Transcript
Will: [00:00:00] Knock,
knock,
hi! Knock, knock, hi! Hello, and welcome to Knock, Knock, Hi! with the Glockenfleckens. I took you by surprise, you weren’t ready for that. Well,
Kristin: I was like mid sentence. I was gonna tell you something, but I guess we’re starting. Hi, everyone. Hi,
Will: I am Will Flannery, also known as Glock Dr. Glockenflecken. Glocken Dr.
Glockenflecken. And who are you?
Kristin: I… Do you know? Because it seems like you might not. I do know. I’m your wife, I’m Kristen Flannery. Also known as Lady Glockenpuckin. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. You seem a little, uh… I’m a little loopy. A little loopy, yeah. I’m just… I don’t know, it’s been a
Will: good day.
We’ve had some good conversations today. I got, I was on a little trip, speaking trip, and now I’m back. And, um, it’s always good to come back to the family. The kids are [00:01:00] still at an age where they, they get excited when I walk in. Yeah.
Kristin: You still get
Will: the daddy! Oh, it’s so fun. I never get tired of that. And you get it from the dog.
I get it from the dog and to a lesser extent, you. Yeah. I’m like, Hey. You don’t, uh, yell out daddy and run up to me.
Kristin: No, that would be, that’d
Will: be weird. So we have Dr. Tommy Martin today. That’s right. Uh, he is, you all probably know who he is. He is, um, uh, all over TikTok, uh, and, uh, multiple social media platforms, Instagram.
He’s also on YouTube. Uh, he is an internal medicine and pediatrics specialist. We call that MedPeds. Yeah, internal medicine, adult medicine and kid medicine, but specifically in the hospital. Yeah, he’s like a hospital, like a peds hospitalist and like an adult hospitalist,
Kristin: like internal medicine, as opposed to external medicine, which would be outpatients, which
Will: sounds, yeah, I go, I go on and on.
I think in an interview, like how hard his job [00:02:00] sounds like I that’s, it’s like two totally different things in medicine. Yeah. And he’s just. Uh, somehow able to, because he’s brilliant, uh, to, to just do both. Uh, but he is based in Massachusetts, uh, and, uh, affiliated with, um, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital.
Uh, but outside of the awesome things he does in medicine. He has a huge social media following. Uh, so he is, um, a prominent physician figure on social media. Uh, and, uh, one of the early ones, in fact, he’s, yeah, he’s been doing it since 2013, uh, at Dr. Tommy Martin. Uh, where, um, he, his social media content is, it’s really very positive.
Mm-hmm. , he’s a very positive person. Yeah. He’s not a big downer like I am at times. Right, right. . Um, and so it, his, he’s. Really driven by this desire to encourage, motivate, inspire as many people as possible Talking about the things that he’s passionate about like fitness. He’s a triathlete Also, just a medicine medicine internal medicine [00:03:00] pediatrics all things his family life He’s really open about all his experiences as he’s gone through his medical career.
He’s very early in it
Kristin: But I gotta say if you have you have like some kind of You know, Inferiority Complex, where you struggle with feeling like you’re not achieving. You might want to skip this episode. No, welcome
Will: to the team, because we’re there with you.
Kristin: He sure does do a lot of things. He does a lot of things.
I don’t know how he has, I mean, the time is one thing, and we talk about that in the episode, but the energy, like how to maintain that level of energy to do this.
Will: I think maybe doing things, like, gives you more energy. Yeah, it’s probably like a positive feedback loop. Exactly, and if you’re slovenly like me.
Yeah, a negative feedback loop. Yeah, exactly, right? Something about, uh, psychology. I don’t know, you’re the psychologist. I mean, aren’t
Kristin: those in biology too? I feel like that’s a biology thing. Sure. It’s physiology. Yeah, alright, probably. I think med students know what I’m talking
Will: about. Uh, let’s see, what else can we do?
Oh, we’re at the end of summer. We [00:04:00] did
Kristin: it. Yep. Yeah, summer is rough when you have kids these ages. When you get,
Will: yeah, when you’re And you’re trying to work. You’re both working full time and, um, and kids, young kids that need things to do. Yeah. It’s like a big Jenga puzzle trying to put together summer camps.
Yep, yep.
Kristin: And you did most of the work, you know those puzzles of course. Do you know those puzzles where you like slide it with your fingers where there’s like, it’s a square, right? Yeah. And there’s like a grid, like a four by four grid of tiles on the square or something. But one of the tiles is missing and you have to arrange all the tiles.
Yeah. In a way that it makes a picture, but by like one little move at a time. That is what? Arranging a summer is like, for a parent. Yeah. All the people, and all the places, and all the times, and all the drop offs, and the pick ups, and the meetings, and the appointments, and the jobs, and the dog, and the…
Yeah. That’s a lot. I’m tired. God bless [00:05:00] teachers. Thank you for taking our children when we are at the end of our ropes. But
Will: they’re doing cool… I don’t know. Like, I remember when I was… I, I, I spent, I just like, I went to, I played tennis. I did some things, but some of the things that kids are doing nowadays, like parkour.
Yeah,
Kristin: that’s pretty cool. Parkour camp. Well, and we live in a place where they’re fortunate enough to have a lot of opportunities, you know, close by. That’s true. A lot of things, like horse camps. Yeah, we’ve done horses, we’ve done soccer, swimming, there’ve been basketball camps, there’s, yeah, parkour camps, there’s art camps, there’s music camps.
I mean, they just have everything. You know what I did when I was a kid? I, uh, I worked. I worked. I had my first job at ten years old. You
Will: lived in the armpit of society. There was
Kristin: nothing to do. Nothing. You could go outside and just, I don’t know, sit there. Draw in the dirt. Yeah, I did a lot of, like, staring at the clouds, like, coming up with, uh, animals.
Will: The point is, kids [00:06:00] have a lot to do. They have a lot of things they can do these days, which is cool. Yeah. That’s great. Um, but it’s also very challenging. But
Kristin: no, but I’m glad to send them back to school at the end of the summer. Yes, it is a relief. I’m not gonna lie. Love the children. Love them very much.
But go to school. Would do anything at all for them. But I really do like, you know, having eight hours to myself.
Will: Well, let’s talk to Dr. Dewey. We could go on and on. I feel like we have. Um, so. I’m Let’s get to our conversation with Dr. Tommy Martin. Here he is.
Today’s episode is brought to you by the Nuance Dragon Ambient Experience or DAX for short. This is AI powered ambient technology that helps physicians be more efficient and to reduce the clinical documentation that leads to so much burnout in medicine these days. To learn more about how DAX can help reduce burnout.
and Restore the Joy of Practicing Medicine. Stick around after the episode or visit nuance. com slash discover DAX. That’s [00:07:00] N U A N C E dot com slash discover D A X. All right. We are here with Dr. Tommy Martin. We’ve been trying to do this for a while, Tommy. I’m glad we finally got it done. Welcome.
Dr. Tommy Martin: Yeah, me too.
Thank you so much for bearing with me through all of the hectic schedules.
Will: Uh, you, you gotta, um, you got a busy life these days. And so, uh, first off, the first thing I want to ask is how many hours have you been awake right now? Because I did, I, I went on a little, uh, Dr. Tommy Martin binge on TikTok and, um, uh, have you been up since like, what, 345 or something in the morning?
Yeah, I
Dr. Tommy Martin: usually wake up between 3. 45
Will: and 4. You know that’s not normal, right? Like, that’s, that’s, uh… Everybody has their
Dr. Tommy Martin: different normal, like, right? Your normal’s a lot different than
Will: my normal. Oh, my normal’s a lot different than yours. Yeah. That’s so, but [00:08:00] honestly, you know, I will say, after I watched that TikTok, where you, so basically it was a, for those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a video where you basically just go through, like, your day.
