Transcript
Will: [00:00:00] Knock,
knock, knock. Hi, welcome everybody to Knock-knock. Hi, with the Glock Pluckings. I as usual am Dr. Glock Flecking. I’m Lady Glock Flecking and we are excited that you’re here with us today. Today we are talking to a native t. We’re excited. Yeah. Because I’m a native Texan. You are. And you are not a native Texan, but you did grow up in Texas.
Kristin: I spent a lot of time
Will: there. Yes. I grew up outside of Houston, and we’ll talk about that in the show today. Uh, but Kristen, uh, grew up in Dublin, Texas. You did just say, you don’t have to say it with an Irish accent. Like I just tried to do, tried to operative keyword there. Very much failed to do. Mm-hmm.
It’s a very small
Kristin: town. It is. It’s, it’s rural. It’s, um, in the, in the dairy country. I guess you could, there’s a lot of dairy industry there, or at least there was at the time. I can’t, [00:01:00] I’ve not been back in, gosh, probably 20 years or more. So I don’t know what’s going on there now. Best
Will: known for Dublin, Dr.
Pepper. Yep. At the time. Would people ever, do people even know what the Yeah,
Kristin: I think so. Well, I don’t, like I said, I haven’t been there in over 20 years. What
Will: us know if you’ve heard of Dublin, Dr. Pepper. That’s right. It’s like an original Dr. Pepper bottling plant. Well, it’s not original, and they, but they used like the original, like the sugar, like the recipe, the
Kristin: original, the recipes.
What was special about it. But you worked there, didn’t you? No. You think that every single time we talk about it, that was like, we’ve
Will: only been married for like 15
Kristin: years. That was my brother. He worked at the soda shop. Oh, your brother did? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, I never worked there. Um, but yeah,
Will: you got to enjoy all the, the fun moments of rural life though.
Kristin: Yeah. Yeah, I did. And you know, we talk in this episode some about how, you know, certain things are for some people and not for others. And, um, I am very much a city person that was [00:02:00] held captive for my entire childhood in, um, dairy country in central Texas, in the middle of nowhere. So, um, you know, I, I adapted and I, I got along just fine, but it wouldn’t have been my first choice.
Um, and you know, you know very well that I don’t like bugs. Oh yeah. I have. Just a, it just huge irrational fear of, I think you, any kind of arachni
Will: for the most part. You have, you have legit
Kristin: arachnophobia. Legit arachnophobia. Yes. Like for
Will: real, which makes our upcoming trip to Australia. I’m terrified. I’m
much
Kristin: more, I can’t even be excited because I’m just worried about the spiders
Will: and, and it’s, and that’s partly why I think we love, or at least you love living.
I mean, I love it too, but why you love living in Oregon? Because
Kristin: far fewer bugs and the ones that are here are usually pretty tiny and harmless. Yeah.
Will: Very few bugs. Yep. Very few bugs. Little tiny spiders, but nothing. Yeah, yeah. Nothing major.
Kristin: Right. I still don’t even like [00:03:00] those
Will: tiny ones as, as opposed to Texas.
Kristin: Yeah. You got. What you got, like, you know those wolf spiders? Yeah. Those wolf were very common. And they’re like, what? How big is that? Would you say? Like, uh, I don’t know, three or four. You got tarantulas. Oh god. Those two, uh, flashbulb memory and driving large roaches driving down the road. Just country roads, dirt roads.
Right. And there was just giant tarantula right in the middle of it. And I mean, we’re talking like, like larger than a softball sized tarantula.
Will: Yeah. I believe it cuz my, you know, my, my mom’s side of the, or my mom and dad, both sides of the family are from West Texas. Yeah. And so I, my mom I think told a story once about her brother.
Taken like a, a can of starch. Yep. A whole can of starch to a tarantula.
Kristin: Yep. This is the thing little boys
Will: would do in Texas. Texas to a tarantula, like sprayed the, the whole can of starch on a tarantula and it just froze. Mm-hmm. I don’t know how true that is, but I, I’d believe it. I guess
Kristin: [00:04:00] it’s like, you know, when you do the magnifying glass and you burn ants, it’s kind of one of those, it’s in that same ballpark of mm-hmm.
Things to do.
Will: And you had a, you had a run in with a, with a scorpion too. Yeah. Aren’t,
Kristin: by the way, aren’t those in the, in the same family as spiders. Spiders. I feel like they are, they have any legs, don’t they? I don’t, I dunno. Anyway, somebody could tell us in the comments, but Yeah, we, they entomologists let’s help us side.
That’s right. Are there any entomologists listening to this medical
Will: podcast that’s, spiders aren’t necessarily, aren’t technically insect’s true? I don’t know what you call a spider specialist or orach neurologist. I don’t, I don’t know.
Kristin: Who knows? That’s something for, for another time. Um, But yes, I did. I had several run-ins with scorpions out where we lived.
Um, I remember one, hi, must have been, I don’t know, maybe five or six years old. And there was a scorpion on my carpet in my bedroom, um, just on the floor. But I had never seen or heard of a scorpion before I was new to me. Uh, we had just moved to Texas [00:05:00] from the west coast. Um, so I just saw this thing kind of moving out of the corner of my eye, right?
It was very camouflaged cuz it was the exact same color as my carpet. And I, I just saw this like movement and I went over and I couldn’t really make out what, what it was that was on the carpet and I’d never seen one before. And so I just reached out and touch. Which was not the thing to do. It did not appreciate that.
And it, um, stung me. Do you call it stinging? Yeah, I think so. It’s just got a stinger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So was it painful? It was, yes. I cried a lot. Uh, my grandfather was there at the time though, visiting and um, he, he was a doctor and so he just used what we had in our kitchen. It was pretty, pretty ingenious actually.
He made like this baking soda paste, like baking soda and water until it’s a paste and then you just like put it on. It worked. Kinda draws the poison out. Yeah, draws it out. Exactly. Interesting. So that worked. Um, so yeah, so that was, that was [00:06:00] one day. And then like, I think, I feel like these were close together in time, but maybe not.
Um, there was another time where my younger brother, who’s like a year younger than me was sleeping in his bed, but his bed was just like on the floor. You know how I lay a little kid sometimes they just sleep mattress on the floor and that’s it. And. Middle of the night, he just starts screaming bloody murder.
And he’s this little guy, right? Like he’s four or five, something like that. And you know, of course everybody gets woken up and runs in there to see what’s going on. He had been stung by a pregnant No, no, no, no. Um, a newly, a new mom scorpion.
Will: A new scorpion mom,
Kristin: and all of her babies, which are just like sitting the babies sit on their backs.
Oh, this is giving me creeps, just talking about it. But the babies just sit on the back. And, and so she had all these babies and she, and all the babies had just gone to [00:07:00] town on my sleeping brother. Oh, poor kid. He must have, he probably like rolled over onto them or something. Oh, I just, oh, it was horrible.
Will: Oh. So as we cover in the show today, this and other reasons, you know, visit Texas, look, some
Kristin: people really like Texas. I have. I’m not gonna try to convince you not to. It’s just, it, it wasn’t for me. Oh, not
Dr. Aubrey Nath: for That’s
Will: fair enough. It’s not for everyone. Yeah. My only, my only, um, one more thing we, we, we gotta get on from this, but, uh, the, the, the only, uh, scorpion story, or really the only thing I remember about Scorpions growing up is the, the movie, how I Shrunk The Kids Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
Oh, that’s it, honey, I Shrunk. The Kids, uh, I think they have like an encounter with a giant Scorp. In that movie. I don’t remember In the yard that they’re in. Yeah. I could just be making that up. Yeah. But I really feel like there’s like some, so your only
Kristin: experience
Dr. Aubrey Nath: was a
Will: movie? Yeah. Well, I must, I was a city kid.
Like I, I grew [00:08:00] up in the suburbs. I didn’t, I didn’t encounter scorpions growing up. You did, unfortunately. I sure did. All right. Let’s get to Dr. Audrey Nath here. So Dr. Nath is a neurologist in Houston. Yes. And, um, a very accomplished, multi-talented individual. Uh, she’s an MD PhD. Uh, did, uh, her training at Harvard and ended up in Texas.
And, uh,
Kristin: she’s an author, author musician. Lots of things. She’s a, such an
Will: overachiever. I know. And she’s also done a little writing, uh, for Gomer blog. Yeah. Which is something that we have in common. I, I, that’s like, when I first started doing medical comedy, I was writing these satire articles for Gomer blog, so That’s right.
It’s,
Kristin: this thing was like the onion, but for medical professionals, so maybe some of you
Will: remember it. And she’s done a lot of, uh, of, of kind of multimedia stuff in her field as well, and neurology, you know, um, you know, doing podcasts and interviewing people about, uh, neurologic issues and just it’s really wide ranging, um, lots of [00:09:00] talent here.
