Transcript
Will: [00:00:00] Today’s episode is brought to you by the Nuance Dragon Ambient Experience or DAX for short. To learn more about how DAX Copilot can help reduce burnout and restore the joy of practicing medicine, stick around after the episode or visit Nuance. com slash discover DAX. That’s N U A N C E. com slash discover D A X.
Hello, everybody. Welcome to Knock, Knock. Hi, with the glockenspiel. Really emphasize the hi.
Kristin: Mmm.
Will: I’m Dr. Glockenflecken. Hello, lady.
Kristin: Hello, I am Lady Glockenflecken. We are Will and Kristen Flannery, and we are Discombobulated. It’s Glock
Will: Talk time. So, uh, we are, this [00:01:00] is like an evening edition.
Kristin: It’s an evening edition.
It’s the latest
Will: we’ve ever recorded.
Kristin: It’s the end of a weekend. Uh, and we have spent the entire weekend working on, uh, moving, which is never fun. We’re
Will: moving. You know what I heard once? I heard that, uh, before anybody decides to get married, they should move across the country. Together.
Kristin: Hey, we did that High five.
That’s right.
Will: And way
Kristin: you go, buddy. And
Will: if you, if you, if your relationship survives the move, then you’re then just go ahead. Then you’re good to go. Yeah. Because honestly, there are a few things that are harder.
Kristin: I think I would add one thing to that, which is to, um, raising a child. Well, that’s a more of a long term project.
Might take a while to figure that one out. Uh, expose them to a task with a deadline that needs to be done, and then have them do it on very slow internet.
Will: Wow, that’s very specific.
Kristin: Yeah, yeah. Because there is almost nothing worse than that. And so you will see Everyone’s worst [00:02:00] behavior.
Will: They’re trying to do something with, with slow internet.
Kristin: Yes. Like, like really, really slow. Right. Where it’s like, just loading inch by inch. No, I don’t think we’ve had to do that. I’m just saying that would be another good test of character for someone. If you’re like trying to figure out if there’s somebody that you can stand to be around for your whole life.
How
Will: about just being somewhere without internet period?
Kristin: That’d be another good one. Yeah these days,
Will: but that’s more like vacation. It needs to be like
Kristin: no Everyone has internet on vacation now,
Will: but but I’m saying like sometimes you go
Kristin: you’d be like in the middle of a forest Yeah in a cabin with no internet and
Will: but see I think that’s different sparse
Kristin: electricity That’s
Will: different because like you’re like having an adventure with somebody and so that that
Kristin: that is not an adventure to me That is one of Dante’s levels of hell for me
Will: to somebody not okay.
Kristin: Just somebody sure
Will: Clearly, this is not a Kristen Flannery type of scenario here, but I can see your point in like, like in your daily life, [00:03:00] just take away the ability to distract yourself online for a while.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: And just, just, it’s just you two just living life. What
Kristin: are you gonna talk about? What are you gonna do?
Will: You gonna start a podcast or what? I mean,
Kristin: that’s right.
Will: Something. Yeah. So anyway, yes, we are moving.
Kristin: Yes, but we’re not moving like to a different city like no major life changes are happening other than we’re switching houses, that’s all.
Will: Yeah, and it’s uh, I am This is it. No, no more.
Kristin: I agree. I’m hoping.
Will: So, so with all this medical.
Kristin: Let’s create a cemetery in the backyard and live there till we die and then get buried in it. We’re never moving again. That’s not
Will: a bad idea. We have a little open area on our property. Yeah. We could just get the, I mean, we’ve got, we got space. Let’s do, so medical education and training, you know, it takes you all over the place.
Kristin: Yes. So
Will: this is our, how many moves now for us? Oh man. So I don’t
Kristin: even know and I moved a lot as a kid too. So [00:04:00] right.
Will: So I don’t know So we moved to do it from Texas to New Hampshire In a we had a very small the smallest type of U Haul trailer.
Kristin: That’s right
Will: behind my Honda Element.
Kristin: Yep
Will: We filled it up with whatever garbage we had.
Kristin: That’s right.
Will: And then we moved from med school in New Hampshire.
Kristin: Well, during med school, we moved also to a different department. Yeah,
Will: we moved to, we moved. I think we hated even, even fewer things for the second somehow. Anyway, very easy. And like compared to now, it’s so much easier. Although you still
Kristin: complain so much about it.
Well, who doesn’t complain
Will: about moving? Yeah. Show me one person that’s ever not complained. During a move.
Kristin: I know it’s, it’s pretty bad.
Will: And that person, I don’t, I don’t, I think is not well. I mean, it’s, it takes some, some kind of psychosis to be able to do that.
Kristin: That person had a lot of money and was able to hire everyone to do the whole thing for them.
Will: All right. So Texas to do New Hampshire, New Hampshire [00:05:00] to Vermont, Vermont to Illinois.
Kristin: Yeah,
Will: Illinois to Iowa. Mm hmm, Iowa to our first house in Portland
Kristin: Yes, and then our second
Will: house first house to the second house, which is this
Kristin: current one
Will: We were still renting was slightly bigger. Mm hmm. And then this one that we just bought so that’s like seven moves
Kristin: Yeah, it’s enough.
