Francis Collins, MD, PhD, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will appear with UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, MD, during the Feb. 8 RFD-TV broadcast of “Rural Health Matters.”
Dr. Collins, a physician-geneticist, is the only presidentially appointed NIH director to serve more than one administration. He is now on his third, having been asked to continue by President Joe Biden.
“We’re grateful that Dr. Collins will join us, and our viewers across the country, to talk about vaccines, variants and the latest scientific developments related to SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19,” Dr. Gold said.
Dr. Collins not only leads the nation’s medical research efforts, but is an accomplished scientist himself, having discovered several genes associated with diseases and led the international Human Genome Project.
“Rural Health Matters” airs at 5 p.m. CT on Mondays. RFD-TV can be found on local television providers. As a public service, this week’s program can be viewed for free online, or on RFD-TV’s Facebook page. Typically, the online content at RFD-TV requires a subscription.
For the past nine months, “Rural Health Matters” has focused on various aspects of the pandemic. Each week, Nashville-based host Christina Loren and UNMC’s Dr. Gold provide updated information to viewers across rural America. Typically, they are joined each week by a subject matter expert.
Those guests have included state and regional education officials, health care experts, military officers, and national leaders such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Adm. Brett Giroir, MD, assistant secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Esther George, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. A full playlist of Rural Health Matters broadcasts can be found here.