Transcript
Will: [00:00:00] Knock,
knock, knock. Hi. Hello, and welcome to Knock-Knock. Hi, with the Glock Flecking. I am Dr. Gle. I’m
Kristin: Lady Glock flagging.
Will: You know, you know the, in ophthalmology, like if you talk to, like, I’d say half of all glaucoma specialists will say it. Gla
Kristin: Do they say
Will: glaucoma? They do say glaucoma. My, one of my, uh, chat out to, uh, Dr.
Ak who’s like a, a huge person in ophthalmology, uh, and in glaucoma in particular, he would say every time he’d say glaucoma. Is that, is that like g a u glaucoma? I can’t bring myself to do it. It’s just glaucoma.
Kristin: Yeah. Right. Glaucoma’s what people
Will: know it as. Maybe I’ll throw that in every now and then.
It’s already a hard enough word to say. I don’t, I don’t wanna something to [00:01:00] look forward to. More complicated. This, we’re off to a rousing start here. Uh, on knock-knock high with the Glock flecks. Uh, but we do have a very exciting guest. Dr. Jesse Gold is gonna be here with us. And, um, uh, we had a great time talking.
This is the first. Psychiatrist that we’ve talked to on the show. That’s right. And I, that’s very interesting. You know, it brought back memories of my own, um, psychiatry rotation mm-hmm. In med school. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I never really considered psychiatry as like a legitimate career option. It just, I, I was always get a more hands on, you know, wanted to do surgery.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, um, uh, but I appreciated how difficult it was. Mm-hmm. It’s, and that might be just because I find it hard to talk to people for
Kristin: long periods of time. You do. And you’re not comfortable with feeling, uh, so that was not gonna be the field for
Will: you. That wasn’t, I’m glad I got the experience.
Um mm-hmm. But yeah, the, the, the feelings, um, which is funny because my [00:02:00] favorite skits to film are the therapist skits. But again, I’m talking to myself and it’s not real life. So. Yeah. And
Kristin: those problems are ridiculous. So it’s,
Will: but you’ll sat there. You definitely wanna listen to this episode because, um, uh, Dr.
Gold, uh, later on in the, in the episode will be psychoanalyzing some of my characters, which was awesome. And also a little bit revealing about me as a person. Um,
Kristin: she’s very good at
Will: what she does. She’s very good at what she does, so it was a little scary. Um, but, you know, we talk a lot about mental health and with her.
Mm-hmm. And, you know, I, I, I was going back and as I was talking with her, realizing like a lot of my content has like mental health kind of flavors to it. It’s like a lot of it’s wrapped up in mental health and I wasn’t like planning on, on having it be that way. It just kinda, you of
Kristin: all people I would not have predicated
Will: that wasn’t like, I’m going to make a bunch of videos about burnout [00:03:00] and mental health and, and that’s, it’s going to be great.
Uh, that’s, that was not my goal, was just to make people laugh. Right. And, uh, but the, what, what, what ended up happening was over the last year or so, certainly with the pandemic, I was getting a, I’m getting a lot of feedback from people about how the videos like, you know, helped. Them have a laugh at the end of a day or something.
Right. They
Kristin: had the sort of byproduct, you know, kind of unintended side effect of just helping people feel seen and heard and let off steam at the end of really hard days during the pandemic. So you turned out to be this accidental ambassador? Yeah. Kind of for burnout and mental health in physicians
Will: and, and well, really, what it taught me was that, uh, there’s, it’s a big problem.
It’s like bigger than I thought, and, and so, but, but it was, it was really nice to talk to Dr. Gold, who’s actually like a, a legitimate expert in this area. Right, [00:04:00] right. Uh, who’s done a lot of writing, a lot of work around mental illness and also obviously treats a lot of people, um, in healthcare, uh, that are.
Uh, struggling with mental health and burnout. And so hearing her perspective was great. Uh, and, um, puts a little bit more weight to it than, you know, filming a, where I’m talking to myself, giving myself therapy through like a, a mirror or
Kristin: something, so Right, right, right. Or, or, yeah. Handing out pizzas or things like that.
Was, didn’t you poke fun at that in the video you did with the I some, the surgeon general? The collaboration you
Will: did. Oh, that’s right. I think there was a pizza joke in there. Yeah. Yeah. We worked with the Surgeon General. That was, that was a fun, exciting, yeah, that was very cool. Um, but, uh, yeah, this is, let’s, let’s talk with, uh, Dr.
Gold here. So, We have Jesse Gold. Let me, I guess I should introduce her. Of course. So everybody knows Jesse Gold is an assistant professor and director of Wellness, engagement and Outreach in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine [00:05:00] in St. Louis. She is, um, among other things, uh, of an accomplished physician, author.
She’s been in all kinds of publications, New York Times, uh, uh, you may have heard of it, you may have heard The Atlantic, uh, the Washington Post, all kinds of stuff. And so, um, yeah, we had a great time talking with her. So let’s get to it. Let’s do it. Here’s Dr. Jesse Gold.
Dr. Jesse Gold, thank you so much for being here. Yeah, I’ve, I’ve been, I’ve seen you on, we’ve interacted on Twitter. Uh, you know, that’s, that’s where I got my start. I think that’s, that’s, is that your primary social media location?
Dr. Jessi Gold: Yes. And will it be that way forever? I can’t answer that, but it has. We’ll see, and for now, I mean, I think it’s good for writer types, probably more than other places.
Will: Yeah. How, how has, uh, Twitter been for your own personal mental health over the last
Dr. Jessi Gold: few years? That’s been, you know, it depends on my mood. So, [00:06:00] like, when the pandemic first started, when we were really isolated, I’m extroverted and everything was at home, and I had like no friends and all my patients were virtual, and I felt really like isolated.
Mm-hmm. And social media was really helpful for that because those people are like my friends. And so there was a way to sort of feel supported by that, and it helped my mental health. But at times where like all of the news was really bad and I felt like I was like staying up to help people or whatever the heck was in my head, I would stay up and not sleep.
And that wasn’t super good either. Yeah. So I think it’s like a balance and like just me paying attention to it
Will: now, it seems that the, when everything went virtual, It seems like psychiatry could transition fairly well, right to that, that format as opposed to ophthalmology. It was an absolute nightmare.
Like it’s, it’s extremely hard to do an eye exam. It’s like just getting someone’s eye as close to a camera as possible, [00:07:00] uh, was, uh, proved to be challenging. So how was it for.
Dr. Jessi Gold: I mean, we can do our jobs mostly virtually. I mean, I think especially because masking actually is harder for us to see like what’s going on and emotions and things.
So it was actually better virtually. But there are things I hate about it. I think it’s not super good for burnout. I think you like sit in the same place for too long. I also don’t feel as connected to people. So like, I don’t know what that is, but anybody that I’ve met in person or like saw in person first, I like feel more connected to as a patient and I feel bad about that, but it’s just the truth.
