How to Tell What’s Real and What’s Hype with Nina Shapiro, MD

Physician's Guide to Doctoring with Bradley B. Block, MD

Dr. Nina Shapiro is the Director of Pediatric Otolaryngology and a Professor of Head and Neck Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. A graduate of Harvard Medical School and Cornell University, she completed her surgical residency at Harvard and finished additional subspecialty training in pediatric otolaryngology at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London and the Children’s Hospital of San Diego.

When she has downtime between cases, you’d think she’d be scrolling or posting on social media, where she is very active, but no, she spends that time writing, both articles for the lay media and books! She also has over 80 peer-reviewed publications and over 200 presentations. For perspective, I have 3.

She’s on the show today to talk about her book, HYPE: A Doctor’s Guide to Medical Myths, Exaggerated Claims and Bad Advice – How to Tell What’s Real and What’s Not

We often hear pseudoscientific claims from our patients and even our colleagues, so we start with the incident that motivated her to write the book, Hype, that she has fallen for - a recent diet fad that she thinks actually lives up to the hype. We also talk about how she navigates conversations with patients when they bring up pseudoscience.

She can be found on Twitter and Instagram @drninashapiro and on her website, also DrNinaShapiro.com.