Transcript
[music]: [00:00:00] Knock, knock,
Will: hi. Hello everybody. Welcome to knock, knock. Hi. With the Glockenfleckens. I am Dr. Glockenflecken.
Kristin: I am Lady Glockenflecken, also known as Kristen Flannery
Will: and Will Flannery. Thank you all for joining us. It’s Glock talk time. We’re talking to each other.
Kristin: Yeah, Glock’s talking. Talking Glock.
Will: Did you just say Glocks of talking?
Kristin: Glock’s talking.
Will: Glock’s talking, yes. Um, so, I’ve got a number of things that I feel like we should discuss.
Kristin: Oh, excellent. Let’s dive in.
Will: So one thing, and I, we’ve never, I sent you this a while back, but we never really got a chance to like really talk about it, and whether or not it would work for our relationship.
Kristin: Okay. We’re just going to do it now in front of everyone.
Will: Why not? Uh, so I sent you, I came across the TikTok and I feel like there’s so many [00:01:00] things like TikToks you come across. You’re like, Oh, that’s a great idea. Like, I’m just going to like heart that, like it, because I would store it away. It would be great to incorporate that thing into my life.
And then you never do it. I’ve got like a whole list of things in my TikTok likes folder of things that would be good for me that I’m never going to do.
Kristin: Yeah. Just aspirations, never goals.
Will: Sure. Yes, exactly. But one of those things is this person, uh, who, I don’t know if you remember me sending you this again, this was like months ago.
Uh, someone saying that when they come home from work, this is a husband and wife spouse relationship. When they come home. They say like how much they got in the tank left. Like, they’re like, they come home from work. They’re like, I am a two out of
[music]: 10.
Will: And the other person says what they are. If they’re like an eight out of 10, then they [00:02:00] get to like, do the lion’s share of the work.
Kristin: Yes. This was, this was Brene Brown and she was saying. Marriage isn’t actually 50 50. Sometimes it’s 80 20 in this case, like what you’re saying, and that you’ve got to communicate with your partner about where you’re each at, and then hopefully added together, you can get to a hundred.
Will: So my question for you first, my first question is, do you like this idea?
Kristin: I don’t know. When you sent it to me, you particularly, I sort of wanted to punch you in the face, but
Will: Why? What on earth did I have commentary along with my text? I think I just sent it. No,
Kristin: you genuinely. Yeah. Right. But I feel like a lot of people in a medical marriage and relate to this, particularly if it’s one person in medicine and one person not, or not even marriage, but just a, you know, a committed relationship, I feel like medicine has always demanded [00:03:00] that it be at least 70, 30 me, right?
Like. The non-medical partner picks up a lot of slack a lot of the time. Okay. And so when you’re sending me stuff that’s like, Hey, sometimes I’m gonna be at a 20% that I’m like, well, okay. I get the the point overall. Well, you can also, you can
Will: also say that you’re at a 20% though.
Kristin: Well, this is the problem.
Like what if you’re at 20% and I’m at 20%? ’cause we’re, you’re always working. Really hard. And I’m always working really hard. And so who’s supposed to be the extra, like, do we need to get a third person in our marriage? I think we, we take applications. We
Will: become polyamorous. I think that’s, that’s the
Kristin: obvious.
I mean, that’s the, clearly that’s the only solution. If you’re interested in joining our
Will: marriage, knock, knock high at [00:04:00] human debt. No, please don’t, please don’t do that. But it does a good point and and that’s actually that leads to my next question about this idea is Would this just end up being another thing we argue about?
I
Kristin: think so. It would be like well, I’m at 20 and well, I’m at 22 and so who’s gonna do this?
Will: And that was, that was in the back of my mind when I sent that to you. I was like, okay, well, I think most of the time we’re both under 50%. Oh yeah,
Kristin: for sure. So
Will: like, in like what world does, does it really work for us?
That’s where it
Kristin: falls apart for me is that I don’t see this ever adding up to a hundred, you know, at the same time.
Will: Like, yeah. Like where, where do you write now?
Kristin: Parenting wise or just everything wise? Everything
Will: wise.
Kristin: I mean, I would say maybe a four out of 10.
Will: Okay. I’m like a five. I’m a little, I’m, I got a little bit more in the tank than you.
I think
Kristin: we got close.
Will: So I’ll do 10 percent more [00:05:00] and
Kristin: then sure. That’s great. But then you have a job that doesn’t allow your time to be flexible at all. So like,
Will: maybe here’s, how does that
Kristin: factor in?
Will: Maybe here’s the point. And it’s not so much like, okay, if, if you’re at 20%, then I would do like 80 percent of the chores or something.
Maybe it’s just like,
Kristin: I think that’s what it was saying. No, I
Will: think, well, I think really the big, the better takeaway is. Like me knowing what percentage you’re at
Kristin: and
Will: just being nicer to you. All
Kristin: right. Well, why should you have to know?
Will: And no, in terms of, no, no, not, not, not nice to you, but knowing like, okay, if you’re dragging a bit, or maybe you’re a little bit more irritable or I’m more irritable, like that’s why, because your tank is so low.
Cause you told me you’re at 10%.