So, um, that’s sort of, it transitioned like work wise. Fine. I can ask you questions about feelings all day this way.
Will: Well, we’re gonna ask you to, uh, we’re gonna talk about my feelings a little bit later, but, uh Oh, good.
Dr. Jessi Gold: That’s what I’m here for. This
Kristin: is, this is really just a pre therapy.
Will: Yeah, yeah. Did you know this was happen?
This is just an excuse to, um, to get you on to have some therapy [00:08:00] where we don’t have to bill insurance. That’s fine. I do
Dr. Jessi Gold: that all the time. It’s basically all my friends, so don’t worry about it.
Will: Um, so, you know, I, I’m ashamed to say I, I don’t know. Psychiatrists like, I, I don’t, I mean, I don’t know that many people outside of ophthalmology period.
But you just, you
Kristin: don’t know that many
Will: people. That’s, that’s, that’s true. I, he has his
Dr. Jessi Gold: own world to create it so he doesn’t have
Kristin: to. Yeah. And he’s in here alone making that world out of himself. Are you like, I’m sure a diagnosis is already popping into,
Will: I enjoy, I enjoy talking to other people so much that I have created 20 different characters that I talk to.
Dr. Jessi Gold: And only sometimes you let your family in the rest of the time it’s mostly just you. Yep,
Will: exactly. Yeah. Only whenever they make me. Um, but you know, I, so. I’m interested in knowing what, what led to you going into psychiatry? Uh, cuz I think I find those like origin stories kind of [00:09:00] interesting.
Dr. Jessi Gold: I don’t have like a Hulk origin story, but I, I think, you know, for me, I think it’s all about people’s stories.
So I think in psychiatry you get time with people, you get to hear where they came from and it matters. And you could see. A hundred people at the same diagnosis and where they’re coming from and what is going on in their life matters to how you’re dealing with them and helping them. And it’s not just like diagnosis, drug diagnosis, drug.
Mm-hmm. I mean, if you’re practicing correctly and not like some kind of classically stereotypical psychiatrists or bad ones people have had in the past. Um, when I went into med school, like my dad’s a psychiatrist, so I didn’t wanna do that. Yeah. There’s something you can say probably psychologically there, but I just was like, I can’t do that.
And then like, I was an anthro major and I have a master’s in Anthro and it was just like everything about it was drawing me to [00:10:00] it. And it was like the only field. I felt like people were doing a bunch of weird stuff too, like not just seeing patients and I just couldn’t imagine like spending all day only seeing patients too.
Cause I liked writing and I was trying to figure out how to balance that. And um, I think both, but really inherently, people are really interesting and weird and fun. I mean, that’s why you probably like podcasts, but it’s just like talking to people is interesting. Yeah.
Will: Did you have other considerations going through?
Like clinical rotations?
Dr. Jessi Gold: I mean, dropping out.
Will: Okay. Alright.
Dr. Jessi Gold: That’s always on the table. That was up there. I mean, I did a lot of like, am I sure I wanna do this? Calls and, you know, my family sort of was like, but you’ve always wanted to do it. Or their, one of my favorites was like, nobody gets into Yale Med, you should just finish it.
And I was like, mm-hmm. This is not a generic degree that you can just use wherever you want. However, like this is like not a thing. Um, but other than that, I mean like [00:11:00] a little bit of neurology because I liked the brain and I was like, maybe I can do this. And then it was so sad and I couldn’t do anything for anybody ever, and I just, I, I couldn’t do it and they didn’t like.
Mm-hmm. I have a sense of humor that maybe doesn’t work with neuro patients as well as it does for psychiatry patients. I mean, I think for the most part, a lot of people who see psychiatrists like have a pretty dark, sarcastic sense of humor. And I don’t know if that love it comes from like emotional pain, but um, it makes it easy to, I don’t have to kind of like fake it very much.
Yeah. And I felt like in neuro, I just. I was trying, I had a really cool mentor and I tried so hard to not do psychiatry, but I was like, oh, I can’t see another stroke and like cancer that’s not curable and like I just can’t do it. So yeah, not a lot of stuff dropping out neuro uh, health policy maybe. I mean, I did that stuff before I went into med school for a little bit in DC and like always sort of was like, how do you be an advocate?
Maybe I’ll just be an advocate, but, [00:12:00] uh, who knows. That’s probably where I’ll be in 10 years anyway. So.
Kristin: Well, you’ve kind of done a bit of that in your writing, right? You use that to advocate now, so yeah. You’ve, you wove that in there? Uh,
Will: I’m telling you to, it’s not there. Using humor to deal with emotional pain, like, that’s right up my alley.
So, you know, I can, I can totally
Dr. Jessi Gold: relate to that. You’re like, does your eye hurt?
Will: Well, it’s, it’s funny you talk about like, you know, using humor with, with patience and, uh, people ask me that all the time. Like, is it, is? Yeah. Are you like, the same way with patience. And I always tell ’em no, like what I do in my skits, like that type of humor.
It’s, it’s not kind of where I go with patients. It’s, it’s, I, I, I’m like always just more safe, like dad jokey type of, you know, but yeah. Your
Kristin: patients are not there to treat their emotional pain. Right,
Will: right. So it’s a little different. So for you, I feel like, like I, I honestly to a certain extent, I can’t really be my full self, you know?
Mm-hmm. Uh, with patients. But maybe it’s [00:13:00] different. Is it, do you feel like it’s different? Do you feel like comfortable because you have those, such a strong relationship with those
Dr. Jessi Gold: patients? I think because I don’t listen to the things they taught us in psychiatry about like, not being yourself. Right. So there’s just like this whole.
Camp based in psychoanalysis and like old school psychotherapy that like you’re supposed to exist in like a blank slate where like the person is there and you’re just there to reflect them and that’s all you do. And like newer forms of therapy? Yeah, like newer forms of therapy, like dialectical behavioral therapy, stuff like that.
People are much more open about their own stuff and like honest. And I practice more like that and I feel. Able to do that. I mean, I’m sure there are people where I’m not their cup of tea and you know, they can find other psychiatrists, but I think it works well for, like, I see college kids, it works well for them because it’s usually the first time they interact with mental health, unless they had a a significant childhood mental health experiences.
Um, and healthcare [00:14:00] workers, like they don’t even wanna be there. So, I mean, as many jokes as I can give to kind of lighten that mood is nice. And then I think like people who are really sad, Uh, chronically struggling and have like suicidal thoughts and stuff, like really enjoy being like, well, today I don’t wanna die.
And it sounds really bad. Like if I had that conversation with anyone else, and they’ll say the same thing. They’d be like, this is not a conversation my parents could handle. But they don’t. And that’s actually a positive. And there’s reasons that the positive and. Funny for them to live in that space.