Like what, what it takes to do, you know, the medicine and the training and the lifting and all these things, family time. It really fascinating. I always find those fascinating for, for different doctors to, uh, or in, you know, medical influencers or however, what do you ever want to call us? Um, to see what your day is like.
And so I watched that. And then I remember, cause it was last night. Yeah. And what did I, what did I say? Well,
Kristin: I’ve been on him a while. I’ve been using a personal trainer and I’ve been loving it. And I have some, like, I have hypermobility issues, so I kind of need supervision in my workouts. But I just thought he would love it too, cause I know him well.
And so I’ve been on him for months trying to get him to do this. And he’s like, yeah, yeah, And then last night he checks out your TikToks and he’s like, all right. Send me the link. I’m going to get a [00:09:00] personal trainer.
Dr. Tommy Martin: I mean, just a little plug, if you need a coach, I’d be more than happy to, you know, and I could let you sleep in till 4.
Will: 30. Oh, That’s so kind. You know, the last time I woke up in the, like, the, the 4 a. m. hour, um, It’s always just to catch a flight, I think. Well, that, I don’t count that, but like, like on a consistent basis was my third year rotation, uh, for surgery. Surgery. My surgery rotation. Uh, and so, um, Uh, you’re doing it for very productive.
I, are there days though, Tommy, when you, when you wake up and you’re like, Oh, no, I forget this. I, there’s no way I need three extra hours of sleep today. Yeah, I will
Dr. Tommy Martin: say after a week on service where I’ve worked like 80 to 90 hours and commuted a ton and my sleep definitely is not where it should be.
Usually the next day or two, I’ll sleep in some. But then I’ll try to sleep in as long as I possibly can and then I’m waking up like at 530 [00:10:00]
Kristin: Like 7. That’s sleeping in for you now. You’ve, you’ve trained your body to wake
Will: up. But you’re training, you’re, I mean it takes a lot of dedication because you’re training for, you’re, uh, you’re doing Ironmans and triathlons and, and so.
Yeah, I’ve got some
Dr. Tommy Martin: races coming up this fall. So we got a half Ironman coming up and then a full distance Ironman, but I’m trying to combine that with Powerlifting, which is a
Will: little tough. Is that a, is that like a new sport you’re inventing? Or is that like a… Powerlifting? No, no, no, combining the two. Oh, okay.
I know powerlifting’s a
Kristin: thing. I know you haven’t been to the gym in a while, but
Will: golly.
Dr. Tommy Martin: Yeah, uh, no, not necessarily. I’d say it’s probably over the last six years become more of like a fad. Just to see if you could combine endurance sports with bodybuilding and powerlifting. And so I’ve been doing it for a few years now.
But the feat that I want to accomplish only one other person has done it But I’m gonna try to beat the Ironman time by a couple hours. Oh,
Will: man That’s how many times have you had [00:11:00] rhabdomyolysis? You know,
Dr. Tommy Martin: I’ve never got my blood tested after a race, but probably quite a few Well, I want
Will: to I want to talk a little bit about About your medical career, um, and so, Kristen, in fact, she’s always, what, what bothers, what irritates Kristen is when we, when I say like,
Kristin: What irritates me? Less, how much
Will: time do you have? Whenever I, yeah, right? Whenever we, I refer to like, oh, that’s a medicine doctor.
Yeah. That’s like an internal, like a, it’s like a medicine. You’re doing, Yeah. He does medicine.
Kristin: Basically what that sounds like to me as a non medical professional is, um, he’s a doctor doctor. Yeah. It’s all medicine, what do you mean he’s a
Will: medicine? But you have a, um, uh, a more unique position where you’re doing internal medicine and pediatrics.
So you did MedPeds for your training, right? It’s a
Dr. Tommy Martin: four year
Will: program. Yeah. And so tell me what your, how does that translate into your career? Like what is it [00:12:00] exactly that you do? Yeah, for
Dr. Tommy Martin: me specifically, I do exactly 50, well, technically 60 50, so I do a little bit, I work a little more than what I should, but I do 60% of my time with adult medicine, and then I do 50% of my time with pediatric medicine, and all of my time is working in a hospital, so as a hospitalist.
So I’ll split my time, I’ll do a week of internal medicine, then I’ll get a week off, and then I’ll do a week of pediatrics, and then I’ll get a week off, and it just does that throughout the year.
Kristin: That is, is that a Like a typical that’s a thing that people often do or this is something you need is this like the iron man weightlifting Thing where you’re making something
Dr. Tommy Martin: new My whole personality is just like do something weird and do something different smash two
Kristin: things together
Will: Actually, that’s a good question.
Like how how long has med peds been a thing because you know, it’s it’s not Probably I mean, it’s probably not as common as each of those specialties individually,
Dr. Tommy Martin: right? Yeah So it’s been around actually for A few decades or maybe even 40, 50 [00:13:00] years, maybe even longer than that, uh, but it’s just not very well known.
And most people that do it, I will say after training end up specializing in one or the other, uh, just because it’s really hard to practice both. And even with the way things are coming out now, uh, he, American Academy of Pediatrics and um, the pediatric division has made it to where you have to do a fellowship to even be a hospitalist.
So, you have to do two or three more years of training after residency. To do what you just trained for three years for. Um, uh, you can tell I’m not the biggest fan of it, but yeah. Huh.
Will: Did you do that? Like what I did not do that. No. Oh man. Okay.
Kristin: Why do they want you
Dr. Tommy Martin: to do that? It’s a good question. I mean they have quite a few reasons.
I would I don’t know how many people’s gonna listen to this. I don’t know if I should tell my full thoughts on this
Will: I think you tell tell whatever you think whatever you feel comfortable talking about. I think that’s fair. I was just mainly
Dr. Tommy Martin: joking, but I think that there is a…
Will: We’re not trying to get you fired here.
Yeah, [00:14:00] no. No
Kristin: gotcha moments over here.
Dr. Tommy Martin: It’s hard to know for sure like why they did it because like in my mind doing pediatric residency I had tons of hospital medicine time, but a lot of it I think is academic in nature And so learning how to do QI projects learning how to do research and teach residents and medical students How to do research a lot of that you do not necessarily get in residency unless you’re actively doing those things So I think it’s the better prepare you as an academic hospitalist potentially
Will: and so My next question for you is why Med Peds?
because That it just seems really hard to do
Kristin: Like you basically have two jobs Keep up on two different fields
Will: and just yeah, exactly you got you got a you got to learn, you know just so much more information but also like The, the, the brain switch from going from, you know, from adult to [00:15:00] kids to, cause we’re told over and over again, right?
That kids aren’t little adults. Uh, and so it’s like a totally, it seems like a totally separate mindset. You’re going from week to week to week. Uh, and so I would love to hear kind of your origin story, like how you ended up in this field.
Dr. Tommy Martin: Yeah, I mean, I’ll, it’s pretty long, but I’ll give, like, the summarized version.
So, initially, I was, like, dead set on surgery when I started medical school. I was 1, 000% going to be a surgeon. And on my surgery rotation, I loved it. I was at a community based hospital. They let me do so much for being a third year medical student. It was kind of scary how much they let me do, but it was, looking back, I’m like, oh my gosh, well, I barely knew how to like, I don’t know, find the elevator in the hospital, let alone do
Will: what they let me do.
Do a solo appendectomy, you know, just, you know, everything by yourself. Yeah, sure. Right, I did amputate a
Dr. Tommy Martin: leg, which I mean, you can’t really mess that up, but like, Right. Yeah, um, so all my surgery rotation, it was four in the morning, you know, 430, and we were going to go see this patient. And [00:16:00] this patient, we didn’t know exactly what was going on, but we had to do a biopsy to see if they had cancer.
