Eric Widera

San Francisco

Professor of Med @UCSF. Focused on Geriatrics, Hospice, Palliative care, and medical education. Podcasts at https://t.co/U5ErQk8xvf Also at https://t.co/Fntns2exXN

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Articles

The Limited Role of Alzheimer Disease Blood-Based Biomarkers in Primary Care

4 weeks ago | jamanetwork.com | Eric Widera

The Limited Role of Alzheimer Disease Blood-Based Biomarkers in Primary Care Primary care clinicians might see patients who have viewed a recent television commercial suggesting that misplacing keys and forgetting groceries may be “more than normal aging.” This commercial directs viewers to a disease awareness website,1 which warns that amyloid buildup may begin years before the start of dementia symptoms and that “the earlier you discuss the possible buildup of amyloid plaques with your...
#HPMParty is Back in Denver for the 2025 AAHPM-HPNA Annual Assembly

Jan 14, 2025 | geripal.org | Eric Widera

The #HPMParty is returning to Denver during the 2025 AAHPM/HPNA Annual Assembly. We will be doing our traditional Pub Crawl, this time starting at 8 pm on Thursday, February 6th at the Celtic on the corner of 14th and Market in historic LoDo. From the Celtic, we will move on to the next location at 10 pm-ish (location is TBD). With that said, exact times and locations are subject to change, so go to geripal.org or follow the hashtag #HPMparty on Twitter or Bluesky for updates along the way.
COVID Updates: A Podcast with Peter Chin-Hong and Lona Mody

Oct 30, 2024 | geripal.org | Eric Widera |Alex Smith

In March 2020, we launched our first podcast on COVID-19. Over the past four years, we’ve seen many changes—some positive, some negative. While many of us are eager to move past COVID (myself included), it’s clear that COVID is here to stay. This week, we sit down with infectious disease experts Peter Chin-Hong and Lona Mody to discuss living with COVID-19.
Stump the VitalTalk Communication Experts: Gordon Wood, Holly Yang, Elise Carey

Aug 28, 2024 | geripal.org | Eric Widera |Alex Smith

Serious illness communication is hard. We must often deliver complex medical information that carries heavy emotional weight in pressured settings to individuals with varying cultural backgrounds, values, and beliefs. That’s a hard enough task, given that most of us have never had any communication skills training.
How Pharma Invents Diseases: A Podcast with Adriane Fugh-Berman

May 15, 2024 | geripal.org | Eric Widera |Alex Smith

Who gets to decide on what it means to have a disease? I posed this question a while back in reference to Alzheimer’s disease. I’ll save you from reading the article, but the main headline is that corporations are very much the “who” in who gets to define the nature of disease. They do this either through the invention of disease states or, more often, by redrawing the boundaries of what is considered a disease (think pre-diabetes).
#HPMParty is returning to Phoenix during the 2024 AAHPM/HPNA meeting

Mar 4, 2024 | geripal.org | Eric Widera

All PostsThe #HPMParty is returning to Phoenix during the 2024 AAHPM/HPNA meeting. We will be doing our traditional Pub Crawl, this time in the Roosevelt Row Arts District just north of the convention center. UPDATE ON LOCATION CHANGES: We are no longer starting at Luckys as they can no longer take us, rather our tentative plan is now Sazerac bar at 8pm on Thursday, March 21st at 8pm. We will likely go to Chambers next from 10-12 and Ghost Donkey at midnight(ish).
Who gets to decide on what it means to have Alzheimer's disease?

Feb 12, 2024 | agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com | Eric Widera

Corresponding Author Eric Widera MD Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA San Francisco Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, San Francisco, California, USA Correspondence Eric Widera, San Francisco Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, 4150 Clement Street, Box 181G, San Francisco, CA 94121, USA. Email: [email protected] for more papers by this author
GeriPal Podcast Year in Review and Exciting News for 2024 (CME!)

Dec 28, 2023 | geripal.org | Eric Widera

It’s been a big year for the GeriPal podcast. We’ve published 45 podcasts in 2023 and have had a total of 400,000 downloads, plus another 40,000 views on YouTube. We’ve added a TikTok channel, and we’ve surpassed our fundraising goal of $30,000 to offset production costs for each episode (we are still accepting, though, tax-deductible donations to support future podcasts!)We couldn’t have done this without the amazing support of our listeners and donors.
Monoclonal anti‐amyloid antibodies for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and the hesitant geriatrician

Nov 1, 2023 | agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com | Nathaniel Chin |Eric Widera |Sharon Brangman |Jason Karlawish

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of monoclonal antibodies (MAB) targeting amyloid protein for treatment of Alzheimer's disease has ushered in a new era in Alzheimer's care. Disease-modifying therapies are now available to patients living with cognitive impairment and confirmed presence of brain beta-amyloid. Many geriatricians have voiced concerns and even outright disagreement with their approval and clinical use.1, 2 Many of these concerns are valid.
Amyloid Antibodies and the Role of the Geriatrician: Nate Chin, Sharon Brangman, and Jason Karlawish

Aug 17, 2023 | geripal.org | Eric Widera |Alex Smith

It’s been over two years since one of the worst product launches of all time – Aduhelm (aducanumab). Praised by the FDA, Alzheimer’s Association (AA), and Pharma as a “game changer”, but derided by others for the drug’s lack of clinical efficacy, risk of severe adverse effects, absence of diversity in trial populations, high costs, and an FDA approval process that was in the kindest words “rife with irregularities”.