Just since we’ve been together
Will: You’re I I’m dying in this new house
Kristin: I know. Yeah. Like, well, let’s not make that kind of a declaration given your, uh, health history. My
Will: tendency to want to do that thing.
Kristin: Right. So let’s just say, you know, we’re not gonna move again. I’ll live
Will: a long, full life. There we go. I like it better.
And then eventually die in that house.
Kristin: Eventually when you’re an old man. Yes, that’s right. Yeah.
Will: I’ll accept that. But
Kristin: there’s a lot of people moving at this time of year in the medical community. This is the time.
Will: Yeah, the, the, the calendar, the medical [00:06:00] calendar is about to turn over and, uh, which is an exciting time.
You know, one thing I’m going to address now, because by the time this goes out there, it probably will be like early July.
Kristin: Yeah, probably everyone will have moved and they’re getting like settled in their new places.
Will: Can we, can we just like dispel here and now the, the, the, uh, the, the myth that the hospital is, is more dangerous in July?
Yeah.
Kristin: Go for it.
Will: Yeah. Because, and this, this comes up every year and then there’s always jokes to be had. Uh, you know, I used to write for Gomer blog and we certainly had our fair, fair share of like jokes at the expense of all the, the new doctors starting July 1st. Oh, I don’t want to go to the hospital during July.
And it’s, it’s all well, it’s been done. It’s done. We’re done with it. We’re past that now, I think.
Kristin: And there’s probably a lot of like Medical
Will: comedy has evolved beyond that. There’s like little
Kristin: things that happen in July. Like, like happen at [00:07:00] anyone’s new job.
Will: Oh, sure. Oh, I remember, uh, like, the first time I the first few orders that I ever put in.
Mm hmm. The, I’m pretty sure the pharmacist, like, like called me immediately. Right. I was like, you sure? This is what you want? Right. Did you mean this? Did you mean to do that? Did you mean to do this instead? I was like, oh yeah, of course. Totally. A slip of the mouse. Yes, absolutely. But, uh, but what’s the serious part about it, though, that I want to make sure everyone understands, those of you who are not in medicine who might be listening or watching, is that there have actually been studies that have looked at certain medical outcomes, uh, in July, August versus like the rest of the year.
And in fact, some studies suggest that July and August are safer than other times of the year, because everybody is so diligent. about the supervision, about making sure that all the [00:08:00] new crop of people that are coming in and practicing medicine know what they’re doing and learn the ropes and from, from all the people that have been doing it for a while.
And so actually I, I was like, like that would have been a better time to have my cardiac arrest.
Kristin: Yeah, sure.
Will: Bad example? Yeah. Okay. All right. I’ll stay. I don’t think there’s
Kristin: ever a good time.
Will: No, there’s never a good time. No, but the point is, uh, I personally would be, would feel great. I’d feel fine. I’d feel okay with having medical care in July.
The point is you
Kristin: don’t need to be afraid to go to the hospital at this time of year. And if you are a new med student, resident, fellow, what have you, attending, brand new attending, you know, you don’t need to to feel like you’re you don’t know what you’re doing I mean, nobody knows what they’re doing on their first day of a new job, but you’re gonna be fine.
Everyone’s You know, got your back watching out for anything that might fall through cracks. So everybody’s fine. It’s all [00:09:00] fine. It’s all good
Will: It’s all good. You got lots of people to help out Okay, let’s um, so for Glock talk today.
Kristin: Yeah,
Will: you know, we’ve been moving We’ve been taking all our stuff and you know throwing things out and just going through as I said throw though
Kristin: Though you do that.
Will: You always make fun of me. Yeah I don’t know. I’m self conscious about it. Now every time I say it. I don’t know if
Kristin: that’s a Texas thing or just a U thing.
Will: It might just be a lazy thing. Yeah. Throw. That feels harder.
Kristin: That’s, I’m, I’m that way with the word drawer. I have to really, really concentrate and think about that first R.
Drrrr or.
Will: Drrrr or. Throw.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Uh, so, throwing things out. That’s one, actually, if there’s one thing I do love about moving, it’s the throwing things away.
Kristin: Yeah, you love to throw things away.
Will: Donating. Donating. Throwing things away, just getting them
Kristin: out of
Will: my life, out of my house. It’s great. Do you think if you
Kristin: lived alone, you would just have like a couch and one coffee mug and one plate and, you know, one, one of every [00:10:00] dish and a couch?
Will: I would live a minimalist, very sad life if I was by myself. Absolutely. It would all just be props. That’s, that’s all it would. It’d be
Kristin: like a house of horrors.
Will: Yeah, it would, um Put
Kristin: up some mirrors and you could, like, rent out for a haunted house every Halloween.
Will: I would absolutely be embarrassed to have people over at my place.
Kristin: So
Will: that’s, yeah, absolutely. Yes.
Kristin: But,
Will: one of the things I just went through recently were all my props.
