Transcript

[music]: [00:00:00] Knock, knock, hi! 

Will: Knock, knock, hi!

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Knock, Knock, Hi! With the Glockenfleckens. I am Dr. Glockenflecken, also known as Will Flannery. 

Kristin: I am Lady Glockenflecken, also known as Kristen Flannery. 

Will: Thank you for joining us today. I have some exciting news. It happened. It happened. I officially surprised my wife with a birthday party.

Kristin: I did, I did help you surprise me. 

Will: You, don’t take credit for my surprise, okay? I did a, I did a bang up job. 

Kristin: It was a wonderful surprise. There were times where I would have found out parts of it. Because you were being careless, but I chose not to. 

Will: By the by careless, it means like not hiding my phone from you.

So you could go in there and figure it out. No, 

Kristin: no, no. The one I’m thinking of in particular [00:01:00] is. Well, let’s 

Will: set the stage for people. Okay. All right. So Kristen had her 40th birthday and I was, I was just determined. I was like, I am surprising this woman. 

Kristin: Well, you have to give them the backstory of why you were so determined.

Will: She doesn’t like surprises. And also. So. It, it, it like prides herself on her ability to sniff out any gift, any, any possible thing someone is getting for her, for her, you just, you’re like, they can’t surprise me. That’s, that’s, that’s, uh, I’m too smart. Well, 

Kristin: no, that is not what I say. But it’s work, I’m, it’s true, right?

Like you say it as though I just like to think this about myself. And so anyway, 

Will: for her 40th birthday, I was like, no, this is it. I, if it’s not happening now, I’m, she’s right. I’m, she’s, she can never be surprised. I was like, I am, I’m doing this. And what I did was I got, um, a handful of her friends from grad school who now live in all different parts of the country.

[00:02:00] And I got them all to our house in, in the Portland metro area for a, for a three day, uh, Extravaganza. We enjoyed the Willamette Valley Wine Country. 

[music]: Yes. 

Will: Uh, just the wonderful weather, waterfall hike. Uh, it was wonderful and they all showed up and you were surprised. 

Kristin: I was, I was surprised. I had an inkling that that might be what you would try to do for my 40th birthday.

Not gonna lie. Did say that 

[music]: to my 

Kristin: friends. Like, I don’t know what it is, but if I had to guess, I would guess You know, something with my grad school friends, but, uh, I saw you one time texting one of them and I looked away. I didn’t try to see. This is where you were careless because you were on, we were on an airplane sitting right next to each other and you’re just like doing stuff on your phone.

I saw you texting that person. And then I also saw a note like in your notes app that was titled [00:03:00] with the weekend of my birthday. And 

Will: Yeah, so. 

Kristin: So like. I was planning. Duh. 

Will: I was planning. So 

Kristin: I also chose not to, not to read that when I could have. So I did help you out a little bit, but, but I still was actually genuinely surprised because I, I, what I had thought was that you would get this, this person that you were communicating with.

Yes. That they live in Minneapolis. His name’s John. His name’s John. I, I thought that might be what you would try to do. And then lo and behold. 

Will: More people. 

Kristin: Friday at like lunchtime. Yeah. That person, John and his wife show up. 

[music]: Yep. 

Kristin: And so I thought, oh, okay. And it did kind of surprise me, but I was also like, if I had to guess, this is what I would have guessed.

[music]: Yep. 

Kristin: And then I thought that was it. Like I thought that was, so you, the rest of the weekend, you did get me, because people were just trickling in over the next, 

Will: you 

Kristin: know, couple days. I did a 

Will: whole planning mission. You 

Kristin: did. 

Will: I got it done. Did 

Kristin: it hurt? 

Will: I was, I was kind of tired at the end of it. I will be [00:04:00] honest, uh, but I’m, it was fun.

You’re 40. You’re over the hill. Is it technically? Do people still say over the hill? 

Kristin: I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m over the hill. I feel like I’m right on top of the hill. 

Will: Yeah. You’re not on the downswing of your life yet. No, I feel like I’m, you know, ramping down. I’m right on top. You’re still going up.

Yeah. You’re still climbing. I 

Kristin: wrote about this in one of our, our newsletters. So blog, the newsletter, glockandfleckin. com slash newsletter. Uh, but I did say, I feel like I have always been 40. Like I just was born a 40 year old 

Will: on 

Kristin: the inside. You know what I mean? Like, no, you don’t know what I really 

Will: don’t know what you mean.

Kristin: I just think my 

Will: body has not always hurt like this. 

Kristin: Oh, well mine has cause I’m hypermobile and now I know that, but I just felt like an old soul as a kid. Couldn’t wait to be a grownup. Couldn’t wait to like have responsibilities and make decisions. Like that’s what I was excited about. 

Will: You are something else.

There you go. 

Kristin: So now I feel like my outsides just match my insides and so it feels right. 

Will: Now that we’ve talked about being old, let’s talk about our, our, let’s talk about being young. Let’s [00:05:00] talk about our next guest, uh, who is Joelle Breville. He’s a current Washington State University medical student.

Just right down the road from us real close, but he has, uh, uh, gained a social media platform, um, as the medical myth buster, but he’s so much more than that. He does, uh, just incredible work. He’s committed to fighting health disparities in medicine through education, uh, and, uh, shares regular topics about racial disparities, the hidden history of medicine biases in healthcare, racial biases in healthcare, uh, and other industries on TikTok and Instagram.

At Joel Bervell, he has combined over a million followers on all these platforms and he’s getting the attention of like, uh, of all these corporations, uh, tech companies, 

Kristin: the white house. 

Will: Yeah. He’s a Google, uh, uh, There’s a whole list of things. Yeah, pretty 

Kristin: much everybody. All the major [00:06:00] newspapers, tech companies, and governmental organizations.

He’s been 

Will: on the Kelly Clarkson show and Good Morning America as well. Yeah. Doesn’t get any better than that. Doesn’t at all. That’s pretty good. 

Kristin: What I like about his stuff though is he’s teaching everybody the things that we don’t know we don’t know. 

Will: Right. Yeah. So it’s just, he’s an example of a social media creator who’s, who’s about to become a physician.

He’s fourth year. 

[music]: Yes. 

Will: Um, and uh, we talked about that a lot, but he’s a good example of doing it the right way. Uh, which I think we need to highlight people that do that. He’s a 

Kristin: good model to follow if you can keep up. 

Will: Yes. So let’s get to it. Here is Joel Breville.

Today’s episode is brought to you by the Dax Co Pilot from Microsoft. To learn about how Dax Co Pilot can help you reduce burnout and restore the joy of practicing medicine, visit aka. ms slash knock knock high. That’s aka. ms slash knock knock high.[00:07:00] 

All right. We are here with Joelle Burvel. Joelle, uh, thanks for joining us so much. Good to see you. 

Joel Bervell: Thank you so much for having me. 

Will: Uh, so we’ve already established that we are in the same geographic location where we’ve been talking about Portland already, uh, that’s where you go to. Well, you go to med school in the, in the, in Washington.

So Washington state, is that right? 

Joel Bervell: Yeah. So during our first year of school, we actually do all of our training and our preclinicals in Spokane, Washington. In our second two years, we moved to one of four campuses across the state. So I got picked in the best campus, arguably, um, out here in this area. And it’s been amazing so far.

So we rotated both on the Washington state side and on the Oregon side at our hospitals. 

Will: Okay. So that means all of your ophthalmology education comes, has come from Portland, Oregon. Is that right? 

Joel Bervell: Uh, should I say, sure, I’ve gotten some ophthalmology education. 

