The Deonandia Podcast

To celebrate the installation of the new rector of the University of St Paul in Ottawa, Canada, a panel was assembled to discuss the ethical implications of the rise of Artificial Intelligence. My presentation as part of this panel was titled, “ChatGPT: Finding the Right Ethical Framework.” This podcast episode is the audio from that […]

This podcast episode was an assignment for one of my undergraduate students in another class (Satya Sarma). Satya chose to interview me for it! The topic is one close to my heart: public health information (and misinformation) in the age of COVID. It’s also available on YouTube as a video:

Recent US congressional hearings focused on eyewitness testimony from two navy pilots who claimed to have encountered UFOs, and a highly ranked military intelligence officer who claimed to know of crashed UFO retrieval programs. In the wake of this event, Mike Donofrio and Dr Raywat Deonandan talk about the waning stigma of the UFO topic […]

Jan 28, 2022 — Today’s episode is the audio from a presentation I gave to Occupational Health Clinics For Ontario Workers Inc, or OHCOW, all about Rapid Antigen Tests, or RATs. You can download the slides from this link. And you can watch the presentation on YouTube.

May 28, 2021 — It’s a question I get a lot these days: should I give my child the COVID-19 vaccine? Well, it’s ultimately a personal decision that you should take up with your child’s pediatrician. In this brief episode, I outline a framework for how to think about risk vs reward. You can read […]

Today’s episode is the audio from an interview with Sweden’s Dr Anders Tegnell from March 3, 2021. The interview was organized and lead by Dr Ziad El-Khatib of the Facebook Epidemiology group, and is posted in full on YouTube:

Dec 12, 2020 — In this special podcast episode, I’ve solicited pressing questions from the general public about the new COVID-19 vaccines. After receiving about 26 questions, I reached out to a true expert to help answer them: Dr Erling Rud, a virologist and vaccinologist with decades of experience researching vaccines for viruses like Ebola and […]

Dec 11, 2020 — I was asked by a journalist to submit a two minute video on a topic related to COVID-19. I spoke too long and recorded a five minute one instead, so I re-recorded a shorter version. What to do with the original video? Well, I’m including it here as a podcast. The […]

Nov 13, 2020 — The vaccine data are compelling and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. But the tunnel is long and dark. So how do we manage until the vaccine gives us herd immunity? Right now all across Canada there is a call for a comprehensive strategy. I wrote about some […]

Sep 23, 2020 — Right now in Canada, new daily cases of COVID-19 are increasing seemingly exponentially. But we are not seeing a similar increase in either hospitalizations or deaths. Dr Deonandan presents five (and maybe a sixth) possible explanations. View the YouTube video of this podcast here.

Sep 22, 2020 — Another brief podcast episode linked to an earlier blog post. In this one, I attempt to explain what we mean by a “second wave” of COVID-19, and how it is 100% driven by human behaviour. The original blog post is here, and the youtube video link is here:

Sep 13, 2020 — I’ve been ignoring this podcast of late and focusing more on writing COVID-related blog posts. So I’ve decided to triple-down on the messaging and am recording both video and audio companion casts for the most read blog posts. Today, I talk about the overall plan for opening public schools safely in […]

April 29, 2019 — I was privileged to present to the PhD students of the Population Health program at the University of Ottawa. The topic was generally how to make a knowledge mobilization plan, but more specifically about how to turn one’s research into an opinion-editorial article. A PDF of my slides are available here.

Mar 5, 2019 — This is the audio of a lecture I gave to an undergraduate class at the University of Ottawa, all about how to conduct a systematic literature review. You can access a PDF of my slides here.

March 5, 2019 — This is the audio of a lecture I gave to undergraduate global health students at Carleton University in Ottawa. You can access the PDF of my slides here.

Jan 26, 2019 — This is the audio of the keynote address that I gave to attendees of the University of Ottawa Healthcare Symposium. To access a PDF of my slides click here.

May 28, 2018 — This is the audio of a lecture I gave to a graduate class in Community Outreach and Media Relations in the Sciences. It was recorded using my bluetooth microphone, so the audio quality is not as great as it could be.  A PDF of the class slides (with most photos removed) can […]

Sep 30, 2017 — This is the audio of the keynote lecture I gave at the Action Global Health Network conference at the University of Ottawa.  A PDF of my slides can be accessed here.