Kristin: Yeah. We’re moving the prop closet so we can go through
Will: them all. A whole closet full of props. So what I thought could be fun is to talk about the characters a bit.
Kristin: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Will: What do you think?
Kristin: I like it.
Yeah. People like the characters. People really, like, relate to them and they resonate with people. So maybe
Will: Well, I think that also the, the challenge for some people who are, like, new to my content
Kristin: is
Will: understanding the backstory.
Kristin: That’s a good point. Yeah. Right.
Will: I do get If
Kristin: you’re [00:11:00] new here, there is a lot that you’ve missed.
Will: So I, I just did a video, I just put one out about, um, the accidental, accidental I love you. When you’re, you’re busy, you’re talking to somebody on the phone, you’re at work, you’re like, all right, love you, bye.
Kristin: Right.
Will: Have you ever done that?
Kristin: I can’t say I have. The closest thing I’ve done to that is like when you’re a kid and you’re at school and you accidentally call your teacher mom.
Will: Yeah, that’s right.
Kristin: It’s kind of the same thing.
Will: It is kind of the same thing. I do think There have been a couple of times on call where I’ve kind of caught myself. I feel like I’ve been close to saying something a little bit too casual like that, you know, and just, you’re, you’re tired. You’re not thinking about it, thinking about other things.
There’s just a second nature.
Kristin: How many people do you say love you bye to on a regular basis?
Will: You?
Kristin: I know, but we’re not on the phone that much. So it’s interesting that that just comes out.
Will: Well, I would say it hasn’t. We’re talking like years ago. [00:12:00]
Kristin: Yeah. Yeah,
Will: like I in general as an ophthalmologist I don’t talk to a lot of people on the phone now.
I did a lot more in residency. You’re always talking to somebody, right? So, um, so anyway, maybe we could, should we talk about some backstory? So I’ll be, I’ll pull out my whiteboard that has, uh,
Kristin: You can’t, we’ve moved it all.
Will: That’s true. Yeah. That has all the backstory, all the storylines all intertwined.
This is all
Kristin: that’s left in our house is this background right here. That’s
Will: right. It’s all in my head. Um, all right. So what, what should I, what, do you have any questions? What do you think I know,
Kristin: uh, you know, I’m gonna take the role of the audience here. I’ve been along for the ride, so I know things.
Will: Oh, should we take a break before we do that?
Cuz we’re gonna get into it. Probably good idea, right? Yeah. Short break, right back.
Hey Christian, you know how it’s kind of hard to make friends in your 30s.
Kristin: Yeah, cuz you don’t see anyone or go anywhere. Life just
Will: gets complicated, right? With kids and work.
Kristin: Right.
Will: Well, I brought some friends for you.
Kristin: Aww, who?
Will: [00:13:00] Demodex.
Kristin: Okay.
Will: Demodex mites.
Kristin: You shouldn’t have.
Will: You can, they can just live with you, on you, all over you.
Yeah. What do you think? Aren’t they cute?
Kristin: Well, these ones are, but I don’t think the real ones are quite this cute as the stuffed ones.
Will: They’ll listen to you. They’ll listen to your secrets. Oh, and
Kristin: keep them locked away in their ribbed bodies. So
Will: these little guys, they live on your eyelids, and they can cause a disease called demodex blepharitis.
Kristin: Yeah, like itchy crests. Flaky
Will: irritated eyelids. That’s right. No one wants it, but it’s important that when people hear this, they don’t get freaked out by this. You gotta get checked out, checked out, not freaked out because, you know, coming to the eye clinic, we’ll talk to you about demodex and demodex blepharitis and see what’s going on to find out more.
Go to eyelidcheck. com again. That’s E Y E L I D check. To get more information about Kristen’s new friends here, Demodex Blepharitis.[00:14:00]
All right. We are back with Glock Talk, uh, Lore Talk.
Kristin: Alright, so where do you want to
Will: start?
Kristin: Well, I think, you know, the question that I see the most, uh, that people ask about your characters is, um, Is Jonathan real? Do you have a real Jonathan that that is, that he is based on?
Will: I do. I do have a real Jonathan.
Uh, my first Jonathan I ever worked with was a, a man named Luis. Fantastic. Unbelievable. He was very quiet when I first met him. He’s still really quiet.
Kristin: He’s not much of a talker.
Will: He’s not much of a talker, but he gets the job done. So he is the inspiration for the character. Eventually, you know, the first couple of videos I made with Jonathan, he said words.
Right. And people don’t, a lot of people don’t know that now because we’re talking when I first made those videos, I had a much smaller following than I have now.
Kristin: Right.
Will: And so, in fact, Those videos are buried in my TikTok somewhere.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: I have not posted them to YouTube because I don’t want [00:15:00] to, I don’t want to confuse people.
I want to be consistent with the characters as they are now. There’s actually a handful of videos. You want to go back and see some weird stuff that I posted? Way back in the day when I was
Kristin: a unicorn puppy,
Will: there was, yeah, I have a few, like very random things I was doing. I was still trying to get a handle on what exactly TikTok is, like how I should use it, how it’s best for like my sense of humor.