And so, the chief surgeon went in there and was like, hey, we’re gonna have to do a biopsy, you may have cancer. So, we’re gonna get to the OR, we’ll see you here in a couple hours. And obviously, this patient was like, what? Like I might have cancer? Yeah. And, and the chief surgeon was like, you know, about to go out of the room because he said we have to get to the OR, the OR schedule is busy.
And I saw that she was wearing a cross on her neck, and so I asked the chief surgeon, I was like, Hey, is it okay if I just stick around and like, talk to her and pray with her if she wants? And he said, do whatever you want, but we have to get to the OR. So, this is like my second or third week of surgery or whatever.
And so, I stayed back, hang out with the patient, um, by the end of it, I just asked her, I was like, I noticed that you were wearing a cross, would you like me to pray with you? And she said yes, so that all went on. And then went on with my surgery rotation. Loved it. Best, like, rotation ever. It was so much fun.
And like, it worked with my schedule. Right, which is, I know you guys are like, that’s ridiculous. But I was like, [00:17:00] yes, we get to wake up at four in the morning. And yes, we get to go to work in the hospital. Yeah, it was like 126 hours my first week. It was ideal. And then, uh. We’re very different people.
Will: Yeah.
It’s amazing.
Dr. Tommy Martin: And then, so, my internal medicine rotation was my next rotation, and a couple weeks in I get a call from an oncologist and he asked me to go to his office. Had no idea why he wanted me to go to his office. Didn’t even know this guy. And when I get to his office, he said, hey, could you go see this patient in this room?
I’m like, this is really weird. What in the world’s going on? So I went in that room and when I did, it was that patient from, you know, 12 weeks ago. And they said, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it’s the angel that God had sent me. Uh, and they gave me a really big hug and then from that moment on, I was like, you know what?
I love surgery, but I don’t know if it would allow me to have the lifestyle that I want to have where I could spend as much time with the patients as I possibly want to. Uh, so that is when I decided, you know, it’s medicine, uh, and then pediatrics was some fun patient, fun and embarrassing patient encounters I had with [00:18:00] some kids where I was like, you know what?
I love everyone and I want to serve everyone. I want to be a doctor of everyone.
Will: Yeah, well, that’s that’s such a good story and that’s that’s cool that you found it in that way You know found what you wanted to do and and and then so now you’re going to like internal medicine pediatrics And but now you still have like three hours in the morning You have to fill up with something so you might as well do Iron Man’s right might as well, right?
Oh, you’re one to talk
Kristin: What? About filling up your free
Will: time. I know, like, I, yeah, except I, I, I would say I’m probably less productive in my free time dressing up as different specialties in medicine, but, um. That’s true. But, so it’s, so you were, you were, you decided on that. You said surgery wasn’t, you know, quite the right thing to go.
And then, and then internal medicine versus pediatric. Could you just, like, was it just, you were totally split? Like, I don’t know which way to go. Fortunately, I can do both things. Is that kind of how it,
Dr. Tommy Martin: Yeah, it wasn’t that I didn’t know [00:19:00] which one I wanted to do, it was that I knew for sure I wanted to do both.
Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah, and so with that, another thing is when you look at overseas mission work and what is the most sought after doctors, I think med peds is third or fourth on the list and I knew that that’s something that I’m very passionate about and the reason being is because if you go over there and you’re just a pediatrician.
I mean, your utility is only for kids, you know, I mean, of course they could use you for other things, but if you know medicine from all ages, then your utility is so much higher, you know? And so that was another big component of it. Yeah.
Will: And so going from, I’ve never heard of someone doing it like the way you’re doing it where it’s like internal medicine a week, you take a week off.
Pediatrics for a week. Uh, Do you ever do them back to back or is it do you always get a break in between? I’ve
Dr. Tommy Martin: done a 21 day stretch. So that would be my 21 straight
Will: days Yeah, 21 straight days. Yeah, I think that’s illegal in ophthalmology Like you’re not you’re not I think I get my license [00:20:00] taken away if I try to work 21 straight days Um, wow
Dr. Tommy Martin: Yeah, it was, it was a lot, but so we could set it up however we want, but if I work 21 straight days, that gives me almost a whole month off to do, you know, like all these other things that I do and
Will: yeah, well, let’s get to some of those because when, yeah, when did you, the social media thing, uh, you, so you have, uh, over 2 million, um, on TikTok.
You got over a hundred thousand on Instagram, a bunch of YouTube subscribers. When did this start for you?
Dr. Tommy Martin: So social media started back in 2013, which is a long time ago. Most people, yeah, most people think like on social media, oh, you just blew up overnight, but people don’t understand like how many hours, um, or videos that some of us have put into it.
So it started back in 2013. And that was on Instagram? That was on Instagram, uh, and that was just really minor stuff, and then it really got started in 2014 when my wife [00:21:00] told me I needed to start a YouTube channel, and that’s kind of how it all started. That was good advice. for sure. I mean, she’s brilliant, but uh, she didn’t know what she was getting herself into, and neither did I.
Yeah. Cause she did it to give us more time together, cause I was meeting with Yeah, Kristen’s really like, yeah,
yeah, Kristen, how much time does social media take away from you guys? Oh, it’s
Kristin: another full time job. I do, I do the, you know, I run the business side of things, and I do some other… She does the stuff full time. Social media and writing stuff, and I do it full time now. Yeah, it’s my full time career. And then he comes home, and it’s, it’s a lot of his free time, most of his free time, besides, like, I wouldn’t count kid time as free time, you know?
He goes to work, we have family time, and he has this. But
Will: we also try to, we involve the kids a little bit in it as
Kristin: well. We try to, yeah. Even if it’s not, like, on camera, but just, like… You know, they like it. Showing it to them and getting their ideas and stuff. So,
Dr. Tommy Martin: and we have, I’m sure they’re like, my dad has over a million followers.
Like that’s the coolest thing
Will: [00:22:00] in the world. Oh man. So that when I hit a million YouTube subscribers, that was to my kids, that was the pinnacle of human achievement. Yeah. That was an
Kristin: accomplishment. They understood.
Will: Yeah. They got it. Right. And so I, I could not, I could have, I could meet the president. I could do anything.
And it’s like, Well, who cares? You got a million YouTube subscribers. That’s as good as it, just retiring out. What’s the point? So, so great. So where were you in your medical career, I guess, in 2013?
Dr. Tommy Martin: I was just, I just finished undergrad. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, so I did undergrad a little quick. Um, I finished it in three years and then I wanted to go straight to medical school.
And so finished, went straight to medical school and in medical school I was meeting with medical students and teaching them how to study, how to do well in your exams, how to create a schedule and things of that nature. Well it got to where I was meeting with 15 to 20 students a day and my girlfriend at the time Which is now my wife Phoebe.
She said Tommy you’ve got to stop [00:23:00] this Like you meet with 15 to 20 students a day like your whole day is just meetings Like you just can’t do this You should create a YouTube channel Yeah And just put all the content there and when YouTube channel And so that’s what I started to do. And that’s kind of where social media really kind of
Will: started.
So you were meeting these, uh, just, they wanted advice. You were just giving advice about med school and applying and all that stuff. Um, and I mean, that’s, so you, you must, you’re probably one of the very early. Adopters of, of doing that type of medical kinda influencer type work. Um, and uh, certainly on Instagram.
I’m not sure on YouTube, but, and I mean, there’s a lot of that now. So you’re very much a pioneer, a trailblazer in that area. ,
Dr. Tommy Martin: yeah. I will say there were a couple, um, one of their names is Chiney. I believe, and Aaron Hayes. There were a couple that I remember on YouTube, but there weren’t very many of us at all, [00:24:00] and I had no idea what I was doing.