Sep 27, 2017 – I was invited to speak about global health ethics at the 6th annual CHEO Global Health Half Day. I recorded the audio of my presentation for your listening (dis)pleasure. To access a PDF of my presentation slides, click here.

June 29, 2017 — This is the third of three presentations I gave to the attendees of a summer institute on social justice, hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology in Ahmedabad, India. Slides can be downloaded here.

June 28, 2017 — This is the audio of a presentation I gave to attendees of a special summer workshop on social justice, hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar in Ahmedabad, India. The slides from the presentation are available here.

June 27, 2017 — This is the audio of a presentation I gave to doctoral and post-doctoral students attending a special summer workshop on social justice, hosted at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar in Ahmedabad, India.  The air-conditioning in the room was rather loud, so I do apologize for the audio quality of the recording. […]

This episode of the Deonandia podcast was produced by three students from my undergraduate international health class in October of 2015.  Michelle Brazeau, Jessica Colbourne and Fallon Melville analyze a study titled, “Group support psychotherapy for depression treatment in people with HIV/AIDS in northern Uganda: a single-centre randomised controlled trial.”

Once more, I turn this podcast over to my undergraduate students in my 4th year international health class.  This episode was recorded in 2015 by Anika Suri and Patrick Van Loon, and they chose to examine “Hazardous alcohol drinking and premature mortality in Russia: a population based case-control study.”

April 25, 2017 — This is the audio of a presentation on Reproductive Tourism that I gave at a conference titled, Healthy Canada Conference 2017: Access to Affordable Medicines.  Copies of the PowerPoint presentations from the event are downloadable here.

On March 8, 2017, I gave a brief talk to students of the Medlife initiative at the University of Ottawa on the topic of refugee health. A PDF of my slides are available here.

Oct 30, 2016 — I’m quite honoured to be one of the five 2016 recipients of the prestigious OCUFA Teaching Award, which is given to exceptional professors from Ontario universities. The awards ceremony was yesterday at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto. I took the liberty of recording both my introduction and my brief […]

Oct 22, 2016 — I was pleased to give a presentation to the attendees of the 9th Annual Dalla Lana School of Public Health Student-Led Conference: Secure Income, Secure Health.  This episode is the audio of that presentation, recorded on my douchey bluetooth headset, hence the poor audio quality. The slides from that presentation are available here.

This is the audio of a presentation I gave on Sep 24, 2016 at the AGHN Global Health conference in Ottawa.  You can access a reduced set of the slides in PDF format here.

Sep 9, 2016 — Dr Deonandan’s 4th year International Health students from 2015, Kristina Baier and Tujuanna Austin present this episode on the globality of maternal mortality.  (Yes, globality is a word. I looked it up.) They discuss a paper called, “Maternal mortality and distance to facility-based obstetric care in rural southern Tanzania: a secondary analysis of cross-sectional census […]

Sep 19, 2016 — As is tradition on this podcast, today’s episode is presented by students in Dr Deonandan’s 4th year International Health class from 2015. Amol Gill and Matthew Dawkins discuss the paper, “Clinical features of patients isolated for suspected Ebola virus disease at Connaught Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone: a retrospective cohort study“. They […]

Sep 9, 2016 — Dr Deonandan’s International Health students from 2015 –Arone Fantaye, Shahram Sharify, and Sevgim Kiper– discuss a paper titled, “Self-assessment of the outcome of early medical abortion versus clinic follow-up in India: a randomised, controlled, non-inferiority trial.”

Sep 9, 2016 — Another of Dr Deonandan’s 4th year International Health students from 2015 presents this special episode.  Jessica Rocheleau discusses the paper, “Effect of mobile phone reminders on follow-up medical care of children exposed to or infected with HIV in Cameroon (MORE CARE): a multicentre, single-blind, factorial, randomised controlled trial.”

Mar 19, 2016 — The Health Sciences Students Association of the University of Ottawa invited Dr Deonandan to say a few words about career planning. Here is the raw audio of that presentation.

