TEDMED

TEDMED TEDMED creates and shares stories in health and medicine that inform, inspire, engage, and provoke action across a multidisciplinary community.
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TEDMED brings together thinkers and doers from every sector of society, both inside and outside of medicine, to shape a healthier world. Whether they come from science, business, academia, government, law, media or the arts – whether they are doctors, patients or Muppets – the extraordinary voices of the TEDMED stage and year-round conversations serve to unite science and the public through stories and conversations in a way that is accessible and engaging.

09/08/2026

When we get medical advice, we are being asked to trust more than a recommendation.

Financial relationships, insurance rules, institutional policies, clinical guidelines, and new technologies can all shape the conditions in which that advice is given.

More of those forces are visible today than when Dr. Leana Wen gave her TEDMED Talk in 2014. But seeing them and understanding what they mean are not the same thing.

Our new TEDMED In Context asks what patients need to know to make informed decisions about their care.

09/04/2026

When a second research team asked to draw blood from Sharon Terry’s young children, she suggested they get what they needed from the researchers who had already done it.

The response surprised her: sharing simply wasn’t how the system worked.

Her experience makes the stakes of fragmented health data unusually clear. Collecting information is one thing. Making sure that information can be shared—and put to use—is another.

Watch Sharon Terry's full Talk: https://www.tedmed.com/talk/science-didnt-understand-my-kids-rare-disease-until-i-decided-to-study-it/

09/02/2026

“In the future, you’re going to be checking all your vital signs.”

Eric Topol said this at TEDMED in 2009. Today, many people can monitor pieces of their health from a watch, phone or home device.

The technology changed quickly. The harder question remains: when does knowing the number actually help us prevent something?

Watch Dr. Eric Topol's full Talk: https://www.tedmed.com/talk/how-do-genetics-and-wireless-medicine-prevent-disease/

09/01/2026

Smartwatches, sensors and health apps have made information about our bodies easier to collect. But a warning only helps if someone can understand what it means and knows what to do next.

In 2009, Eric Topol imagined much of the measurement infrastructure that surrounds us today. In a new TEDMED In Context, we revisit that vision and examine the distance between detecting a signal and actually improving health.

08/28/2026

When Diana Nyad finally completed her historic Cuba-to-Florida swim, the story could easily have become one of individual determination.

She tells it differently.

“I didn’t feel some big ego rush like, ‘I did this.’ … We did this.”

Her TEDMED talk is about extraordinary perseverance—but also friendship, purpose, adaptation, and the people who make difficult things possible.

Watch Diana Nyad's full Talk: https://www.tedmed.com/talk/no-shortcuts-to-victory/

08/26/2026

After medical school, John La Puma went to culinary school.

What he found there changed how he thought about health.

His idea of “culinary medicine” asks what becomes possible when food is treated not simply as advice about what to avoid, but as a practical, enjoyable part of caring for ourselves and others.

Watch Dr John La Puma, MD's full TEDMED talk, “Culinary Medicine in Action.” https://www.tedmed.com/talk/culinary-medicine-in-action/

08/25/2026

Resilience is often treated as something a person either has or doesn’t.

The science points to something more useful.

Resilience draws on multiple capacities—from learning through repetition and staying flexible under pressure to protecting recovery, joy, and connection.

In the TEDMED Now season finale, we look at how those capacities help the brain and body adapt when life gets hard.

Listen to the full finale at https://www.tedmed.com/tedmed-now/what-is-resilience-made-of/

08/20/2026

During the AIDS crisis, activists were asking for something fundamental: a voice in decisions that directly affected their lives.

Anthony Fauci recalls how the scientific establishment initially dismissed them because they weren’t scientists.

The more activists pushed, the less the system listened.

Eventually, Fauci began listening differently—and realized their lived experience was revealing problems the institution itself could not see.

Medicine loses something essential when the people most affected are treated as outside the conversation.

Watch Dr. Anthony Fauci's full Talk: https://www.tedmed.com/talk/embracing-flexibility-as-a-matter-of-scientific-principle/

08/19/2026

A child has an ear infection. A doctor prescribes antibiotics.

But the bigger issue may be that there’s no food at home.

Rebecca Onie heard this story from clinicians again and again: they knew conditions like food and housing were affecting their patients’ health, but they had few tools for doing anything about them.

Her response became Health Leads—a model designed to connect patients with basic resources through the healthcare system itself.

Rebecca shared this idea at TEDMED in 2012.

The question remains strikingly relevant: What do patients need not only to get healthy, but to be healthy?

Watch Rebecca Onie's full Talk: https://www.tedmed.com/talk/can-we-rewrite-the-dna-of-the-healthcare-system/

08/18/2026

Health is shaped by more than what happens in a clinic.

Where people live, work, find food, feel safe, and access resources can all influence who gets sick, who recovers, and who has the chance to stay healthy.

In a new TEDMED In Context, we revisit Mary Bassett’s argument that medicine needs a wider field of view, one that includes the conditions surrounding a patient’s life, not only the diagnosis in front of them.

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