I recorded all of my videos and edited them and uploaded them with an iPad mini, the first generation. Oh my god. And that’s what I used for all of my content until I reached 5, 000 subscribers on YouTube. Yeah.
Will: Oh, wow. Do you ever go back and see and look at the quality of those? Please don’t. Wish
Dr. Tommy Martin: we would have even mentioned that.
No one needs to go look at anything. My wife, like, she was like, your first video was terrible, like, who was
Will: that? Oh, I, I, I totally relate, like, I, I look back at the stuff I made, because I, you know, Yeah, you weren’t
Kristin: even doing the same thing. No, I know. It was, it was… No characters yet.
Will: No… It was, because it was all, I, I joined, uh, TikTok.
That’s when I started making video content. That was right at the height of the pandemic. Yeah, you did the dancing eyebrows. That was… Yeah, like I, well, I was, you know, doing the thing, like jumping on trends and stuff. And, and, but I wasn’t doing like, like a lot of the comedy, like skit writing type of thing.
And so you look back at the old stuff and it’s just like, I mean, I was learning how to, how to do it. [00:25:00] Right. And I think that’s… That’s a good lesson for people because I do, I’m sure you get this a lot. A lot of people are like, how do you even get started on social? It can feel so daunting knowing, you know, what to do, how to get started.
And it’s almost like you just got to. If you have an idea you just got to do it. Just do it. And then and you’re only gonna learn and get better by doing more of it. And yeah, it’s gonna suck. I mean, we’re terrible at everything we do whenever we first do it and then you get better at it the more you do it, right?
Dr. Tommy Martin: Yeah, exactly. And people think that you have to have the nicest camera, the nicest mic, and the nicest lighting and all this stuff. But like that’s not necessarily true, especially with these new short form videos and you know, these like everybody wants it to be as realistic as possible. And so I say, Whatever you have, just get started and go with it.
Exactly.
Will: That’s I do right now. Right now you’re talking to us on an on an on an iPad mini right here. So, no, I’m .
Kristin: You’ve got your Walkman.
Will: That’s right. That’s actually true. .
Dr. Tommy Martin: [00:26:00] Uh, but yeah, so from there I worked so hard on YouTube and Instagram from 2014 to 2019 and saw very little growth. And I was posting three times a day, every day on all platforms.
So like, I was working hard and then I saw a video by Gary B that said, if you’re not on TikTok, you’re wasting your time. I was like, what in the world? He said, whether you want to spread a good message, make a difference, you need to be on TikTok. So I studied the app for two weeks, saw what videos did well, what videos didn’t do well, took notes on all of it, made my first video and it hit like 500, 000 views overnight and I had 50, 000 followers in 24 hours.
Um, and I was one of the first doctors, there was like two others, Dr. Leslie and someone else on TikTok at the time, and then from there it just
Will: went crazy. It’s TikTok is really, it totally changed the game in terms of audience building, right? Yeah. Uh, it’s gotta be just the way the… Well, the time it came on, because this, again, like whenever the whole [00:27:00] country shut down, everyone was on social media, that’s all people were doing, right?
So it wasn’t just TikTok, it was engagement on all the platforms, but TikTok in particular, um, uh, was just blowing up and, uh, it was… I had a similar experience. It’s just remarkable how quickly you can build an audience, uh, just because of the, right,
Dr. Tommy Martin: I mean, you repro, how fast did you get hit? A million?
Like it was fast, right? It was
Will: fast, yeah. Uh, I don’t know, within a year, you know? Yeah. Uh, it’s, is is crazy compared to, you know, on Twitter or I, sorry, now x I don’t know if you even x you probably, I don’t even know if you even bother with, with No. Probably in the end, a good decision. That’s for the best decision, but that’s where I started.
And, um, uh, And it’s, it’s much slower growth there. Um, but, uh, so yeah, it’s different with different platforms, but, um, yeah, I totally agree with the, the quality, like, don’t worry about quality so much. If the, if the, it’s the content, if what you’re saying, [00:28:00] what I tell people is if, if, what, if you believe in what you’re saying and what you’re, the expertise you’re trying to build up, um, and it comes off as authentic, it’s going, people will pay attention to it.
Right? People will watch you. It doesn’t matter what kind of device you’re recording on. Right, yeah. I
Dr. Tommy Martin: usually tell people to like, write down five things in your life that you’re most passionate about. Like when you think about them, it like sets your heart on fire. And whatever those five things are, write three topics next to each of those, and then make all 15 of those videos, and then see which ones catch fire, and then make content on that.
Yeah, that’s a good
Will: approach. Do you have any anything to add on building a social media audience?
Kristin: Well, you know, it helps if you have Someone behind the scenes doing a lot of your work for you. I’ll just
Will: say that.
Dr. Tommy Martin: Yeah, that has to be amazing. I’m pretty much a one man show and it’s a lot. I don’t know.
Will: It is.
It’s a lot. Well, I don’t know, like, that’s what I was going to ask you is how, because you’re doing this, you said you’re, you’re just slogging away, you’re [00:29:00] posting three times a week, but you’re also in med school at this time. And did you, as you’re doing this through your medical education and training, did you get any pushback?
Did you get any like, you know, because sometimes it’s hard for people to accept that this is a legitimate thing that, that you should be spending your time on and, and I certainly have heard people in medicine who kind of got themselves into trouble. Have you ever had any issues like that?
Dr. Tommy Martin: Yeah, so I’d say early on when my accounts were smaller, no one knew who I was or anything on social media, so it really didn’t matter.
Uh, but people like my colleagues and friends, they’d give me a hard time and say, oh, he’s trying to be a social media star or, you know, whatever it be. Even though my content, most of the time, I’d say, is like uplifting and trying to be positive in things. And then once everything kind of blew up, I would say I did get…
Like my program director, they were all very supportive and they all knew my content, but they were just like, you know, [00:30:00] be very careful, make sure you’re abided by the social media guidelines and things like that. And then I would say my things really changed or shifted whenever I had the opportunity to be the keynote speaker for the WHO on the use of social media medicine.
And I think like once it became almost like validated or like he showed in medicine that it did have importance then people respected it a lot more but before that it was just Kind of like oh, you know, you’re just doing social media stuff Doctors don’t need to be on social media and my whole talk was why doctors need to be on social media And that’s what the WHO wanted me to you know They were excited that I was gonna be talking about that and then so I think that Kind of frameshifted everything.
Will: That’s, that’s such an achievement. That’s, congratulations on that. When did you give that?
Dr. Tommy Martin: That was in, it was right in the middle of the pandemic. Yeah, in 2020.
Will: Where was it located? Where did you go for that? Well, it was online. It was right. It was virtual, right? Yeah. Yeah, of course. I was gonna say, did you get to go somewhere cool?[00:31:00]
You can see that I’m the brains behind this. You got to go to your office. Right, yeah.
Kristin: Where was it
Will: located? Well, I was thinking, you know, in the past year, things have, you know, they’re actually having some events, but you’re right, that was a silly thing to ask. It’s
Kristin: okay, you were unconscious for part of that year, it
Dr. Tommy Martin: can be forgiven.
It’s all a haze. But, like, what you were saying, like, you do have to be very, very, very careful all throughout medicine. Uh, so do you do, are you doing, do you, are you doing private practice or do you work for, okay. No,
Will: I’m private practice, um, in a physician owned group and it’s, uh, I work four days a week.
So.
Dr. Tommy Martin: And you can pretty much do whatever you want then, right? Like in terms of your social media stuff.
