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Healthy Rounds With Dr. Anthony Alessi

Healthy Rounds With Dr. Anthony Alessi

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Healthy Rounds covers a range of topics, including new medical technologies and treatments, research, disease prevention, hosted by Dr. Anthony Alessi, UConn Health neurologist and clinical professor of neurology and orthopedics in the UConn School of Medicine.

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  • Bonus Episode: Deep Dive on Public Health

    Bonus Episode: Deep Dive on Public Health
    Feb 2 2026
    Dr. Alessi dives further into the discussion he recently discussed with Connecticut Public Health Commissioner Manisha Juthani. Topics include how Connecticut stacks up against other states in terms of citizens' health, confusion over health recommendations and waning confidence in the federal government, the continued importance of vaccines, and potential lost ground on research as a result of a culture trending toward an attack on science. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds: HealthyRounds@uchc.edu DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani: https://portal.ct.gov/DPH/About-the-Commissioner UConn Health: https://www.uconnhealth.org Support from UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine: https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine Grant support from Coverys: www.coverys.com Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date, timely medical information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. The podcast is not designed to direct your personal health care, which should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s great to be with you for what we’ve come to be known as “the Deep Dive” in terms of looking back at a recent podcast we did. In this case, one we did last week with Dr. Manisha Juthani. Dr. Juthani is the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health. She’s a medical doctor and a specialist in infectious diseases, and my conversation with her was very educational and brought out so many things that I didn’t know about the Department of Public Health and the vast job that she faces. We started off the interview by asking her how she ended up getting this job and it’s interesting because she related the situation where she was working at Yale and COVID was developing, and basically it was a situation where Governor Lamont felt that he had a confidence in her and really it was the fact that he saw something in her in terms of her ability to lead, that he brought her into his cabinet and into this executive role. And it relates back to my conversation with Dr. Agwunobi, who again talked about his father as an inspiration for him. And it brings to me in my own life that there are so many people who professionally inspired me to move ahead in the medical field. And, it’s something that I’ve always felt is as adults, we have somewhat of a responsibility to encourage young people to inspire them when they may not have that confidence in themselves to achieve great things, things that they want to do, whether it be medicine, whether it be business. If we recognize some attribute in that child or in that young person, it’s worth mentioning like, you know, “you really have a future”. And really those words from an adult can really change someone’s life, as it does for so many people. I think many professionals, many successful people, whether they be actors or sports stars again, have gone through that. Probably the single most important question I asked Dr. Juthani was, “are we safer living here in Connecticut as opposed to other states in this country?” And the reason I ask that is because we have seen such a dramatic change in leadership with respect to health here in the United States. People have lost confidence in the Centers for Disease Control. Just think about that. The Centers for Disease Control have been really the hallmark of research in many areas, and it’s been the hallmark for people throughout the world. And yet we here in the United States have lost confidence in them. That loss of confidence primarily comes from their positions now on childhood vaccination, and as she explained it, the difference is basically at this point surrounding three vaccinations. Here in Connecticut, we require 14 vaccinations that are administered at different points in a child’s development. The CDC has made three of those now optional, specifically measles, meningitis, and hepatitis. So, here in Connecticut, those are still required if a child is going to attend public school and be around other children. So, here in Connecticut, when it comes to these vaccinations, from that standpoint, we are somewhat safer because they’re still required. But the CDC has raised doubt. It’s raised doubt in parents’ minds that these vaccines may cause autism, for which there is no scientific proof, and we’ll get into some of that a little bit later. But, the point here is that you need to really discuss this with your physician, and I think everyone believes that. It’s also a thing that she mentioned that, so childhood vaccinations are administered to prevent disease. That’s the idea. To prevent polio, to prevent smallpox, or measles, any of these contagious diseases that could lead to death in some cases, or be crippling in the case of...
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    15 Min.
  • The Impact of Public Health