So at first I was just jumping on what everybody else was doing. Right. Cause that’s kind of what you do. You see what other people are doing. You try to, Oh, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. So I was like doing some lip syncing.
Kristin: You did like an eyebrow dancing thing at one point.
Will: Yeah. Not singing. I was never singing.
singing. I was like lip syncing, like, uh, you know, mouthing other people talking and, you know, jumping on trends and things. So, um, and eventually the characters started and I, I, and they evolved, you know, they, at first the emerge, I made a couple with an emergency physician and he did not have. Any of [00:16:00] that, uh, any of that stuff, you know, the costume, the bike helmet, that all came later.
So, but the Jonathan thing, um, yeah, started from Luis and I’ve had a few different scribes at this point. Uh, he’s the gold standard, gold standard, he knows that. And uh, now he’s Well your
Kristin: first one is a, is a special one. Now he’s a technician
Will: and occasionally though when we, when we need a scribe, he’ll jump in and scribe with me.
It’s like old times again. Yeah. It’s great. I love it. I love it so much.
Kristin: Have you ever given him like some Jonathan merch or something. I gave
Will: him a Jonathan prayer candle.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Yes. Yes, I don’t, I don’t know if he used it.
Kristin: Yeah, I’m curious what his reaction is. He
Will: gave, he smiled and nodded at it. Nodded, yeah.
Yeah, so.
Kristin: Didn’t say anything.
Will: I think the first Jonathan, the first video was like the first day of, of ophthalmology rotation. As a med student, and I had the, the scribe feed me a sandwich, and he, but he said a few words in that one, and then eventually I was like, I made a [00:17:00] joke where he has mastered the art of being seen but not heard, and I was like, well, why, maybe he should just not talk,
Kristin: and then he,
Will: then he, he slowly developed these magical abilities, Right.
So, like, now, like, he can run really fast. He can, he can seem to be in two places at once, uh, or at least move from place to place very quickly. He just shows up whenever you call him. We don’t know if he If he sleeps,
Kristin: or does he just get plugged in? He might just get plugged in.
Will: There’s one video where it alludes to the fact that maybe he sleeps in a closet or stays in a closet overnight.
There have also been some, some plot twists where he and the other scribes Might be stockpiling Visine for some kind of coup or some kind of revolution, a Jonathan revolution. Perhaps
Kristin: Jonathan is not the hero we all believe him to be.
Will: Or maybe he is. We don’t know [00:18:00] what he’s fighting against.
Kristin: Yeah, well true.
Will: Everybody assumes he’s, he’s like,
Kristin: planning to
Will: uprise and rebel against the ophthalmologist, but maybe not. Because the scribe is loyal. Is a loyal scribe.
Kristin: True.
Will: But the ophthalmologist has enemies. That’s all I’m saying. That’s all I’m gonna say.
Kristin: Okay.
Will: All right, so who knows? We don’t know. There’s something here.
They’re planning something, the scribes, okay?
Kristin: I’ve heard a lot of people be very curious about Jonathan’s backstory, like, where he comes from, his origin. Yeah, exactly. Like, that was how you developed the character of Jonathan, but like, once people have met the character of Jonathan and they’re bought into what he is now, yeah, within that world, yeah, where does he come from?
What is he?
Will: I’m planning to reveal that at some point. Um, I made jokes that, uh, uh, he comes, uh, you, you have to find a Jonathan in the wild. [00:19:00] And gain his trust, and then you have him for life, so.
Kristin: Like a house elf?
Will: Yes, and if you give him clothing,
Kristin: then
Will: he’s free. If you give him, if you give him a paper chart, if you give him a paper chart, he is released from his prison.
His duties as a, so I don’t know, I, you know, I’ve got to, I have to explore that because people are interested in that. I think I could have a lot of fun with it too. And the other thing is that Jonathan is not just, he is not able, he’s not just tied to the ophthalmologist. In some videos, like he has worked with other types of physicians too, which is like that in medicine.
Like there are other specialties that use medical scribes, um, and, Like, I know cardiology and emergency medicine and dermatology. And so there’s a lot of, and it’s really is a, it speaks to how inefficient and messed up our medical [00:20:00] system is when we need to hire an entire, like, role in order for a physician to be able to look at their patients, right?
Like that’s,
Kristin: That’s what it comes down to. I don’t know. To make eye contact with your patients and have an actual conversation You have to have someone else involved.
Will: So the alternative is going to be these like, you know, AI type things, right? That try to automate. I hope that we are responsible
Kristin: with those and we actually allow them to Create more time for the physicians to do that rather than create more time for physicians to see more patients You That’s my hope.
Will: Well, that depends on who’s running the practice.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Absolutely. In my practice, so we use scribes and it’s, but we are also very focused on work life balance. [00:21:00] And, and, and it’s kind of our culture, like we all work four days a week and, and we have holds in our schedule. Like there are certain things like that and we have a, a certain number of, of days we have to work per year, but it affords us the ability to take lots of time off if we want to, to do different things or whatever.