Kristin: Right. Well, listen, I’m a working mom in America, married [00:06:00] to a doctor. You can assume that I am constantly four or below.
Will: Okay. But I am also a private practice ophthalmologist.
Kristin: You are, but
Will: that gives you a few extra counterpoint, a few extra points. It’s
Kristin: not a competition among other types of specialties spouses, but it’s still.
You, even though you’re a private practice ophthalmologist, you still can’t just take a day off work because a kid woke up sick. You still can’t, you know, you only have so many days of vacation. And yes, it is way more than other people
[music]: in
Kristin: other specialties. But then you went and got another second career to fill in all of those days of vacation.
So your actual days of vacation are about zero. And then, you know, you just don’t have the same kind of flexibility that somebody who I still have a career, I’m still working, but I do it from my house and I’m my own boss. So by default, a lot of that stuff, just that’s how the [00:07:00] logistics work out the best.
Cause you’re more flexible. It’s gonna fall to me, but then that means just cause I’m more flexible, doesn’t, that’s not like a cure all. Because what that means is now I haven’t gotten to do my work.
Will: So we need to add some variables into this situation. Now we’re getting into algebra.
Kristin: Maybe
Will: a little calculus to determine the, the, the, whatever the equation, the algorithm.
Kristin: Some quantum physics, I think is going to be required to solve this issue.
Will: Yeah. So I guess maybe the, the lesson here is like, not everything you see on TikTok is important. To build into your life.
Kristin: I don’t know. I think for some people that could be really helpful and might work well. I see it falling apart really easily in medical marriages and other kinds of marriages.
I mean, not just medical, but it’s, I don’t think it’s for me.
Will: Maybe it was also The, the fact that someone was presenting this idea to me very [00:08:00] confidently,
Kristin: I
Will: think that’s part of it. Like, man, this lady knows what she’s talking about. I mean, she does. She
Kristin: does know what she talked and she was saying that’s what works for her and her husband.
And so I believe her. So
Will: what works for us?
Kristin: I, I don’t know.
Will: We’ve only been married for like 12 years and we still haven’t quite figured it out.
Kristin: Yeah. We just get up every day and do the day and just keep doing it.
Will: Just do the thing.
Kristin: Yep.
Will: And hope we don’t kill each other in the process. Occasionally. I mean, it
Kristin: helps that you’re always gone.
So then I can’t kill you.
Will: I did. You do have the bigger office now. Well,
Kristin: yeah, I took that. I am in that office 10 percent of 10
Will: percent of it was me giving it to you what percentage was
Kristin: oh my gosh You have an entire building that is your office that you get to leave this house Oh, yeah, that’s true every day multiple buildings.
You have multiple [00:09:00] locations So, you know, I think you’re fine to have just this whole office.
Will: I think I’m okay. Yeah. I don’t think
Kristin: anyone’s going to feel sorry for you.
Will: All right. Well, this is a rousing start to Glock talk. Uh, we’ve, I’m curious though, to know
Kristin: about, you know, other people in our audience and like, do they have a similar experience and especially if they are like a half medical, half non medical partnership,
Will: I mean, we, I feel like we do a good job of.
Like, we kind of both have tasks and things that we do, right, and then there are other things that we trade off a bit, like parenting duties, to give each other evenings or times, the challenge, the biggest thing is finding time for, with each other.
Kristin: Yep.
Will: Like, that’s one of the more challenging, like, we can always find a, one of us to like, do the kid thing.
Kristin: Right. But
Will: then, like, how do we
Kristin: [00:10:00] find time to connect? But again,
Will: just cause I’m, we’re
Kristin: doing the kid thing, like. That’s not 100 percent like, woohoo, we did it, because what are we not doing, because we’re doing the kid thing, and then when we’re working, what are we not doing with the kids, because we’re working.
You know, you just can’t win.
Will: Yeah. Personal hygiene.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Drinking water.
Kristin: Yeah. There’s a lot that, uh, doesn’t happen.
Will: My eyebrows are a mess. They’ve
Kristin: caterpillars on your face.
Will: That’s a, that’s for a long time, like our entire time we’ve been together. It’s been bothering
Kristin: me all day. Now that you’re mentioning it, I have to fix it.
I can’t.
Will: Sometimes I’ll, I’ll just purposefully push my eyebrow hair against the grain and make them all stand up and out. And
Kristin: it really
Will: gets Kristen going. I can’t
Kristin: stand it. I cannot.
Will: What if, you know, eventually, she just knocked my headphones off. Eventually, [00:11:00] I’m not going to have the ability, I’m just going to be woolly.
That’s, that’s when you get, like, when I’m an old man. I need
Kristin: to introduce you to, to facial trimmers, like, not, not your beard, the little bitty tiny ones that are like a cylinder
[music]: that you can use like for eyebrows,
Kristin: nose hairs have trimmers. Yeah, there’s, there are solutions to these problems. There’s things I can do.
There’s technology that exists.
Will: To make myself look presentable long into my life. Yes. Oh, good to know. All right. Um, I’ve got some healthcare news for you. Should we take a short break?
[music]: All right,
Will: let’s do it.