Will: Some, you know, you know, there’s two eyeballs in the head.

Um, how do you like in Portland? 

Joel Bervell: It’s been wonderful so far. I didn’t know much about the city before I moved [00:08:00] here. Um, but my friends, when we were all moving after our first two years, we decided we wanted to be somewhere that one, we could all be kind of together. We could go out and find good food if we needed to.

So we ended up all living inside the same building, and it felt kind of like a daily episode of Friends where someone would just randomly walk into your room and start talking about medicine. Um, and just be like, here’s what I learned, and then just like pop quizzes all the time. So it’s been an amazing experience.

You guys are fun at 

Kristin: parties. So 

Joel Bervell: fun. Truly, all of our non med friends are kind of like, we can’t understand you when you guys are talking to each other. Oh yeah. It’s just like, It’s really familiar. I had to 

Kristin: come along all the time and everybody’s in med school, but me. So the 

Will: thing is, we did, uh, explain every single joke to you, right?

Kristin: No, 

Will: no, no. I don’t know. 

Joel Bervell: You secretly wrote them all down somewhere. 

Kristin: Yeah, of course. For when 

Will: we started this podcast. Exactly. 

Kristin: Blackmail. 

Will: Well, you’re, you’re, um, uh, that’s a far way to go. So you started in Spokane. You had to go all the [00:09:00] way down to Portland, but you were okay with that. 

Joel Bervell: Yeah, it was pretty far to go, and I don’t think I realized how much driving I would have to do in medical school.

That’s across, for people who don’t 

Will: know, that’s across the entire state of Washington, which is a good size state. Yeah, how many hours 

Kristin: is that? Like, at least six, it’s 

Joel Bervell: gotta be. Yeah, exactly. Six, six and a half to get from, like, one side to the other. And we do a lot of, our school’s community based. So we do a lot of rural rotations as well.

Um, and so for some of my rotations, I would drive and like, we’d spend four weeks in Lewiston, which is basically on the Idaho, like the Idaho Washington border. So it’s been a lot of driving back and forth in Oregon. I’ve gotten as far down south as Salem, um, for like, and we would do, that’s where I was actually for a whole rotation.

So I’d drive back and forth, Portland, Salem, which was kind of crazy, but 

Kristin: That is a long, boring drive, that one. Well, 

Will: I don’t know, I know a lot of stuff about you. You’ve done a lot of incredible things already as a med student. Um, but I don’t know, and I don’t want you to tell me yet. I don’t know what specialty you’ve applied to, because you’re a fourth year, right?[00:10:00] 

Joel Bervell: I’m a fourth year, yeah. So your applications 

Will: are in? 

Joel Bervell: Uh, next week actually is when they’re in, so it’s coming up really soon. 

Will: Okay, it’s like circled on your calendar with the, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a calendar. Well, I’m so old. I know. Like, someone’s having a pen and circling something. What am I 

Kristin: talking about?

I 

Will: keep doing that to myself, embarrassing myself in front of the youths here. 

Joel Bervell: More like highlighted on your Google calendar. There you go. We got there. There you go. Yep. 

Will: All right, so I want to, uh, we’re going to take turns asking you questions and try to figure out what specialty he’s going into. Oh, I love 

Joel Bervell: this.

Will: All right. So I’m going to start. Um, do you like, it has to be a question, right? So do you like being in the operating room? 

Joel Bervell: I do. Yeah. 

Kristin: Okay. Um, do you like to sit down? 

Joel Bervell: Yes and no. Yes. I’d say yes. More yes. Leaning more towards yes. Okay. 

Will: All right. Are you, uh, Generally a grumpy person. 

Joel Bervell: No. 

Kristin: Okay. Do you prefer adult medicine?

Joel Bervell: That’s also a yes and no. [00:11:00] Um, no, no. 

Will: Honest, let’s see, yes or no question, um, let’s see, how about, uh, do you, does the idea of rounding in a hospital make you want to throw up a little bit? 

Joel Bervell: Not really, no. 

Kristin: Do you enjoy Journal Club? I 

Joel Bervell: actually do. 

Will: Oh, 

Joel Bervell: that’s a good one. Well, I’ve never been asked that, and that’s a little embarrassing to admit, but.

Will: That’s a great question. Um, do you enjoy talking to people? I do, yes. 

Kristin: Okay, well I’m running out here, um, Do you have steady hands? 

Joel Bervell: Yeah, I played piano, so I feel like I got the 

Will: skills from that. 

Kristin: Ooh, dexterous too then. 

Will: Have you ever passed out in the operating room? I have, yes. Tell us about that. I’d love to know.

Joel Bervell: So when I was in college, I was a junior in college, did this internship at Howard University [00:12:00] Hospital, and I got randomly matched into orthopedic surgery. Um, where I was shadowing all the doctors there. I remember the first day I was running late cause you know how it is getting into a hospital. You’ve never been there.

How do you get to the operating room? Never been to one. Walked in when they were halfway through, um, a hip replacement. And, I, like, stood behind, kind of in the little corner where they told me to stand, where Sreptak said, go stand over there, don’t mess with anything. And it was just insane watching this, like, surgery.

This huge surgery I’d never seen before. And I suddenly blacked out. Did you know what had happened? Like, opened my eyes and, like, everyone is, like, in their, like, gowns. Looking down over me. I’m looking up like, wait, am I on the table now? What happened? I ended up just like having to step out, get some food, get some like something to drink.

And I was fine after that. But my first experience, yeah, in the operating room, I fainted. Where, 

Will: where were you when you fainted? Where were you standing? 

Joel Bervell: I was thankfully like far in the corner. 

Will: Okay. All right. And then after that, they 

Joel Bervell: brought me a chair and made me sit the whole time. 

Will: I have heard horror stories of people falling into the surgical [00:13:00] field.

So thank goodness. Maybe that’s why people don’t, maybe that’s why they have us in like the third row as med students, right? So that, that won’t happen. 

Joel Bervell: Exactly. Yeah. But thankfully I was in the very, very far corner. So kind of hidden away. 

Will: Well, what kind of surgery was it 

Joel Bervell: you said? This was orthopedic surgery.

Will: Oh, okay. All right. So you’re like, am I on the operating room table? And they’re like, yes, we’ve replaced your hip while you were out. 

Joel Bervell: You actually fractured your everything. We went ahead and 

Will: fixed it because we’re ortho and we have to do it immediately. Okay. All right. Let’s see. Do you have any, what do you think?

Kristin: I have a guess. 

Will: Okay, go ahead. I’m 

Kristin: not even entirely sure what this means, but I’ve heard it. 

Will: See, you were taking notes. This is my gut instinct. You were taking notes. Yes. 

Kristin: Med Surge. Oh, 

Will: interesting. Both. Okay, I think, see, this is, you’re, you’re tough because He’s 

Kristin: like a, I can do everything kind of a person.

Well, I could tell, 

Will: I could tell you like a lot of things. Yep. You probably really enjoy. Oh, here’s a question. Did you know [00:14:00] what you wanted to do before you even got to med school? 

Joel Bervell: Yes. 

Will: Huh. See, that was, I was, I was gonna, I was thinking more toward the, um, medicine route. But then that makes me think surgery because I know.

That’s why 

Kristin: I’m saying med surge. 

Will: Um, is it a surgical field? Yeah. 

Joel Bervell: Yeah. Yeah. You know, well, actually what’s so funny is you guys are literally playing out my inner thoughts right now, which is like, this is actually quite insane to hear you guys go back and forth because what you were doing right now has been my past four years.