Like I’m happy to support that being funny, even though sometimes they’ll be like, that’s kind of like a messed up thing to say.
Kristin: Yeah. But there is something too humor being, you know, a really good coping mechanism. I mean, that is certainly our story. Like he mount, you know, we joke about cardiac arrest and cancer and all sorts of things that are probably not very politically correct to joke about, but when it has happened to you feel like you get, you know, some license to some [00:15:00] darker humor than you might have otherwise.
But
Dr. Jessi Gold: it does, it helps. It breaks it up too. Like I’ve, I’ve said that I use the videos like in my talks and stuff, but if I’m like talking about burnout and mental health, his videos Yeah. All the time. Yeah, because it’s like, that’s right. Because it’s like very, very, Hard to talk about burnout to people in healthcare.
Like they wanna punch you in the face 95% of the time. And so it’s already sort of like a hard topic going in. And then there’s like balance of trying to do it. And then you’re kind of like, how do I keep doing this in a way that is not gonna make them hate me? And so comedy breaks are nice. And a lot of your videos Yeah.
Like are about that stuff in a way that people laugh. Instead of saying like, why are you trying to tell me this story that’s just like, like not interesting and depressing. And then sometimes I’ll be like, and now that I’ve depressed you, it’s ti you know, like, and it breaks it up to have like silly cartoons or silly videos or you know, but that your videos are like about the topic, but they’re just like in a [00:16:00] different way that make people laugh because they’re just like wanting to let off steam.
And I think that
Will: helps. Yeah. I wanted to, you know, I think we have a good opportunity here to try to put. The mental health of worth healthcare workers in perspective, uh, cuz we’ve already talked about burnout. I mean, Obviously with the pandemic, it’s like taken on a whole new level. Um, and so if you could just help us help people listening, understand like, what, where are healthcare workers at right now compared to like 2019?
Dr. Jessi Gold: I mean, I think it’s really important that people, especially not healthcare people realize that like we weren’t awesome before. Like it wasn’t like the Covid ferry came down from the clouds and messed up healthcare and we all of a sudden were like sad. Like Covid had its unique stressors, obviously, and it’s dragged out, and that has been a stressor too.
But like Covid itself didn’t create the problem. It just made it worse. And so [00:17:00] I think that’s really important to point out. Um, our mental health was always worse than most fields to begin with. Burnout worse, depression worse. Like we go into med school equivalent to age match peers, and then we’re all of a sudden a lot worse depression wise.
And so it’s very much like data would say training started it. And so, I mean, our mental health has not been good, but covid in it. Tons of unique stressor way, whatever you wanna pinpoint. Like not knowing what to do. Um, pressures from patients who don’t wanna do things you need them to do. Um, dying. The prospect of actually being able to get sick from what is going on and seeing fellow healthcare workers die.
Yeah. Like these things that are like new stressors. In, in theory or new stressors at a different light, um, caused different problems, which made our burnout worse, which made our depression higher, which made our anxiety worse, which made our loneliness higher, which I also think is important. I think people think [00:18:00] that because we go into work every day, we’re like totally fine, but a lot of us don’t talk about how we’re feeling or how we’re doing.
And because of that, like you can really be struggling and it’s isolating to struggle alone. And I think it’s important to point out that nurses are often worse than physicians, but physicians have the microphone and then that doesn’t even count like the rest of the hospital system infrastructure that just we don’t have data on.
But like I see people who work throughout the hospital in other ways, including just people’s like administrative assistants. And there, you know, there’s a lot of struggling kind of across the board and. Permeates cuz burnout’s kind of contagious. And if you’re cranky because you don’t want to be there or you don’t like what you’re doing or your job is just not what you expect it to be, or all of these systems that are like inherently broken in healthcare that you talk about so much, like yeah, those are there, those are worsened by covid.
But like you get so frustrated with the system that it affects you and then it [00:19:00] affects everyone you’re working with and it affects your family. I also see like families because I see people who are dependent. So I mean I think we just don’t like extend the lens as much, but it’s, you know, I don’t think we’re doing great and I don’t think when the emergency declaration ends in May that we’re gonna be awesome again.
Um, cause we weren’t awesome to begin with and, and trauma itself has like a pretty long tail and timeline and so, I mean, I think it’s. This thing’s gonna be a longstanding thing we’re dealing with and needs to be a longstanding thing we care about. So hopefully that ends up being true, but not just like a bunch
Will: of band news so we don’t just forget about it once, you know, people feel like we’re past the pandemic and everyone’s gonna be okay again, it’s not
Dr. Jessi Gold: the case.
Yeah, I mean, I think hospitals talk about it more, but it sort of was like they were forced to talk about it more like, and I don’t know that they really wanna keep talking about it and investing in it. I mean, I think there’s a significant financial [00:20:00] problem when people burn out and leave their job, but it’s hard sometimes for them to like put that stuff together and, and see the value in investing in this stuff.
And it’s easier to fix the rest of their problems in healthcare with money that they need to fix. And so I think it’s. Trying to figure out how to balance all those needs, but it’s hard.
Kristin: What do you think a good solution for burnout is? I mean, I think a lot of people just say self-care, and then that’s turned into its own dumb little buzzword.
It’s like a bubble bath is not gonna fix this.
Will: You mean you mean beyond pizza parties?
Kristin: Yeah, beyond burnout, pizza
and
Dr. Jessi Gold: wellness modules. I do like a burnout pizza. Uh,
Will: you know, we, we create a big talk about pizza part. I mean, honestly, we don’t need to get rid of the pizza. Honestly, I love pizza. It’s just like,
Kristin: Do something additional,
Dr. Jessi Gold: maybe something else, right?
Yeah. I mean, I’m the person who’s like giving those lectures, so if you’ve ever gone and wanted to throw something at that person, that’s me. Um, [00:21:00] but I think, you know, in general, it’s like how do we address like the things going on with the system at the same time as the things going on in our culture?
And I think a lot of, like the stuff that you guys talk about is a cultural thing. Like mm-hmm. These are the things that are stereotypes because this is the culture of medicine in these fields. This is how we deal with feelings in those fields. This is how we deal with each other in those fields. And the culture of medicine.
Stigmatizes mental health makes it hard to notice signs and symptoms in ourself because we’ve normalized a culture where you can find someone who’s worse off than you or equivalently bad. But like, just because nobody’s sleeping or functioning doesn’t mean that’s like. Okay. Right. And so our culture has a ton of problems and at the same time, so does the system.
And I think we’ve done a really bad job like articulating that both things are true. So like at one point it was really focused on like, Pizza [00:22:00] parties and the individual and these talks. And so people just got really turned off really angry. And so it swung towards all of the problems are systematic and there are lots of systematic problems, but they take a really long time to fix.
And so if all you’re doing is grumbling about the systems problems that are like maybe never gonna fix like residency to fix residency, you have to like start from scratch. Mm-hmm. So, you know, those things are big, big issues. And people, if you only just think about them, you just get hopeless and really like have no agency or control to fix anything.