Kristin: Yes. She’s very talented, very smart. Lots of funny stories.
Will: So let’s get to it. All right, let’s do it. Here’s Dr. Audrey Nath.
All right. Audrey, Audrey Nath. Dr. Nath, thank you so much for joining us. Uh, it’s, it’s a pleasure to talk to you and, uh, yeah, we’re happy to have you here. This is great. Huge fan. Well, we’re a huge fan of yours. Okay. So you, you, you are, uh, like lots of ground pretty incredible stuff here. I, I take it. You’ve been, do you do, do you watch the videos?
The Yes. The block and plucking skits
Dr. Aubrey Nath: and stuff? Yes. My husband watches them. The in-laws watch them. They’re not even doctors. They don’t even care. Oh, they’re
Will: not doctors. Those are my favorite. I love, I love it when the non-doctors and people who are don’t have, do not care about healthcare really whatsoever.
It doesn’t even matter for no reason. Don’t even care. It’s, it’s good to know. Well, I, I, I’m glad you like it just [00:10:00] because I’m, I’m, uh, you know, the, um, the neurologist. Character is, is kind one of the more interesting characters and relatable. Glad that, uh,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: so awkward and so relatable to me personally.
Will: Good.
It doesn’t offend you. That’s great. Not all.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: You know, there’s a, do
Will: you wear bow tie? What kind boats? What, what kind of outfit are you, are you rocking at, at
Dr. Aubrey Nath: work? Ah, yeah, that’s the thing. I guess a lot of this doesn’t really translate to women so well, you know, a lot of the first in general also just dresses and de fleece.
Will: Well, you know, I am, I am like playing myself like, you know, in for every single character. So he doesn’t make a very pretty woman. There’s only so, so many things Kristin does can do from an outfit. Kristin, with that, she does absolutely thank God much better than me. You know, you have, you and Kristen actually have something in common.
Both of you, uh, decided, uh, started a PhD program. Uh, and decided that, uh, it was awful. Apparently I did. You did it. Yeah, I did it, yeah. And, and it [00:11:00] was, it was rough. That’s
Dr. Aubrey Nath: all right. Shout up to my PhD advisor. We still talk. He’s cool.
Kristin: It’s not for everyone and there’s, there’s not a lot of like way to find out whether it will be for you other than just to try it.
Yeah. So yeah,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: you have no idea, right? You don’t really know what it entails. It’s
Kristin: certain for me, right, because you think you can do all the, you can, you know, do the undergrad research, maybe even get a master’s degree, but those are all different things.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Yes. So
Will: did you, uh, what did you do your
Dr. Aubrey Nath: PhD in? So I was studying multi three integration.
So basically audio visual, weird illusions, really obscure illusions, like the McGirk effect where if someone, oh, ooh, ba, but you. I’ve realized people can’t see the video, but if you don’t really mouth the bob, but you mouth G people will hear something weird like duh. Anyways. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it’s like multi-centered sensory centers.
So basically I made tons and tons of videos of myself talking like this and showed them to my friends as they were in a functional MRI scanner. That was you’re fun at parties. That’s [00:12:00] awesome. Like, watch me talk.
Will: There’s, there’s some of those in, in multiple sclerosis. Uh, especially with people that have, um, optic neuritis.
You know, that’s, I’m not gonna, yeah. I’m not neuro-ophthalmology is not my like forte. You think it would be because the eye is so small, like I should know everything. But, um, there is actually a lot of neuro-ophthalmology. I’m, I’m kind of hazy on. I should know too. I’m a neurologist, but I don’t, I think there’s some of those, yeah, maybe between the two of you figure visual illusions.
It’s like, there’s one where it’s, it’s like you, you feel like things are, an object is moving in front of you when it’s, or it’s moving in like a, an ellipse when it’s really in a straight line or there’s like weird things like that. Oh, that’s cool. Nerve, uh, it’s too complicated for
Dr. Aubrey Nath: me. Should have like done a rotation.
Will: You know, neuro-ophthalmologist. I’ve done that. I mean, oh well if you want it. You know what, we only have like one in this entire state and so you, yeah, that’s not too late. I think there are maybe three neuro-ophthalmologist total, like exaggerating? Pretty much. Pretty much. But, so we’d love [00:13:00] for you to totally change your career path if you want.
Go back and do some additional training instead of reading EGS from home, which, you
Dr. Aubrey Nath: know, is that what you’re doing now? Yeah, man, I can’t believe, like everyone doesn’t do this in medicine. Highly recommend. You should do.
Will: It’s, it’s been like 10 years since you’ve actually found anything on there, right? Or do you actually see stuff on EEGs?
Yes.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Occasionally catch seizures, yes. But a lot of them are, there are generalized background lowing, you know, and you can kind of hear the reports in your mind. And they all sound kind of similar like
Will: that. Are you, so you’re, you’re just, you do that full-time, like that’s pretty, like, that’s a big part of your
Dr. Aubrey Nath: job.
Most of my job is reading various types of signals on a computer screen at my house as a neurologist. So guys listening out there, it is an option if you’re a doctor. I just wanna like look at signals. You can, where I do from home doctor. I mean, sounds like neurologist. Yeah. Highly. I
Will: didn’t, yeah, I honestly didn’t know that was a possibility.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: I kind of didn’t until the head of residency. Yeah, seriously. They don’t talk about this. They like, don’t want you [00:14:00] to know what doctors don’t want, you know? Is this how,
Will: how did you come across the work from home? Neurology position, knew a couple people doing it. How, how’d you know that was a
Dr. Aubrey Nath: career option for you?
Oh, you know, somebody just talked me into epilepsy. I just kind of flitted from one thing to another and so one day I sat down. Someone and she said, you should do epilepsy. Like, okay. So I signed up for that fellowship and they were like, you should do clinical neurophysiology and epilepsy. That’s one year each.
Okay. Uh, and it turns out this is a job option. From there, there’s a few people who had also bailed and done this before and I got their names and I talked to them and they’re like, yeah, it’s great. Like, okay. Yeah. It’s like the secret in academics, there’s so many secrets in academics. You’re not even supposed to leave academics.
Kristin: That’s, you go to private practice, that’s like much less work last for me. Yeah,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: right. Exactly right. You know what I’m talking about. Yeah. I do know you break
Will: in the mold. That’s, that’s
Dr. Aubrey Nath: good. I, you went to private practice. I, I’m sure your program director’s mad, right? Still to this day.
Will: You know what I, but, but I never flirted with, with, uh, yeah.
I
Kristin: don’t think anyone thought he was gonna be an academic. I,
Will: I’m not an, [00:15:00] I’m the, I’m the kind of guy that, um, that really tried to fake his way through journal club. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Research
Dr. Aubrey Nath: is not wife recipe so hard. That’s so great. Oh yeah. Kristin amazing. My job.
Will: It’s, uh, I, you know, I’ll read the abstract and then, you know, be like, you know, I, I totally agree with what Kristen said.
I just wanna say Yeah, I totally, I get it. That’s exactly right. We need, so your
Dr. Aubrey Nath: program’s not mad at you right now?
Will: No, no, that’s fine. I think he saw this coming. They’re fine with it. Well, I wanted, you know, the thing is, I, I, at the end of the residency, I was done. Like, I was like, I, I’m done with training.
I can’t, I can’t do anymore. I want to go out and get a job. So it was easier for me to, because we always need like community ophthalmologists out there, uh, who are just kind of will do, I’m a comprehensive ophthalmologist. I’ll just, whatever people walk in through the door with, I’ll just take care of it.
Um, and so
Kristin: will you, you just send them on to someone else,
Will: essentially? Well, yeah. If it’s crazy, right? I love doing that. That’s my favorite thing to do. Me too. It’s like, look, I know so many people that are a lot smarter than me, [00:16:00] who you could benefit from. And so I’ll, I’ll send, I’ll do that. But if I, if I had gone the fellowship route, I think when you go into fellowship, that’s when they probably push you a little bit harder.
Like, ah, man, are you sure you want to go in, uh, to evil private practices or do That’s right. You want to, you know, do something worthwhile with your
Dr. Aubrey Nath: life. Oh, what’s worse than that is since yikes uch. That was Agich. Yeah. Um, but true, uh, I mean since I did the MD PhD program there, it’s made very clear to you, you’re basically a failure if you don’t go and become an r o one funded researcher who does research 80% of the time.
