Hour 1: YOU The Owner's Manual Radio 10.31.15

Guest Bio: Sandra Hong, MD, Madelyn Hirsch Fernstrom, PhD, & Alexander Garrard, Pharm.D.

Sandra Hong, MD, is a member of Associate Staff in the Department of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine on the main campus of Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. Her specialty interests are in clinical allergy and immunology.

After completing a BS from the University of Akron in Ohio, Dr. Hong received her medical degree from the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Rootstown, Ohio. She performed her internship and residency at Summa Health System, Akron, and her specialty training through a fellowship from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She was appointed to her post at Cleveland Clinic in 2005.


Madelyn Hirsch Fernstrom, PhD, CNS, is a national health expert and the on-air NBC News health and diet editor, and diet and nutrition editor for the Today Show. She is also the health editor-at-large for NBC.com and Today.com. 

Fernstrom has regularly been interviewed for and featured in newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Readers Digest, Business Week, Good Housekeeping, Glamour, Allure, Fitness, Self,Cosmopolitan, and Prevention. She has also appeared on NBC Nightly News, Fox News, BBC, NPR, Dr. Phil, and Good Morning America. Fernstrom has published more than one hundred research papers and several books, including The Real You Diet and The Runners Diet. 

John Fernstrom, PhD, is an award-winning neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is a national expert on the impact of foods on brain function and the effects of foods on the actions of drugs in the brain.

Dr. Alexander Garrard received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Mercer University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Atlanta, Georgia. After working in the community, Dr. Garrard pursued a post-graduate two-year clinical toxicology/emergency medicine fellowship with the Florida/USVI Poison Information Center in Jacksonville, FL. Dr. Garrard achieved the status of Diplomate of the American Board of Applied Toxicology (DABAT) in 2012.

Prior to this joining the Washington Poison Center Dr. Garrard, a board-certified clinical toxicologist, worked as a health scientist in the Division of Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) in the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In this capacity, he served as an expert to state and local authorities, the CDC and other federal agencies, including FDA, DoD, and DHS, on various aspects of the SNS, Category A threat agents, chemical weapons and treatment guidelines.

Previously, he worked at the Upstate NY Poison Center where consulted on overdosed and poisoned patients for approximately 125 hospitals. He has extensive experience in community and media outreach for Upstate New York Poison Center. Garrard has been featured locally, regionally, nationally and internationally on breaking news stories including synthetic marijuana, bath salts, the rising issue of prescription drug abuse, accidental and intentional poisonings.