So you have to go like, well what can I do? And that’s where culture and talking about it and getting more open and noticing signs and symptoms and all that stuff comes in. So I think we have to do those two things in parallel. And some of that’s just like how we talk about this in a better way. But the system stuff, I mean, there’s a lot of symptoms, there’s a lot of systems stuff.
Will: Yeah. And that’s, I mean, that’s something that I, I struggle with, with some of my videos. Like, because, you know, cause that’s [00:23:00] kind of what I, a lot of, big part of what I do is I pick these system things and, and I make a skit out of it. Make jokes about it. Yeah. But then like underneath it all, I’m, I’m thinking to myself, okay, like what good is this actually doing?
Because I’m not proposing any solutions. And I think. That can be hard to, to, you know, deal with, is that the idea that we have all these systemic issues, but what on earth do we do? Like, how, and, and I, I don’t know. I like, I don’t know the answer to any of these things. Like what, you know, I’m, I’m gonna keep telling, you know, saying jokes and writing jokes about it because that’s what I do best.
But we need like, smarter people like you, Dr. Gold and, and Kristen over here to actually come up with solutions. Can you, can you fix it please? Can I, can I fix it? Can you guys, can you guys just fix
Dr. Jessi Gold: it? It’s hard. I mean, psychiatry, prior officers super common and stuff, so I mean, I, oh
Will: really? You got, you’re a big, it’s
Dr. Jessi Gold: a big part of that big prior [00:24:00] off field and big, like, you don’t actually know how to practice field and, you know, access and mental health is just a hot mess of a situation.
So I think like inherently the system that I represent, it’s a broken system and that’s really hard. You know what though? I don’t
Kristin: think it’s true that, that you’re not. Doing any good. Like you might not be coming up with a, with a short term solution for this specific problem that you’re making a video about.
But I think what, where change starts, where large scale systemic change starts is in public opinion. And that is often, you know, influenced by the arts, you know, and by, by things like writing and, and dumb comedy videos and, you know, podcasts and, and things like this of just bringing awareness. And also a lot of the systemic issues are driven by the problems with the insurance system, at least in the us.
Um, and that system relies a lot on making everything convoluted and [00:25:00] obscure. And so anything we can do to explain and make transparent what those tactics are, you’re educating the public. And then once they know that, They’re not going to continue to stand for it, right? Like you’re, you’re just building a critical mass.
And once you hit that critical mass, people will start to demand change. So I don’t think you should downplay, you know, any, any one individual person’s shirt, like maybe one person can’t make a difference. But everybody doing all of these things and putting these ideas out into the world, I think will collectively make a difference.
And,
Will: and it helps if you’re wearing a costume while you do
Dr. Jessi Gold: it. Yeah, that’s, I think wearing the unicorn thing is always the answer. I, I wore a unicorn onesie for Halloween and I’ve done it twice. It’s just, did you, doesn’t psych in Halloween is an interesting thing, but it, it’s amusing. Um, but nonetheless, I mean, I agree.
A lot of it’s just, Talking about it does make a difference and hearing people makes a difference. I think we forget that like over the [00:26:00] pandemic, I struggled a lot with like patients were really sick and not getting better. Um, and there was nothing that I could do to change covid. Like it wasn’t going away.
And so having that, it’s not like I’ve ever just been like, oh, you’re stressed at home. I’m gonna fix your husband. Like, I don’t like ever really have that. But can you though? I will work on it. Is that part of the menu? It is. Okay. Couples therapy. We’ll talk later. Yeah. No, but I think that like. I just couldn’t, like everyone felt unfixable and I couldn’t see that I was doing anything.
And like my personal therapist was like, do you think all you do is like, fix people? Because that doesn’t, that’s not what you’re doing. Like they don’t have anywhere else to go to talk about this stuff. Like, that’s also helpful. And I had to like reframe that. And I think we take for granted, like as coworkers, as friends, as supervisors, like.
Being seen and heard does, and I think through comedy, like that’s what you’re really doing right, is like you’re taking something that [00:27:00] you’re experiencing, people have told you they’ve experienced, and putting it on a bigger stage to say like, you’re not alone in experiencing this. And like, yes, I’m making fun of it, but I’m smartly making fun of it.
To also say, this is like hugely an issue and you need to fix it, right? So
Will: see, I told you I’d, I’d end up getting therapy. I told you we’d, we’d get there, we’d
Dr. Jessi Gold: get there eventually. I get there sometimes without trying on, it’s like my brain.
Will: And, and, and you yourself. I mean, you, you’re a accomplished writer.
Like you’ve been in all kinds of things. New York Times, Atlantic, you know, time, like everything. And so, um, I think. And I, I always encourage trainees and young people to, to get on social media cuz we need, we need more people in medicine. There are trusted voices, you know, talking about these things. And so, um, especially in, in your area with, uh, mental health and burnout, that’s, that’s so important to have, to have your voice.
So thank you for doing, um, everything you do. And you’ve also written a, you have, uh, some interesting stories that you’ve [00:28:00] written about in, in, in a book, right?
Dr. Jessi Gold: Yeah. So I wanna, when you’re like, come up with a funny story, the story that I came up with, I was like, I just wrote this in this like, Volume of a book that has not come out for a while, but is coming out in April, um, called What We Bring to the Practice of Medicine Perspectives of Women Physicians, which is just like, they’re a bunch of different essays by female doctors.
And like the thing I wrote about was the thing I wanted to talk to you about. And I was like, I’m gonna get in trouble because they’re gonna, I’m not allowed to do that, but I’m gonna tell you the story anyway cause I, let’s do it. I, I don’t think this will come out
Kristin: till April
Dr. Jessi Gold: anyway, so it’s cool. I asked cuz I was like, I’m gonna get in trouble.
Um, but you know, I think probably in the same way that you have experiences where you’re like, this is why I’m an ophthalmologist, like half of med school for me is like, that’s why I don’t touch people because it’s just like not a great idea. And that’s what we say to our children. Yeah. To touch people is not [00:29:00] good.
And, and I think that the, the story that came to mind when we said think of something funny was like, we have this like urgent care clinic. And an occasional attending there. And they had us just like running around seeing patients and then presenting them. Um, and one of my patients needed a guac. Um, so like test for blood in your stool by.
So, yeah, doing what you’d think.
Kristin: Okay.
Will: Right. So a gok, it’s like a little, um, is
Kristin: that an acronym? No,
Dr. Jessi Gold: no. Well, no, I don’t, I don’t actually know that.
Will: I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t know what
Dr. Jessi Gold: it means. You just, a really hard question are not qualified. What is this? That’s right. But it’s, I tell you how I feel
Kristin: about that.