Like, I love everything. Oh, I like more surgery. I came in thinking something. Now I’m like, so med surge is like, honestly, the most accurate answer to like, if I could do that, what I would do, you know, um, 

Will: I’m going to go with. Honestly, I’m going to go with. You know, uh, kind of somewhat humble beginnings being, uh, being in an ortho.

Operating room and passing out probably not [00:15:00] the, the, the best thing to happen. You know, if you’re like dead set on orthopedic surgery, but then came back and decided that’s what he’s going to do and that’s what, that’s what he’s going to, to devote his, his life to. And 

Kristin: he just said he’s not doing med surge.

So I’m gonna take another guess. If it’s not med surge, I’m going to go general surgery. 

Will: I’m going to go orthopedic surgery. Ding, 

Joel Bervell: ding, ding, orthopedic surgery is what I’m applying 

[music]: into, yeah, 

Joel Bervell: but specifically to kind of the question you’re asking about adult versus kids, pediatric orthopedic surgery is kind of what I’m looking at.

Will: So how do you get there from, uh, so you’re applying to orthopedic surgery, right? And then you do, I guess, a fellowship after that to do PEDS? 

Joel Bervell: Do PEDS. Yeah. Yeah. So I actually just came off of, um, my sub I, I was at UCLA. for four weeks in pediatrics, orthopedic surgery. And it was fascinating. Um, I, what I love most about it is you kind of still get that longitudinal relationship with patients, especially if you do something like spine with scoliosis.

Um, even if you do something like club foot, you’re seeing kids over time if you’re [00:16:00] casting or if you do have to do surgery. Um, and so you kind of get that like medicine aspect of it, but then also the surgical aspect where you’re getting that Time with family, time with patients, um, and so I felt like it combined both of those things, all those questions you were asking, all the things I was looking for in a career.

Will: Yeah, yeah. And then, say, because I was looking through your bio, and I was trying to figure it out, right, just by everything you’ve, and I noticed you had published. In, um, a, you had published in a search, like an ortho journal, but also in a nephrology journal as well. So I was like, Oh man, I, what, what’s going on here?

What is it? So, uh, anyway, did you at any point think like, well, you said you wanted to, you knew kind of when you came into med school that this was going to be your path, right? Did anything try to sway you away? Yeah. So 

Joel Bervell: that moment fainting actually is what got me into ortho. Funny enough. And that’s when I was like, this is incredible.

And the doctors I work with at Howard university hospital, it’s an HBCU. So they were all [00:17:00] black physicians too. And that was really impactful on me. Them telling me. I could be inside this field even when there’s less than 6 percent of all doctors in the United States that are Black. I think that inspired me.

Then throughout med school, I’ve really started doing a lot of health equity work. And I was doing it before, but I think I’ve really leaned into it. Um, and a lot of the equity work I do is looking specifically at how race is still used in medical equations, in medical systems, in ways that many people, and even physicians, don’t realize.

And I feel like a lot of that work, is more on the medicine side, because it’s equations that are being used for looking at maybe heart function or kidney function as, uh, when you’re talking about the nephrology journal that I was published in. And so, that’s kind of like taken me, sometimes I’m like, ugh.

I, I would love medicine. I know I would love medicine because I’m very much like the type of thing, like I go back and forth where I’m a thinker that loves to kind of sit down and pontificate about things, but I’m also kind of like the measure twice, cut once type of vibe too, when it comes to surgery.

And so even my own personality and [00:18:00] my friends that know me very well know this. That like, I am, I’m just like, I change, I’m a chameleon essentially. I change based on like where I am. So on my surgery rotations, all the surgeons were like, Oh my God, you’re gonna be such a great surgeon. Then my medicine rotations, all the IM docs were like, You’re gonna be such a great IM doctor.

I’m like, well, this is really helpful for deciding things. 

Will: See, I, I guessed what he was going to be. You guessed what he probably should have been. See, she’s so smart. I can relate 

Kristin: to this. Like I’ve had, I think I’m on my third career at this, not job, but career at this point. Like, and I never knew what I wanted to major in college or, you know, be when I grew up or any of that stuff.

So I relate to this, like lots of interests. Being good at different things that are not always like clearly related to each other. So, uh, so I was picking up on some, uh, some of that vibe and I predict that, you know, you’re not going to be in, you’re not going to end up doing just one thing. I think you’re going to be doing several.

You’re already [00:19:00] doing several things. And 

Will: it’s so interesting because, you know, you had these, these interests that, um, you know, with racial disparities and health equity and supercharged it, right? I mean, like many of us, you know, who started, I mean, I would say we’re both doing very important work on social media, 

[music]: um, 

Will: uh, me telling jokes about nephrologists and cardiologists, but anyway, uh, some of us are doing more important work than others.

I won’t say who, but, um, uh, it’s, it really is around the pandemic. A lot of us got started on, on this path. And, um, so tell us about. I’ve heard a little bit through, you know, some of the interviews you’ve, you’ve, you’ve done and TV shows you’ve been on, but, um, was it, was it a challenge to, to figure out how to use your platform, uh, to, to address these issues while still being in med school?

That’s what I want to know is like, how to, how do you do it all? 

Kristin: What do you [00:20:00] have, um, the ability to time travel? 

Joel Bervell: You know, I wish I did because my schedule, even like this week, has been crazy. We’ll get into that later. But to answer, to answer your question specifically, um, it’s been difficult, I will say.

But I think what’s made it easy for me is the fact that this was a passion that I was already talking about. And then just start taking it online to actually share it with a larger audience. But really, I got started, um, yeah, December 20. I think even before that, I’d say 2019 is when I posted my first TikTok.

And I don’t talk much about like my first TikTok that I posted, but it actually had nothing to do with racial disparities. 

Will: Yeah, me neither. I don’t talk about that either. 

Joel Bervell: But it was, uh, there was this trend going around where you transformed into someone that you looked like. My friends had often joked that I looked like Dr.

Burke from Grey’s Anatomy. And so my first video was me like going and standing in front of like my, my kitchen. I put a sign on my, uh, on my microwave that said x ray and just like me transforming into him. And I remember that first video got a hundred thousand views. And I was [00:21:00] like, that’s insane. That was like just something I did for fun in like less than two minutes.

But I started thinking, how can I actually use this platform to like educate about things? So I started talking about, you know, Um, how I got into Yale for undergrad and like kind of the things I was doing, scholarships that people could apply to. And I started then sharing a little bit more about just my process in medical school, like what it was like, especially during the COVID pandemic, being a medical student, where we’re learning about kind of COVID and what it is while at the same time having to understand it.

Um, and so December, 2020 is when my first video about kind of the content I make now, uh, is when I posted that. And it was about this device called a pulse oximeter. And it measures our blood oxygen saturation level as we know, but many people at the time didn’t know that it also is three times as likely to read to inaccurate, overestimated oxygen saturation levels in patients with darker skin tones.

And this wasn’t something I learned In my classroom, I actually been on social media going through my Instagram stories. One of my friends has shared a journal article to the New England Journal of Medicine, shout out journal club, [00:22:00] but for the New England Journal of Medicine. And I was like, how have I never learned about this in my medical school classes?

This feels like something really important that we should all know. And so I took to TikTok. At the time, you could only have 30 second videos, as I’m sure you remember. Um, and I posted it, and within 24 hours, it had over half a million views. And most of the people that were commenting on it were, were like, people that were in healthcare.

Doctors and nurses and PAs, all saying they had no idea that this existed. And then patients saying, I didn’t know this existed either. And so, like, when I think about why I even took to using that, I really see my social media pages like kind of a big journal club, where I take journals, journals that I find interesting that I think are really relevant to people’s lives and start posting about it.