Today’s episode is brought to you by the DAX Copilot from Microsoft. DAX Copilot is your AI assistant for automating clinical documentation and workflows, helping you to be more efficient and reduce the administrative burden that causes us to feel overwhelmed and burnt out. To learn more about how DaxCopilot can help reduce burnout and restore the joy of practicing medicine, [00:12:00] stick around after the episode, or visit aka.
ms. knockknockhigh. That’s aka. ms. knockknockhigh.
All right, back with a little healthcare news. This is More like healthcare news for like people who are interested in like med schools and med school admissions. So
Kristin: maybe more of a healthcare topic.
Will: Yeah, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a healthcare topic. I know I can only introduce one of these per episode before I just lose you completely.
So I’m glad you’re at like 40 percent cause I’m about to take you down to
Kristin: 10. All right.
Will: So
Kristin: you’re doing everything tonight. You heard it here first.
Will: Um, so. They recently, they, I don’t know who it is, but the, the med school match statistics came out recently. Uh, so basically they take all the data, all the [00:13:00] application data from all the med students who matched into all the different specialties and they put them into these charts and it gets released and everybody talks about it.
All right. So
Kristin: this happens every year.
Will: One of the biggest talking points on social media this time around has been the number of research experiences that med students these days get are getting in order to try to match. So step one, you remember me studying for step one, right? Whenever I took it, it was like a numbered test.
Like you got a number, right? Well, that went away. Now it’s And the I would say a lot of people have predicted this, but one of the unintended consequences of this was it just put more pressure on every other part of your application. Including this idea that you need to do as much research as possible to try to get into [00:14:00] more competitive specialties.
Kristin: Okay.
Will: And the reasoning from The Powers That Be is that that’s the way that you show that you’re dedicated to this field.
Kristin: Okay, I have a question already.
Will: Okay, what’s
Kristin: your question? Do those specialties not have private practice?
Will: That’s the thing. So that, Yes, they do.
Kristin: So, like, why is research the end all be all?
Will: That’s a great question. But if you
Kristin: want to be 100 percent clinical, then you’re wasting your time doing research.
Will: Yes! Absolutely! And that’s, that’s, that’s the be
Kristin: practicing dealing with patients.
Will: There’s, there’s this, uh, this mindset that, uh, And you look at the, you look at the stats. So like for like neurosurgery, I don’t remember exactly how many it was, but the average matched applicant, and meds, these are med students, has like 37 research experiences, which means either like 37 days that
Kristin: they showed up to a research lab, I would buy that.
Will: Like you either, you [00:15:00] worked on a project, you have an abstract, you have a publication, you have, you know.
Kristin: So they started doing research as toddlers.
Will: Well, see, and that’s the point. Like how, number one, how is that even possible when you do have to do all the other things in med school? Number two, like there’s no way this can be like valuable research,
[music]: right?
Will: Because you know, you, you did research for years in your life.
Kristin: Yes.
Will: Uh, how insanely hard it is to even
Kristin: get,
Will: to even get like one publication, like one first author publication is hard.
Kristin: Well, so that is one of my questions then is, is, are these 37 first author experiences or is this 37? Experiences of just doing anything at all.
Will: I think it’s more doing anything at all. And I know for a fact is ophthalmology is one of these fields. Like I’m, I feel very fortunate that I went through and applied, you know, years ago now, uh, because I had one research [00:16:00] experience
Kristin: and it wasn’t medical.
Will: Well, no, I know in med school, I did have one. I got to put on my application, but I didn’t, I had no publications.
I don’t
Kristin: even remember what it
Will: was. It was something about, uh, OCTs and kind of ocular imaging. Anyway, the point, I didn’t, it wasn’t anything significant.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: In undergrad, I did bat phylogenetic research. Yeah,
Kristin: that’s what I remember.
Will: So, uh, yeah, and that was, that was paid. Like, in med school, you’re not getting paid to do any research, right?
You’re paying to, to do the things. Correct. And so, um, And so, but to answer your question, no, it’s not, I would say it’s like 99 percent of it’s probably not valuable. And more importantly, it’s just something that the students are doing because they feel like they have to, which is the worst reason to do research because research is painful.
Kristin: It is. Even when you like it, like it’s a, it’s a love hate sort of a thing for most people. Like there’s a lot that the people that do like it. [00:17:00] Love about it. But even those people have a lot of things that hurt them deeply.
Will: Yeah, and so I So I made a video like a couple months ago About this whole idea.
It was a skit of a med student coming in and just flat out saying to this interviewer Uh, no, I don’t have any interest. I will never in my life calculate a P value for you. Who
Kristin: was that based on?
Will: Yeah, that was totally me. Totally me. Um, and that’s why I ended up where I did at Iowa because they, not that they don’t care about research, but I definitely got vibes from them, the clinical experience.
They really want to turn people into ophthalmologists who just take great care of patients.
[music]: Yeah.
Will: Ideally staying in Iowa, which tried to do, but didn’t work out. But the point is, is more of a clinical focus and you can do research. They have wonderful researchers. It’s definitely there for you if you want [00:18:00] it.
[music]: Yeah.