Feb 7, 2016 — Sometime last year I sat down with two of my favourite young Epidemiologists, Kahina Abdesselam and Samuel Ileka-Priouzeau, to talk about a variety of issues around Epidemiology and health sciences education. The audio quality is poor, since it was recorded in the sun room on the roof of my condo. It took several months […]

On Jan 24, 2016, I met up with some former students who are now pursuing graduate work in Vancouver. Priscilla Karnabi and Rami El-Sayegh sat down with me at a very loud coffee shop to tell me about their work and their thoughts about the future of Epidemiology, public health, and health sciences in general. Here’s a pic of […]

Nov 8, 2015 — My presentation at the Global Health Students and Young Professional Summit in Montreal. I served on the career panel. I didn’t have any slides, but I think the audio is sufficient!

Oct 13, 2015 – The inaugural podcast of the IJHS journal, which I founded and presently advise, features myself and Stephen Kutcher discussing the present Canadian federal election through the lens of health scientists. The episode is also available on The RISS-IJHS website (and their podcast feed), as well as on Youtube.

July 2, 2015 — Chatting once more with public health expert Patrick Saunders-Hastings.  This time we go over three studies that have been in the news lately, everything from whether breastfeeding makes smarter babies to whether your horoscope can predict your health. Oh and something about homeopathy.  Here are the studies we talked about: You […]

July 2, 2015 — A few days ago, the state of California signed into law bill SB-277, which makes it mandatory for children attending public school to be vaccinated against certain diseases. To talk about this event, and related topics in vaccination research, I spoke to public health expert Patrick Saunders-Hastings.

June 2, 2015 – Greetings from Ahmedabad, India, where I am one of the instructors at the Indian Institute of Technology (Gandhinagar) Summer Institute on Global Health & Development. As part of our program, we have group discussions on a variety of topics, usually driven by published papers. One such discussion was based upon two papers, […]

May 5, 2015 — This is the first of 7 guest podcasts produced by the graduate students of the Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences. In today’s episode, Lynne Jrade, Andréanne Chaumont,  Jennifer Kathleen Cano, and Katrina MacFarlane discuss a paper titled, “The uncanny return of the race concept,” which was published in 2014 in Frontiers in Human […]

April 9, 2015 — The graduate students of the Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences kindly asked me to talk to them about career planning.  Here’s what I told them. A PDF of the slides is available here.

“Quest Myth” sounds like December 25th to a kid with a lisp. March 21, 2015 — As a follow-up to the Jan 25th interview, which suffered from crappy audio and way too many in-jokes, we return to the home of Dr Aparna Halpe, literary scholar and poet, to interview her and Dr Graham Sanders, scholar of Chinese language […]

Feb 9, 2015 — Had a great conversation with my old friend Neil Hrab today, which was broadcast live on Youtube for the blogger-journalists of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Health Sciences. For the event, I had made arrangements with the business centre of the Royal York Fairmont Hotel in Toronto, explaining to them that I needed a private […]

Dec 16, 2014 — This is the fifteenth and final episode of our special series of podcasts produced by the students of my 4th year International Health Theory class.  Today’s installment is brought to us by Laetitia Kayitesi and Idil Houssein. They have chosen to examine a paper titled, “Evaluation of the impact of the voucher and […]

Dec 15, 2014 — This is episode fourteen of our special series of podcasts produced by the students of my 4th year International Health Theory class.  Today’s installment is brought to us by Stefan Litvinjenko and Kyle Alain Curtis. They have chosen to examine a paper titled, “Parasite prevalence and the worldwide distribution of cognitive ability.”

Dec 14, 2014 — This is episode thirteen of our special series of podcasts produced by the students of my 4th year International Health Theory class.  Today’s installment is brought to us by Erika Frank. She has chosen to analyze a paper titled, “Evaluation of the impact of the voucher and accreditation approach on improving reproductive […]

Dec 13, 2014 — This is episode twelve of our special series of podcasts produced by the students of my 4th year International Health Theory class.  Today’s installment is brought to us by Yan Yan Lee, Sally Zhao, Rima Elchamaa, and Swanti Deut. They chose to examine the paper, “Evaluation of a reproductive health awareness program for […]

Dec 13, 2014 — This is episode eleven of our special series of podcasts produced by the students of my 4th year International Health Theory class.  Today’s installment is brought to us by Anne-Marie Hawco and Tayler Muldoon. The study they chose to analyze is “Impact of an integrated nutrition and health programme on neonatal mortality in […]