    The Impact of Public Health
    Jan 27 2026
    Despite what’s coming out of Washington, Connecticut’s public health commissioner says the state has not changed its recommended vaccine schedule. Dr. Manisha Juthani joins Dr. Alessi to discuss the state of public health, beyond the confusion over current government recommendations. Topics include Connecticut’s standing among the most vaccinated states, the challenges of public health policy, access to health care, how the flu shot formula is determined, some of the Department of Public Health’s lesser-known functions, and how she came to be DPH commissioner. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds: HealthyRounds@uchc.edu DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani: https://portal.ct.gov/DPH/About-the-Commissioner UConn Health: https://www.uconnhealth.org Support from UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine: https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine Grant support from Coverys: www.coverys.com Watch a video of this interview: https://youtu.be/BA1Tg6CXA9A Transcript Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we bring you up to date and timely medical information provided by national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, in addition to a grant from Coveris. This podcast is not designed to modify or in any way influence your medical care. That should only be done with the cooperation of your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it’s great to have with me today my guest, Dr. Manisha Juthani. Dr. Juthani is a medical doctor and she also serves as the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health. Dr. Juthani: Thank you so much for having me. Dr. Alessi: Manisha, let’s start with a little bit about your background. How’d you end up with this job? Dr. Juthani: It’s a really interesting story, actually. I was an Infectious Disease Physician in practice at Yale School of Medicine, was there for about 20 years, ran the fellowship program, saw patients, did research, and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and we as a hospital had to figure out a way to care for a hospital full of COVID-19 patients, had to expand our fellowship services from 3 services to 10 over three different hospitals. And as the pandemic wore on, the first wave was our biggest hit. And in the second wave, if you think back, it was December of 2020, and indoor dining had reopened in the state of Connecticut. And, we were seeing patients coming in who never left their home, but whose son went to a restaurant or a bar and came home and infected their immunocompromised mother. Or somebody who had just had a transplant who, again, never left their home, but whose relative went to a restaurant and brought the virus back home. Again, remember back to December, 2020, this was pre vaccines. Dr. Alessi: Sure. Dr. Juthani: And at that time, a friend of mine said, let’s write a letter to the governor complaining, and would you sign on asking him to shut down indoor dining again? And I said, yeah, I can sign on to that. And I’m seeing these patients myself. So I signed on. And the governor, to his credit, said, there are a bunch of these physicians complaining, and I think we should meet with them. So, he met with us and I told him the stories of the patients that I was seeing, and he said, you know, “Manisha, I think the people of Connecticut need to hear what you have to say, will you come onto one of my press conferences?” So I said, sure. And the next week I was on one of his press conferences. And even though I had a feeling the policy of the administration was not gonna change because I know the governor really felt like businesses had struggled, and if people were gonna gather, they were either gonna gather at home or gather in restaurants, so might as well let the restaurants stay open. And I thought that may be the case, but I still advised people what he asked me to do, and that really built a connection for us and a foundation for public health principles, maybe you could say. And six months later they asked me to take this job, which was a complete diversion from what I had done for 20 years of my life. And here we are, four years in running that I have stuck with it. Dr. Alessi: Do you like it? Dr. Juthani: I do really like it. And maybe part of that is in infectious diseases you are tasked with dealing with emergent problems and challenges, and I was brought into one, which was the COVID pandemic and public health, as you already mentioned, is the backbone of so much in our society. And so, I really started to enjoy more than just addressing the pandemic in the job. And now we’re in a phase where we are losing guidance from the federal government on certain things, and so now I feel a responsibility to the state to try to lead us during a time when we do not have the same guidance that we’ve been used to at a federal level. Dr. Alessi: I’m glad you brought ...
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    29 Min.
  • Bonus Episode: Deep Dive on Dr. Agwunobi Interview

    Bonus Episode: Deep Dive on Dr. Agwunobi Interview
    Jan 21 2026
    In our first “bonus episode,” Dr. Alessi further explores some of the relevant topics from his conversation with Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, UConn Health CEO and executive VP for health affairs, such as patient safety, the per-capita cost of health care in the U.S. compared to other parts of the world, how aligned incentives might address that, and electronic medical records. Watch for periodic “deep dives” released as bonus episodes as Dr. Alessi brings in more guests throughout the year. Submit questions for Healthy Rounds With Dr. Anthony Alessi: HealthyRounds@uchc.edu Dr. Andrew Agwunobi: https://www.uconnhealth.org/about-us/leadership UConn Health: https://www.uconnhealth.org Support from UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine: https://www.uconnhealth.org/orthopedics-sports-medicine Grant support from Coverys: www.coverys.com Transcript Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide you with up-to-date timely medical information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. Our podcasts here are not designed to direct your personal healthcare, which should only be done by your physician. I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and today we’re going to do something a little bit different. Our first episode last week was with Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, the Chief Executive Officer for UConn Health and the Executive VP for Health Affairs. And, in our discussion with him, he brought up several topics and you know, we only have 20 minutes or so to have the conversation, but he brought up many topics and I think this is going to be happening as we do more and more of these interviews because they provide topics for us to really take what we’re going to be calling the “deep dive”. And that being these topics that we discussed really provoke further thought and the need for further explanation. So, I thought we’d have some fun with that by looking at some of the topics he brought up and maybe looking at them a little more carefully. Among the things he talked about were research, education, things that UConn can be doing to improve the stature of the university and you know, I guess we expect research and education to be part of it. But he also talked about patient safety, patient satisfaction, improving the patient experience. You know, when I first heard the term patient safety, I thought it was an odd term because you think right away, “well, I’m in a hospital, I should be safe.” But years ago, and I would say about 20, 30 years ago, we started looking at the entire hospital system and how we deliver care from the standpoint of industrial engineering. For those of you familiar with industrial engineering, it’s a way of looking at a process and finding a way to make it more efficient. So, you look for the weak points in that process and make corrections. So, in the case of healthcare, we looked at a lot of different things and I guess probably the most relevant change came in the operating room where we now have a timeout that’s mandatory. So, before surgery begins, when everyone who’s involved is in the room, they take a timeout to make sure we’ve identified the right patient by their armband, make sure we’ve identified what side or what procedure we’re going to be doing and where it’s going to be done. We also make sure we have all the proper equipment in the room. So basically, you have a checklist. And that brings me to a book called The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. Dr. Gawande is a surgeon and a famous author, but he looked at the use of checklists in medicine. Much like a pilot, right, before a pilot takes off, they go through a whole checklist to make sure various things are working, we know who’s available, what they should do, but they go through a checklist of all their buttons and dials before they even initiate taking off. So, medicine took that same, those same practices and applied it to really every procedure we do. If I’m giving an injection, say a nerve block, right, part of what I have to do is make sure that I’ve identified the procedure I’m doing, what side I’m doing, how have I marked my landmarks, and what I’m using. So again, a checklist to do a procedure. And that is to really help patient safety, and that’s just one example. We’re going to get Dr. Scott Allen on the show. Dr. Allen is an internist who is really the guru here in the state of Connecticut when it comes to patient safety and quality, and he won a great award last year from the Connecticut Hospital Association, so, I look forward to having him on as a guest as well and talk a little bit about that. One of the other things Dr. Agwunobi brought up was the per capita cost of care in the United States versus Europe. We spend twice as much as everyone else in delivering healthcare. The cost in the United States per capita ...
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    13 Min.
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