Will: I, yeah, for the most part, um, you know, I have very understanding, uh, partners and, um, and so they, you know, I, I’ve gotten better at it and I would say I, I take fewer risks now than I probably used to, um.
And I’ve just, and that’s part of the learning [00:32:00] experience on social media, especially as a physician, because we do have this level of professionalism we have to maintain, right? That there’s certain lines we can’t cross, and I’m mainly talking on, for me, because I tell a lot of jokes, and it’s very easy to cross a line when you tell jokes, right?
Oh yeah, we’ve probably all done that. Yeah, you know, it, I mean, it’s, it, it happens and, uh, but, but you learn from that and it’s different on social media versus, you know, when you’re just in a group with your friends, you know, because you don’t want to do anything that would undermine the patient physician relationship or what the public, how the public sees us.
Uh, and so, yeah, you just gotta be careful and it’s, it’s a, it’s a learning. The process,
Dr. Tommy Martin: you know, yeah, I think what you said there is so important because like your friends know you, right? And so they know your core values in your heart Whereas the millions of people that see us all they see is face value and that’s it So our values have to be shown at face [00:33:00] value And so if we’re doing jokes that maybe they like people don’t see that we don’t truly, you know Believe that stereotype or whatever that is then it could be very offensive.
Will: Yeah Yeah, fortunately, they see me dressed up like wearing a bicycle helmet and a bicycle jersey. They know I’m joking for the most part, so, um, I don’t know, you look pretty
Dr. Tommy Martin: professional in that. I could see you at the
Will: hospital in that. Um, what, uh, so, it’s not only the World Health Organization, by the way, like, you’ve done some really impressive things.
So you, um, were, uh, you serve as an ambassador for the National Infectious Disease Society of America? How did you get into that position?
Dr. Tommy Martin: It was also through social media and throughout COVID, stopping the spread of, you know, misinformation online. And so, pretty much they just saw all of my content about COVID, even though my account would get taken down like every other day because people would, uh, flag it because I was talking about COVID.
Oh gosh. Oh wow. It was
Will: insane. That was on TikTok? On [00:34:00] TikTok. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because you
Kristin: a doctor. We’re discussing Covid. , right? Yeah.
Dr. Tommy Martin: Oh, wow. The docking myths, like saying that you should not, I don’t know. Like garlic’s not gonna cure Covid for you, right? Right. Oh, let’s take down his account. How dare he. He say that, you know, uh, I didn’t, man,
Will: I didn’t know you got, so you were getting like, oh my goodness.
The short term bans like for contact. Yeah. And then thankfully had a contact
Dr. Tommy Martin: time or what? It would depend, so I had a contact at TikTok that would help me restore my account, but if they were busy or if they were out of the office, it could be a week or two weeks, whatever it may be. Oh no. Oh wow. Yeah, so during that time, that’s kind of when we were leading those initiatives.
Will: Yeah, well that’s, that’s good. I’m glad you stuck with it despite, you know, the threats of being banned and things, so. You know, it’s,
Dr. Tommy Martin: it’s insane right now. So there’s, I think, 4. 9 billion people on social media right now. Which is just, you can’t even fathom that many people. And the fact that the misinformation spreads, you know, about [00:35:00] ten times faster than accurate or evidence based information, I always say that I don’t think it’s any longer like a privilege that doctors get to be on social media, but it’s a necessity.
We have to be on there. Creating good content, evidence based content, because otherwise the misinformation is just going to keep running rampant.
Kristin: Yeah, you can stick your head in the sand all you want, but I don’t know, maybe it’s kind of like when newspapers were a thing, right? Like there’s no stopping this train now.
So really the best thing to do is to be on it.
Will: And part of it, you know, when I first got on social media, I was anonymous. because I was a resident and I was telling jokes and I didn’t feel, I didn’t feel comfortable, like I felt secure enough in my position to not get in trouble just being a physician on social media.
Uh, and I, I’m, I hope that that’s starting to change just to your point because we, we need. People doing all kinds of things on social media, as long as you maintain that, that line of professionalism we talked about. But, we, [00:36:00] we need residents, we need, you know, student, everybody needs to get on social media because that’s where the public
Dr. Tommy Martin: is.
Right. Yeah, I agree completely. And so would you say that when medical students or residents ask you about social media, because I get asked this all the time, Should I have a social media account? Should it be private? Should it be public? What’s your kind of stance on
Will: that? Oh, I, I always encourage everyone to put their real selves out there.
Uh, I think that some of the concerns I had looking back on it, they were a little bit overblown. Like I, I, I should have felt more secure in, in my position and the support I had around me to be able to be myself on social media. Because I think that’s what people want to see, in part. They want to see accurate information, but they also want to see you’re real, that doctors are real people.
Yes,
Kristin: there still though is that level of professionalism that you were talking about. I mean there’s different versions of ourselves, right? There’s the version that we might share with our family and close [00:37:00] friends. There’s a version we might share at work. There’s a version we might share, you know, I don’t know when we’re just cutting loose and having fun, right?
So you have to be careful about which version of yourself I think because you know there’s there are appropriate and inappropriate things for healthcare professionals and trainees to be putting out into the world. Right. But, but yeah, just everyone has a little bit of a different flavor, different personality, different issues that are important to them.
So, you know, dig into those and share those with the world for
Will: sure. Like I think waking up at 3. 45 in the morning is borderline inappropriate. Like I,
Dr. Tommy Martin: if you look at the comment section, I think most people agree with you.
Kristin: What time do you go to bed?
Dr. Tommy Martin: How do you make this work? So if I’m waking up at 3. 30 to 3.
45, I’ll try to get, be in bed by like 8. I generally say, like, I wake up at 4, go to bed at 9, try to get 7 hours of sleep a night. is genially what I tried to do.
Kristin: You must be really good at falling asleep quickly. Oh, within two minutes. Yeah, that’s the key. See, I need [00:38:00] like an hour of wind down time, and then I’ll lay there for about 30 minutes.
Yeah, I couldn’t do that. But I admire it, I just really couldn’t do
Will: it. Yeah, I do too. I wish I could do that consistently. You get
Dr. Tommy Martin: so much
Kristin: more done. I think I
Will: can. I think it’s possible. I think following people like Tommy on social media and seeing how he does it, I think it actually does help. Yeah. I think, I think what you
Kristin: do…
Clearly you’ve already influenced him. You’ve already signed up for that training.
Will: I’m all about it, man. I’m like, let’s do it. I just need you to remind me daily, send me daily messages. And shame, I think, at four o’clock in the morning saying, Hey, I’m at the gym. What are you doing? I’m like,
Dr. Tommy Martin: God. Man, so it’s so funny you say that so it’s probably the most common question I get asked is like my daily schedule or like what I do in a day And so like I do day in life videos the amount of hate comments in these videos is hilarious Yeah, um, which it doesn’t bother me my wife.
She’s like, how dare them they comment [00:39:00] that like pb We don’t even know that person like what does it matter what they comment? Yeah, and
Kristin: they’re just jealous.
Dr. Tommy Martin: It’s so funny.
Will: Yeah Yeah, I mean talk about you know, how to How to just do social media, dealing with comments like that and knowing what to take seriously and what not to take seriously is a big part of that,
Dr. Tommy Martin: you know?
Yeah, yo, for sure. It’s, and it, if you let every comment get to you, you will not make it on social media. There’s just no way. Because even if you make the best content in the world, they’re going to be the people that don’t have a profile image, that you’re not allowed to comment back to, that are going to say horrible things to everyone
Will: on the planet.
Right, exactly.
Dr. Tommy Martin: You know, uh. But something else that you had said is like waking up at 4 in the morning and then no one like 4 to 6 a. m I think that is the golden hours for whatever you want to do Like I like fitness other people like to draw other people like to paint right 4 to 6 a. m No one else is gonna be awake only the crazy people like me and I’m not gonna bother you So like wake up at this time and get some stuff done.