Someone tell me in
Will: the comment, but it’s just like a little test thing and you just, you put a, some of the fecal matter on the thing and then it tells you if there’s blood in it. Right. So anyway, yes.
Kristin: Okay. Dumb question. Yes. Can you not just use your eyeballs? No, I mean, not that, that you wanna
Dr. Jessi Gold: see it was like really bad.
You might be [00:30:00] able to see that, but if it wasn’t, it was like subtle. You wouldn’t, it’s like a detector kind of. Yeah, they’re looking for really small
Kristin: amounts of, it’s the world’s
Dr. Jessi Gold: worst job, but it’s not a great job. I think nurses probably do it a lot more than we do. And like there are things, fortunately that’s not,
Will: that’s not all they.
It’s not someone’s only job is to do like, it’s like
Kristin: a career
Will: testing that’s just a small component. If, if that is, if there’s anybody out there that does have that as their entire job, I’m so sorry. Uh, we don’t mean to ridicule the, your job, but I don’t You’re
Dr. Jessi Gold: allowed to curse. That’s shitty. But I mean, you know,
Kristin: but anyway, we’re getting
Will: sidetracked.
Go ahead. There’s, nonetheless, there’s a pun. I, I, it was
Dr. Jessi Gold: a pun. I’m being, it’s funny. Um, so basically we, I went, so like I went in, did this, that was what had to be the outcome. I had never done one before because a lot of things in med school are like that. And the attending was like nowhere to be found.
And the nurse was like, just go do it on your own. Like, they taught you how to do that in class, right? And I was like, I think [00:31:00] so and so, like, I went in. Did what I had to do and then like came out and uh, like tried to do the card thinking that I knew what I was doing and like put the detector on it and nothing happened.
And so I’m like, okay, maybe this is fine. And then I was like, this doesn’t seem right, like, I’m pretty sure I didn’t do this right. Like, I’m gonna get the nurse. And I went and got the nurse and she just starts like la like laughing at me. And I’m like, why are you laughing? And she is like, you have to. Oh, oh.
And so like, I literally just like put it on the, you’re just poking it. It’s like if it was a matchbox, it looks kinda like a matchbox. It’d be like it was a matchbox, and I just put it outside of the matchbox instead of getting the thing inside. So like, I didn’t put it on the thing that detects anything.
I didn’t, I, I put the drops on it, but it was just like, I put like, I put poop on the outside of thing. Right. Just making a little mud
Kristin: pie
Dr. Jessi Gold: on us. Yeah. You know, you, and I’m like, oh, [00:32:00] I didn’t realize like that’s a thing. Like what do I have to do now? And she’s like, you have to go back in there and do it again.
Oh no. And I was like, that’s like a lot. You, I have to go do that to him again. And she’s like, I’m
Kristin: sorry, time out. You have to do that to him. I was assuming it was like an after the fact situation and, and you collect
Dr. Jessi Gold: it. You collect it, but you collect it like this. Yeah, man.
Kristin: No.
Will: Yeah. How, how you gonna get the
Kristin: poop?
Oh, I thought they would just. You wait for them to give you a sample.
Will: Sometimes that’s hard for people
to
Dr. Jessi Gold: poop on command. Yeah. No. It’s like you, you have them bend over over in C instead of their prostate, you’re going up the other way. Oh yeah. Yeah. And so got
Kristin: exponential.
Dr. Jessi Gold: It’s a worse, it got worse. And so they made me go back in.
Um, yeah. And I was like, I can’t tell him that. Like I can’t tell him I screwed up and I have to do
Kristin: this. Sorry, I was just playing with your poo. This time is for
Dr. Jessi Gold: real. [00:33:00] I was like, I like I did this without, no, you know, like I did this without having any idea how to do this. Like I’m not gonna say that to him.
And the nurse was like, I’ll go with you because I feel bad for you. And the attending’s still like nowhere to be found. Surprise. Um, and I mean, maybe that was good cause I was so embarrassed, but the nurse was like laughing but so nice about it, like they are. And she was like, I’ll go with you. And so she’s like, the med student needs to tell you something.
And I’m like, oh no, I have to do it again. And, and he’s like, well, Can you at least introduce yourself next time? Oh, no. And I was like, I can’t even, I was like, I’m so embarrassed. But that was a good joke. And so I did it and like, whatever. But it’s like afterwards I was like, this is why I can’t do procedures.
And like, that’s not even a procedure. I was just like, I can’t, this is bad. I don’t know what I’m doing ever. Like, this makes me so anxious and like I’m just gonna screw up all the time. And so, yeah, I mean, it’s embarrassing, but that’s [00:34:00] the story that I wrote about cuz I was like, it’s like sticks out in my head as this thing that’s just like, like very common in medicine, but like very embarrassing to do something like that.
Will: And you haven’t done a rectal exam
Dr. Jessi Gold: since? I haven’t, no. I mean, I don’t have to do, I mean, anyone who wants doing a psychiatry, um, I don’t, I have a stethoscope here just in case something bad happens, but I don’t, I don’t think most psychiatrists even probably have it anywhere near their office and like, I don’t have to do anything like that, like at all.
I mean, that is a
Will: stereotype that, that’s a stereotype that rings true. Right? It’s, you know, it’s a psychiatry. You don’t, you don’t, you’re not doing a lot of. Physical exam, you know,
Kristin: no body fluids,
Dr. Jessi Gold: generally not, not a lot of body fluids. We’ll get labs, but I’m not the one doing that. And like, I will like, you know, if something was wrong, I can do it.
Like, but just the point of seeing someone who went to med school, but I’m not choosing to do that. Like even on an airplane, like when they’re like, is her anybody? And I’m like, no, there’s not, I’m not [00:35:00] here. You can’t see me. And then like, you know, I’ve still had to do it eventually. And I’m like, well, I can hold their hand and ask them how they’re feeling.
You can guide them
Kristin: through the
Will: process. I’ve never, I’ve never related to you so much. It’s what if, what’s his biggest fear? What if you and I, what if we were the only ones that responded on a. Well, as long as
Kristin: I’m there, I guess it’ll be okay. Yeah. Kristin, you’d pretty good in a pinch. Um,
Will: but man, that would be, it’s
Dr. Jessi Gold: super interesting.
I just gave a talk at the academic surgery conference and this person came up to me after and said, I don’t know if you remember me, but like, I did an emergency with you on an airplane. And I was like, what? And she’s like, we had this person who like overdosed and I didn’t get up to go because like, I’m gonna wait.
And then eventually, like, they kept asking. And so I went and like, she, she was doing most things, but she literally, like, she looked at me during it and was like, this is more your gig than my gig. And I was like, oh, what’s going on? And so it was like sort of, we kind of teamed the mental [00:36:00] health aspect of it.
Oh my gosh. But she was like, after that I tried to get like naltrexone and like on the, like, make sure that there are ways to have Naloxone on the airplane because like they didn’t have it really. And like we couldn’t use it and we just had to keep waking the person up and, um, Wow. And I was like, she was like, I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m pretty sure that like I advocated for this after meeting you.