Will: And so the fact that we have all these med students that are like, there’s this, this And I felt it too. I, when I was putting together my application, I was like, Oh my God, I got to do something. I got to do research. Well, what if I instead learned how to like see the fundus on an exam?
[music]: Right.
Will: I’ve said all that, all those hours.
Like, uh, going through, like, making spreadsheets, doing whatever, IRB applications, whatever it is, what if instead, I learned, like, a skill?
Kristin: Right. Well, okay, those are skills, but a skill that you were going to use. That
Will: I was going to use. Yeah,
Kristin: yeah,
Will: yeah. Because I knew I wasn’t going to be research. I knew it.
And there are so many med students who know they don’t want a research career, but they’re afraid to go into an interview and say that.
Kristin: Right. Right.
Will: Like, no, I, I, I wanna, I wanna go into practice.
Kristin: Yeah. I
Will: wanna go to a community hospital. I wanna, I wanna take care of patients.
Kristin: And why do you have to do research in order to be a good doctor?
Will: Well, I don’t think you [00:19:00] do.
Kristin: Right. That’s my point. Yeah. Why, what are we doing? Why is this the underlying assumption that this is what we should be fostering in our, all of our med students?
Will: I think it’s a. It’s, it’s a, a, a thing that was, has been done for so long that it’s just been carried over through the years.
Well that’s
Kristin: a stupid reason.
Will: And because it’s not like, like I can, I don’t have to do research to know how to interpret research. Like I took a biostats class. You
Kristin: can learn. You can learn. I didn’t tell that story. Right.
Will: And, and that’s important.
Kristin: And maybe like. One research experience to just like see it in action or something, right?
Like I can see the value of that.
Will: But then you don’t have to get something out of it. Right.
Kristin: Right. Like maybe a letter to have a publication or whatever.
Will: And, and, uh, you know, I can, I can interpret research. I can know, like, if something is like a good study, a bad study, limitations of a study, like, does that require me actually like going [00:20:00] and, and like pipetting things.
I’m glad there are people that do it. But please, no, not me.
Kristin: Did you have to clean up the bat poop?
Will: I didn’t work with actual bats. It was bat blood. Oh, just
Kristin: data.
Will: Oh, blood
Kristin: though. So you had samples.
Will: Samples of, of that DNA.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: We had to extract the DNA. So I was really good at, uh, PCR and, um, gel electrophoresis, uh, DNA sequencing.
There were some hot baths involved. It
Kristin: did
Will: look like putting things in a hot bath. I don’t remember how to do any of these things, but it did give me an understanding of how much work goes into basic science research. Like it’s like the payoff. There’s, there’s a lot of things that you got to do to get to the, the payoff.
And, and also it gave me a foundation for like how messed up the research world is. [00:21:00] That was
Kristin: my biggest takeaway from being involved in research for, um, number of years was This is not what I thought it was. When you get to see behind the curtain, you know, it was, um, and I had a particularly extreme example perhaps, but there’s a lot that goes on that is not, not what we are sold.
Yeah, I guess. But yeah, while you were doing all that bat DNA research, I was cleaning rat poop and mouse poop and pigeon poop and Presumably, quote, doing research by doing that, but, uh, somehow you with your bat DNA and me with my rodent feces covered lab coat saw each other and thought, I want that one.
Will: You know, well, I was thinking like, why did I do it?
Kristin: Because you have to. I had a job.
Will: It was a job. No, at that, for that.
Kristin: Yeah. Like you’re trying to build an application. It did. That did help me get into
Will: med school, I think. But also I did, I [00:22:00] mean, it was just like, I was getting paid to do this. I wasn’t getting an hourly, it was like minimum wage, but still like I was making money.
It’s so weird that as a med student, like. You won’t get paid to do any of that. You’re supposed to just do it because of this altruistic.
Kristin: Yeah, there’s a lot of desire To make people’s lives better.
Will: Yeah I
Kristin: think there’s a lot of people getting taken advantage of that is seen as just like you said this is the way it Is these are this is paying your dues.
Will: Oh, I remember I was gonna tell you one more thing about this that I know for a fact that Some med students will put each other’s names on publications. So you have these, these papers, they’re like 12 people long on the author line and like, you just sneak in a little, little seventh author.
Kristin: How does nobody notice?
Why
Will: would they? I don’t know. There’s like 12 people. Isn’t
Kristin: there someone in charge who’s supposed to be. Verifying all of this.
Will: So, I mean, you, you know, you do a thing like, uh, proofread something. Yeah. And
Kristin: then you’re an author. [00:23:00]
Will: And you’re an author. I, I think that’s how it works in clinical medicine, at least.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: I think maybe it’s, that might, maybe, and I’m just. I’m speaking extemporaneously at this point, maybe that’s an area of research where you see more of this type of activity, of just this kind of glut of things. There are
Kristin: always so many authors on medical research papers, like, like it’s a paragraph of authors.
Will: Right. Most times. So I don’t know. Anyway, that’s my health care news for you.
Kristin: All right. Well, so. What do we do about it?
Will: I don’t, I don’t know solutions. Well, you know, it’s, um, I guess, you know, residency application committees, they, they need to have something, some way to more or less weed out certain applications.
