Joel Topf, MD @kidney_boy

Joel Topf, MD @kidney_boy

Dr. Joel Topf (@kidney_boy) joins us on Behind The Slides to discuss modern medical education, building community of medical trainees and professionals on social media, and how we know what we know in medicine.

Adam Mastroianni: Episode 004

In this episode of Behind the Slides, Scott Matson sits down with Adam Mastroianni to explore the incentives, institutions, and hidden cultures that shape modern science. Using Adam’s widely discussed essays on scientific publishing, peer review, and the replication crisis as a starting point, the conversation expands into a broader discussion about how scientific systems reward productivity, novelty, and institutional survival—and whether those incentives are compatible with genuine discovery. Topics include: * Why scientific publishing may function more like a prestige economy than a truth-seeking system * The tension between transformational ideas and peer review * Whether NIH-style funding structures inherently favor incrementalism * Science as a “strong-link problem” and concerns about the future pipeline of creative scientists * The apprenticeship nature of scientific training and Adam’s “crock pot” analogy for how scientific culture is absorbed * Why labs may unintentionally reproduce both epistemic virtues and epistemic pathologies * The replication crisis, publication bias, and the incentives surrounding positive findings * Whether modern academia still attracts highly agentic, unconventional thinkers * What kinds of scientific environments actually produce original and rigorous scientists Rather than treating science as a purely rational machine, the discussion examines it as a deeply human system shaped by psychology, incentives, identity, prestige, and culture. Experimental History by Adam Mastroianni: https://www.experimental-history.com [https://www.experimental-history.com/]

Episode 3: Manni Mohyuddin, MBBS

Episode 003 — Manni Mohyuddin, MD Why does so much clinical research never make it to publication—and what does that mean for the evidence we trust? In this episode of Behind the Slides, we sit down with Manni Mohyuddin to examine how incentives shape the research ecosystem. We discuss the gap between conference abstracts and eventual publication, what gets published (and what doesn’t), and how these dynamics influence the evidence base that clinicians rely on. A conversation about bias, incentives, and how research becomes “truth” in medicine.

Episode 2: Lisa Rosenbaum, MD

In this episode of Behind the Slides, we sit down with Lisa Rosenbaum for a wide-ranging conversation about the meaning and practice of medicine today. We explore how much agency physicians really have within the healthcare system, whether the challenges in primary care reflect deeper issues across the field, and how clinicians navigate purpose, responsibility, and constraint in their work. We also discuss the growing role of AI and what it may change—and not change—about how we think, decide, and care for patients. A conversation about the present and future of being a physician.

Episode 1: Adam Cifu

What does it actually mean to practice evidence-based medicine? In this episode, we sit down with Adam Cifu to unpack the gap between clinical evidence and real-world decision making. We explore how data is interpreted at the bedside, why guidelines don’t always translate cleanly into practice, and what it takes to think clearly in the face of uncertainty. This is a conversation about judgment, tradeoffs, and the limits of evidence—core issues for anyone practicing or training in medicine today.