And I was like, this is super surreal. But like these experiences are traumatic for me because I, I shouldn’t be doing it. So like it’s very interesting that I like stuck out to your mind when I was giving a talk cuz I probably was still traumatized in front of a bunch of surgeons giving a talk and had the same sense of humor.
Kristin: Right. That’s awesome. You’re back in that head space.
Will: Yeah, right. Well we should all hope that’s crazy. Hope to have somebody more accomplished on a flight during an emergency. Really. I would certainly need, I think I’d probably defer to you if we’re being honest, unless the patient’s [00:37:00] wearing contacts, but
Kristin: contact plan emergency.
Alright. Anyone have pseudomonas? Yeah. Right.
Will: Yeah, exactly. Let’s take a quick break and then we’ll be right back with Dr. Jesse Gold.
Hey, Kristen. Do you know why a stethoscope is so difficult to use? Because there’s no heartbeat in an eyeball. That’s actually a really good point, but also the heart is quiet. The sounds can be distant and you’re in a noisy environment trying to listen to all the beeps and beeps. Uh, but with Echo Health’s 3M Litman Core Digital Stethoscope, it’s easier than ever.
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Kristin: Yeah, you know, I really coulda used that before I had to do 10 minutes of cpr. It leads to earlier detection, better outcomes, definitely something that’s personally meaningful for
Will: us.
We have a special offer for our US listeners. Visit Echo health.com/kk h in use code knock 50 to experience echo’s digital [00:38:00] stethoscope technology. That’s Eko Health slash kk h, and use knock 50 to get $50 off, plus a free case, plus free engraving with this exclusive offer, which ends April 30th.
All right, we are back with Dr. Jesse Gold. So, uh, I, I realize I have a valuable opportunity here. I mean, speaking with a very accomplished psychiatrist. Um, I, I want you to, uh, I don’t know if psychoanalyze is the right term, but, uh, for lack of a better way of describing it, I want you to psychoanalyze my characters.
I want you to, so you, you’re familiar with the, the, the videos, you know, you’ve seen a handful of them. Yes. I told you that you needed to watch them. You did.
Dr. Jessi Gold: But I’ve watched most of them anyway. I’m a big fan of things where it takes place in mental health and like makes a point that way. And since I see healthcare workers, it’s like smack in my [00:39:00] comfort zone.
So,
Will: uh, feel free to, um, I’m gonna just name one of the characters that I play and, um, I just want to hear your thoughts on the personality, the maybe some mental health tips for that character. Uh, that would always be helpful. Let’s start with, uh, an area that you’re, you’re, you’re very familiar with and that’s trainee mental health.
So how about Bill the resident? Are you familiar with Bill, the Resident? I am familiar. So let me just set up Bill as a character here. Um, as far as anybody who watches my content knows Bill is probably the only resident in this entire hospital, and so. It’s up to him, uh, to, to do a lot of the kind of grunt work and working with all these different doctors.
And so what do you think about Bill the resident?
Dr. Jessi Gold: I think that like there’s, in this session, he doesn’t talk about anything he’s struggling with until kind of towards the end because it’s like easier to just kind of like not mention it because it’s like a failure [00:40:00] or vulnerability to mention that you’re struggling with things in medicine, especially as a trainee.
Um, and so like saying, I have too many pagers, I think is like how he started the conversation and it’s like very concrete, right? Like it’s an objective thing. It’s not feelings. It’s like here’s this thing that I don’t super like, it’s like saying I can’t get go to the bathroom a lot at work, right? So it’s like these things that are true about residency that are horrible, but like an easy sort of in into the conversation, but it takes a while for ’em to get there.
So like with people like that, it’s a lot of like trying to like give them time to like actually focus on themselves and point out that they’re not so like, oh, it seems like you’re only talking about work. Like what does that feel like? Right? And I don’t think most of us are good at that in medicine, but particularly there’s this fear, I think in trainees that like if you stop and deal with your stuff, You’re just never gonna be able to keep going.
Right? Like [00:41:00] I had a trainee say like, well what if on the weekends, like my only weekend off, I sleep all the time. Like, that’s not self care. Like yeah, I’m just sleeping all the time. And I’m like, well, if you sleep all the time, you obviously need to sleep. Like you, you know, just don’t beat yourself up for it.
But like they’ll even like say they don’t do self-care, right? Because they think they should be doing other things. Right. And so I think really trying to focus on like how to focus on yourself in the context of like a really hard, really messed up system that’s even worse mm-hmm. For them as work horses.
And pointing out how often they don’t. Because I think we get in this mindset of like not being able to even see that like we’re there.
Will: Yeah, this is incredible. I, I like, this is great. I already like this. I’m, I’m glad we’re doing this. We, because, you know, also, also because Bill, like I am Bill, like I, I made that character, that resident character from that is probably the most personal character to me, honestly.[00:42:00]
Mm-hmm. Um, because I, I draw on all of my own insecurities that I had during med school and residency and just formed them into this character whose name is Dr. Bill. Bill. My first name’s William. Uh, so his, his, his full name is Dr. William. William, but he goes by Dr. Bill. Bill. I don’t know why. Uh, it just makes it more fun
Dr. Jessi Gold: that way.
There you go. Yeah. I mean, so that was just free therapy for you without me realizing
Will: Exactly. See as this is, this was the ultimate goal here. Okay. Um, all right. Let’s do, do a few more. Um, how about the neurologist? Now the neur, did you see the therapy session? I did with the neurologist. Uh, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Dr. Jessi Gold: Yeah, I mean, so you have him coming in and you ask him what personality disorder he is, and he says like, his brain is perfect and he is amazing. And so it’s, it’s like narcissism in some capacity, but it’s also like, again, this sort of like [00:43:00] externally focused, like here’s how all of these things that are going around me are wrong and I’m great and I don’t wanna focus on me, but it’s a different reason.
Right? It’s just like, I’m so well functioning that like everybody else is the problem. But like, that’s not true, right? Like we all are part of the problem. And certainly when you’re, you list off a bunch of things that he did, um, to try to like bring attention to the fact that he is part of the problem, but he doesn’t have any sort of like empathy or emotional awareness about that.
And I think that that’s like obviously important to point out and notice like you are part of the team too. And like if you’re not, there are things that you’re doing wrong and contributing to this as well. And like how do we work on like, Being nicer to people in the context of like, like if you are nice to people, it doesn’t make you weak or bad or less intelligent, [00:44:00] right?
Like mm-hmm. There’s some kind of defense on like what actually being nice to other people in those circumstances is gonna do like, I don’t know what that is, but like for a lot of psychotherapy it’s like sitting and listening and trying to hear what kind of stuff people bring up a lot and trying to figure out why.
