, one of the most exciting developments has been an explosion in the amount of data that is generated by doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies—billions of data points about millions of patients. By looking at the data in creative, unexpected ways, we can answer all kinds of questions—including questions that can’t be answered using traditional means.

Who We Are

We’re both practicing physicians and research collaborators at Harvard Medical School. Bapu is one of only a handful of formally trained economist-physicians in the world; Chris is a pulmonologist, critical care doctor, and public health researcher.

Anupam (Bapu) Jena, MD, PhD and Christopher Worsham, MD, MPH

In our research, we’re always looking for ways to use the data to answer questions that have gone previously unanswered. In our book, we explore research by us by others that uses natural experiments—chance events where people are randomly sent down different paths without the intervention of a researcher’s manipulating hand—to answer pressing questions about our health.

Our Goals

One of the most interesting parts of research and the science you read about in the news, is the creative spark—the idea—that drove someone to ask the question that they did. Our goal with this platform is to explore some of the most interesting ideas in medicine and economics, including many that didn't make it into the book and the new ones we come across.

We want to share them in a way that’s approachable to anyone—regardless of your training or background—since the best ideas are often the most intuitive. Perhaps most importantly, we want to talk about these ideas with a community of interested people who also find them fascinating. 

If you’re someone whose mental gears start turning at the thought of using data creatively to study our health, this Substack is for you. We’ll be sharing posts, answering and asking questions, and contributing to the discussions that emerge.

We look forward to having you as part of the Random Acts of Medicine community!

-Bapu & Chris