Will: Absolutely. Yeah. Honestly, I find myself I [00:40:00] sometimes will get my best like skit ideas like early in the morning because like I’m rested You know, it’s typically after I have coffee, but still like not
Kristin: me if I’m awake at 4 a. m There’s a good chance. I’m gonna throw up. I’m not even kidding
Will: Some people.
Some people truly something seriously is wrong. Some people truly are
Kristin: not morning people. I could stay up until 4:00 AM That’d be fine. Yeah. Yeah. But, but if I get up that early, oh, I don’t know. Something’s wrong
Will: with me. . I do. I do like how I feel like I have more cre, creative juices flowing. Yeah. Like that early in the morning, but I
Kristin: don’t know mine are more late at night like that 1 a.
m. To 4 a. m See, that’s also weird. Yeah, it is Because I have children and a job and thing, you know, but that if I were just left to my own devices I think that’s where I would
Dr. Tommy Martin: end up probably right? Yeah. I mean, that’s why we’re all different right and morning people
Will: Late night people ways to do it. We need, we need some influencers who are showing us what it’s like to be productive at one to 4:00 AM [00:41:00] There we go.
Yeah. There we go. You guys gotta, gotta balance out Dr. Martin here. Not
Kristin: for the next 10 years, at least. . Yeah.
Dr. Tommy Martin: That’s who your, your whole niche. Yeah.
Will: Yeah. . Well, let’s, Hey, let’s take a quick break and we’ll be right back.
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All right, we’re back with Dr. Tommy Martin, um, of, of [00:43:00] internet fame. We’re going to play a game that, because I think. Med peds as a field is a bit unknown Compared to other things like it’s just not as common, right? Streamline. Yeah, and so so here’s a a game I feel like could shed a little light on Med peds, so I call it med or peds or both.
Ooh This will be fun So I’m gonna name a thing and you’re gonna tell me in your line of work. Does that apply to Med like adult medicine or peds? Kids? Or maybe both or none or none. I don’t know. Okay. All right. Three hour plus rounds. Medicine. Internal medicine. Medicine. That’s med. That’s not peds, right?
Dr. Tommy Martin: If you’re working with me, it’s definitely not peds. I will say some divisions of pediatrics will be known for that. Yeah. So if I had to, like, the neonatal ICU, um, pick you, maybe, [00:44:00] maybe not. Uh, some rotations in beads, but for the most part, internal medicine.
Will: Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. That’s what I thought you’d say.
All right. Next one. 45 minute hyponatremia rant.
Hit. What do you think? Just so
Dr. Tommy Martin: funny because like every meme in the world about hyponatremia is with
Will: internal medicine doctors. Does that ever get any play on a pediatric service?
Dr. Tommy Martin: hyponatremia, but, uh, I would say with no other attendance, but I don’t go on for 45
Will: minutes on it. All right. So it’s more of an internal medicine thing.
1000%. Okay. All right. Here’s one. Uh, the, I guess giving, I will say giving a rounds presentation in front of the patient. A moodle.
Dr. Tommy Martin: I would say both. Yeah, yeah, yeah, both of them. Yeah, and it really, so I let the upper level resident decide what we do, but I’d say in [00:45:00] general, especially in academia, it’d
Will: be both.
Yeah, that’s what my, my, what I remember most about my pediatric rotations versus internal medicine was on peds. We seem to, Just do a lot of interacting in the room With with the family there with the patient with the kid and and I just have that memory Maybe it’s probably depends on who you work with though, but that’s probably a good idea for for both sides to be Doing a lot more in the room,
Dr. Tommy Martin: right?
Yeah, to me it lets for there’s a couple reasons why I like to do it But again, I let my upper level resident kind of decide what they want to do Yeah but if I’m making the decision I Usually round in the room with the patients and to me it lets the patient see how much we’re actually thinking about them Caring about them how much is going into the thought process of their care of plan And so they could trust us so much more when they see all like everything that we’re doing instead of just walking in Oh, that’s what we’re gonna do and you’re there for 10 minutes.
They see the whole [00:46:00] 30 minute, you know, all of it Do they
Kristin: under here’s as the patients would be my question is like does somebody explain to them? What you guys talk in your own language? So is someone explaining to the patient as they go what that all means so I could also see how that might be Scary for the
Dr. Tommy Martin: patient.
Yeah, so if we do bedside rounds like with the patient in the room The resident physicians are not supposed to they’re supposed to use Terminology in which the patient could understand and if they don’t that’s where the attending doctor then should clarify what’s being said. Yeah, it’s a good
Will: point Okay, next one Which has the best snacks the best unit snacks?
Dr. Tommy Martin: Peds for sure Hospital we have Uh, Golden Grahams, we have Cheerios, we have, we have Frosted Flakes, and that’s just for breakfast. Oh, man. We have all kinds of snacks there. Kids
Kristin: need
Will: their snacks. Uh, yeah. They’re growing, yeah. And I remember that Pete’s had chocolate milk. Oh,
Dr. Tommy Martin: we [00:47:00] definitely have chocolate milk.
You
Kristin: got, you got some lollipops, maybe? What
Dr. Tommy Martin: are you gonna get? Chocolate milk is like on
Will: draft. Oh, I love it. And the adult medicine, what are you going to get? Saltines? I mean, peanut butter, saltines. That’s probably it. I don’t know. That’s it. Yeah. If you’re
Dr. Tommy Martin: lucky, if you’re really lucky, you get golden grams, but that’s too
Will: far between.
There you go. What
Kristin: about coffee? Do they have coffee and peds or is that just
Dr. Tommy Martin: medicine? Well, coffee. That’s a great question. You know we did we we have it for the parents so we get it, but medicine you get like it’s I don’t even know where this Copy comes from if it looks like tar
Will: Yeah Not good. Not good stuff.
Okay. All right the busiest Overnight shifts the busiest nights
Dr. Tommy Martin: Oh internal medicine. Oh It depends. Okay. So internal medicine with acuity, I’d say both for different reasons. Internal medicine for acuity, meaning people are sick, you’re doing a lot, you might be running a lot of rapids, [00:48:00] going to a lot of codes, things like that.
Peds, a lot of calls about important things, but might be mild things.
Will: Right. So more volume, but maybe not the acuity that we would see on the adult side. Yeah. Okay. Um, all right. Holding a patient in your lap and spinning around in a chair. Oh, adult medicine.
Dr. Tommy Martin: One thousand percent.
Or we could go
Will: to the geriatric
Kristin: service.
Will: Oh man, no that’s definitely…
Uh, ophthalmology.
Um, if we’re wanting to estimate, uh, uh, uh, Vertigo? No, estimate, uh, visual acuity. Because in a, in a non verbal child, um, you can hold them in front of you, look at their eyes and spin around in a chair very [00:49:00] slowly. If they have nystagmus, then you know they have about a 2400 level acuity. Wow! Yeah,
Dr. Tommy Martin: yeah. You want to be Oliver’s eye doctor?
Kristin: Might be a little bit of a commute for an appointment.
Will: Yeah, tiny bit. Oh yeah, that’s true. Tiny bit far away, that’s okay. Just a couple thousand miles. Wait, but
Kristin: you’re putting this patient in your lap?
Will: Hey, you’re like, well, you’re holding a kid. Like, yeah, and a lot of times they’re very young and it’s, you know, it’s fun It’s like a little, you know You’re a kid.
Kristin: It’s like Santa. Like, sit on this strange man’s lap and take a ride
Will: Usually they’re not like, it’s not like an eight year old. Alright? Right Anyway, that’s a little tip for like, uh, you know from the eye world, I guess
Dr. Tommy Martin: Well, you know, I love that Oliver actually, he is nonverbal as of right now and he has vision issues So His ophthalmologist better do that.