And there’s usually some reason, like some therapists would say it’s like family oriented. Yeah. But I think medicine takes people from certain family systems and then puts them in a stressful culture that’s its own family that can like draw out some of the problems that existed before or like emphasize them.
Mm-hmm. Um, and I think. What I would notice,
Will: have you ever started a therapy session by asking what personality disorder will you be exhibiting today?
Dr. Jessi Gold: No, but that’s just because personality disorders and psych are interesting. Like some of us don’t talk a lot about them with people, um, narcissism, like real narcissism, not like [00:45:00] narcissistic traits.
Like he has, um, people don’t show up at therapy and they’re mostly not helpable, the people who show up are their partners. Right. And so it’s a lot of, it’s kind of interesting, but, um, you know, we don’t talk a lot, a lot about those people unless it’s really interfering and yeah, I mean, I, I mostly start session with like, how’s your week?
Will: That seems like a much, uh, I think a little more normal, much better way to begin a therapy session. So, so a lot of the, um, what I touch on is, um, interpersonal conflicts, right? Between specialists. Mm-hmm. So I’d love to hear your take on the, uh, cardiologists and nephrologists and the back and forth
Dr. Jessi Gold: there.
Yeah, I mean, I like that. And the surgeon and the anesthesiologists. I think that, yeah, that’s another one. We have a lot of, like, medicine inherently like is a team. Sport. Mm-hmm. We can try as much as we want to be the best individual, but like there [00:46:00] are nurses, they’re our residents. There are other specialties and I think that we, it’s like this, like trying to put, it’s like being in a bad marriage probably.
It’s like trying to put something on the other person that like makes it so you don’t have to deal with your own stuff, but like inherently, Both people have issues and they’re affecting each other. And then in, and then in turn affecting the environment. And since like we work in healthcare, the environment is patients and so we have the ability to like actually disrupt people’s lives when we don’t get along or we like make fun of people or we like mm-hmm.
Belittle the things that they do that we don’t like. I think
Will: something like the anesthesiologist, like the anesthesiologist saying, telling the surgeon they’re mallin potty. Yeah, like it’s silly. Yeah. It’s kind
Dr. Jessi Gold: of mean, you know, it’s silly, but it’s like, I think, you know, like to function as a unit, they have to not probably be doing that super often, but I think it, it like makes them feel better to be better in certain circumstances.
I [00:47:00] think. Like it just is a way of surviving probably to be like, well, at least I’m not that person. Um, at least I didn’t go into whatever, like psych gets thrown into that all the time. I remember like in surgery when I was in, in med school, someone was like, are you gonna go into what your daddy does?
Cause my dad was a psychiatrist and was like very belittling of that. And I was like, why’d you say daddy? Like, that’s just weird. But I think that people like to in like in fight because then their insecurities are, They can kind of fight them and say like, why they chose the other thing cuz they’re good at whatever.
So like your ortho person’s like you, you were like, but you’re good at bones. Right? Like I think that we have our own things that we’re good at and we chose specialties for a reason, but like, for some reason, like putting our strengths against other people’s weaknesses is like an inherent part of medicine.
Um, and it probably shouldn’t be. [00:48:00] Um, You know, if
you,
Will: when you, when you have orthopedic surgeons that come, if you have an orthopedic surgeon come in, do you have workout equipment in the room with you just to make them feel more
Dr. Jessi Gold: comfortable? I mean, sometimes, you know, so
Will: everything but
Kristin: a yoga mat, there’s a
Dr. Jessi Gold: session in the gym.
Yeah, we go to the gym, we walk, there’s a, there’s a psychiatrist at Stanford who does all walking sessions. I think people really like that. They like go outside and stuff. I mean, it’s like a little less private, but you decide that that’s okay by you to have a conversation outside walking, um, right. But yeah, no, I don’t have gym equipment.
I have like stress balls and stuff.
Will: There you go. And finally, obviously the big one, the psychiatrist. So first of all, what do you think about the psych, my psychiatrist outfit? Is it accurate or do you find yourself, uh, wearing hounds, tooth and corduroy and drab dark colors. Yeah. Which I don’t know what you’re, how it’s hard for me to tell what you’re wearing.
It’s definitely [00:49:00] dark, but
Dr. Jessi Gold: it’s dark. It’s dark. I mean, I don’t always wear dark colors, but it’s winter. Um, but I think I don’t, you know, it’s very classic psychiatry, like old school, sort of Freudian psychiatry, like old dudes, old white dudes who like dress like bebot stuff at some fancy suit store. And, I don’t know, wear bow ties, like weird pants also is pretty common.
My dad wears a lot of like, Like green pants has sung that. Like just things where you’re like, I don’t understand, but like a lot of psychiatrists do that. Um, you know, like the, my female psychiatrist in stuff a lot less, um, you know, we don’t wear white coats really, so That’s true. I had like a one rotation in residency for consult where they made us all wear white coats and I refused cuz I was like, no, like I’m not doing it just for this.
But we don’t really wear white coats, so like that’s true, but yes, like, like a very [00:50:00] stereotypical old school psychiatrist. I get it. I wouldn’t go to that psychiatrist like personally because I would look up their picture and be turned off immediately. Um, but that’s just like, you know, to each their own.
Right? Like, you want somebody you’re gonna wanna talk to and like, fit is everything.
Will: Are you saying my, my psychiatrist is not approachable? Is that, is that what you’re telling
Dr. Jessi Gold: me? I would say you try. I, but I do think, but I think that
Will: like, give me some tips. Like how do, how do I, how, what do you think about my psychiatry,
Dr. Jessi Gold: my therapy skills?
Do job giving people like feedback and talking to them. I, I mean, I obviously don’t point out all the things people do wrong, which I think you obviously do for a reason though. Like it’s for your sketch, like you’re just saying things out loud that, I mean, I wouldn’t say, um, you do some of the classic, like how does that make you feel?
Stuff that we do, I mean, I think we do a lot more like with people who aren’t good at feelings. We do a lot. Sitting in silence, which is super uncomfortable for [00:51:00] everybody just to see what happens. Or a lot of, like, I’ve noticed that you just get really angry every time you talk about la. Like have you noticed that?
And they’re like, what’s anger like? What do you mean anger? I don’t know what you’re talking about. That person’s just annoying. Or, you know, whatever. And so, yeah, a lot of like. Naming emotions out loud and in that kind of group of people is pretty common. Like a lot of trying to talk about anything but work.
I have the same problem in my therapy sessions, like personal, like as a human who goes to therapy every week like. Oh, I just talked about work for 30 minutes. Like that’s not actually why I’m here, you know, like Right. But work is stressful inherently, but it’s not like the cause of all of our problems.
So I think we’re not very good at that. But I think you do a good job, like with the different personalities, I think, you know, the ones that like get up and switch and tag out and bring in the scribe and stuff, like, I would be bananas if that happened.