Yes. So anything outside of that, Like a failure, you know? So I, right,
Kristin: that’s like, that was, I did my PhD program. I was a b d I went all the way through all the classes, all the comps, all the dis dissertation, everything. For those of you didn’t catch that. Yes, that’s right. That’s right. I just, I had to, you know, just do that small little project.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before I whatevs, before I graduated, and that was this, you know, I realized kind of halfway in that this was not the, the job for me, the [00:17:00] lifestyle for me, just, you know, it’s for some people and not for others. And, and it wasn’t for me, and that’s fine. Uh, but that was very much the, the sentiment across disciplines.
I got a master’s degree from an Ivy League University, and I felt like the biggest failure because of that culture. It’s brain brainwashing.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: It’s so silly. And it is across discipline. Seriously. It’s not just Oh, sure. Yeah.
Kristin: That was in, that was in psychology. That wasn’t even in medicine,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: so it’s everywhere.
It’s like, okay, I gotta do, uh, residency somewhere really big name. Okay, I’ll go to Harvard, whatever. And that was cool, I guess. And then I did two fellowships, even though I probably didn’t have to. And then I took the faculty position and then I was doing the grants and then I was like, I don’t wanna do this anymore.
So yeah, then I just kind. Took a sledge timer to all of it and I read that me,
Kristin: but see it turns out okay, now you have this sweet job. I’ve got this sweet job dude. So anybody out there who’s in the middle of something, grant C, feeling like that’s, that’s
Dr. Aubrey Nath: did not where I did not always. Thank you. Yeah, that
Kristin: is right.
Thank you for that. Yes. It’s timely, right? Cuz this is around match season. [00:18:00] So you know, if you’re not, today’s block March. I know. Yeah. As we’re recording this, the
Dr. Aubrey Nath: video. Oh my God. Yeah. Thanks for
Will: doing that. Yes. Yeah. Put out a, um, a video I had made about a year ago. So today is, uh, for everybody listening, it’s match day today.
So this, this, by the time this episode comes out, you know, it’ll be like a month later, but it’s like a scrambled
Dr. Aubrey Nath: day, I guess. It’s the day you find out you
Will: matched. It’s, it’s the day you find out all the med students in the country find out if they matched. And, uh, it’s a very extremely stressful highs and lows.
Right? Yeah. Very excited. And then just devastated students. And so last year I made a video for, specifically for students. Don’t match. Uh, just to give them a little bit of encouragement. So I reposted that. Uh, so if, you know, if you’re interested, it was the, the medical student goes to therapy. So that was, that was the, yeah.
For the video. You’re here.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Great to see. Yeah. Right.
Kristin: You should come here more. But it’s, it’s like such, such, I don’t know, brainwashing for lack of a better term, but just you’ve be, you’ve put so much into it, and it’s been so many years and so much time, [00:19:00] and so much effort and so much money or loans, um, that you feel like you’re, you’re just completely devastated if it doesn’t work out, like you have no other options and now what will you do?
And, and it, you know, it can be a really big problem for people in their mental health, but I think you and I, Dr. Nath are proof that, uh, even if your first plan doesn’t work out, that doesn’t mean that you’re not gonna end up doing something even better.
Will: Absolutely. Do I Come on a Glock Flecking podcast. I mean, yes.
You know what? It it, it all works out in the end. Take that.
Kristin: Take that. Take that.
Will: Yes. So you, you did your MD PhD, all of that, all of it at Harvard, right? No, no, that was at
Dr. Aubrey Nath: UT Houston and then, um, child neurology at
Harvard.
Will: Oh, in residency? Yeah. Okay, gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. And every time I talk to, you know, cuz I have to do a lot of research for all these different, um, in order to put these videos that sound like I know what I’m talking about, actually, I have to do research for these specialties and I always learn about these new fellowships that are being [00:20:00] like, invented so many.
And it just, it’s, it’s to the point now, I really think you could do training until you retire if you wanted to. I’ve seen
Dr. Aubrey Nath: PGY elevens.
Will: They’re author. It’s is, it speaks to how, uh, subspecialty, for
Kristin: those who don’t know, PGY means post-graduate year. That means 11 years after you have graduated medical school, which is four years after you have graduated from university.
So that’s just like, you’re a 50 year old student at that point.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Pretty much. And after md, PhD, then definitely, yes. Oh yeah, right. Yeah.
Will: You’re like in your forties because how many years? So it’s, it’s the four years of med school and then an additional three.
Thankfully,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: my PhD was already fast at three years, but oftentimes it’s much longer than that.
It’s pretty fast For PhD, it, I, I wasn’t doing a mouse knockout, thank, thankfully, so, yeah. Yeah.
Will: And then, so epilepsy, I knew that, I knew that fellowship existed, so it’s, but clinical nerve is, you didn’t know. You know that existed. I did not know what, so clinical neurophysiology, can you help me?
Dr. Aubrey Nath: It’s kind of a historical thing.
[00:21:00] So basically it’s back in the day, people used to read EEGs and EMGs for muscles and sleep studies and intraoperative monitoring, which is my main job these days. Nobody really does. All four. People just tend to do one or the other, but it’s a historic holdover and they told me I needed to do it, so I did.
Lots of thought that I put into this career, you know? Yes.
Will: Clearly proud of me. You’re very suggestible. Okay. I was, what other photo fellowships could they have con, you know, convinced
Dr. Aubrey Nath: you to do pretty much anything? Just a really confident person sat down with me and was like, you need to do this. And I was like, okay.
And I texted my friends. They’re like, you put
Will: it that way,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: I guess. So it’s, I think a lot of people make a lot of really ridiculously huge career decisions. Mm-hmm. In kind of a similar way when you think about it. No,
Kristin: I totally agree. Yeah. No one really knows what they’re doing. Especially
Dr. Aubrey Nath: you’re in your twenties, they only know.
Will: Yeah. Yeah. The only reason I, uh, was am an ophthalmologist because I just, my, my clinical advisor when I, my first day of med school just happened to be an ophthalmologist. No [00:22:00] way. She was like, yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm. She was like, we just kinda
Kristin: groomed him the whole way through that
Will: school grooming as appropriate.
Yes. I I was like 22, 23. 22. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I, I remember like talking with her the for the first time and be like, oh, what do you do? And, and she was like, I’m an ophthalmologist. I was like, is what is that eyes? Is that, that’s where I, that is so great. Started in med school, but it’s not, you’re
Dr. Aubrey Nath: like 22 years old.
Your frontal lobe is not fully myelinated, by the way, at 22 years old. Right. Not until 25. And you’re making these huge decisions. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, that was, doesn’t make any sense. Good
Will: job there. I mean, it worked that good. I’m, I’m happy with it. Yeah, we got lucky. So you said you do intraoperative monitoring?
See, I thought it was all, I thought it was all, um, like outpatient EEGs. Oh.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: So I do read ambulatory EEGs from my house and things like that. Okay. Intraoperative monitoring. Basically when someone’s getting spine surgery, they can send some signals during the case, like tickling the foot essentially and seeing if there’s a sensory signal or buzzing the motor cortex and seeing if the foot moves essentially.[00:23:00]
And if those signals start to go away during the surgery, then you tell the surgeon, surgeon, stop doing whatever you just did. Stop putting traction on that thing. The cord is clearly not getting any perfusion. And they’re like, okay, I’ll stop doing what I did, or whatever. I don’t know. It’s through chat, so I don’t really know what they say anyways.
And so then you can monitor that from home. And then I can also read e. And then write and stuff. Oh, and do other things and write music. Right. Every well that sounds, that
Will: sounds, that sounds stressful. The, the operative monitoring. Yeah. I mean, but I’m
Dr. Aubrey Nath: not the surgeon. I’m sure it’s stressful for the guy in the room still, I’m sure.
Yeah. Probably would be poor one out for the neurosurgeons out there.
Kristin: Seriously. I mean, yeah. That’s a, it’s a scary job, I would think. Yeah. You know, I’m glad. Mistake,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: and you can,
Will: I mean, those are long
Dr. Aubrey Nath: surgeries though, right? They can be, but see, I’m in my house. I’m sitting. Yeah. How does she care? That guy is, that’s true.
You
Will: know? That’s right. What is your work office like? It’s not, because it’s not like a, it’s a laptop. It’s like a reading house room. It’s not like a, like, like radiology. You have to be in a dark. No,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: no. Thankfully I would fall asleep. Yeah. It’s just my laptop, so it travels with me throughout my house.
[00:24:00] That’s.
Kristin: Really nice. Hey, I, we just had Eric Toon not too long ago. Yeah. And so this just makes me wonder, like, how long will you have a job before AI takes it over?
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Well, so far so good. You can’t sue a robot. Right. It’s easier to sue me. That’s true. To sue a robot, which is true, you know, think true for a lot of things.
Epilepsy and radiology and whatnot. Right. You know, I mean, right. I don’t know if a robot can replace any of what you do. I have no idea, actually.
