SAN DIEGO — A mother and her son are helping put thousands of homeless people to work with a program called “Wheels of Change.”  In this Zevely Zone, one of the founders showed me how the non-profit organization continues to grow.

Wheels of Change is a work program for the homeless that a teenager, Kevin Barber, launched with his mother Carolyn Barber in 2018. Carolyn says two years ago her son Kevin watched a TED Talk and learned about a work program in New Mexico. “So we ended up taking a plane to Albuquerque and checking it out for a couple of days. You know it was amazing,” said Carolyn.

 

Dr. Carolyn Barber appeared on the radio show The Vegas Take with Sharp and Shapiro.

Click play button to listen.

 

Runaway Medicine: The Failure of the American Healthcare System– Based on a True Story

California Life HD  October 15, 2020

By California Life HD

As a patient, what do you wish you could know before going under the knife or starting a new cancer treatment? This book will have you asking more questions and getting the answers you deserve.

With 25 years of experience as an emergency room physician, Carolyn Barber looks at the myriad of medical and surgical treatments that don’t help patients much – but do make big money for hospitals, medical device manufacturers and Big Pharma.

Barber’s experience, though, goes deeper. A 30-year cancer survivor herself, she knows first-hand what happens when patients are poorly advised. Overaggressive, unnecessary treatment can lead to patient harm, re-operations, longer hospital stays, more tests and higher costs. And behind much of it is a campaign of sometimes-scandalous marketing and sales tactics meant to benefit everyone involved — except the patient. Tackling a controversial subject in the power corridors of medicine, Barber shares her personal story and suggests much-needed fixes to a broken system.

La Jollan publishes ‘Runaway Medicine’ to educate patients about ‘over-testing, over-diagnosing’

La Jolla Light  October 12, 2020

By Ashley Mackie-Solomon

As a cancer survivor and former emergency department physician, La Jolla resident Carolyn Barber has seen the good, the bad and the ugly of the medical field. To help patients advocate for themselves and ask better questions of their doctors, she recently published a book, “Runaway Medicine: What You Don’t Know May Kill You.”

“I’m trying to share my personal experience with medicine as a patient and a physician and explain some of the problems I’ve encountered,” she said. “Over-testing, over-diagnosing and over-medicating are rampant right now.”

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“My cancer might be back—and I wonder if unnecessary radiation caused it in the first place”

Fortune  October 1, 2020

By Carolyn Barber, MD

I was a 23-year-old investment banker, working ludicrous hours in New York and training for marathons on the side, when cancer first entered my life. In the three decades since, the disease has been perhaps not a constant companion, but certainly a ride-along. I did not always hear it; it was not always speaking loudly. But it was back there somewhere.

And now that there is a possibility that my cancer has returned, questions about some of the decisions my doctors and I made in those early days have resurfaced.

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