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A stroke gets treated in a hospital, but recovery can fall apart at home because of mold, missed meals, or the fear of eviction. That’s the gap we dig into with Marko Mijic, Vice President for Community Health at Kaiser Permanente, whose path to national health leadership starts in HOSA Future Health Professionals and a mentor who taught a surprisingly powerful lesson: how you show up matters.

We trace Marko’s journey from thinking he would go to medical school to finding his calling in health policy, including work at the US Department of Health and Human Services and the California Health and Human Services Agency. Along the way, he shares what it means to be a first-generation American who immigrated as a refugee, and how mentors helped him navigate the doors he didn’t even know existed. The conversation gets practical fast as we break down social determinants of health and why clinical care can be only a fraction of what drives outcomes. If we want better community health, better health equity, and lower costs, we have to connect healthcare, public health, and social services.

We also look forward: expanding access to coverage and access to care, tackling affordability, addressing the healthcare workforce crisis, integrating behavioral health, and preparing for an aging population. Marko closes with advice for students who want to shape the system beyond the bedside: bring your lived experience, stay curious, innovate, and give back through mentorship. Subscribe, share this with a future health professional, and leave a review, then tell us what community change would improve health the fastest where you live.

Marko's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markomijic01/

HOSA Podcast Page: https://hosa.org/podcast/

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A flash of light and a pulse of sound might sound too simple for a disease as complex as Alzheimer’s, but the science behind 40 Hz brain stimulation is forcing a serious rethink of what treatment can look like. We’re joined by Christian Howell, CEO of Cognito Therapeutics, to unpack how non-invasive sensory stimulation aims to modulate brain activity in the gamma band and why that “physics-based” path could support cognition, function, and day-to-day independence.

We also get practical about proof. Christian walks us through Cognito’s clinical validation strategy, including a 12-month randomized clinical trial spanning 673 patients across 70 US sites, with an at-home therapy used for an hour a day. We talk about what matters in endpoints, why rigor is non-negotiable, and how the company is preparing to take its findings toward FDA submission. Along the way, we dig into the real work of translating neurotechnology into care that people can actually adopt.

Then we zoom out to the systems that decide access. Innovation in brain health can move faster than reimbursement and coverage, so we explore what CMS, commercial payers, and health systems need in order to support breakthrough therapies, including evidence that extends beyond safety and effectiveness into cost effectiveness and real-world outcomes. We also touch stigma, language, and the huge number of people living with mild cognitive impairment who never get diagnosed.

If brain health is heading toward an era of daily neuroprotection, this conversation is a map of the terrain ahead. Subscribe for more, share this with someone who cares about brain health, and leave a review with your take: what would make you trust a new neurotechnology enough to use it at home?

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Alzheimer’s science is moving fast, but the care most families experience still feels stuck, confusing, and late. We sit down with Phyllis Ferrell, Senior Advisor to the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative, to unpack the real bottleneck: diagnosis. When half of people may never receive a diagnosis and many others learn the truth only in late stage disease, breakthroughs in drugs and diagnostics cannot reach the people they’re meant to help. Phyllis shares the personal and professional moment that made the problem impossible to ignore and explains why “time is brain” should shape every healthcare decision.

We get practical about what’s changing Alzheimer’s early detection right now. Phyllis walks us through the leap from PET scans that revealed amyloid plaque years before symptoms to today’s blood based biomarkers and cerebrospinal fluid testing. We also explore AI and digital cognitive assessments that can replace hours of expensive neuropsych testing with faster, repeatable tools that capture subtle changes earlier. Done well, these technologies can make brain health screening feel as normal as checking cholesterol.

Then we confront the “last mile” barriers inside health systems: no brain health service lines, misaligned billing codes, slow reimbursement, conflicting guidance, and the high cost of integrating tools into fragmented electronic medical record systems. We end with a simple challenge for leaders and all of us: normalize brain health, reduce stigma, support caregivers, and build a pro aging culture that treats longevity as a gift worth planning for. Subscribe, share this with someone thinking about aging parents or their own risk, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.