And so it’s been difficult in some aspects of being able to kind of have this social media presence, but at the same time, it’s kind of felt like an extension of my whole medical school experience where I’m finding things that I wish I learned about in school, highlighting those studies and been putting them online to amplify them.

Um, yeah. That’s cool. 

Kristin: That is [00:23:00] cool. And also, I, um, feel like a garbage sack of a human. What? Next to. No, I’m just kidding. It’s just very impressive. Like, he’s, he’s, you know, doing all this during medical school, which as we know is a very busy time. Right. Um, except for maybe right now. No, not after next week.

Are you loving the fourth year? 

Will: Are you loving it so far? I mean, it’s amazing, right? 

Joel Bervell: Well, I’ve been doing all my subbings right now, and so it’s kind of, it’s a little bit busy. Kind of a crazy time, and then also, I, I stacked all my, what I was saying about it being crazy, I stacked all my subbies in between kind of like my speaking and social media stuff.

And with the election year, I do a lot of policy work right now. I work a lot with Vice President Harris’s campaign and also like the Secretary General’s office and HHS. And so just last week, I was actually, or yesterday, wow, yesterday, I was in D. C. for the Congressional Black Caucus. And then this upcoming week, I’m going to be going back to D.

C. Um, for the Atlantic and then also going to Detroit for, um, the Unite, the Unite the Vote rally. So there’s like all these types of things that I’m like trying to balance. [00:24:00] But then in two weeks, I’m like starting my sub I, um, in orthopedics in Boston. And so it’s like kind of this like living multiple lives, which is always what I wanted, but I’m like, huh, this is crazier than I thought it would be.

Will: Well, it’s, it’s just impressive to, To see a young person like yourself, you know, starting on their, their medical career, all of a sudden you kind of just feel you’re a bit thrown into, you know, having a large platform and that can go a lot of different ways, right? And we’ve, I’ve, I’ve seen it with people, it goes in different ways.

You know, sometimes, you know, you can, you know, be attracted by, you know, some of the money that comes your way, um, or has the potential to with certain brand deals and sponsorships and things. And so it’s just, it’s. Great to have someone like you who, who, who can kind of set an example of, of doing it the right way.

And, uh, really what I tell people is, is if you, you talk about the things you truly believe in, like that’s, that’s going to take you [00:25:00] where you need to go. And, um, uh, and it’s going to set the stage for other people who are also wanting to use their platform in different ways. So, I mean, I 

Joel Bervell: And yeah, when I think about social media, I think it’s a double edged sword.

It can be used for good or for evil, depending on how you use it. And I think it’s one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal as physicians to be able to get accurate information to patients. But it has to be used in the right way. It has to be done. It’s really hard sometimes, especially when you’re breaking down information and wanting to make sure you give Everyone the full context of things, but at the same time, I think I’ve heard from so many people who have said that literally I was actually at the airport when I landed, a woman came up to me and said, your videos helped me advocate for myself in my doctor’s office and have a better conversation and feel more heard.

And that like moments like that for me are why I even create content right now. And when it gets hard and I’m like, I’m still a med student, should I be doing this? Someone comes up and says something like that, where I’m like, It doesn’t matter what stage of training you’re at. It’s about how you get that information out there accurately to people so [00:26:00] they can use it and help their own health.

Kristin: Yeah. And it’s so important because there’s so much misinformation out there. So balancing that out with accurate information is, I think, more important than it’s ever been. And it’s so cool how you are able to do that simultaneously for patients and. healthcare workers. Like that’s usually it’s, you know, kind of one or the other that people are talking to.

Uh, but in this case you’re, you’re talking to both and both of them are learning from you. And that’s, that’s pretty unusual. Very cool. For, 

Will: for the record, I have also been to the white house. I had a great view from the gate. It was just, just really cool experience. Took a photo for my kids. Um, but anyway, uh, the, uh, what I was gonna ask is, is Whenever I started on social media, I was, I was nervous about putting myself out there.

Like part of that was because I was primarily doing like comedy and making fun of things. And I didn’t know how people would respond to that. But did you, did you get any pushback as a med student? Because you were coming on, you know, even at the beginning of the [00:27:00] pandemic, there’s this prevailing notion that social media is just like 

Kristin: bad and unprofessional.

Will: So do you have any, any examples of pushback that you’ve received? 

Joel Bervell: Oh, yeah. I mean, I was so nervous when I first started, even that video that got 100, Oh my God, I’m going to delete my account right now. Who are these people? Who is seeing this right now? Did my teacher see this now? You know, um, and then I think, yeah, then my school started following me actually on social media.

So I got really scared, right? Yeah. Like knowing that like there’s institutions or like, Large institutions, both politically, but also like within like even my own realm, that kind of made me nervous as well. But the way I thought about it was like making sure that I was sticking to as much of the research that’s out there.

Um, and there were moments where people kind of would comment things and say, you’re a medical student, like this isn’t true. And the nice thing about really sticking to the facts and to the research was like, I’d be able to say, well, you can go to this research study and read it yourself. You don’t need to kind of come at me, but here’s what the study said.

[00:28:00] Here’s why I’m amplifying it. Here’s what. The ramifications of something like this are for people. Um, and so by kind of removing myself as the arbiter of like what is true and what’s not, and keeping it to the research, that helped a little bit. But it definitely doesn’t, never stops, especially because I’m talking about sensitive issues of race, gender, culture, ethnicity, things that over the past four years have become hot topics when you think about words like or diversity, equity, inclusion.

Those are literally what I’m talking about right now. And so I think just some platforms are worse than others. I think YouTube, unfortunately for me, for some reason gets a lot of the get off of social media. You’re a med student, go hit the books, all this kind of stuff. Um, TikTok, I feel like an Instagram or I have a lot more physicians that actually follow me.

And so I think they understand why this is important or see it in their practice. Um, and so that helps a little bit. 

Kristin: Also, I’d like to say to those people, you are literally hitting the books on your social media. Like what do they think 

Joel Bervell: he’s doing? I know. And I think it’s, I think [00:29:00] it’s kind of what you think about social media.

It’s like you’re, if you’re making a video, you must not be doing the real research outside of it. I think we make that assumption. But like how 

Kristin: deeply you need to understand that. Study to be able to communicate it simply to a lay audience like You know that better than anybody else save perhaps the authors like yeah That’s a that’s an insane comment to make but I’m gonna make another prediction here though.

Joel Bervell: What’s up? 

Kristin: I think we’re talking to Future Surgeon General. 

Joel Bervell: Oh my goodness. Let’s do it. Yes. I got chills. I see that for 

Kristin: you. I mean, I don’t know if you want that, but I could totally see that. 

Will: Well, that’s a cool one day. Who knows? 

Kristin: Yeah. 

Will: Let’s take a, let’s take a short break. All right. We are back with Joelle Breville.

Uh, so mentioned briefly your fourth year of med school. So did you, as you were building up this, Cause it was your first year, right? When you, the, actually you were a part of the, are you the [00:30:00] last like class that was affected by the lockdown? And 

Joel Bervell: yeah, we were the last class. So when we, yeah, we were the last class that was kind of affected by the lockdown.

Okay. 

Will: And so you’re building up your platform, you know, posting on social media, trying to learn like the Krebs cycle and the coagulation cascade at the same time. Um, did you have to, during your third year, as my What I remember is the third year being like incredibly busy. And so did some of the things you’re doing, did you have to put that on the back burner while you were, you know, trying to just get through med school, get through your rotations?