If not, I’m sending them your
Will: way. Angry cardiologists. [00:50:00] Both. Am I gonna get you in trouble here?
Kristin: Plead the fifth.
Dr. Tommy Martin: I just feel it’s not their fault.
Will: You’re being very nice. I’m putting you on the spot here. They’re
Dr. Tommy Martin: so overworked and they’re consulted about anything and everything. And so I probably wouldn’t be the happiest either, but it’s definitely both.
Like, if you call one, it’s not, like, I try to be like, hi, good morning, how are you doing? I hope you’re having a great day. I just have a quick consult for you, and then it’s
Will: not. As soon as you say the word consult, it’s, it’s over. Yeah, it’s done. Okay, um, a couple more. Alright. Burnout.
Dr. Tommy Martin: Burnout. Uh, internal medicine.
Yeah. Yeah, I think so, because I think with peds you have a lot of joy and a lot of play and a lot of fun, and so that’s nice. I will say the, a lot of pediatric schedules are really tough, but I think internal medicine probably.
Will: And then the last one I have, um, number of RVUs you generate. Oh,
Dr. Tommy Martin: [00:51:00] internal medicine for sure.
Yeah. Yeah, because all the procedures and Yeah, yeah just in internal medicine would have a lot more just the acuity the High level of billing that you could do based off the medical problems And then you do a lot more procedures and internal medicine, of course It would depend on what division of each of
Will: these but yeah, I guess I had one more I think I know the answer to this one safety suckers.
Is that like suckers stickers? What did I, I I assume that’s more peds than internal medicine. Like, I don’t know, like, you know, the safety suckers, you know what I’m talking about? That’s a safety suckers sucker. Yeah, it’s, it’s got like, instead of like a a, a pointy stick, it’s like a loop. It’s like a loop, like a ring pop.
Like, no, no. It’s like a, it’s like a little, oh God, I don’t know what these are. I think they’re called safety sucker. They’re like, uh, it’s a sucker that you would. I was thinking
Dr. Tommy Martin: of the water swabs that we give people when they’re[00:52:00]
Will: NPO All right, that would probably also work too. All right, that was med or peds or both. Love it. All right, let’s take one more break and then we’ll come back with Dr. Tommy Martin
All right, we are back with Tommy Martin, and, uh, Tommy, what we’re going to do here is, uh, I’m going to read a story that was sent in by one of our listeners. Uh, and I haven’t read the story and so let’s, let’s, let’s get to it here. This comes from Abby. Abby says, when I was a pediatric intern working nights on the general inpatient floor, I took care of a medically complex, complex patient with many active problems that we were managing.
I didn’t know him well, as I had only taken care of him during the night, but knew from sign out that he had a complex corneal problem and was followed by ophthalmology. Ooh, so you’re interested. That doesn’t happen very often. Generally, we try not to be in a [00:53:00] hospital. So near the end of my shift, I got a message from his nurse with a picture of a contact lens saying that she had found it on his face by his eye.
She had no idea where it came from. I quickly scoured the ophthalm notes, trying to figure out why there might have been a contact lens in his eye. I was worried maybe a lost contact had caused all his problems in the first place. I could find no mention of a contact lens in the notes, so I sent the picture to the on call ophthalmology resident, asking if they knew anything about it.
I forgot to include the patient’s name in the message, but she replied right away, Is this the patient in question? It’s a contact lens. She was confirming it’s a contact lens. Obviously knew it was a contact lens, but had no idea. Why he would have had one in. So I asked her, was it supposed to be in his eye?
She replied, yeah, we put it there, but it’s fine. We’ll take care of it when he goes to the OR in the morning. I was pretty shocked by this as my team knew nothing about their plans to take him to surgery. And we had given, been giving him tube feeds all night. Oh, no. Little miscommunication there. [00:54:00] Uh, I still have no idea why they put a contact in his eye in the first place.
Oh, that’s why I’m here! I can explain why a contact lenses in the eye. Sometimes we’ll put a contact on the eye, um, for a, a, to help with pain relief. For a, a corneal abrasion. Well,
Kristin: she does say he had a corneal
Will: problem. Yeah, exactly. But also, but I’m not sure how that relates to surgery. So there’s, I’m not sure, but it is not unusual for us to be using contact lens therapeutically like that.
So that’s probably what happened. Cover it up like corneal abrasions, the cornea is like the most sensitive part of the body. And so if you have a scratch on the eye, it’s exquisitely painful for like the average, but especially young people, um, and who have all their corneal nerves and are just like.
ready to explode if there’s something wrong. Uh, and so a, basically a contact, a bandage contact lens, just like a, it’s a band aid. And so you’re just putting it on to protect against the pain from the eyelid rubbing up against the cornea.
Kristin: Well, there you go. Now she [00:55:00] knows that
Will: she’s listening. So there you go, Abby.
I hope you, you heard that. So now you know why we use contact lenses in patients, but also. I always tell people, uh, especially when I talk to like critical care doctors or anybody who’s, who, who treats sedated, uh, patients, uh, always check for contact lenses.
Kristin: Yeah, you know, you said that so much that then when you were unconscious and critically ill…
Yeah. I de, I did not want to do this, but I felt like you’d be mad if I didn’t. So I had to ask, are you putting eyedrops in his eyes to lubricate them? Well, he’s in nice shoe .
Will: She told my medical team to put artificial tears in my eyes.
Kristin: love, which love, which you’d be happy to know. They were on top of it.
They were already doing it. So nice. I knew you’d want me to check, so I reluctantly did.
Will: So you really do love me. Yeah. I mean, you did also do chest compressions, but that. Also shows that you, you really do love me.
Dr. Tommy Martin: Which I have to say, that is like one of the craziest stories ever. Oh, is it nuts? Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. [00:56:00] That’s just like, I feel like, yeah, I don’t know. I just can’t even imagine that happening. And then the fact that you two are just here thriving.
Will: Also, you are the, you’re, you’re the strongest physically, the strongest person of the three of us here. And so like you could probably attest to how difficult even two minutes of chest compressions is.
And she did ten minutes. It’s crazy.
Dr. Tommy Martin: Yeah. It’s crazy that for ten minutes and the fact that you’re still alive. Right. I mean, that’s just, it’s amazing. Yeah. Yeah. There she did it. She did. There’s big, big plans for you guys, and, and Kristen. It shows how fit she is. She said that she’s been the one working out.
Will: Oh, sure about that. Oh, she, yeah, she is. She, whenever, I mean, you turn into a superhuman in situations like that. Yeah. I think goodness for
Kristin: adrenaline, you know, that’s what
Dr. Tommy Martin: I have to say about that. What, what year was that? 2020.
Will: May of 2020. Wow. The absolute worst time to have a major medical event.
Dr. Tommy Martin: Yeah, wait, did you even [00:57:00] get to go see him when he was in the hospital?
Like, you just saved his life and you don’t even get to go see him? No,
Kristin: they didn’t even, I mean, I get, you know, time was of the essence, but I didn’t even Get the option to, to ride with them in the ambulance or any of that? No, it was all, yeah. Separated. It was, which was really tough, but Yeah. Yeah,
Will: yeah. So, but that’s insane.
We did it. Yeah, of course we did it. You did it . Well, you did the,
Kristin: you did the other part. I did a little bit the waking up and stuff. That was good. Good job.
Will: Yeah. Well, uh, Tommy, so let’s tell people where to find you. And first of all, I just wanna say you all, you have a race coming up, right? Yeah. Uh, and, and tell people what you’re gonna be doing during this race.