Will: Um, that would be, I mean, I never say never. I don’t know. Who knows? That would
Kristin: be scary. Uh,
Will: but, um, you
Kristin: know, can robots have a sense of humor? I don’t know. Is that uniquely human?
Oh, I’d love to see,
Will: I mean, chat, chat G P T. Yeah. I feel like, uh, I, I have seen some chat. G p t Glock Flecking skits, but they’re, they’re really not very good. I
Dr. Aubrey Nath: think I’m safe. Yeah. Yeah.
Will: They’re, I did see one AI is not, is not great at satire yet. I feel like Faithful. Yeah. That’s great. That’s the most important thing.
All right. If it, if chat, g p t, if it gets that way. Well then they go
Dr. Aubrey Nath: through your [00:25:00] whole side hustle. Yeah, no, we’re done. For sure. We’re
Kristin: done. That was it. We’ve been a good run.
Will: Um, and so you are now, so you grew up in Houston because you know I grew up in Houston too. That’s right. Or the Houston area. I was in, I was at Deer Park.
Oh wow. Deer Park, Texas. Houston, yeah. That is quite industrial. Houston. Yep. Very industrial. Wow. We okay. Grew up, uh, with the permanent glow of the Pasadena refineries, just right there in the background nearby
Kristin: to chill. You, you know, it’s starting to make sense why you got cancer twice and had a cardiac arrest,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: but
Will: she, she’s trying to, trying to blame it on dogs.
She’s fact, she like tourism
Dr. Aubrey Nath: official for Deer Park, Kristin. Yeah. You know, it’s, I mean, seriously,
Will: it wasn’t just, it was infrequent when I would inhale, you know, toxic fumes
Kristin: just because you don’t go outside very much in, in
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Texas it’s, it’s very hot. You
Will: do winter’s great, but it’s true winter and quotation marks, yes, for sure.
Two weeks.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: That’s great. And where, so where did you grow up? [00:26:00] Houston, uh, west Houston. And now I live in Montrose, which I love. It’s great. It’s fun. The gay Pride Parade goes through it. It’s
Will: great. Yeah. Yeah. It’s fairly walkable. Must be a fun place to Yeah, it’s fun. Yeah, that’s, that’s, I hear it. Houston has changed a lot cuz it’s been about.
God, how many years It’s been since, oh my God, 15 years. 2004. Since you lived there. Long time since I’ve Oh, wow. Lived 20 years. Lived, spent a significant amount of time in Houston. Um, and God, I’m feeling really old right now.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: I know. I mean, you are. It’s fine.
Will: It’s, I know I am, but I, I, I feel like it’s gotten younger, like Houston as is like it just getting more interesting and Yeah, for sure.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: There’s a great food scene if you ever come by.
Will: So you should, where everybody should go, should go to Houston. You need to go just for food? Yeah, just for, just, yeah. The weather is a little bit. Just go in the winter. There’s lots of mosquitoes. Yeah. Come, come in
Dr. Aubrey Nath: December. The bugs.
Kristin: Yeah. Yeah. December’s bugs.
Oh my gosh. Let’s not talk about the
Dr. Aubrey Nath: roaches. I once paid a kid $5 to come to my apartment when I was an intern and get rid of a roach in my [00:27:00] apartment. Oh, I, I.
Kristin: That was money well spent, did it. Those things are huge. If you have never seen a Texas cock Roach. That’s right. See? Yes. You think we’re overreacting?
They’re what? What is that? Two and a half inches long. I long, I don’t even know. Mm-hmm. And they’re like probably a good inch, inch and a half
Dr. Aubrey Nath: wide thick. This is really what I learned. An intern ear, right? Yeah. I would buy a fogger. If I needed to get rid of Agich, I would buy a fogger and fog the whole.
Yeah. To kill one
Kristin: roach. For one roach for sure. That’s right. His mom, she gifted us one of these too, but she has a roach zapper where it’s like a little handheld vacuum thing. It’s a roach vacuum that like electrocutes the roach and then sucks it up.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Oh no. Into a tube. You got it backwards.
Kristin: Oh, I did It sucks it up.
Sucks
Dr. Aubrey Nath: it up. Then electrocutes it, but then
Kristin: it’s, don’t even know which is worse. I don’t use the tube also so that then you can just like dump it out into the trash or whatever this is. You don’t have to touch it.
Will: This is one of the things that she spent her American Express points on. Yeah.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Which
Kristin: I think was a solid
Will: choice.
It’s like $70,000. Get that one thing over [00:28:00] the course of like five years to get a roach back
Dr. Aubrey Nath: in and then she gave it to you.
Kristin: Well, no, she got herself one and she got her, she was so enthralled
Will: because she knows how much I hate them with the roach back. Oh wow. That she had to to gift us one. Yeah, so, so
Dr. Aubrey Nath: I’m considering about, it was a great Christmas.
It really was. Yeah. This would’ve improved my intern here, guys. It’s a gift when I needed one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See public service announcement. That’s right.
Will: No, but Houston’s great everyone, so you know, it’s, it, it really is.
Kristin: We’re making the radiation and the mosquitoes and the heat is great. Heat and the cockroaches
Will: to talk you.
But December’s great. Yes.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: So nice. It’s beautiful. The TexMex is good. Chinese food is good. All the food is good. Chinese yes,
Will: there’s, there’s, that’s true. There’s per capita, like the most restaurants in the world come just for that. Yeah. So UT Houston, that’s where you went to med school. That’s right. It’s, yeah.
And I know that you probably have a ton of stories from your time. Kinda as a med student doing rotations, I know that you did a, [00:29:00] also had to, you did an away rotation.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Oh, goodness. So in my, the peds two years of pediatrics that I did is in child neurology. You do two years of pediatrics and then three years of neurology.
Where the first year of neurology, adult neurology, um, yeah. My er rotation ended up being in Dallas, Texas. And you know, when you do er, you might do a bunch of day shifts followed by a bunch of night shifts. So a few of us, uh, a couple other residents who are in Dallas, who I’ve never met before or whatever, but we were working together.
There we’re about to flip over to nights, so we were thinking, okay, we need to stay up late to get ready for like four nights in a row and how are we gonna do that? And we’re in Dallas and one of them says, we get out a strip. I said, I’m game. We are doing this. It’s like a sociological experiment for me.
And the the two guys said, oh, okay. Oh, we didn’t think you’d say yes. I’m like, let’s do, and you don’t know
Kristin: each other,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: not very well from the shift. So we did. We went [00:30:00] out to a strip club in Fort Worth, Texas. This was like a Monday night, not the busiest night. Not very many people there. And I ended up just chatting with the girls, cuz at this point I had been pole dancing for exercise for many years.
And so we would just like sit with our phones and just be like watching tricks on YouTube. Like, oh, look at that one. And the guys were really disappointed. So that’s how that went. I had a great time.
Will: Were they wearing bicycle helmets or was this maybe, maybe, were they not? They weren’t fully fudged. They were,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: IM resident internal medicine residents that
Will: were rotating through the er.
Oh, I see, I see. All, I
Dr. Aubrey Nath: don’t, so I don’t know what your Im guy does. I don’t know if you have a general Im
Will: guy. I, I have done some, my general, IM person doesn’t really have like a unique uniform for costume. So these guys could have been a, i I separated out, into, into specialties. Right. So I’ve done a few, like general, IM, but you know, mostly just about curb sighting people.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Yes. So it, [00:31:00] it was two of those guys. Uh, gotcha. I had a lot of fun.
Will: The general, the, the, the strip club going type of person and an internal medicine doctor. Yes. That’s exactly what you’d expect.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Chill,
sit. And they didn’t cares on Monday night. They were like, oh, nothing’s gonna happen anyway. It was, it was great. Right.
Kristin: Oh, funny. That was, you
Will: know, UT Houston was where I was gonna go for, I know for, uh, med school.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: I took Texas. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Where did you
Will: go? Uh, I went to Dartmouth,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Lebanon, New
Kristin: Hampshire.
No. How do you know that? We didn’t even know that. We had to look it up. Oh, that’s right. You were up there. Yeah. That
Dr. Aubrey Nath: is very rural, my goodness.
Will: It’s very rural. It’s very, yes. And so, you know, I had to, cause we were, you know, we were in, we were finishing up actually, were we done with college at that point?
No. No. And I applied, we still, when you applied, we were in our last year anyway, we were at, [00:32:00] uh, we went to Texas Tech together. And so we were, you know, trying to figure out what we wanted to do and yeah, we’ve lived some
Kristin: nice places, let me tell you.
Will: Right, exactly. It’s, and so, uh, Kristen was like, Hey, let’s go to Dartmouth.