Joel Bervell: Yeah, what was nice about the third year especially was, um, it was, we were still coming out of the COVID pandemic. So all the extra stuff I was doing through social media was still online. But my timing for things that year was crazy because depending on the rotation, I would get, I would do all my social media in the morning.

And so I’d get it out of the way before I even went to the hospital. And so I was up at like 4 a. m. every single day in between 4 to 5 30 or 4 to 6. That’s when it was my social media time. And then [00:31:00] you’re a 

Will: future surgeon. Like that’s of course, that’s fine. Yeah. 

Joel Bervell: It made the timing a lot easier when I got to my surgery rotation.

I was like, Oh, I’m already awake at this time. This is great. And so, and then I’d like go to the hospital and I, I was very, I’m very particular. Like I don’t get on social media when I’m at the hospital. I try not to post, try not to do anything. I want to be focused. Yeah. If I have an opportunity, that’s smart, actually, 

Will: that’s the easiest way to get yourself into trouble is by doing that at work as a really, as anybody, but anyway.

Joel Bervell: Exactly. Um, and so, yeah, during the day it’d be like a no social media zone. And then like at night, if there was any like last minute emails I had to follow up with, that’s what I would do. But I created all my content in the morning and it was very difficult. Um, but what was cool was, uh, some of my. Um, the preceptors I was working with started like working with me too, in terms of giving me different topics to talk about, or even just telling me stories they’d heard about.

And so it kind of became this collaborative effort between me and my preceptors, where if they’d see a journal article or a new research study, they would send it my way. And that’d be like, the kind of the topic of conversation during the day. [00:32:00] So, um, it was really fun because it, I felt like it started just like, Becoming and just pervading my life in ways that I didn’t realize and just impacting people around me, um, to learn more about the field in general.

Will: Well, in. Obviously, you know, some of your, some of the topics are, you talk about a lot of things with regard to racial disparities in health and just, just medical knowledge that you wouldn’t have known unless you really like put in the work to try to seek out that information. So one of the videos I saw was just, you know, you do, you’ve done a series on dermatologic conditions and, and darker skin tones.

Yep. And so can you, can you give us like a, a few examples of. Maybe things that should be in the medical curriculum that just aren’t there and that we need to do a better job of introducing. 

Joel Bervell: Yeah, I’ll start with the dermatology that you just brought up. So, I have a whole series called Derm on Darker Skin.

And it’s one of my favorite series. I think one of the ones that I’ve done, the best, [00:33:00] partly because skin is such a visceral thing. We all can see our skin. When something’s wrong with it, we know it. Yet for many people of color, when they go online and look up something like eczema, psoriasis, the first images that we see are all on lighter skin tones, not on darker skin tones.

And research has actually shown that even in medical textbooks, less than 11 percent of medical textbooks actually show Fitzpatrick kind of those darkest skin tones. within them. And I can speak to my own experience in medical school, not seeing what skin conditions look like on darker skin tones. I would constantly be the one in my class and raising my hand and saying, what’s this going to look like on me?

For those that can’t see me, I’m Fitzpatrick six. I literally did one of, I did one of those, um, actually like the, I forget what it’s called, but you can actually test what, um, Fitzpatrick scale you are. I am literally six. So, like, for me, I was like, I’m not seeing myself represented. But this series is really simple.

All I do is I take an image of what it looks like on light, uh, skin condition looks like on lighter skin and on darker skin, and I point it out. Very simple, but I’ve literally had people say, I just got diagnosed with this because I saw it [00:34:00] for the first time, went to my doctor, got tested, and it turned out to be that.

But I could never find what it looked like online. Clean Up’s one of my favorite series. Um, but then I have a whole other series called, um, Racial Bias in Medicine, and it’s where I talk about the ways that race is still used in healthcare, especially through clinical equations. And just to like preface it, my whole book, Our goal in medicine is to move from a race based system to a race conscious system.

What that means is we don’t use race as a way to treat people differently, but we understand how social, political, economic factors have treated people differently based on race, and how that impacts the care that we receive. As an example, for a long time there used to be this equation called the GFR equation.

Stands for glomerular filtration rate. Um, GFR is essentially a function of how well our kidneys work. If you have a high GFR number, your kidneys work well. If you have a low GFR number, your kidneys don’t work very well. But for decades, there’s been a racial correction to the GFR equation for Black patients and only Black patients, no other race, that multiplied the GFR [00:35:00] equation by I think like 1.

2 something. And that made it seem like all Black patients had better kidney functioning than any other race. And that impacted Whether you’re able to go get, uh, go to a kidney specialist, whether you be diagnosed with carotid kidney disease, whether you could get a kidney transplant. And the reason researchers said that Black patients needed this correction was they assumed that all Black people had higher levels of this muscle breakdown protein called creatinine, and so they multiplied it.

actually has a way to keep it equitable. But decades later, we found out that if this equation hadn’t existed, 3. 3 million more Black Americans would have been diagnosed with higher levels of chronic kidney disease. And so thankfully, in 2021, the equation was changed. And an equation that doesn’t use race exists now that uses instead Cystatin C, which is a more accurate protein that you can use.

And then in 2023, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, Said anyone that’s had this equation used on them, we’re going to go back and reevaluate them and see if we can move them up, [00:36:00] um, or change their placement basically on the kidney transplant list. Oh, I didn’t realize that. Yeah. And I actually had someone reach out to me who’d been following me since like 2019, since that first dancing video turning into Dr.

Burr. And she was just like, I’ve been following you for years. Every single one of your posts about chronic kidney disease, I share with my sister because she has it. And I saw your most recent video about the change in kind of wait times. I told my sister, she took your video to the doctor. They worked together and she’s now moved up four years on the kidney transplant list.

Kristin: And 

Joel Bervell: for me, that’s like, I think the most powerful thing I’ve ever heard. Hearing that someone saw a video was able to get moved up on a kidney transplant list because they just had the information they needed. And earlier this year in March, I actually was able to go on the Kelly Clarkson show, tell this story.

They surprised me by bringing on the person who’d seen my video. And they let me know that her sister had actually just gotten her kidney transplant like two days before. And so it was just like this crazy full circle moment from literally 2019 to like finally this year, [00:37:00] 2024, seeing the impact of like making a social media video on someone’s life.

Kristin: Yeah, like you literally saved her life probably. 

Joel Bervell: Yeah, insane. 

Kristin: That is right. Social media saves lives 

Will: Much more often than it destroys lives. Yeah, 

Kristin: it’s 

Will: I don’t have the data to back that up, but I’m gonna go with it. 

Kristin: I like that example though, because I think it shows how How complex it can be, I guess, and nuanced to account for these things, because on the one hand, like good on them for trying to account for it with the original equation.

Uh, and then also thankfully science is self correcting, right? So we. Realized it was not the correct equation and have replaced it with a different one that hopefully is more accurate. Um, but it does, you know, especially posting on the internet where people always want to make things very black and white.

Um, it just points out that there will be times when, you know, it is [00:38:00] the appropriate thing to do to correct for it. And then times where maybe it’s not an appropriate thing to do because the assumptions that were underlying that equation were faulty. Uh, so, so it must be, I don’t know. What can people learn from that?

Like, how do we, how do we know when we need to correct them when we don’t? Or do we? 

Joel Bervell: I love that question because I think exactly what you said. It speaks to the nuances of all of this, right? Of like the way we think of science as a subjective arbiter, but it’s not. Unfortunately, a lot of the research that we’re done is either built on biases or just understanding how do we take out the things that were incorrect from previous knowledge to like what is correct today.