If we were in a separate, different situation, say private equity owned us or a big hospital corporation owned us, like United. Optum. If we were one of the Optum hospitals, if we were employed by them, like we wouldn’t have that opportunity. So I think it’s, it’s, it’s the culture that you build and not everybody has a culture that values patient physician rapport.
So yeah, I don’t know. Here’s a question I have about Jonathan.
Kristin: Okay. Okay. You have a question about the character you created? And you’re asking me? It’s more
Will: the reaction from people. And maybe the people that are [00:22:00] listening, our audience, can help. It’s actually surprising. The reaction that I’ve had from that character.
Like he is, there’s a few, but he is easily one of the most popular characters.
Kristin: Oh yeah.
Will: So, but what is it? Like, cause in my mind, he was just kind of like a side character.
Kristin: Supporting actor.
Will: Yeah, exactly. He’s the best supporting actor in the Gawkinfleckin universe. So, but what, what is it? Like why, what, what resonates with people about Jonathan?
Kristin: Right. I think he’s, um, I think it’s wish fulfillment. Like vicarious wish fulfillment, right? Like that’s what everyone wants is to have someone to do all these horrible boring parts of your job And free up your time To like enjoy your life.
Will: I see and
Kristin: and you know talk to your patients
Will: So it’s just people that that want a jonathan.
Kristin: I think so. I [00:23:00] think so Also, I think it’s like the mystery of what is jonathan? Who is jonathan? yeah, you know like what are his motives because he uh, You, when you do Jonathan, there’s no other way to say this really other than you look creepy. So there’s this like dissonance between what Jonathan is and does, right?
He’s this loyal scribe that does everything for you, all very positive things. And then there’s what his face looks like, which is he’s going to murder you in your sleep. So, I think people are trying to like, figure that out. Like, is he a good guy? Is he a bad guy? Like, what’s up with Jonathan? Yeah.
Will: Yeah.
Kristin: Yeah. Like, if I ran into Jonathan on the street, I, I think I would like, Cross I do
Will: I do get a lot of
Kristin: Pretend to be on the phone talking to somebody and put my keys between my knuckles You know all those things like he would raise my red flags
Will: that is when people come up to talk to me after either keynotes or [00:24:00] shows or just They come up and talk to me like at the airport or something That’s one one thing I get pretty frequently as I it was people saying.
Oh, I used to be a Jonathan.
Kristin: Yeah Yeah, I’m a
Will: Jonathan.
Kristin: I loved the email that you got one time.
Will: Oh, yeah, that was great You He said, uh, the email just said, Dear Dr. Glockenflecken, I used to be a medical scribe. No, he said, I am a medical scribe. My name is Jonathan. You have changed my life.
Kristin: The end.
Will: That’s it.
Kristin: That was
Will: all the email said. I’m a scribe. My name is Jonathan. You have changed my life. Did not specify how. No idea
Kristin: in what way.
Will: Positive
Kristin: or negative.
Will: I take it as a positive. But yeah, it’s, uh, you know, there’s a lot of medical scribes out there. People have had that role and they certainly relate to it.
So I’m, I’m, I’m happy about that. It’s, it’s a fun character. It’s easier for me to write too, cause he doesn’t have to say
Kristin: anything. Yeah.
Will: I just make a [00:25:00] face. And
Kristin: my favorite, this is what I was going to say earlier, my favorite Jonathan moment was because I’m seeing things behind the scenes and I see what it looks like when you film Jonathan and every other character.
My favorite one of the behind the scenes stuff was when you, uh, the ophthalmologist was going on vacation. And he was packing Jonathan in his bag, and you literally, like, laid down in an open duffel bag on the floor, and somehow, like, you’re filming yourself with one hand, and with the other hand, you’re zipping your face up into the duffel bag, you know, as Jonathan is being packed up, and that was just So
Will: that video is, is the ophthalmologist goes on vacation, I think is what it’s called.
Uh, you can find it on my YouTube channel.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: That was an incredibly hard thing to film.
Kristin: That one, I [00:26:00] mean, I’ve been with you so long now that like, I, I know when something is funny and I can, like, you’ll show me things and I’ll say, yeah, that’s funny. But very rarely does something make me actually laugh out loud anymore because I just, like, know your style so much I can kind of predict what’s coming.
That one caught me off guard and, like, really made me belly laugh to see you zipping your face up. It was so ridiculous. I had
Will: this, this really cool duffel bag and people were so confused by that shot because they, they, they thought that I had destroyed a duffel bag to be able to get my head in there and be able to zip it up, but it was this bag that Opened on the, maybe I shouldn’t say this and leave them a mystery to people, but it’s been like two years since that video So it was a bag that that zipped open on the ends So you could have the top zipped and the ends were open.
Kristin: Both open. Yeah,
Will: and you could put stuff into it And so I just put my head into it and it worked out really well And it made the [00:27:00] illusion that it really was, you know, zipping myself up um That was a fun one.
Kristin: Yeah, that was clever. That was really good. Thank you.
Will: I appreciate that.