Like you gotta have some kind of criteria for how you’re going to evaluate these things. Like ideally you’d take a holistic approach to someone’s application, [00:24:00] right? Like, what does that mean? Is that, I guess you’re, you have to look at every single piece of it. Their, their, um, personal statement, their, I honestly think personal statement and letters of recommendation.
Like, don’t you feel like that, I feel like what someone says about you can really make or break your application.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: What I
Kristin: don’t love about that though is, I like, I like it, but it does have the one problem or many problems, but what, how do I say this? It puts a lot of the power in the faculty’s hands, right?
Like a faculty member can only write so many letters of recommendation. And so it sort of just shifts the problem downstream to now it’s all the faculty that are dealing with, you know, hundreds and thousands of students asking for letters and how do you decide which one you can’t write that many letters.
I don’t know. I don’t know how you do. I don’t know what is the best way, but [00:25:00] it just seems to me like it makes sense that if you want to be an academic clinician, then research is important. If you don’t want to be an academic clinician, then what are we doing?
Will: I always hated asking people for letters of recommendation.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Yeah. I had the, the worst one was I had this attending who was just dragging her feet. Like what? You know, I, I needed it. I had to keep reminding her to like send in my letter. This is for
Kristin: residency.
Will: No, I, I know she did cause I did a hell of a job on the, like the, the rotation with her. It was just me and her.
And then she finally submitted it from the plane as she was leaving to go to Africa for like two years. Oh
Kristin: no!
Will: I was a nervous wreck. I was like, I can’t believe this is about to sink because I needed that letter.
Kristin: Mm hmm.
Will: She did, but it was like procrastination to the nth degree. It was, it was bad. I remember that.
Kristin: I remember you being very nervous.
Will: So stressful. [00:26:00] So stressful. I’m glad I don’t have to apply for anything anymore. For now.
Kristin: Yeah, at the moment. Unless I lose my job or something I say on a podcast. Who knows what happens.
Will: I don’t know. All right, let’s take one more break and we’ll, um, we got a couple other things.
[music]: All right.
Will: Hey, Kristen.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: I think you’ve been neglecting our little friends here.
Kristin: Oh, do they need some attention?
Will: They do from you in particular.
Kristin: Oh, okay. Yeah,
Will: they’re your favorite, the Demodex mites.
Kristin: Love, love it, love a good mite.
Will: They’re so cute, but they can cause problems.
Kristin: Yeah,
Will: if you get like red, itchy, irritated eyelids, it could be caused by these little guys.
Kristin: That would not seem very fun. Demodex
Will: blepharitis, they can’t help it, they’re just living their lives.
Kristin: I guess so. But
Will: it does, it’s not fun. No, not for the
Kristin: human.
Will: And they’re a lot smaller than this.
Kristin: That’s good. They don’t look like this. I’m
Will: very thankful for that. They’re not quite as cute,
Kristin: but almost.
Will: Okay.
Alright, but this is not something you should get freaked out by.
Kristin: Okay.
Will: You gotta get checked out. [00:27:00]
Kristin: Yes.
Will: To learn more about how Demodex blepharitis can affect you. To find out more, go to eyelidcheck. com. Okay. That’s E Y E L I D check. com to get more information about demodex blepharitis.
How about some lore, some glock and flicking lore. People want to hear about this stuff. How about the neurologist?
Kristin: Yeah, we had a comment on one of our previous episodes that somebody wanted to know the neurologist’s back story.
Will: So we always go through the YouTube comments, by the way. So if you want to, if you, if you’re like allergic to email or something, you can always email us knockknockhiuman content.
com or you can go to our YouTube channel at GlockumFleckens. We have all our podcast videos there and you can, um, Comment there. We, we go through those comments. This is a pretty new channel too. So it’s easy to see all the comments.
[music]: Yeah.
Will: And so, uh, uh, go through there. We had a [00:28:00] at old Dion 9863 said, I need the neurologist backstory.
I must know how the sword of insults was forged. So sharp. What a wonderful comment. I love that.
Kristin: I love that too. That imagery is beautiful.
Will: So the neurologist is loosely based on a, on one of my actual neurology attendings who was, um, I would say not, not condescending. But very matter of fact, and spoke in a very high language, like very like high vocabulary and just very proper and also had a British accent.
Oh
[music]: boy.
Will: I wasn’t going to try to do that during my skits.
[music]: Yeah.
Will: Do not ask me ever to do an accent, I can’t. There are limits to my acting ability. And it does not extend to, to accents.
[music]: Yeah.
Will: Um, but so it is loosely based on that. And it was, it was a great attending, but we all kind of made fun of them just for, you know, that’s what you do as a student.
You make fun of your attendings. [00:29:00] Um,
Kristin: affectionately,
Will: affectionately, the insult part of it. Was initially because, you know, I, I needed the neurologist. I always viewed neurologist as very smart. And this guy that I based my character on incredibly brilliant. And so I was like, okay, this is gonna be very smart, but what if he like is so smart that he lords his intellect over everyone else?