And so I had, uh, I was like, whoa, that’s an easy school to get into. I could do that. Or I could spend $9,000 per year instead of what? And stay in
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Texas. Yes, that’s right. Instead of 50. Yeah, for sure. Per year. So Well, you could have done md, PhD, like, and then they would’ve paid you. Yeah,
Kristin: that’s right.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: That’s
Will: right.
Yeah. That’s, that’s the deal. I had a friend of mine actually that started a PhD program. Well, MD PhD, right. Oh. Started an MD PhD, realized after the first two years, didn’t wanna do the PhD and just ditched, dipped out and so, so ditched it. But he got, so he had to pay back the first two years of tuition.
Okay. But he didn’t have to deal with like, a lot of the, um, the interest payments and stuff. So, so he saved two years of interest.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Actually, save Yes. Is like, he save two years of interest. Better than white [00:33:00] Co. Look right here. Pack. That’s right. Start an MD PhD. Dip out, pay it back. Save two years of interest.
No, no, no, no. Look at that. Be
Will: white Cosby, like white coat dives. This is not what you want for like, like financial advice. This offer. We’re gonna
Dr. Aubrey Nath: get in trouble if we officially recommend that. Yeah. That’s, that’s, oh, that’s right.
Will: For financial advice, don’t, don’t stay here. Don’t stay here for financial advice,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: please.
Kristin: As you just heard, he
Will: chose private. He should absolutely go. That’s cool. Do a,
Kristin: yeah. $9,000 a year public. Exactly. We’re not the financial people to listen to.
Will: No, no. Start a, start an MD PhD program. Then back out, so you save two years of
Dr. Aubrey Nath: interest payments. There we go. Every md PhD program directors, like, who are these people?
Will: No, no, no.
Kristin: Oh
Will: my goodness. So, yeah, we, uh, and uh, I think about Kristen every time I pay off, uh, some of my student
Kristin: loans. Oh, you know what? It paid off for you. It worked out
Will: okay. Yeah. Where would you be without me? I, I’m sure you had a lot. You enjoyed your time at
Dr. Aubrey Nath: UT Houston? I did. I made some really great friends.
You know, it’s a big
Will: class. It’s like [00:34:00] you had
Dr. Aubrey Nath: like 200 people Right? Class. It was around 200 people. And then, you know, during the PhD years, the ND PhD kids hang out together. We had this really large operation game that was functional, and so you’d use like these big lifting tweezers and get to fat operation movie, you know, those were our parties.
We also played a lot of taboo. It was a lot of board games and drinking, like, can I say that?
Will: That’s great. Four games and drinking. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Oh, I did so much drinking and the first two years Love New Hampshire School. Oh, yeah.
Kristin: Oh yeah. That’s all there is to do. The
Will: Dartmouth on New Hampshire, the Dartmouth culture kind of permeates everything around there.
And so
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Mindy Kaling talks about this. She
Will: about this. Mm-hmm. Tons of drinking. It was, I mean, you’re
Kristin: in the middle of nowhere in the woods and winter is like four years long. Yeah. So, and you may or
Dr. Aubrey Nath: may not, there’s not have board games other just drinking, see. Exactly. We had board games too. I
Will: think we did have some board games, but, um, they were drinking related board games.
I’m sure. So, yeah.
Kristin: Well they, I mean, they have their own version of [00:35:00] Pong, so any game they take,
Will: turn it into Dartmouth pong. So it’s, it’s like, it’s basically beer pong, but you play with, uh, ping pong paddles, so you’re actually like hitting the ball. Oh. So it’s just beer pong? It’s beer pong, but it’s like, but you’re not like tossing the ball.
There’s like a Oh, yeah. You’re, you’re hitting the ball back and forth. Oh, that’s too hard. Yeah,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: it’s, it’s hard. Oh my goodness.
Will: That would take so many hours of practice. I, I was not, I was not very good. And subsequently got incredibly drunk doing it. So there we go.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Maybe is better. I don’t know. We
Kristin: are not recommending That’s right.
Take
Dr. Aubrey Nath: these courses. No medical advice either, I guess, or educational advice.
Kristin: Just no advice at all here. There we go. Just laughs.
Will: Um, and so, so, uh, clearly, you know, lots of board games for you partying, first couple years of med school, uh, which we all in the
Dr. Aubrey Nath: grad school, there’s more flex there.
Will: Grad school.
Yeah. Was it, what, what was, what was who partied hardest? Ooh. Was it grad students or med students?
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Question. You know, I’d say you, during the PhD years, you watch all your friends match into residency, right? They all move on without [00:36:00] you. Yeah. And so then I had my friends that went into different fields and you could see what changed.
The anesthesia guys who I could not keep up with them, I wouldn’t try. I would be passed out, put it that way. I never party with the Opso people, so I don’t, I can’t compare for that. Um, It’s, I
Kristin: don’t even know. You were the only
Dr. Aubrey Nath: one. I guess there’s not that many of you, to be fair. There’s not that many I
Kristin: think.
Or maybe like one other person in your class very went into
Will: ophthalmology. Uh, but it was, uh, anesthesia makes sense. Um, and then probably emergency medicine. I imagine they, they get after it. I went with
Dr. Aubrey Nath: he Monk conference once a peds. Oh man. PT Monk. Ooh. Oh yeah. Yeah. Really? They see a lot and so they, they go out drinking.
Yeah. Okay. So
Will: everybody for to our listeners let us know who, which specialties you think party the hardest. I want hear this too. Yeah. I wanna see what happened. I know. We, we were just at a, a pharmacy conference in Canada and Ooh, they got after it. They
Kristin: did. Oh. [00:37:00] They seem like they are used to having, making time.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Good job.
Will: Who knew? That’s great. Um, alright, well let’s tell you, let’s take a quick break and then we’re going to come back with Dr. Audrey Nath.
Hey Kristen. What? We gotta talk about balls. Okay. Why? Because like our whole lives revolve around balls. How so? I’m an eye doctor. Okay. Eye eyeballs. And also I’ve had testicular cancer twice. Yes. Rude. And so even though I don’t have any balls left except the eyeballs, we got top balls. I got the top balls.
Uh, manscaped still sent me the lawnmower 4.0 electric tremor. Well that
Kristin: was nice. And it’s purple for Testicular Cancer Awareness Month.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: April,
Will: that’s right. Testicular Cancer Awareness Month. And Manscape has donated $50,000 to the Testicular Cancer Society. I love that society. Yeah, that’s a good one.
This thing is also waterproof. Oh, so you could take it in the
Kristin: shower.
Will: Yeah. A puddle bathtub. Uh, indie kind
Kristin: of tub. Hot tub. The
Dr. Aubrey Nath: baby
Will: tub, the ocean if you’d like. Oh. [00:38:00] Seems like a weird place to bring a trimmer. It does, but you don’t have to have balls even to, to use this thing. Oh, okay.
Kristin: Yeah. Well good cuz no one in this house, including the dog has
Will: any That’s true.
20. So get 20% off and free shipping with code kk h manscaped.com.
All right, we are back with Audrey Nath. And Audrey. Before I, I prepared a. A little game for us to play. Before we get to that though, I, I wanted to get to another one of your stories that you brought you, you were great. We asked you like come up with some like fun stories and we were just talking and didn’t get to them in the first segment, so I apologize.
Uh, it was just so much fun talking about like how awesome Houston, Texas is. I go on
Dr. Aubrey Nath: tangents, it happens. I’ve gotten that in my evals before. It’s okay.
Will: I’ve heard this, but I really like, I really like this one about adjusting from a trainee to an attending salary, so nobody talks
Dr. Aubrey Nath: about it.
Will: Right. Yeah. We should
Dr. Aubrey Nath: let, let’s talk about it now.
Oh yeah. [00:39:00] Here’s the, the real Finance podcast that everyone in medicine needs, right? So you go from being on loans or as an MD PhD student making $20,000 a year and stipend to being a resident. So it goes up a bit. And then being an attending, maybe in academics as I was, and then not in academics. Uh, so that salary goes out quite a bit.
And how do you adjust to that? So like, there’s these habits that I’ve had from when I’m making $20,000 a year that I have not given up at all. So I finished fellowship and I started on as an attending at Texas Children’s Hospital. And it’s the same place, right? So from June 30th to July 1st. I went from being a trainee to an attending, and I’m still the same person, but I, and I’m walking through the same places and I’m still getting breakfast every morning.
And my habit that I had developed was, I was always getting this little breakfast sandwich with a biscuit, and I eat the biscuit separately with jam. I know. I kind of deconstruct my food. That’s, that’s a little, it’s a little odd.
Kristin: I do that too. That’s okay. No, judge my hair. Thank you for
Dr. Aubrey Nath: making, and so I would order this every day, and as I got to the checkout line, it just became this habit that I would always hide the [00:40:00] jam packets under my last two fingers like this.
