1. There isn’t much time left. We have 5 hours to get 3,000 votes. I know we can do this, Internet. Please vote for Terry and Fresh Air!

    There isn’t much time left. We have 5 hours to get 3,000 votes. I know we can do this, Internet. Please vote for Terry and Fresh Air!

  2. Christoph Niemann illustrates Terry’s conversation with Maurice Sendak. I cried at my desk when this conversation was taped. I put my head down on my computer and cried when it aired. In fact, this makes me cry every single time I listen to it. It’s one of the best pieces of radio I’ve ever heard. And it’s a fantastic way to reflect on this year, and into the next. I often repeat the last lines to myself: Live your life, live your life, live your life.

    Christoph Niemann illustrates Terry’s conversation with Maurice Sendak. I cried at my desk when this conversation was taped. I put my head down on my computer and cried when it aired. In fact, this makes me cry every single time I listen to it.

    It’s one of the best pieces of radio I’ve ever heard. And it’s a fantastic way to reflect on this year, and into the next. I often repeat the last lines to myself:

    Live your life, live your life, live your life.

  3. 'Fresh Air' Bids Farewell To Melody Kramer  →

    My first time in the studio with Terry…(we recorded twice, on account of nerves.)

  4. wilwheaton asked: I just wanted to thank you for everything you did with the Fresh Air Tumblr. Your quotes got me excited to listen to the program every day (instead of waiting to catch up via podcast when I was traveling) and you added something wonderful to an already wonderful show. I wish you all the very best in your studies, and in life.

    Thanks Wil. I really appreciate your kind words. I’ve always enjoyed your stuff too. (I’m a closet Trekkie.) 

  5. I’m leaving my full-time gig at Fresh Air at the end of the summer to attend medical school at Temple University here in Philadelphia. (The first year of my program is a postbac. I’ve been accepted to Temple’s medical school upon completion of the program.) I am going to continue to work at Fresh Air on a part-time basis indefinitely to assist with the transition. And starting this July, I will be contributing on a bi-monthly basis to NPR’s Healthcare blog, Shots.  The decision to leave Fresh Air was not an easy or quick one. I’ve been working at NPR and WHYY for the past 6 years and I cannot begin to express how much I’ve grown professionally and how much I’ve learned from my (extremely) talented colleagues who are producing an extraordinary product under (really) tight deadlines. From my time as a Kroc Fellow in Washington to working as a producer and director at Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me to doing the web stuff at Fresh Air, I’ve learned, grown, laughed, cried, and met amazingly smart people who have become less like coworkers and more like my second family. But the itch to go to medical school has been growing stronger and stronger and I think now is the time to finally take the plunge. I don’t plan to stay away from public radio for long. I want to become a practicing ER physician (this may change) as well as a medical journalist (this will not change.)  I’m particularly interested in how the medical profession engages with the public through mass and social media — and I’d like to take what I’ve learned from the Kroc and Wait Wait and Fresh Air’s social media to medicine and then bring back what I learn in medicine to a mass audience. (The medical profession needs more ex-humor writers, in my opinion…) I’m excited. I’m nervous. And I’m looking forward to what the next few years bring along. I plan to write extensively about all of this both here and on my Twitter account @mkramer and on NPR’s Healthcare blog, Shots. I hope to see you there.  -Mel (melodykramer@gmail.com) 

    I’m leaving my full-time gig at Fresh Air at the end of the summer to attend medical school at Temple University here in Philadelphia. (The first year of my program is a postbac. I’ve been accepted to Temple’s medical school upon completion of the program.)

    I am going to continue to work at Fresh Air on a part-time basis indefinitely to assist with the transition. And starting this July, I will be contributing on a bi-monthly basis to NPR’s Healthcare blog, Shots. 

    The decision to leave Fresh Air was not an easy or quick one. I’ve been working at NPR and WHYY for the past 6 years and I cannot begin to express how much I’ve grown professionally and how much I’ve learned from my (extremely) talented colleagues who are producing an extraordinary product under (really) tight deadlines. From my time as a Kroc Fellow in Washington to working as a producer and director at Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me to doing the web stuff at Fresh Air, I’ve learned, grown, laughed, cried, and met amazingly smart people who have become less like coworkers and more like my second family.

    But the itch to go to medical school has been growing stronger and stronger and I think now is the time to finally take the plunge. I don’t plan to stay away from public radio for long. I want to become a practicing ER physician (this may change) as well as a medical journalist (this will not change.) 

    I’m particularly interested in how the medical profession engages with the public through mass and social media — and I’d like to take what I’ve learned from the Kroc and Wait Wait and Fresh Air’s social media to medicine and then bring back what I learn in medicine to a mass audience. (The medical profession needs more ex-humor writers, in my opinion…)

    I’m excited. I’m nervous. And I’m looking forward to what the next few years bring along. I plan to write extensively about all of this both here and on my Twitter account @mkramer and on NPR’s Healthcare blog, Shots. I hope to see you there. 

    -Mel (melodykramer@gmail.com)