Kristin: You’re welcome. Sometimes you’re clever.
Will: What other characters should we, should we illuminate for people?
Kristin: I’m, well, I’m a little partial to Bill.
Will: Why?
Kristin: Uh, first of all, You can’t help but just feel real bad for Bill.
Will: Mm hmm. But you know Bill graduated.
Kristin: I know. Yes. Recently he graduated. he created a compilation video, uh, on TikTok of, you know, Bill’s journey.
Will: Very Just
Kristin: as a little, a little bonus for, for people who are in the know.
Will: It was a very, very millennial thing. Compilation using that that Green Day song. Yes, that was that everybody had there.
Kristin: That’s all you have to say. Everyone knows what song you’re talking about
Will: Yes, Bill You know, I needed when I started when I made Bill I needed a resident Mm [00:28:00] hmm because that’s such a big part of just hospital culture other residents and so it was it was a I was like just out of residency when I made that, or it had been a few, a couple of years.
Maybe
Kristin: like two years or so.
Will: Yeah, but I still, I still felt like I knew, I still knew what it felt like to be a resident and to be Cause
Kristin: you still feel like that your first couple of years as an attending. That’s true, that’s true. You’re still pretty new. I
Will: still feel kind of like an imposter, right? Cause like you’re still learning the ropes and now you’re learning how to be an attending.
But as a, as a, as a resident, just You’re kind of always tired. You’re on call all the time. You’re unsure of yourself. You’re building confidence and, and you’re making mistakes and people are yelling at you for things. And now I was in a very supportive program, but still there are times when you just, you, you know, you know, you screwed up and people are not happy with you and that hurts, uh, and, and you hurt, sometimes you hurt patients and you do your best and you still make mistakes, these things happen.
And, um, [00:29:00] and it’s. And so I wanted to have a character that kind of encompassed all of that. And then Bill was born. And the reason it’s Bill is because my name is Will, William, Bill,
Kristin: so it’s
Will: kind of an autobiographical character.
Kristin: Yeah. I think that’s the thing that most people don’t necessarily realize is that Bill is the closest character to you in real life.
Will: Yeah,
Kristin: like you’ve drawn my still your own experiences the most for Bill’s Storyline. Bill,
Will: I would say is me from 2011 to 2017.
Kristin: So that would be like end of med school, third year med school. Yeah,
Will: through residency. Yeah That’s that’s I am that is I am Bill. Bill is me. Yeah, and and But now he, and I wasn’t sure what to do with him because I made him, I made people feel [00:30:00] so bad for Bill.
Oh my God. I really
Kristin: wanted Bill to have to go to fellowship.
Will: Well, he’s not, we may not be done with Bill.
Kristin: Okay. Right? I
Will: mean, come on. Like I, I have plans for Bill. I have a little. Yeah,
Kristin: that’s true. You, you showed him graduating residency and walking out, but you did not show what And
Will: so we may not see him for a while, but that’s why I wanted to have his replacement ready because, so as he’s walking out of the hospital, if you haven’t seen this video where he graduates, there’s this swell of, of uplifting music, and then he walks out and he runs into somebody whose name is Phil, Who looks like Bill because all the characters look like me because it is me and and then Phil is now walking into the hospital and he makes eye contact with the neurologist and it’s like It begins.
Kristin: He’s the new bill.
Will: He’s the new bill So but now so I saw a comment that
Kristin: really made me laugh which was [00:31:00] Is this the origin story of Dr. Phil? Oh god
Will: Uh, I don’t think I can make that kind of a, uh, um, grow that kind of a mustache. But, um, the, I think my favorite, the favorite, my favorite, uh, Bill video. Well, it was really, there’s very few videos that are like dedicated solely to Bill, but my favorite part with Bill in it was with the rheumatologist.
Do you remember this part? Mm. So Bill consults the rheumatologist for an abnormal a NA, which is a, a, a lab test that is like an autoimmunity type of lab test. Mm-Hmm. . It’s auto antibody. And it’s kind of confusing to a lot of people. Mm-Hmm. . And so it’s very common. The joke is that, you know, people order it, but they don’t know what to do with the result.
Kristin: Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. That’s kind of ringing. Yeah.
Will: And so the rheumatologist calls bill out on that.
Kristin: Mm-Hmm. .
Will: And then the rheumatologist says, he’ll help him [00:32:00] anyway. And then the rheumatologist says, who’s your daddy, Bill?
Kristin: Oh yeah. So
Will: stupid. And Bill says, Rheumatology is my daddy. Rheumatology says, yes he is. I actually made, some people got bad whenever I put that in there.
Kristin: Why?
Will: I don’t know, there’s some people that are like, that’s inappropriate. That’s not. They don’t talk like that in the hospital.
Kristin: Well of course not, it’s satire.
Will: You don’t talk like
Kristin: any of these characters in the hospital. I
Will: just, it’s the response I get sometimes to some of these jokes.
Kristin: What is, what is the story, or is there a story, uh, from Bill’s storyline?
Did anything like come directly from your experience as a med student or resident?
Will: Oh, good question.