Yeah, so
Dr. Tommy Martin: I set a goal for this year to do a 1, 200 pound powerlifting total. So hopefully I’ll do a 300 bench, a 400 pound squat, and a 500 pound deadlift. And I’ll do that the morning before doing a full distance Ironman, which is a 2. 4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and then a 26. 2 mile run. [00:58:00] And hopefully break a 10 hour Ironman, that race.
Now, I don’t even know if I’ll even get close to it, but those are the goals I’ve set and I’m inching my way towards that. It’s in November. Yeah, it’s
Will: in November. So everybody should go follow, uh, Dr. Tommy Martin. It’s at Dr. Tommy Martin. You can find them on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and I’m sure you’re going to be.
Documenting your journey and all of this, right? And training and yeah, uh, that’s gotta be fascinating. I’m definitely gonna be looking out for it, uh, because I just, that sounds like an impossible thing to do. And so, uh, but if anybody can do it, I’m sure you can. So
Kristin: I just If you, uh, if you struggle with masochism, therapy is also an option.
Just, just give it a, give it a thought. Yeah, there’s,
Dr. Tommy Martin: there’s… You’re like the, you’re like the fifth person within two weeks that’s told me that. That’s, that’s insane. But I was gonna say, you know, you did hire me as your coach throughout this episode and so… That’s right. If you want to do the race with me…[00:59:00]
I mean, I’m
Kristin: sure there’s openings. I don’t care to do some more CPR. Let’s just, let’s take it easy.
Will: My arms and legs would fall off my body. Um, but, uh, I’ll leave it, I’ll leave it to you, my friend. Yeah, there we go. So, uh, thank you again for coming on. It was really a pleasure to finally get a chance to chat with you.
And, uh, yeah, good luck to you. Hey, thanks
Dr. Tommy Martin: for having me. It was a pleasure.
Will: How far do you think I would get into an Iron Man before I, um, cease to exist
Dr. Tommy Martin: What’s
Will: first? The swim. The swim? Like two and a half miles.
Kristin: Hmm. I don’t think you can swim two and a half miles. I
Will: could swim Maybe two lengths of an Olympic sized pool. What is that hundred meters? Yeah, and then I would sink like a stone Yeah, I would be done.
I’m not, I cannot, I’m too like I don’t know.
Kristin: I would think that being so lanky might help you with swimming though, right? Like big str isn’t Michael Phelps like all arms and legs as well?
Will: [01:00:00] Yeah, but he’s also has like significant muscles.
Kristin: Yeah, like big shoulders and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I don’t think you’d get very far.
I would get even less far though, so. Heh. Kudos to, to Dr. Merck.
Will: That is hard. That’s, uh, everybody, go support him! Like, that’s, what he’s trying to do is super cool, and, um, yeah, it’d be interesting to watch that, his little story, and how he, how he does, and even if he doesn’t make it in his time that he wants to make it in, just the fact that he’s like, doing that.
Kristin: He’s trying, he’s doing something
Will: big, yeah. Do you, uh, what do you, what do you guys, we want to hear from you now! Like, what are, what hard things are you trying to do in your life? Um, uh, and, uh, let us know. What hard things
Kristin: are we doing? I feel like we’re not doing anything hard enough
Will: now. I’m gonna go walk the dog later today.
I don’t know. We cleared up his diarrhea from a while back. That was a hard thing. That was hard. Ugh. Definitely on the same level as an Iron Man. [01:01:00] Alright, there are lots of ways to hit us up if you have thoughts about this episode. Or, um, if you have any other physical things that you think I would also die trying to do.
Uh, email us, knockknockhigh at human content. com. We’re on all the social media platforms. Hang out with our Human Content Podcast family on Instagram and TikTok at humancontentpods. Thanks to all the wonderful listeners leaving wonderful feedback and reviews. We love those. Send us those good, good, positive, happy reviews.
Those are great. If you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube, we can give you a shout out like Elena5113 on YouTube. About, um, our episode with ViolinMD. Uh, she said, the crossover we were all waiting
Kristin: for. Yes, she was very in demand.
Will: I think people are probably going to be talking about this episode.
I think so. Especially on TikTok. He’s
Kristin: got a lot of fans. He’s got a lot of fans. And he’s doing some pretty interesting
Will: stuff. That’s right. Uh, also, full up [01:02:00] video episodes of this podcast are up on my YouTube channel every week at DGlockenflecken. Lots of cool perks, bonus episodes, where we react to medical shows and movies.
We got a little, little town, little city, little growing community, knock knock high. That’s what we call it. Knock knock high population. I don’t know. I don’t either. 500? I don’t know. You don’t know. We’re, we’re there. We’re, uh, We’re city council members. Uh, early ad free episode access, interactive Q& A, live stream events.
Patreon. com slash Glockenflecken, or go to glockenflecken. com Speaking of Patreon community perks, shout out to all the Jonathans! Patrick, Lucia C, Sharon S, Omar, Edward K, Steven G, Ross Box, Jonathan F, Marian W, Mr. Grandaddy, Caitlin C, Brianna L, Dr. J, Chaver W, Jonathan A, Leah D, KL, Rachel L, and Anne P. A virtual head nod to you all.
Patreon roulette. Random shout out to somebody on the emergency [01:03:00] medicine tier. Let me get in my Gronk voice. Kronk. Kronk. Kronk. Kronk. Who’s Kronk? Rob Gronkowski, retired tight end for the New England Patriots. It’s Ron Roulette. Random shout out to Claudia H. for being a patron. Claudia. Cla Claudia?
Kristin: Claudia?
What? No, we don’t know. Claudia. It depends. I mean if she’s Either way,
Will: both of you. Yeah. Are Both of you. Thank you, thank you so much, Claudia H. Uh, we are your hosts, thanks for listening. We’re Will and Kristen Flannery, also known as the Glockenfleckens. A special thanks to our guest today, Dr. Tommy Martin.
Executive producers are Will Flannery, Kristen Flannery, Aron Korney, Rob Gol Rob? You
Kristin: cannot say his name, Willi. Rob Goldman.
Will: Rob Goblin. I’m gonna say something different every time now. Rob Goblin and Shahnti Brooke. Our editor and engineer is Jason Portizzo. Our music is by Omer Ben Zvi. To learn about our Knock Knock Highs program, disclaimer, and ethics policy, submission verification, licensing terms, and every release terms.
Go to glock collect.com. Reach out to us at knock knock high human content.com with questions, [01:04:00] concerns, thoughts, loving remarks, or fun medical puns. Knock-knock. High is a human content production. Knock,
knock. Goodbye.
Hey, Kristen, do you know what I love about ophthalmology? Nobody tickles you that. That’s really nice. But also eyeballs, of course. And Work Life Balance.
Kristin: Yeah, because you have Jonathan to help do all your clinical documentation and stuff. I’m
Will: also not willing to share my Jonathan though. Well, no.
Kristin: People ask.
That would, that’s too
Dr. Tommy Martin: much
Will: to ask. That’s too much. But I need Jonathan because I’ve got all this other stuff going on, right? Social media, I’ve got the podcast, family life. Yeah. Ophthalmology, it’s just, there’s so much to do. Exactly. But if you don’t have a Jonathan… There’s DAX. Yes. Yeah. Nuance Dragon Ambient [01:05:00] Experience, or DAX.
It helps reduce administrative tasks with clinical documentation that writes itself. 79% of physicians say their work life balance improved with DAX. That’s better than
Dr. Tommy Martin: your
Will: med school grades. Oh, yep. You may be right there. To learn more about the Nuance Dragon Ambient Experience, or DAX, visit nuance. com slash discover DAX.
That’s N U A N C E dot com slash discover DAX. D A X.