Yeah. Like an example of where race in a ways. can be helpful to be used is with the Duffy Null phenotype. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with that, but, um, I probably should 

Will: be. 

Joel Bervell: No, this is something that you actually asked before, like, what do you wish was taught in medical school? This one is like not taught in medical school at all.

Will: Okay. I feel better then. Go ahead. 

Joel Bervell: But there’s a Duffy, there’s something called the Duffy Null phenotype. It’s a genetic variant that’s found in two thirds of [00:39:00] people who self identify as black in the United States. People who have this phenotype, um, have a low neutrophil. level without an increased risk of infection.

But because neutrophil ranges right now were created on people of European descent, it’s not really taking into account the Duffy Null phenotype and how, um, that could actually lead to increased unnecessary procedures like bone marrow biopsies or exclusion from clinical trials, or just other inappropriate, um, discontinuations of important medications that could impact low neutrophil counts.

Um, so, um, And while it’s not totally related to race, the reason why the phenotype exists is because of, um, people that are from, uh, malaria endemic areas. It actually is protective against malaria. So it makes sense for people to have this kind of phenotype. But at the same time, it can be helpful because two thirds of Black Americans live with this.

And so if you see low neutrophil count, you don’t need to kind of immediately jump. But you can instead test for the daphenyl phenotype to double check that there actually isn’t something else that could be explaining low neutrophil count. So that’s [00:40:00] one where it’s actually could be helpful, right, to look at race as something because then you could prevent unnecessary testing, but it’s complex and there’s no kind of science to it.

And right now, um, a lot of groups are now looking at what are, how can we adjust reference ranges? The American Society of Hematologies looked me into research to potentially redefine pediatric and adult absolute neutrophil counts, um, based on ancestry, which I think would be really interesting. 

Kristin: Yeah. How much research is going on right now to, to look into these things?

I mean, it seems like that could be a whole field in and of itself is to look back through all the history of medicine, figure out what needs corrected in that way. 

Joel Bervell: Yeah. I think every society since 2020, I would say that’s really where the start start point was for a lot of these conversations. People have been doing this work individually for so long beforehand.

And there’s so many pioneers you can think of. Um, But I think 2020 with the George Floyd protests and like the COVID pandemic, both of those things sparked just this renewed interest in actually putting institutional dollars towards it. So the people who are doing the work are mostly [00:41:00] societies like places like the American Hematology Society, American Thoracic Society, American Kidney Society.

People within these fields that are saying, I’ve been a part of this, here’s where I’ve seen problems, let’s fix it. Then there’s philanthropy that’s been getting involved. So places like the Doris Duke Foundation are doing huge research and actually funding research to be looking more into that exact question.

How does history inform what we’re doing today? Does it make sense when it comes to race? All these types of things. And there’s individuals like myself who are kind of doing it. I kind of feel like I’m a renegade. I’m like, I work with these organizations, but I’m also like on the third party outside. And I feel my job is actually raising awareness because we can be doing all the research.

We can be making these changes, but if we don’t get public support or understanding what’s happening, it doesn’t go anywhere. And so I think in order to drive change, you need all those types of different levers. You need the philanthropy, you need the research, you need the public audience voice, you need the policy there too.

Um, so all these different groups are coming together to really try and better understand how do we fix this problem? And it’s different in every single aspect. [00:42:00] 

Kristin: How about for women of color? Is there something that is specifically affecting that group? 

Joel Bervell: Yeah, so unfortunately, a lot of things. 

Kristin: Yeah. 

Joel Bervell: So one that first comes to mind is the black maternal mortality gap.

Yeah. So in the United States, black women are more likely to die during childbirth compared to other races. There was actually a study that just came out last week that looked at c section rates as well and found that women of color are more likely to undergo c sections. There actually used to be an equation that existed in 2021.

It was changed, but it was called the VBAC calculator, stood for vaginal birth after a c section, and it essentially was a measure of what was your likelihood of being able to get access to a vaginal birth as opposed to a c section, and in this equation, they had a lot of different things they were looking at from BMI, Um, to, I don’t even remember all this stuff, but BMI, age, um, weight, like weight, all these sorts of things.

But race was another factor, and if you were Latina, or if you were Black, it automatically made it harder for you to be offered a [00:43:00] vaginal birth, and more like you got offered a C section. And there was a video I made where I literally pointed it out, and it was like a 20 percent difference, literally by changing only one thing, and that was race.

So there’s a lot of different ways, both embedded in the system, but also then just, um, disparities that exist, um, specifically with Black women. 

Kristin: Was there, like, an evidence based reason that they put race in there, or what was the, the logic behind that? 

Joel Bervell: I think it, it, yeah, it was, it was kind of this reason that they saw that race had an impact.

But the funny thing was, what they also saw had an impact was something like insurance status. So your insurance stats, or actually marriage too, insurance status and marriage, but those two things weren’t included inside the equation. And so it’s kind of this question of if we know that these equally, like according to the research impacted, why are we choosing what metrics to use as opposed to others, why do we choose race, which often is a catchall term for a lot of other things we’re trying to study instead of looking at something more specific.

And so that equation was thankfully changed. They may update the metrics, but, um, another example of the ways that kind of these biases become embedded. 

Kristin: [00:44:00] Yeah. How about, you’ll like this one. 

Joel Bervell: Ooh. 

Kristin: How about eyeballs? 

Joel Bervell: Are there 

Kristin: any eyeball related disparities? 

Joel Bervell: I knew I was going to be asked that question. And I, I actually don’t know the answer to that.

I haven’t done anything. Like I said, we don’t get ophthalmology very much. I know. Yeah, you 

Will: know, um, I was thinking about it. I, I’m not aware of any, anything that like needs to be corrected like that or any big, you know, thing that has, you know, significant amount of bias. Doesn’t mean 

Kristin: it’s not there though, it just means you’re not aware of it.

Exactly, you know, and 

Will: so who knows, you know, something could come up, but um, Uh, yeah, I’m not aware of anything, but 

Kristin: someone tell us if anybody knows, yeah, I wanted 

Will: to ask you though, what, uh, you know, before we wrap up here, what, where do you see your, where do you see yourself in 10 years? I want to know, like, what is, what is your career look like to you after, I mean, obviously you got residency coming up.

It’s, it’s hard to think beyond that, [00:45:00] honestly. Yeah. 

Kristin: Well, and, and even before that, like, do you have a plan for, During residency, like, are you, do you plan to continue all this or are you going to, Are you 

Will: guys going to wake up at 1am instead of 4am? 

Joel Bervell: Yeah. No sleep whatsoever. Uh, those are all the questions.

Once again, you guys are like my little conscience right now. I love it because these are the questions I’m asking myself. Like how do I know residence is going to be difficult even on my sub I, I was like, wow, this is not going to be able to be sustained in the same way. Like maybe I go down to like, Once a month doing something.

And so I’m trying to figure out how I continue to do it. Or maybe I just focus more on ortho, right. And just talking about what I’m learning. I think there’s such as so much power and also just talking about the journey itself. And so maybe that’s a little bit easier to do as opposed to doing all this research.

Um, and to answer your question, I’ve always said the job you’re going to have in the future doesn’t probably doesn’t exist. And I know that’s very true for me. Um, when I came into medical school, I said, I wanted to do something at the intersection. of medicine, tech, [00:46:00] policy, and business. Didn’t know that was going to be social media, but that’s literally what I’m doing right now, getting to do policy on the Hill and at the same time creating videos on social media that’s using technology platforms.

And so honestly, I don’t know where I see myself in 20 years. I think I have. The next five, obviously residency, graduating from that, wanting to become the best doctor I can be, best surgeon. Um, and then wanting to kind of continue, like, figuring out ways to advocate and talk about public health on massive scales.