Kristin: I know you’ve had videos with that, but specifically with Bill. Since Bill is the closest to you, is there anything that
Will: is
Kristin: really just super autobiographical? I got,
Will: I [00:33:00] got reamed out by a, um, by a neurologist for, for, actually, no, it wasn’t me.
I just remember I was like a neurology rounds as a med student and, and hearing the neurologist just get just upset. about someone who said altered mental status without any descriptive language. So he’s like, what is, what does that mean? What is altered mental status? Are they, are they confused? Are they disoriented?
Are they, you know, is there dementia? It says all the, like, what is all, which
Kristin: sure. That’s a fair question. Altered mental status is a, is
Will: a non specific term, right? Non, it’s, it’s not really descriptive. But he was, he was getting very worked up about it. And so that’s, so I made a video about that where Bill says, you know, the patient’s altered mental status, and he turns around and neurology’s right there and starts making fun of him.
So that was something that I actually kind [00:34:00] of was exposed to in med school. And then. I did the Bill Goes to Therapy, which was one of my more serious ones. It was more about like mental health and, and feeling alone and isolated as a resident and as a med student and, and. You know, it was just a very, um, sometimes I do that, you know, I try to touch on some of the more Sensitive aspects of training and it may not be the funniest episodes But I do get a lot of really good feedback when I have episodes like that.
Yeah, those still
Kristin: resonate with people quite a bit. Because it’s all the stuff that people are thinking, but no one feels allowed to say.
Will: So I did that, Bill Goes to Therapy, where I did that for resident mental health. And then I did one for the med student goes to therapy, where he didn’t match.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: And, and so it was all about that, and I got a lot of good feedback on that one too.
So yeah.
Kristin: But that wasn’t [00:35:00] autobiographical, like, the one where he doesn’t match, but Bill going to therapy might have some.
Will: Yeah, biographical. For sure. I mean, it’s, God, I mean, you know, residency’s hard. Yeah. It’s, it’s like, I mean, it just, You know, you’re, you’re learning an entire field of medicine. You only have so much time to be able to do it and, and trying to, to navigate that and, and then just do your best, but it’s, there’s the high, the stakes are high, so.
Kristin: And the work is just intense. Like the hours are intense and the amount you have to learn is intense.
Will: Now, some people might be hearing you say that. And people get reactions like this all the time. It’s like, really? You’re going to complain about
Kristin: Back in my day, we didn’t have work hour restrictions. Not even that,
Will: but more like specific to ophthalmology.
Oh. Really? You’re an ophthalmologist? You’re going to complain about this? So tell, tell the people, tell the people.
Kristin: Look, I don’t have any other point of reference. I can’t speak to [00:36:00] what the other specialties were like, but ophthalmology residency is was way different than ophthalmology attending hood, right?
Like private practice ophthalmology. Um, it was a lot of call. actually, uh, where you actually had to, you know, go see patients and, and like overnight emergencies and open globes and all sorts of disgusting things. The things that you came home, I would always, you know, you can’t give like details, like identifying details, but, but I would hear sometimes, you know, your side of a phone conversation and I could, you know, kind of get a sense of like, Oh, this patient had something really horrible happen.
And so then sometimes I would ask when he would come back, you know, are they going to be OK or whatever? And I would hear some of the details. And it was just all the things that can happen to an [00:37:00] eyeball. In all the different ways they can happen. So
Will: many things can happen to an eyeball. So,
Kristin: it’s way more than I would have guessed.
I’ll just put it that way. And as you were at like a level one trauma center too.
Will: Oh man, we got so many things. I mean, it’s all so many farmers too at Iowa.
Kristin: Yeah. So lots of like
Will: freak
Kristin: accidents and car crashes where your face gets destroyed. And yeah, just ugh. Horrible things
Will: destruction. Yeah,
Kristin: so no a residency was was a whole different beast than what it’s been like Since you’ve been yeah
Will: now as a private practice ophthalmologist make fun of me all day.
Yeah, that’s totally deserved. Well, yeah
Kristin: Yeah,
Will: well within reason to give me all everything you got but all those
Kristin: ophthalmology residents out there Do not deserve That which is which is
Will: why I is
Kristin: they are working very hard as are their partners by the way Covering all the other parts of life
Will: [00:38:00] exactly
Kristin: while they’re in the hospital,
Will: but that’s why you’d like there are certain things I don’t make fun of in any of my skits.
Mm
Kristin: hmm,
Will: you know, I will never make fun of A residency program as being easy.
Kristin: Right. I don’t think any of them are easy. That’s an oxymoron.
Will: None of them are easy residency, no residency, even dermatology, .
Kristin: Yeah. It’s
Will: all hard. Right? It’s all hard. ’cause you have such a, a limited amount of time, unless you’re a neurosurgeon, a limited amount of time to learn an entire field.
I mean Right. Even it’s probably for neurosurgery, it’s probably a, you know, a lot. And seven, it’s a dense field. Yeah.
Kristin: Yeah. It’s, it’s a bit. It’s a lot to know there. It’s a bit much. Yeah. It’s a bit much.