And hold the sandwich for, for those of you who can’t see the camera, I essentially would hide the jam packets under two of my fingers so it wasn’t visible to the cashier, so I wouldn’t have to pay an extra 10 cents.
Kristin: And this became such
Dr. Aubrey Nath: a habit I didn’t even realize I was doing it until several months into being an attending and realizing why am I stealing these jam packets?
I make over 10 times more than I did as a student. I can pay the 10 cents. I never got caught though, so that’s
Will: good. You never got caught stealing 10 cent jam packets. Good for you, man. You master, master thief right here. Yes, exactly.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Well done. See, but that’s the thing. Finance advice. No one ever talks about this.
Yeah. Where’s this is like a finance podcast. Now we’re talking about is, you know, everyone tells you gotta get disability insurance while you’re a trainee. The rates are lower. Yes. Yes. Okay. You gotta get term life insurance. What do you have kids? Right? So that your kids were absolutely, nobody talks about [00:41:00] what happens if you go to prison.
Right. Stealing scam packets. Sure. Or whatever. Or just disability. I Insurance doesn’t cover your lost wages when you’re in prison. Neither does term life insurance cuz you’re still alive. So there needs to be a product for prison insurance. You never know when you’re gonna get caught in a kickback scheme.
You don’t know. Okay. Maybe you do, actually. You probably, that’s a good point. But you might not. Yeah. Some light fraud here and there. That’s true. There needs to be a product on accident
Kristin: or purpose.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: That’s, this
Will: is just what we need. We need, uh, more ideas for different kinds of insurance. This is, it’s exactly what society needs right now.
That’s right.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: That’s right. It’s fantastic.
Will: It’ll go really well. Prison insurance, everybody’s brought to you by State Farm,
like a good neighbor, like a good, like a good in incarcerated cellmate. State Farm is there.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Don’t say I wasn’t trying to help people, you know. That’s great.
Will: You know, there’s some certain things that just never go away when you’re, when you become an [00:42:00] attending. Yeah. Like I, I will still find free food and I I will, I will seek out free food.
That’s right. I, I can’t get my brain to leave free food alone.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: You don’s surgeon and practice. Right. That’s right. We can
Kristin: afford, I could afford a, A sandwich.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Yeah, I could go. That’s
Will: fine. I could literally, I could get lunch anywhere I want, you know,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: I bought this at Good. I still shop at Goodwill. Yeah. See stuff like that, I can’t shake it.
Yeah. It’s just such a good deal. Yeah.
Kristin: They get, they get like beaten into you during Absolutely. That part of your life. So
Will: part of it mean it’s just like you just for so long you don’t, you don’t make any money. So it’s just a weird transition, you know? I guess
Dr. Aubrey Nath: now I’m in private practice, so if I’m in the fancy grocery store, part aisle to get one thing.
Yeah. And I need ketchup now, I’ll be like, okay, I’ll buy the fancy ketchup. I instead of walking across the store. So I have made that much. But
Kristin: it’s like a pep talk. You have to give yourself, I have to talk yourself through it. Indeed. It’s okay. Justice. Once
Will: nobody talks about this, hopefully the, hopefully the statute of limitations is, has [00:43:00] expired on your, um, on your stealing skiing.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: I hope so. Cause I don’t have prison insurance, so, because
Will: That’s right. You don’t Yes. You don’t have prison insurance. That’s right. Alright. Hey let’s, okay. We gotta get to this game. We could talk about stealing things all, all day. But, um, alright. So. You’re a neurologist. Yes. We’ve established this and so I thought we could do something.
I I’m an ophthalmologist, so this is also, this is a, a topic that really pertains to both of our areas That’s right. Of expertise. We are going to do a cranial nerve draft. Yes. All right. So here how it’s gonna go. Yes. We’re gonna take turns. I’m gonna let you start because you’re, you’re the guest. Oh, wow.
Uh, so you get first choice. We’re going to take turns picking cranial nerves and then, so we’re gonna each have a team. Of six cranial nerves each. Oh my goodness. Yes. And then what we’re gonna do is have our listeners,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: my whole life, my God,
Will: we’re gonna have a listeners tell us on social media, wherever who they think has the best cranial nerves.
Who, who, who [00:44:00] drafted, who got the best team, who drafted the best team that would, uh, lead to a somewhat normal existence in life. Oh, somewhat normal life? Yes. Or just fun? Or just like the best, like who, who won the draft? Who, who’s got the best cranial nerves, um, by any metric you want to put on that. So, okay.
Anyway, let’s do
Dr. Aubrey Nath: this. I’m gonna start with cranial nerve 10. I want that Vegas, I you need auto autonomic function. Mm-hmm. It’d kind of be tough to go through life without that. So I’m gonna start there. It’s not eye related. That’s a. It’s
Will: like all the auto, all the autonomic nerves. I’m like, why are you looking at me?
Kristin: I don’t
Will: know. Asks. I don’t remember. I don’t remember much. About 10. I don’t know,
Kristin: because it doesn’t have anything to do with eyes.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: It’s not 3, 4, 6.
Will: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Or two. All right. Yeah. Okay. Autonomic systems.
Kristin: I just, yeah, you gotta got, it’s like basic functioning for life’s.
Will: Yeah, it’s like regulating your
Kristin: like blood pressure temperature and stuff like that.
I think the game’s over, I think she won.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: No, no. Hold on. Now there’s, hold on now [00:45:00] there’s a few more that are pretty
Will: critical. Yeah, I sure are all Okay. Obviously I’m gonna go with cranial nerve two. Yeah. Okay. Haha. What’s that one do? That’s, oh, that’s the optic nerve. Okay. So, so predictable. You have, you know, you need your optic nerves to on brand, to do a lot on brand.
You don’t need it to live, but it’s, um, you know, a quality of life thing. So I enjoy eyeballs, so I’m gonna
Dr. Aubrey Nath: go with two. Okay. I’m next. Gonna do facial nerve, cranial nerve seven for moving your face, chewing good choice, keeping your eyes, you know, closed if you need to. Kind of helpful. Mm-hmm. Well that’s, that’s, that’s,
Will: that was high up on my list.
Mm-hmm. All right, so you got 10, you got vagus, you got facial nerve. Um, I’m going to go with three. Huh? Ocular motor nerve.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: That’s right. Okay. Most eye
Will: movements. So, um, it’s not just because the eye related cranial nerves are better. That is true, but this one’s a [00:46:00] really important one because it gives you your eye movements.
Mm-hmm. The vast majority of all of them, but the most important ones. Mm-hmm. Uh, and it also allows you to, um, your pupils to
Kristin: adjust. That’s true. I’m just, I feel like, um, yeah, just having my autonomic nervous system and being able to chew my food would both come higher in importance to me than being able to mo my eyeballs.
I’m just
Dr. Aubrey Nath: saying.
Will: Just saying, do you enjoy accommodating? I mean, I do. You enjoy
Dr. Aubrey Nath: reading? I enjoy. Do
Will: you enjoy seeing things, things up close? Because you wouldn’t be able to do it if you didn’t have the third grade order. I’m just saying.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: That’s true. There’s sympathetic nerves there that mm-hmm. That’s important.
Will: Mm-hmm. Okay, so I got, got two and three. You got seven and 10. What’s your next choice? Me,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: once again, I’m in Houston. It’s a food city. I’m gonna go with nine. I wanna be able to swallow it is what it is. Mm-hmm.
Will: Ooh, that was very low on my list. Food. You don’t, because you could just, you could just, there’s other ways to consume
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Oh, like a G-tube nutrition, you could put in a G-tube.
I mean, that, that guess out. Yeah. You don’t
Will: technically have to swallow. You [00:47:00] could just have the food slide down your esophagus in some way. Does it does help protect your airway? Does nine protect your airway? I
Dr. Aubrey Nath: don’t know. Somewhat. Uh, yeah. I don’t, I
Will: don’t remember. I don’t remember. I see
Dr. Aubrey Nath: you still specialized so much as an epileptologist, and now I’m like, uh, which one does that?
Right.
Will: Okay. All right. So nine for eating. Mm-hmm. That, that allows you to taste things, right? Uh,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: partially. I
Will: only in the very back. Partially. Okay. Oh, I
Dr. Aubrey Nath: think there’s very, what’s in the, I don’t if it like a little bit sensation of nine. Tiny bit in the very back
Will: ish. Okay. Yeah. So nine is, I guess swallowing and a little bit of taste.
Okay. Gotcha. I’m gonna go, um, I’m gonna throw a curve ball here. I’m gonna say 12. I want 12 okay’s that one too. Okay. Uh, it allows me to like talk and move your tongue. Yeah. And have any of
Dr. Aubrey Nath: that for your job now. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s important. Oh, that was a curve. I did not see that coming. Mm-hmm. I thought you’re gonna sweep
Kristin: all the eyes.