And so I was like, I, you know, started to really just try to think of insults, like neurology based insults. So basically the way I would do it is like, I would try to come up with Like an, an anatomic structure in the brain and make a joke about it, which was, I would sit here and writing those neurology skits.
I still do. Every time I try to have the neurologist, it’s always a slog trying to write those skits because I, I, I, for literally hours, I’ll sit and just try to think of insulting things to say using like metaphors. For the [00:30:00] cerebral cortex and the how wrinkled the brain is or the midbrain or the limbic system.
I don’t know. I’m just, I have like a neuroanatomy book open.
[music]: Yeah.
Will: I’m like, okay, what’s funny about the red nucleus? Right. You know, I, I, it’s, it’s. It’s become harder and harder because I don’t want to like repeat myself, right? And then I end up with things like, you know, calling someone a six foot tall white matter lesion or a real life walking homunculus.
Yeah, so so anyway, it’s the the neurologist is one of the I would kind of say a polarizing character. I think a lot of people like the neurologist, except for neurologists.
Kristin: Really, they don’t like it?
Will: Uh, hit or miss. You know what, most of the characters I will get positive feedback from the people in that specialty.
But I don’t really get any feedback about the neurologist. . They’re just quiet. They’re just quiet. I don’t think they wanna say anything bad because they know it’s, you know, [00:31:00] I, I’m just having fun. But they don’t like say, oh, I love the neurologist. Right. So I think that’s telling believe that’s so, well
Kristin: either.
Either the personality type that tends to become a neurologist, maybe doesn’t like to laugh at themselves, or you’ve just not.
But it is a really fun character.
Will: I love it. I love those like the, that’s one of my, the neurologist goes to therapy is one of my favorite therapy sessions. I love the back and forth with them and, um, uh, and, and, but yeah, there it’s, that’s one of the hardest. characters to write. It takes me a while to like try to come up with it.
And because it’s, if I’m going to write insults, like they got to be smart insults, right? Because otherwise it just, it’s not interesting to listen. It just feels like bullying. But if it’s like outrageously, like literally watching, uh, have the neurologist watch a neurotransmitter traversing the synaptic cleft.
[music]: Right.
Will: Oh, [00:32:00] there it goes. You know, that, stuff like that. And that is just, um, I don’t know, it takes me a while to come up with that stuff. So I don’t, that’s why I haven’t had the neurologist for a while. to insult somebody,
Kristin: you have to be 100 percent accurate or else, joke’s on you.
Will: But you know, then, so that’s, that’s kind of the background of the neurologist.
We don’t know, oh, he’s, he’s the brother of the neurosurgeon.
Kristin: Yes.
Will: That’s the other piece of lore. He has
Kristin: an inferiority complex.
Will: That’s right. It does. So. And their
Kristin: dad is also.
Will: Oh, their dad is a neurologist. Yeah, the dad is a neurologist and he has a neurologist son and a neurosurgeon son.
Kristin: Yes, and he favors the neurosurgeon son, right?
I feel like he did. I
Will: think so. I know now you’re questioning my own knowledge of my own
Kristin: lore.
Will: I’m telling you we need a whiteboard.
Kristin: I know it’s getting to be like pretty complex. It’s hard to keep it all straight.
Will: Yes, it is. Okay, should we do one more thing?
Kristin: Okay.
Will: You wanna do some marriage advice?
Kristin: Oh, [00:33:00] okay.
Will: So this is when we not, you know, because I don’t, we don’t have actual people who are emailing us, asking us to fix their marriage,
Kristin: Uhhuh .
Will: So I
Kristin: can’t imagine why. I
Will: don’t know. We clearly, if you’ve been listening to this, like we know what we’re talking about and know how to not get divorced .
Kristin: So it’s easy.
You just don’t do it.
Will: Just . You just don’t, just don’t just be so tired. That who has the strength to get lawyers? That’s just so much work. We’re just, yeah, absolutely. We’re, we’re doing a great job being married to each other. Uh, okay. So here’s a, so what we did instead was asked Chad GPT for a marriage problem.
Kristin: That’s right. Chad GPT gets interesting. So
Will: this, this marriage problem is called the sleepwalking chef. So here’s the problem, which is actually kind of true to life to like, there’s this one creator on TikTok that’s like has a sleepwalking problem. She’s very, she’s got a huge following.
Kristin: [00:34:00] Creates content around it.
Yes. That would be hard to do. Cause you’re asleep.
Will: No, they put, they put cameras out.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: She’s doing all kinds of stuff.
Kristin: Oh, wow.
Will: She’s like, she’s like, like saying complete sentences, walking outside. I mean,
Kristin: you do. And she has a good sense
Will: of humor about it. It’s hilarious. Yeah. It’s hilarious, but also like kind of dangerous.
Right? Right?
Kristin: Yes. I have. Well, we can go into it, but I, but you can relate to this issue.
Will: Okay. Well, a little bit. Here’s the problem. One partner develops an unusual habit of sleepwalking, but not just aimlessly wandering. They sleepwalk into the kitchen and cook elaborate meals in the middle of the night, using up groceries and leaving a huge mess behind in the morning.