Will: Uh, like, maybe separate the brain into, like, halves. I don’t know, just, like, do it, like Well,
Kristin: it is separated, but it does, you know, that’s
Will: true.
Kristin: It’s got two hemispheres, but they are connected.
Will: I still remember some of that. What
Kristin: are they connected by?
Will: The corpus callosum.
Kristin: There you go. All right. [00:39:00]
Will: Anyway, it’s all hard. Residency is hard. And, uh, but it, it does end eventually as Bill pointed out. But it’s
Kristin: also because I feel like we have to say this because it’s the beginning of a medical year.
There’s a lot of people starting residency right now. It is also, it is one of the hardest. Times of your life, and it is also a very positive and meaningful time of your life as well. It’s both at the same time
Will: That’s very well said. Well, that was lore talk glock talk. Yeah,
Kristin: we should do some more characters if people like it Let us know we can talk about other
Will: On all the the background knowledge you need to understand all these characters if you’re just curious That’s right.
Exactly.
Kristin: Yeah. Let us know who you wanna know about.
Will: You can email us, knock knock high@humancontent.com. Visit us on all our social media platforms. Uh, hang out with us and the Human Content Podcast family and Instagram and TikTok at Human Content Pods. Uh, thanks to all the listeners leaving feedback and [00:40:00] reviews.
Uh, if you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube, we can give you a shout out. Um, so let us know. And then, uh, full video episodes are up every week on our YouTube channel. The Glockum Fleckens.
Kristin: That’s right. Just a reminder that it has moved.
Will: Brand new, brand new channel. It’s great You can find all the podcast clips and everything.
Knock, knock eyes, knock, knock highs Interviews, all the things. Glock talks. We also have a Patreon. Lots of cool perks, bonus episodes, react to medical shows and movies We’re there, active in it. Early ad free episode access, interactive Q& A, live stream events We got to film a couple of eye exams, too. Yeah.
Where we’re going. That’s
Kristin: coming up We’re gonna react to some medical shows and stuff. Medical shows
Will: all over the place Uh, Patreon. com slash GalaganFlecken, or go to GalaganFlecken. com. Speaking of new page, uh, Patreon, community perks, new member shoutout. Alright, we got some new members here. Ready? Ken S.,
Alyssa L., Jack K., Dina W., Nico D., Jonathan G., David H., and Tiana S. [00:41:00] Welcome all the new members. Always love seeing a new Jonathan.
Kristin: Mmm, yes, that is always fun. That’s great.
Will: Shoutout to all the Jonathans, by the way. A virtual head nod to you all. Patrick, Lucia C, Sharon S, Omer, Edward K, Steven G, Jonathan F, Marion W, Mr.
Garandetti, Caitlin C, Brianna L, KL, Keith G, JJH, Derek N, Mary H, Susannah F, Ginny G, Oh, Jenny J.
Kristin: You were doing so well. I know, Mohamed
Will: K, Aviga, Parker, Ryan, Mohamed L, David H, Jack K, Medical Meg, Bubbly Salt, and Pink Macho. Patreon roulette time. Random shoutout to someone on the emergency medicine tier, Nicole G.
Thank you for being a patron, and thank you all for listening. We are your hosts, Will and Krista Flannery, also known as the Glockofocus. Executive Producers are Will Flannery, Krista Flannery, Aron Korney, Rob Goldman, and Shahnti Brooke. Editor in Engineer Jason Portizzo. Our music is by Omer Ben Zvi. To learn about our Knock Knock Highs, Program Disclaimer, Ethics, Policies, Admission, Verification, Licensing, Terms, and HIPAA Release Terms, go to Glockenflicken.
com or reach out to us at [00:42:00] knockknockhigh at human content. com with any questions, concerns, or fun medical puns. Night Night Chi is a human content production.
Goodbye.
Kristen, what would you say is the most important part of my job as an ophthalmologist?
Kristin: Helping people see better.
Will: That’s a much better answer than getting home at five o’clock every day.
Kristin: Yeah. I mean, I do like that part too. That’s good.
Will: The most important part of my job is not clinical documentation.
Kristin: Right. That is the most worst part of your job.
Will: I have to do it. It’s important, but I like doing other things too. Like restoring eyesight, talking to my patients, developing those relationships.
Kristin: Looking at them in the eyes. Yes.
Will: You know, it helps me do that. The DAX co pilot. Yeah. [00:43:00] It’s, it’s ambient technology, AI powered.
It helps me actually like maintain those relationships. I can actually develop. Uh, a rapport with patients that you can’t do otherwise.
Kristin: People tend to prefer it when you’re looking at them when you talk instead of typing.
Will: 80 percent of patients say their physician is more focused with DAX Copilot. 85 percent say their physician is more personable and conversational.
Kristin: Well, how about that? You could use a little help in that area. I
Will: need a little, a little boost from time to time. To learn more about the Nuance Dragon Ambient Experience or DAX Copilot, visit nuance. com slash discover DAX. That’s N U A N C E dot com slash discover D A X.