That’s cuz you don’t have cranial nerve number two or three. Mm-hmm. So,
Will: hey, I’m, I’m trying [00:48:00] to be
Dr. Aubrey Nath: reasonable here. Okay. Okay, next I’m gonna go with five Sensation to the face. I think it’s unfortunate. Oh, five is good. I think five is good. Although I, you could live without it. If you had to trigeminal, you can’t, but,
Will: you know, it’s nice.
You would end up, yeah. Without, without five. You, you’d probably end up with, uh, pretty horrific blindness relatively quickly because you can’t feel your corneas. Oh, so it
Dr. Aubrey Nath: is an I thing. Look at that. It
Kristin: is. Everything comes back to eyes with him.
Will: Uh, you know, don’t quote me on this, but like 90% of the brain is related to eyeballs.
All right.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Everybody turns it up differently in the literature, but it’s really funny. It, it does not add up to a hundred when you put all the literature together, the parts of the brain. It’s so funny. Yeah,
Will: that’s fantastic choice. All right. Five. Um, I, I did not choose five earlier because with. Ocular lubrication, like you could get by without like the, you could get by
Dr. Aubrey Nath: without sensation.
The rest of the face, who cares. Okay.
Will: Okay. Exactly. Like what does it [00:49:00] matter? I don’t up like feel my face. That’s fine. Um, okay. Alright. I’m at, we only have a few left here. I’m gonna go. I’m gonna go with eight.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Oh, that is a good one. Yeah. Oh, okay. What’s they do? Auditory nerve toy. Yep.
Will: Vestibular cochlear.
Okay. That’s important. Now I, now I can hear. I can see. Ooh. Ooh. Oh, what about, you’re dead? No, not she has, she has 10. That’s a very important
Dr. Aubrey Nath: one, but, but hearing is, oh man. Yeah. For music you gotta have eight. Okay. Yeah, it’s, it’s great. So we’re getting down to kind of the bench players. I’d say That’s right.
You know, I’m going to go with six for a very neurologist reason. It’s really helpful when people have increased pressure in their head. Cranial nerve six is very long and thin and very sensitive to increases in pressure in the head and can give us a lot of information. If that nerve doesn’t work well, then we might think, Ooh, someone has increased pressure in their head.
We need to get a CT scan. That’s true. So for neurologist reasons, [00:50:00] six, not opso reasons.
Will: Yeah. Op though it’s not as important. So the sixth cranial nerve, the abducens nerve, it makes you look, you had to look that up before this. I did not. That’s, that’s my thing. I’m, I’m all over that. Uh, it, it, uh, allows the eye to abduct so it look out.
Mm-hmm. All right. So yeah, if you did not have the sixth nerve, uh, you’d be extremely, uh, isotropic. So your eyes would be, all tunnel would be turned in. Yeah. And so it’d just be very, you could get by, I mean, cuz people have congenital, you know, absence of six, so you can live without it. It’s, it’s, you could probably live a pretty normal life too.
It’d just make, um, you’d have to have some pretty strong glasses probably or some surgeries to fix that. Okay. And probably
Kristin: some other sentences might be affected.
Will: Like what
I do. Six. But the reason you said that, that is a good point because I, that’s definitely something we use [00:51:00] to, as a sign of increased intracranial
Dr. Aubrey Nath: pressure. So for neuro, that’s what we care about. Right. What you can see, you know, I live with that.
Will: I only, there’s only two left. Yeah. Oh, well, there’s only two left.
Three. Um, was, was there three left? One, four, and 11.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: You didn’t even put one on your list.
Will: I didn’t put one on my list.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Cradle two four intact. Right. That’s what
Will: we always say, Korney. It is. I didn’t even put one on my list. You’re like, that’s right.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Exactly. You know, our anatomy professors right now will be so proud of us.
Right, right,
Will: right. Yeah. Okay. Uh, ooh.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Okay. Yeah, we’re down to real bench warmers now.
Will: I know. You know what? I guess I, I guess I will. I will go ahead and just stick with my, you know, the five senses strategy that I’m on here and I’m gonna go ahead and take one. Thank you for reminding me that existed. Okay.
Old
Dr. Aubrey Nath: faction smelling. I’ll take
Will: one. Yeah. Smell eating helps smell
Kristin: [00:52:00] Exactly. Helps does Also not getting poisoned. You gotta, so is rotting. Oh, that’s right. That’s
Will: true. I haven’t thought about that actually. Yeah,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: like it’s,
Kristin: something is disgusting. That is a signal to your body. Does not eat that cause it’s poison.
Okay. So that you
Dr. Aubrey Nath: don’t drink it first. Yeah. So I’ll take one. Oh boy. We’re down to two that do very rough little Oh boy. Uh, so are these like be
Kristin: appendix of the cranial nerves? Yes.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Yeah. The real bench warmer of all bench warmers are four and 11. I’m gonna take 11 because I’m starting to do a little bit of exercise now.
I joined CrossFit. I’m trying to get into shape me and shrugging of the shoulders. With some trapezius muscle action is helpful. Basically, cran nerve 11 really only deals with two muscles. I mean, which is kind of wild. Like who designed this? Right? The sternomastoid and the trapezius, but out.
Will: So turned your head left right, turns your head left and right.
And then the
Dr. Aubrey Nath: shrug shrugs your shoulders, shov your shoulders like that when you’re kind of lifting some of these heavier weight [00:53:00] sometimes. So I’ll go with 11 just for CrossFit.
Kristin: It helps you not get run over by a car.
Will: Yeah. You can like, look, look for traffic. Where, and you. That’s true. Well, if you didn’t have cranial nerve 11, would those muscles just atrophy?
They kind of do people, are they just,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: there’s people who roll around like this wouldn’t Yeah, they just, they use other muscles and kind of compensate you, you really wouldn’t even know. I, I’ve seen
Will: it. Okay, gotcha. Which is why it’s a bench warmer on the, like those people are fine. Yeah. All right. I am, I’m gonna, obviously that leaves me with, uh, the, the, the dumbest cranial nerve, the.
The one that I, as an ophthalmologist, I don’t even know really why we, it exists or, you know, someone should explain to me why this is even necessary to have as an entire cranial nerve, but I’m gonna go with cranial nerve four. Mm-hmm. Which innervates the superior oblique muscle. That’s right. It’s this one little muscle muscle, one tiny muscle that’s all this nerve does, but it gets the status of a [00:54:00] cranial nerve.
Mm-hmm. And it just, it basically, you know, to does, um, torsion of the eyeball so you know, the eye can look up, down, left. Right. It also kinda like twists in the socket so you can roll your eyes.
Kristin: Yeah. I mean, it’s, that’s gonna be important for me.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: It’s fair. Yeah, that’s true. Some people That’s true.
Will: You a lot of that you have to live with him.
So, so, so I’m left with four. All right. So here’s, here’s our teams. Okay. I got, um, oh, I have 1, 2, 3, and four. Sure. Yep. And, Eight, eight uhhuh, and 12. So I get to, I get to hear, I get to see, I get to taste. Yes, that’s true. I, I get to move my eyes around in almost all different directions except for right and left and I get to talk as well.
There we
Dr. Aubrey Nath: go.
Kristin: Okay. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, and 12. For those of you playing at home, that’s team one’s, right?
Will: That’s team one. And then, [00:55:00] so,
Dr. Aubrey Nath: uh, I’ve got team two here. Team two is CRE five for facial sensation six to look left and right. Seven to chew and move your face. Nine for swallowing, 10 also for swallowing and for some autonomic function.
And 11 to shrug your shoulders for cross. There you
Will: go. All right, so everybody let us know who won, who’s got the best, uh, cranial nerve, uh, team here, and whatever that means to you and
Kristin: why. Tell us
Will: all about it. All right, well, let’s, uh, and then we’re gonna take one more break and then let’s come back and we’ll do a couple of fan stories.
All right. We are back now with some fan stories. We have Audrey Nath here, a neurologist extraordinaire, and, um, so let’s do this. We got Lois and James. First story, working in healthcare has its difficulties, but it also has its perks, like our [00:56:00] epic. How did you meet story? In short? Yeah, it’s a meat. It’s a meat.
Cute. Ooh. Uh, in short, it was, uh, between another woman’s legs. Mm. Okay. Let’s, let’s explain. Go on. I was, I was a midwife. We’re both in the UK looking after a lady in labor. In walked, the doctors doing their rounds, including a brand new one on his first day of specialty training. All was good, so off they went.
But this new doctor asked if he could stay and watch as he’d never seen a normal delivery and there was nothing else going on. I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight. He irritated me wanting to doctor on my patient who was doing fine on her own. But a few weeks passed and he charmed me by chasing me down the labor ward with his amniotic fluid soaked sock and boom.