And so maybe that is one day wanting to be Surgeon General or something like that. Maybe that’s running for politics one day in a different way. I’ve been trying to change the system from within. But I think I’m excited because I know that no matter what I do, I have incredible people around me. I have amazing support systems.

And so I’m just excited for where the opportunity that exists. 

Will: I do appreciate your, your dedication to continuing with your medical career, because it’s, it’s very easy sometimes for, [00:47:00] to, to, to get pulled and not that you, I mean, obviously you can do other things, right? But having that that foundation, that base of still, of practicing medicine, of seeing patients, of being in it.

It gives all the other things that you’re involved with more weight and more, um, uh, you know, engenders more trust. You get more 

Kristin: knowledge with it. You have more gravitas to 

Will: the advocacy piece, to the social media piece, and I think people can lose sight of that, right? And that’s the reason I still, you know, practice, you know, full time.

Kristin: One of. I am another reason. Well, yeah, because like, she went 

Will: through all the medical education and training. It was like, you’re not quitting medicine. I went through this too many things for you to just quit all of a sudden. But anyway, it is, I think it’s important, right? Because it, it, it gives you, um, um, uh, uh, amount of knowledge that otherwise, you know, [00:48:00] you would lose or you wouldn’t have that firsthand experience.

Joel Bervell: Absolutely. And that’s exactly how I feel. I think some of my friends and residents, you’re like, don’t do it. We’re dying here. I’m like, I get it. But at the same time, I think you’re like, the things we forget about sometimes is you’re learning so much from your patients every single day. And for me, like, Getting that opportunity to speak with someone from a totally different, vastly different life and educate them on the ground.

Social media is great, but I feel like it’s not personal, right? And so when you get that personal connection, that’s what reminds me why I even wanted to be a doctor in the first place. 

Will: Well, let’s talk about where people can find you and the things you’re working on. So, uh, You’re online, you’re known as the medical myth buster, right?

Is that, that’s, is that just on, that’s on all the platforms or is that mainly TikTok that you. 

Joel Bervell: Yeah, that’s not even my handle at all. That’s just like what my, my, my, my followers started calling me. They’re like, Oh, thank you for myth busting. And then someone said like, Oh, you’re the best medical myth buster.

And then TikTok called me. They chose me for like their 2021 Voice of Change, and they called me the Medical Mythbuster. And so it just kind of like took off [00:49:00] from there. 

Will: Kind of stuck. 

Joel Bervell: Yeah. 

Will: Yeah. That’s exactly, people just started automatically calling me Dr. Glockenfleck. Yeah, it was so 

Kristin: crazy. It was bizarre.

You know, 

Will: it’s obviously, that’s the name I would be. 

Joel Bervell: So what is your 

Kristin: actual handle? Yeah. 

Joel Bervell: It’s just my name. At Joel Breville. J O E L B E R V E L L. So yeah, just my name. Yeah. All platforms, LinkedIn, Instagram, Tik TOK, Twitter, Threads. Got to throw that one out there. Yeah. And what do 

Will: you have, what are you working on right now?

Joel Bervell: Yeah, I think so. I’m working on a lot of projects I’m trying to get done before residency, honestly, but, um, the big one that we’re super excited to announce is I’m working on a kid’s TV show with digital TV show. It’s called the doctor is in. It’s a mixed reality, animated, and live action show. So think Blue’s Clues meets Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Um, and the whole purpose of it is to inspire the next generation of young kids. So we have our five year old Leland, who’s an animated character who loves coming to my doctor’s office and hanging out with me, and we talk about science concepts. Things like, how do we grow? Or [00:50:00] what happens, what do our bones look like?

Why do we get hungry? What happens to food when it passes through our system? And of course, trying to infuse some of the things I’ve talked about when it comes to equity. So why is it that skin conditions look like, look different on darker skin tones? Does it mean there’s anything different pathophysiologically, like not getting like crazy language like that, but it’s starting to introduce people to medicine and thinking about equity, um, from, from a young, young age.

Very 

Kristin: cool. Do you know yet where people will be able to find that and watch it when it comes out? 

Joel Bervell: Yeah, we’ll most likely have it on YouTube. I think we’re going to start off the first season as like shorter episodes. So three to five minutes, but with the goal of hopefully being picked up by something like Nickelodeon or Disney plus where we can actually live on a channel that gets access to a lot of people, but YouTube for now.

Kristin: Full faith that that will anything you touch is gonna is gonna be successful. So 

Will: yeah I appreciate that and that 

Kristin: sounds so so cool and very important to start so young. 

Will: Yes. Yeah How is it hard to act to to cartoons? [00:51:00] 

Joel Bervell: The team I’m working with has been really coaching me through it. But yes, I think honestly what they’ll do is like, they’ll, they record me and then they change the emotions of the character.

So that way I don’t have to do it. Cause yeah, I can, I need to work on that still.

We just hired all our voice actors and the voice of Leland is actually going to be a five year old, so that’ll make it a little bit easier to like feel like it’s actually Actually, like talking to someone that’s younger. Yeah, it’s fantastic. 

Kristin: Very cool. I can’t wait to see that. 

Joel Bervell: All right. And you also are on a podcast, right?

Is that? 

Will: Yeah. Tell us about that. 

Joel Bervell: So I’m actually the host of The Dose. It’s a podcast with the Commonwealth Fund. We look at health policy and innovation and try to better understand what are the innovative things happening inside medicine. I try and infuse some equity into all of the things we talk about, but we talk about artificial intelligence.

We talk about community health centers. We talk about private equity. I think it’s a really interesting podcast. If you want to learn. More about how our healthcare system is intersecting with different industries and the people that are changing healthcare as we move forward [00:52:00] as a future. 

Kristin: Awesome. 

Joel Bervell: And that’s called The Dose?

The Dose with the Commonwealth Fund. Yep. Sweet. All right. You’re 

Kristin: going to have to check out the private equity episode for sure. Oh 

Joel Bervell: yeah. That was it. I actually brought back one of my professors from undergrad for that, Dr. Howard Foreman. He runs the MD MBA program at Yale and it was a good conversation.

Kristin: Yeah, check that out. The Dose. 

Will: The Dose, there it is. Anything else? Yeah, I feel like we could go for like another 30 minutes on projects you’re doing, but maybe we’ll stop there. Yeah, 

Joel Bervell: we can leave it there. 

Will: Yeah, absolutely. Good luck. Keep everyone posted. I’m sure you will and and keep up all the awesome work on social media.

It’s, it’s, it’s been a It’s been fun to see you and see where you’ve been. I hope you’ll 

Kristin: come back and see us when you’re the nation’s youngest Surgeon General. Yes, 

Will: please. Please do. 

Joel Bervell: Well, I’m going to have you as the nation’s first Dr. Glock I mean, you’re just going to be Dr. Glockman II. It’s going to be an actual You’ll come up with some 

Will: role for me, right?

Yes. All right. Sounds good. Well, thanks for joining us, Joelle. 

Joel Bervell: Thanks so much. Appreciate it.[00:53:00] 

Will: Hey, Kristen. 

Kristin: Yeah? 

Will: I’m full of Demodex mites. 

Kristin: Oh, I see that. 

Will: Are you? 

Kristin: I have no Demodex mites. Here, let me give 

Will: you one. How about another one? 

Kristin: Okay. 

Will: All right, this one goes on your head. 

Kristin: Oh, okay. All 

Will: right. I’ll put that there. Keep them on. 

Kristin: Okay. Yeah. 

