Whether you’ll spend the holidays visiting with relatives or traveling the world, make staying well a priority! In this special holiday episode of Inside Scope, podcast host and LRH infectious disease expert Dr. Daniel Haight gives helpful tips to help you avoid an unpleasant vacation souvenir like a nasty virus. Dr. Haight reminds listeners that washing your hands frequently and sneezing into your elbow also can help you avoid sharing such a “gift” with vulnerable family members.

When people find themselves short of breath after activities that they used to do with no problem, they want to write it off as a sign of aging – but that would be a mistake. In this episode of Inside Scope, host Dr. Daniel Haight talks with Pulmonary and Critical Care physician Dr. James Brown about COPD and interstitial lung disease, different conditions that both cause shortness of breath. An accurate diagnosis is important, Dr. Brown says, because finding the cause allows pulmonologists to ease their patients’ suffering and help them have a better quality of life.

In a new episode with Lakeland Regional Health Surgeons Dr. Zachary Boucher and Dr. Michael Taylor, Inside Scope explores gall bladder surgery. In this episode, host Dr. Daniel Haight and the surgeons discuss what the gallbladder does as well as symptoms that may lead to surgery, such as gall stones, gallbladder pain, and others. The surgeons say that gall bladder surgery is very well tolerated and note that using laparoscopic surgery not only has led to quicker, easier recovery but also has led to fewer complications later, such as hernias.