We’re now 12 years married with two kids.
Kristin: That’s, uh, what did it okay for her then?
Will: Amniotic fluids. Yes, fluids in general. It’s been a while probably since you’ve had to deal with, [00:57:00] uh, the. The joys of, you know, religious, my own
Dr. Aubrey Nath: kids. Just your kids. My own deliveries. Wow.
Will: It could, it, it could meet some interesting people,
Kristin: though.
That is a memorable way to meet someone. That’s a good
Will: way to meet someone. Yes. That’s good. All right, number two. We have Alex four background. I am a hand surgeon. A hand surgeon. Did you know the hand surgeons like, it’s like that is niche. That’s all they do. It’s just, just hand. Just hand. So we talked about like all the different fellowships you can do.
That’s, I’m sure one of them, that’s what
Kristin: do they start? What’s before that? Uh,
Will: I think you can do it from plastic surgery or Ortho Oro. Okay. I think there’s a couple of ways you can do it. Yeah. On Father’s Day 2020, I was slicing potatoes on a kitchen. Oh, I don’t like where this is going. Like kitchen, mandolin, slicer.
And I was very careful because I know how dangerous slicers are. That’s right. But then a piece got stuck in the slicer, and while trying to dislodge said peace, I sliced my right index finger. I immediately grabbed it with my other hand, and I didn’t [00:58:00] want to cause a scene and alarm my husband unnecessarily.
So I just quietly went upstairs to the bathroom to assess the damage. I opened my hand and saw a flap of skin and some glistening white tendon. Oh the tendon. So it was deep enough you could see the tendon. Thanks. I then started to feel a little woozy, much like Kristen is right now. Yes, Uhhuh. I
Kristin: braced, which nerve
Dr. Aubrey Nath: is that?
Will: I braced myself against the bathroom counter, but still collapsed to the ground. My husband, who had no idea I’ve been hurt. Here’s the crash and runs upstairs and finds me on the floor and a good amount of blood all around. I, of course insist I’m fine, but I sheepish, sheepishly call my father, who is fortunately also a surgeon.
Wow. He was nearby. I told him I cut myself, but was hoping to not go to the er. Could he take a look? He asked if I can drive myself to his office. I say no, and he picks me up. [00:59:00] We go to the office, we get all set up. As he starts to unwrap things, I look again. Then I just. Al, can you hear me? You look a little green.
Why don’t you lay down? So I did. And he sewed the back of my finger back on, and fortunately it healed up well. And I am fine though. I have not used the slicer since then.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Ugh. I don’t think any of us will
Kristin: now. I think I’m gonna vomit. Oh my goodness. That,
Will: that’s, that must have been, that’s particularly hard though, as a hand surgeon to have the type of thing that you treat all the time.
I, I, you know, I think about that sometimes, obviously, like you see,
Kristin: like, are there, like if you forgot to wear your safety goggles and then something hits you in the
Will: eye. Exactly. Or else I slept in contacts for some
Dr. Aubrey Nath: reason. Oh, wait, you’re not supposed to do
Will: that. Wait. Oh God. Please don’t tell me Uhoh uhoh.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: I just wear them podcast slurry and then it’s like, okay, I should get another one. Oh boy. I,
Will: I’m just going to assume you’re kidding and you’re, there’s no way you should kick them out that
Dr. Aubrey Nath: you could, but like, I don’t know how many months [01:00:00] it’s been, it’s just after a while you don’t see so good. I don’t want eye.
Yeah. Oh, oh, dear. All right.
Will: Um, you’re hurting him. Okay. I think we should wrap this up.
Audrey, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Thank you. Please change your context.
Will: Kristen Wilson. Awesome. Take your contacts out. Okay. When you go to bed at night, I should go do that. Well, tell us, uh, uh, what, um, what do you got going on right now? You said you’re, so you’re writing so you have time to write. I
Dr. Aubrey Nath: sure do.
Is that correct? Absolutely. What are you writing? So, I wrote a short story about a patient experience in residency and what it was like after coming from life as a musician into the hospital and feeling kind of lost. And it was included in a compilation of stories called what we Bring to the Practice of Medicine Perspectives from Women Physicians being published by Kent State Press.
And it’ll come out on April 4th, and I am on Twitter and YouTube handle at Audrey Nath MD PhD.
Will: Awesome. [01:01:00] April 4th, that’s when it’s coming out. Yeah. So
Kristin: by the time you’re hearing this episode, it is available for purchase?
Will: Yes. Absolutely. Well, thank you. That was so much fun. And uh, again, everybody let us know who won the game today.
All right. Because I really think I have the inside track on that. I’m worried about the cranial nerve 10 though. Cause that was, that was a good first choice. But yeah. Anyway, we’ll see. At least you can
Dr. Aubrey Nath: smell. This is cool.
Will: Audrey, thanks for joining us. Thank you so.
Well, that was great. She was a lot
Kristin: of fun. That was, that was, uh, that
Will: was a fun game too. Finally got to, to, to draft some cranial nerves.
Kristin: I know you’ve been waiting.
Will: I we needed bucket list item. We need a neurologist on here so I could, I could, you know, have someone that actually like, knows more than the five or six that are, uh, that are associated with the eyeballs.
Yeah. So, you know, that’s good. So again, let us know who won, who’s got, who’s got the better cranial nerve team. Obviously I think it’s me, but yeah, don’t be, don’t [01:02:00] let that cloud your judgment. Uh, you know, try to be objective. Uh, with this. There are no stakes for who wins. It’s just bragging rights between me and Dr.
Nath. So, uh, you know, anyway, it’s true.
Kristin: And definitely check out that book. I think she’s our second guest so far that, that, um, has contributed. So that’s,
Will: the practice sounds like a really good one. Medicine perspectives from women physicians. Again, that’s, uh, what we bring to the practice of what we bring to the practice of medicine perspectives from women physicians.
Uh, available April 4th, 2023. Uh, so yeah, definitely check that out. And, uh, let us know your thoughts for the episode. Uh, there’s lots of ways to hit us up here. You can email us, knock knock high human content.com, visit our social media channels of Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Twitter. Uh, you can also hang out with us in our Human Content Podcast family on Instagram and TikTok at Human Content Pods.
And thank you to all the listeners who are leaving a lot of feedback, wonderful feedback, awesome reviews on [01:03:00] wherever it is that you leave reviews. We love seeing them. If you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube, we might give you a shoutout like today. Freckle 1, 2, 3 on Apple said, entertaining an educational, fun to listen to.
And I learned more stuff about medicine. Probably going to take a C P R class now.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Ooh,
Kristin: yay. There you go.
Dr. Aubrey Nath: Yes. Something. Yes.
Will: Everyone do that. Everyone should do. Okay.
Kristin: Or at least like watch a, a video on YouTube about how to do it. You don’t have to take the full class if you don’t or that
Will: one episode
Kristin: of the office, you know something.
Learn
Will: cpr. It’s just something. Uh, full episodes are up, uh, of this podcast. Full episodes are up every week on my YouTube channel at d Glock and Flecking, and we also have Patreon Lots of cool perks, bonus episodes where we react to medical shows and movies. Uh, you can hang out with other members of the Knock-knock High community.
We are there active in it, commenting, posting things. You get early episode access, uh, ad free episode Act ad free episode access, uh, q and a livestream [01:04:00] events, a lot more coming. patreon.com/glock and flein, or go to glock flein.com. Speaking of Patreon, community Perks, new member shoutout to Karen B. Thank you, Karen.
Shout out to all the Jonathans, as always, a virtual head nod to Patrick Lucia. C Sharon s Omer, Edward, k Abby, h Steven g Robox, Jonathan f Marion w Mr. Granddaddy Caitlin cre, l Dr. J Cha w Patreon. Roulette, shout out is, oh, I should say what Patreon valette is. Uh, people who are the emergency physician level of Patreon, they will have just a random shoutout from us.
Uh, so let’s do the roulette. Uh, drum roll, the snare drum as best as I can do. Shout out to Betsy h for being a patron. And thank you all for listening. We are your host Will and Kristen Flannery, aka the Glock Leggins. Special thanks to our guest today, Dr. Audrey. [01:05:00] Our executive producers Will Flannery, Kristin Flannery, Aron Korney, Rob Goldman, and Shahnti Brooke.
Our editor and engineer is Jason Portio. Our music is by Omer Ben-Zvi. To learn about our Nan Highs program, disclaimer, ethics, policy submission verification, and licensing terms and HIPAA release terms, you can go to glock blacken.com or reach out to us at knock knock high of human content.com with any questions, concerns, or fun medical uns.
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