They have no memory of it. All the other partner wakes up to a chaotic kitchen and wasted ingredients because nobody eats the food. The non sleepwalking partner is frustrated by the mess and the cost of constantly restocking groceries while the sleepwalking chef feels guilty and embarrassed but can’t control their behavior.
This leads to tension and frequent discussions about [00:35:00] sleep hygiene and safety. Should they do?
Kristin: Yeah, I don’t know. You, you do a little bit of this. You don’t go as far as
Will: What do I do?
Kristin: You don’t go as far as cooking meals, but, um You when you so when you were a kid you had night terrors, and I don’t think you have night terrors anymore But what you do,
Will: I remember what I remember about my night terrors.
I Remember I have two vivid like flashbulb memories. One is my dad Walking me on the sidewalk outside our house.
Kristin: Yeah Then you woke up while you were out there? I
Will: woke up while I was walking and we had like, our living room, dining room, kitchen was like, made like a circle. And so the other thing I remember is just waking up, walking in a circle in our house.
like walking. He’s like walking me, like getting up and, um, they’re pretty bad.
Kristin: Your parent, your dad was walking? Yeah,
Will: my dad was walking me. Okay. Like he, he would get me out. So I don’t think [00:36:00] I,
Kristin: to try to wake you up. What was with the walking?
Will: I, I think it was just, uh. Um, I don’t know, I think you would come into my room, I would be sitting up in bed, like, maybe even standing, like, screaming.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Which, God, how terrifying.
Kristin: I know.
Will: And so I mean,
Kristin: terrifying for the kid, and then also terrifying, can you imagine as a parent? Yeah,
Will: and I guess it just, walking, like, helped. Help me to wake up maybe. Yeah. So he’s just like, okay, come on, let’s, let’s just go for a little stroll. Yeah. So, but anyway, wake
Kristin: the rest of the house screaming child.
So
Will: what do I do now?
Kristin: Now? Right. You don’t do the screaming, thankfully, but I just really freaked me out. I just
Will: have cardiac arrest. That’s all I do now in your sleep. Now, what do I do now?
Kristin: Uh, you, ever since I’ve known you, you have talked a lot in your sleep and you. You move.
Will: Is it mumbling or is it like?
No, you’re
Kristin: talking.
Will: Okay.
Kristin: You’re like really talking. Sometimes your eyes are open [00:37:00] and that’s kind of freaky because you’re asleep, but your eyes are open and you’re talking and you’re looking at me. But I have learned to tell the difference. Like your eyes just don’t quite look right when you’re doing that.
They’re not the same as when you’re really awake. But you will, you will move. You will sit straight up in bed. You will, what, one time we were on vacation and you sat straight up in bed like that, and you just ripped the covers off of me. And it was a big bed. It was like a California king bed in this hotel room.
And, and so you had, like, it wasn’t like you were ripping them off yourself and they just came off of me too. No, you had to go over to my side and rip them off of me. And you did it like, Violently, like you, I don’t, you might have been dreaming that there was like something on them or something. It was that, that level and then sometimes you, um, get up and walk around.
You, you do sleepwalk and now we [00:38:00] have, um, a door. We recently moved into a different house and, and this house has a door outside. On the second floor. So it’s like a door out to a balcony on our, on connected to our bedroom. And so I have taken, maybe I shouldn’t even be telling you this. I
Will: locked the
Kristin: door.
I checked that it’s locked at night in case you decide. That you just need to take a swim or something. I don’t know what you would do, so better not to find out. So yeah, I can relate to this and it doesn’t feel like much of a stretch that you might find yourself in the kitchen trying to do I ever say
Will: anything of interest.
Kristin: Yeah, I like to talk to you. Like, I like to talk back with whatever you’re saying. Do I converse
Will: with you?
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Really?
Kristin: Yeah. So if I’m not being woken up, if I’m, if I’m exhausted and like I’ve been woken up, I will just say, you’re sleeping, go back to bed. It’s nighttime. And you’re, you just go. And then you do.[00:39:00]
Uh, but if I have some energy, then, you know, I like to mess with you a little bit, or at least, like, try to figure out what it is that’s happening in your head, you know? Like, what, what scenario you’re in? Cause
Will: most the time, I think these types of acti actions They happen like fairly soon after you go to sleep and like fairly soon before you wake up.
I think it’s when you’re like in a deep sleep. The ones that
Kristin: I am aware of mostly are, are you always go to sleep before me. And so they’re like, as I’m drifting off or, or before I’ve even tried to go to sleep, I’m sitting there in the bed.
Will: Well, tell me if I, if I say anything funny, I’ll write it down and I can incorporate it into my, my comedy.
Kristin: You have any joke? One time I wasn’t there and you got up and you put on dress pants. And then you got back in bed. Like, normally I would stop you before you get to the point of putting on pants,
Will: and then I
Kristin: got a text from you the next day saying, I woke up with dress pants on.
Will: I don’t remember how they, yeah, they’re like slacks, like nice, like suit, I [00:40:00] went into my closet, found, okay, so I do a little walking too.
Yes, and
Kristin: you were like getting ready to go somewhere, so it does make me nervous, like it is something I think about, of like, what if you tried to get your keys, and get in your car, or something,
Will: so.
