science

The Retrievals

The Retrievals is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Retrievals rather than just read about it. In short: The Retrievals is a podcast by Serial Productions and The New York Times and hosted by Susan Burton. History The podcast is produced by Serial Productions and The New York Times.

Key takeaways

The Retrievals belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Retrievals to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Retrievals from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Retrievals is a podcast by Serial Productions and The New York Times and hosted by Susan Burton.

History The podcast is produced by Serial Productions and The New York Times. The show debuted on June 29, 2023. The podcast is a five episode show hosted by Susan Burton. The podcast focuses on how female patients are treated in contemporary medicine. A nurse at the Yale Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Clinic was switching out fentanyl-based painkillers for saline. The nurse had switched out 175 vials. The show interviews Laura Czar who underwent a procedure where she was given the saline instead of the painkillers. The show includes interviews with dozens of women who were impacted. Season 2, of The Retrievals, subtitled The C-Sections, was released on July 10, 2025. This season focused on women who were not listened to when they said they were in pain during cesarean delivery. Episode 1 interviews Clara, a labor and delivery nurse in Chicago who experienced traumatizing pain while giving birth in her own workplace, and Mindy, her co-worker, who was present at the time. Episode 2 follows Dr Heather Nixon, obstetric anesthesiology division head, responding to the incident. The episode follows Dr Nixon delivering a speech at The Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology annual conference with clinicians in the audience responding to questions raised in the presentation. Episode 3 interviews Susanna Stanford, a patient in England who experienced intraoperative pain and campaigned to raise awareness of anesthetic failure, co-authored the UK Obstetric Anaesthetists' Association guidelines for the prevention and management of intraoperative pain during Caesarean delivery and advocated a shift in research methodology to include patient reported outcomes. Episode 4 returns to Chicago with Dr Heather Nixon, Mindy and Clara, describing efforts to improve care.

Content The first two episodes of Season 2 are available on traditional podcast distributors. The third and fourth episodes were available for New York Times subscribers only. The first episode was released as an episode of This American Life.

Reception The series was named the best podcast of 2023 by Nicholas Quah at Vulture and Eliana Dockterman at Time Magazine.

Awards

Television adaptation In May 2026, Netflix ordered a series adaptation, with Molly Smith Metzler serving as writer, showrunner and executive producer alongside Colin McKenna, Susan Burton and Caitlin Roper. In July 2026, it was announced that Lila Neugebauer would direct the pilot and executive produce the series. In the same month, Andrij Parekh revealed that he would serve as the cinematographer of the first episode and the director of two episodes of the series.

References

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Retrievals

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Retrievals claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Retrievals before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Retrievals ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Retrievals

In research: The Retrievals appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Retrievals in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Retrievals is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2023 podcast debuts, 2023 podcast endings, American crime podcasts, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Retrievals outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Retrievals in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Retrievals means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Retrievals out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Retrievals in simple terms?

The Retrievals is a podcast by Serial Productions and The New York Times and hosted by Susan Burton. History The podcast is produced by Serial Productions and The New York Times.

Why does The Retrievals matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Retrievals?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Retrievals.