Will: Do you know what those guys do? 

Kristin: They cause red itchy eyelids.

Will: Yeah, they’re, well, sometimes they do. They can cause demodex blepharitis. Red, itchy, irritated eyelids, crusty, flaky buildup on your eyelashes. You look a little grossed out by that. 

Kristin: Well, it’s not my favorite thing. 

Will: But they’re so cute though, look at them. 

Kristin: Yeah, is this what they look like in the clinic? They do look 

Will: like this, they’re not like soft and squishy, they’re probably a little bit more Sturdy and crunchy, but don’t get grossed out.

All right, get checked out. That’s what you need to do. To find out more, go to eyelidcheck. com. That’s E Y E L I D check. com to get [00:54:00] more information about these guys, Demodex and Demodex blepharitis. All right, so you’re banking on future Surgeon General? 

Kristin: Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I could totally see that. I think you’d do a great job of it too.

Maybe 

Will: this is what we should do with our podcast is, is just find, find the people that are going to be leading healthcare and then they like, they, uh, they give me, uh, Positions. 

Kristin: Oh, well, I don’t know about that. Like 

Will: the surgeon. You want to 

Kristin: be like. 

Will: Surgeon General of Social Media. Yeah, or, or whatever. The, Dr.

Goliath, just a special counsel. One of those. 

Kristin: Just Surgeon General of whatever. One of those 

Will: positions that really doesn’t mean anything, but it sounds really cool. Right. You know, I don’t know. 

Kristin: Deputy social media director, USA. 

Will: Or we could just talk to people with no ulterior motives. That’s another thing.

I 

Kristin: like that better. That’s probably a better plan. All right. 

Will: Um, what a, what a fun guy and just accomplished and, [00:55:00] and smart, very, uh, well, well spoken. Can you 

Kristin: imagine what it must be like to be his parent? Like just, I, I would think just bursting with pride, right? Like for that to be your kid. You can tell that we’re in the thick of the parenting stuff right now.

Will: We really do talk like we are of a different generation. We 

Kristin: do. I know we’re getting old. 

Will: You did just have your 40th birthday. I 

Kristin: know. 

Will: So anyway, I’m coming up right behind you. All right. Let us know what you thought of the episode. You can reach out to us. Knock, knock. Hi, at human content. com. Visit us on our social media platforms.

You can hang out with us and our human content podcast family on Instagram and TikTok at human content odds. Thanks to all those wonderful listeners leaving feedback. We love you guys. All the reviews are great. If you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube. We have, by the way, new YouTube channel.

It’s not that new 

Kristin: anymore. But it is where this podcast exists. It’s 

Will: within six months. Uh, it’s [00:56:00] relatively new. I’m gonna keep calling it new. Because They’re old, as we’ve 

Kristin: just established. 

Will: Compared to us, everything is new. Um, at Glockenfleckens. At Glockenfleckens. It’s all the podcast episodes. By the way, I, I look at all of the, uh, comments on this new channel.

Kristin: Do you? 

Will: I do, it’s a change for me. 

Kristin: Oh, and that’s new. 

Will: It’s new. I 

Kristin: had to convince you to do that. 

Will: Yeah, and it’s very helpful because I can Yeah, 

Kristin: there are really good listeners that are thoughtful in their comments. 

Will: Exactly, and I like it now that it’s like a separate channel because it’s all like the people that really like the podcast, right?

Kristin: Right. That’s true. 

Will: You can give us constructive criticism too, but it’s fun to read the comments of people that are enjoying it. 

Kristin: Yeah. 

Will: But I get ideas for Knock Knock Eye. 

Kristin: Yeah, people leave a lot of eyeball questions. So 

Will: YouTube channel. Yeah. Uh, and so we have a comment here from AtDazMysteryMan12 on YouTube said, This is the Glockenflecken Press Row [00:57:00] collab we’ve been waiting for.

Preston. 

Kristin: Yes, when we had Preston Roach on our podcast. 

Will: Yep, yep, fellow, uh, fellow funny man content creator. He’s also a psychiatry resident. It was a fun episode. 

Kristin: It was. Check that out if you haven’t already. 

Will: Full video episodes are up every week on the YouTube channel, again, at Glockenfleckens. We also have Patreon, lots of cool perks, bonus episodes, react to medical shows and movies.

Hang out with other members of this wonderful little community. We just had a, uh, a, uh, live. A live, 

Kristin: yeah, Patreon live. Patreon 

Will: live, that’s what I’m thinking of. Patreon live. 

Kristin: Virtual hangout. 

Will: Exactly. Early ad free episode access, Q& A, interactive Q& A livestream events, much more. Patreon. com slash Glockenflecken, or go to Glockenflecken.

com. Speaking of Patreon Community Perks, new member shout out. All right. We have, we’ve got a big new member shout out here. Sherry R., Megan S., Marlene S., Samantha, and Scott M. Welcome. To our little community. You could just be your own little cohort within our community. You can figure out, divvy up [00:58:00] the jobs, introduce yourselves, little icebreakers.

Shout out to all the Jonathans, a virtual head nod to you all. Patrick Luciasi, Sharon S, Omer, Sharon, Patrick Luciasi, Sharon S, Edward K, Steven G, Jonathan F, Marion W., Mr. LK, LKeep, GJJ, H, Derek, N, Mary, H, Susannah, F, Ginny J, Mohamed K, Abiga, Parker, Ryan, Mohamed L, David Hx2, Gabe, Gary M, Eric B, Marlene S, Scott M, Bubbly Salt, and Pink Macho!

Patreon roulette, random shoutout to someone on the emergency medicine tier, Bella E. Thank you for being a patron, and thank you all for listening. We’re your hosts, Will and CryptoPlanetary. Also known as the Glock Implicants. Special thanks to our guest, Joelle Vervel. Our executive producers are Will Flannery, CryptoPlanetary, Aron Korney, Rob Goldman, and Shahnti Brooke.

Editor, engineers, Jason Portiza. Our music is by Omer Ben Zvi. To learn about Knock Knock High’s programs, disclaimers, ethics, policies, misdemeanor, verification, and licensing terms, and those pesky HIPAA released terms, [00:59:00] go to Glockenflaggen. com or reach out to us at knockknockhigh at human content. com with questions, concerns, or any fun medical puns you might have.

Knock Knock High is a human content production.

[music]: Goodbye!

Will: Hey Krista, what would you like Jonathan to do for you? 

Kristin: All of my chores. 

Will: All of them? 

Kristin: Yes, every last one. 

Will: Yeah? Yep, I want him 

Kristin: to, uh, make my bed, clean my house, parent my children. Laundry, 

Will: everything? 

Kristin: Yes. 

Will: Well, I don’t know if he can do all of that, but uh, let me tell you about an alternative. 

Kristin: Okay. 

Will: The DAX Copilot from Microsoft.

Kristin: Oh, it can do many things. 

Will: It can’t do all your chores, but it can help physicians with their documentation, all the administrative burden that sucks the joy out of practicing medicine. 

Kristin: Yes, and makes the doctor patient interaction worse. 

Will: Exactly. [01:00:00] 85 percent of patients say their physician is more focused when they use DAX Copilot.

93 percent of patients say their physician is more personable. And conversational. 

Kristin: Yes, because you can be a human and actually look them in the eye and talk to them. 

Will: It just allows you to obtain work life balance that is becoming harder and harder to obtain these days in healthcare. Learn about how DAX Copilot can help you reduce burnout and restore the joy of practicing medicine.

Visit aka. ms slash knock knock hi. Again that’s aka. ms slash knock knock hi.