Kristin: So far, that hasn’t been the case. Let’s
Will: knock on wood on that one.
Kristin: Yeah, so I don’t, I, what do you do about this?
I don’t know, you laugh at them? I
Will: think that this, some of these things are what sleep doctors are for.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Right, because I think there are probably some medications that could be, so I would say this person should go to the doctor, go to a sleep medicine specialist.
Kristin: Make sure there’s nothing. Try to
Will: figure out what, what can be done to, to, to, to, Otherwise, uh, sleep in a, uh, locked, padded room.
Kristin: Yeah, you could look at, not a padded room, but you could look at locking the doors to see if it helps. Well, what if you fall down? You might figure out how to unlock it in your sleep, though.
Will: Okay, try to make it, make it like, turn your room into an escape room. Sure. Where you can get clues to [00:41:00] get out. And, um, sleep in
Kristin: a, uh, Industry check it, you know, just strap them down
Will: for their own
Kristin: safety.
Will: You can, you can tie me to the bed if you need to.
Kristin: If it comes to that, I guess I’ll have to.
Will: All right. That’s our episode for today. We’ll end with me being tied to the bed for non nefarious purposes. Uh, thank you all for, uh, for listening. Uh, let us know if you have any, any topics you want us to discuss with each other.
We’re always open to suggestions. Knock, knock. Hi, at human dash content. com. Or you can also leave a comment on our YouTube channel.
Kristin: We don’t always have time to like respond to all of them, but we do try to look at them and read them. Yeah, we can
Will: respond to them here on this podcast. You gotta listen.
Kristin: Yeah, that’s right.
Will: If you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcasting app on YouTube, we can give you a shout out like we just mentioned, at StacySells1122 on YouTube, um, on the Dr. Jim Gunter episode. Said so this is [00:42:00] 100 percent not safe for work But there’s a hilarious recap of comedian Bert Kreischer handling his second daughter’s first period.
We’ve talked about that Inclusive of throwing a period party the too long didn’t read version is well You should be prepared just in case you get the call. Yeah Absolutely.
Kristin: I’m out of town that day
Will: Brett Kreischer, I think that’s the guy that does does stand up shirtless
Kristin: Oh, yeah, that’s like his shtick.
I’ve seen
[music]: him, yeah.
Will: Full video episodes are up every week on our YouTube channel at Glockenfleckens. We also have a Patreon, lots of fun perks, bonus episodes, react to medical shows and movies, hang out with other members of our little community. We’re there, we’re active in it, early ad free episode access, interactive Q& A, live stream events, much more, patreon.
com slash glockenfleckens, or go to glockenfleckens. com. Speaking of Patreon, community perks. Shout out to all the Jonathans,
Kristin: right? Yep.
Will: Patrick, Lucia G, Sharon S, Omer, Edward K, Steven G, Jonathan F, Marian W, Mr. Grindady, Caitlin C, Brianna L, KL, Keith G, JJH, Derek [00:43:00] N, Mary H, Susanna F, Jenny J, Mohamed K, Aviga Parker Ryan, Mohamed L, David H, Times 2, Gabe, Gary M, Eric B, Medical Mag, Bubbly Salt, and
[music]: Pink Macho!
Will: Patreon roulette time, random shoutouts, I’m on the emergency medicine tier, Mar S. Thank you for being a patron, Mar. And thank you all for listening, we’re your host, Willem Krister Plenner, you’re also known as the Glockenflecken, special Our special producers are our executive producers are Will and Kristen Flannery, Aaron Korney, Rob Goldman, I’ll make it, Shahnti Brooke, editor engineers Jason Portizzo.
Our music is by Omer Ben Zvi. To learn about our Knock Knock High’s program, disclaimer and ethics policy, submission verification and licensing terms and HIPAA release terms. There’s a lot of words today. You can go to Glockenflaggon. com or reach out to us, knockknockhigh at human content. com. With any questions, concerns, Or fun medical puns or marriage advice,
Kristin: marriage questions.
Will: Knock, knock high is a human content production.[00:44:00]
Hey, Kristen, you went to the doctor recently?
Kristin: I did. I had my annual checkup.
Will: Did they have a Jonathan?
Kristin: They had a virtual Jonathan.
Will: Oh,
Kristin: yes. In fact, it was a Dax co pilot from Microsoft. Yes.
Will: That’s, oh, Those things are amazing. I love it. There’s just so much documentation burden. And I’m sure, did your doctor look at you in the eye?
Kristin: Yes, there was a lot of eye contact. Isn’t
Will: that great? And the virtual Jonathan, I’m sure it lifted your doctor’s spirits.
Kristin: Just
Will: to be able to get through the day and actually have, like, a relationship with you is a huge deal. In fact, uh, 80 percent of physicians who use DAX Copilot say it reduces cognitive burden.
Kristin: I believe it. It seemed pretty slick.
Will: Yeah, and you’d just be more focused on what you’re doing and just, [00:45:00] you know, Do what we’re trained to do, practice medicine. To learn about how DAX Copilot can help you reduce burnout and restore the joy of practicing medicine. Visit aka. ms slash knock, knock high again.
That’s aka. ms slash knock, knock high.