Will: You mean the, the anesthesiologist? Uh, have [00:52:00] another one come in.
And emergency to give a break. I think it was emergency.
Kristin: Yeah. He
Dr. Jessi Gold: tried to sign out his signs out, tried to sign out his own, which was money that would be legit. Um, and then the, the anesthesia guy wants to take a break, like you would guess, and then the ophthalmologist has the other guy outside waiting to, to do his notes or whatever instead.
Yeah. Jonathan, describe, yeah, so I mean, I think that stuff would be super distracting.
Will: Would you, would you believe that? I have no formal training in psychiatry. I mean, I know it’s shocking, but it’s, you know,
Dr. Jessi Gold: no, I mean, I think it’s pretty good, at least, I mean, to, compared to movies, at least you didn’t try to sleep with all of them, you know?
I think like inherently that’d be interesting to film.
Will: Yeah. Is that, that’s the thing, is that the stereotype in like TV and movies? It depends. Like
Dr. Jessi Gold: I would say, Therapist, psychiatrist, that’s like a thing like that. They get into inappropriate boundary relationships with patients. Um, lately there’s [00:53:00] some things of them like trying to kill us and stuff that’s like not.
Like a thing. And then there’s like, then there’s, um, like we’re pill pushing. I mean, there’s a lot of pill pushing from our side, right? Like, so as opposed to like the therapist side where it’s more like, well, tell me how you feel. Yeah. And like, I’m not gonna, what makes you ask that question? Which is my least favorite thing that therapist do, which is like, not actually answer questions about themselves.
And they’re like, well, why do you wanna know about my day? And you’re like, I’m gonna punch you in the face. Um,
Will: but actually that’s, I, that’s a feedback I, I still get every time I, I put a therapy video out there. Uh, some of the comments I get are, you know, this is, this is, this is not a psychiatrist, this is a therapist.
You know, if there was a psychiatrist, they. You know, shoving pills down my throat. I, I, you know, I, I hear that from like, comments, so there’s certainly that kind of stigma out there. People
Dr. Jessi Gold: have had psychiatrists like that. A lot of people come to me where that’s the case. I mean, we train in psychotherapy like I had mm-hmm.
I had long-term patients [00:54:00] from the first year of residency, but like, we’re just not, like only in psychotherapy. And speaking of insurance, insurance reimburses us to see people with meds more than to just do therapy. And so like we don’t do it that often because of that. And also like to do weekly something when there’s a shortage and no access is also kind of hard.
So like we don’t do that to, our caseloads can be like 300 and not 50. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, I don’t believe. As a philosophy that like you can practice what I do without the rest. Because like increasing a med when you, like, are going through something stressful in your life, like is only gonna do so much and maybe won’t do anything.
And so like, you are not gonna drug like, am I gonna drug the pandemic outta you? So like, I, I need to talk to you. Or like, if work is really stressful, like you have to figure out how to deal with work and I can help empower that. I can give you drugs to help, but I’m [00:55:00] not like a simply a drug dealer. So, but I do think that people have psychiatrists like that, like 15 minute visits, give them their meds, don’t ask them anything about sleeping and eating and anything.
And I mean, I, I definitely have people come to me who are like, you asked me. Real questions and I’m like, yeah, what was everyone else doing? But
Will: yeah, I mean, it makes you feel good about, yeah, I think what you do, but also kind of like, oh man, I, you know, things could be better. But, um, yeah.
Dr. Jessi Gold: I appreciate that you, you have us talking to people cuz may it’ll help the stereotype.
Yeah.
Will: Well there’s more jokes there. It’s, I feel like, uh, there’s so much, I, I, those are my favorite videos to do. I love filming the, the therapy sketches because I, I feel like just with, with the personalities interacting with each other, it’s just endless amounts of material. So what’s a phrase he
Kristin: should add to his
Will: Yeah, you have like a, a, a therapist of phrase that is like classic that I.
Dr. Jessi Gold: A lot of things, like [00:56:00] when you said, blah, I like, I thought blah, or you felt blah, or, I noticed that there’s a lot of like pointing out things that sound I noticed that. Yeah. That’s good. Yeah, and we do a lot of like, um, summarizing and rephrasing of things for people. So like if people talk for like an hour, we’ll be like, Well, what I heard you say was that work is really hard and when you go to work you feel really angry.
And they’re like, I talk for 30 minutes. Like, is that really what I’m, you know what I mean? But I mean, that’s really what they did say. Yeah, inherently. And so we do a lot of like summarizing or like checking to make sure that’s a thing or we’ll be like, I noticed that like every time you mention your mom, you get ticked off or you, or you avoid the subject or whatever.
That’s common to like, sort of mm-hmm. Call, like it’s very much like how do you name things out loud that like normal people would hate in a conversation. Like if you were talking to a friend and you were like, why did you just change the subject? Like, you probably wouldn’t do that unless you really needed to [00:57:00] make your friend talk about the thing you would let them go.
Whereas we don’t like tend to let things go unless we know someone’s gonna get really, like, it’s just not worth it. Like we don’t have a good enough relationship yet or whatever. It’s kind of like banked in there, but it’s a lot of like naming things out loud and the relationship is also super important.
So like my therapist does a lot of. You look, did I just teach? Look at you like a teacher for 10 minutes. Like why are you looking at me? And like, you know, and I think that helps cuz like, you realize like how you act in the world. You just are talking to somebody else and interacting with them and they’re pretty good at pointing out like how you are in the, in the world.
And,
Will: well, I’m, I’m taking notes over here. This is good
Dr. Jessi Gold: stuff. I’m always down to help if I can help. It’s my, you know, well
Will: I could, I could have you send an invoice later. Yeah, I could, I could have you, uh, psychoanalyze my characters like all day. But, uh, let’s, let’s, let’s take a, let’s take a break and then we’re gonna come back with a couple of stories from our listeners.[00:58:00]
Okay. Let’s take a look at some of our favorite medical stories that were sent in by all of you, the listeners. And we have Dr. Jesse Gold to listen to these with us. So we have fan story number one is from Carrie. So she says, I have a personal story to share from my operating room nurse days. I got called in for an emergency surgery once we were scrubbed in, operating away.
When the surgeon’s pager went off, the circulating nurse retrieved it from the resident surgeon who was unable to answer it as he was up to his elbows inside the patient. Okay. Details, and proceeded. And proceeded to dial the number from the wall phone in the or. The room was, she was silent for a moment.
As she listened, she then said brightly to the color. This is the, OR nurse, I’m sorry. Pookie is operating right now and can’t come to the phone. Is there a message I can give to Pooky? The whole room erupted in laughter. The caller had been the [00:59:00] resident’s girlfriend.
Kristin: Oh no. And he is a resident
Will: too. Oh man.
That resident will not be living that one down. Oh, I’m
Dr. Jessi Gold: sure his nickname is now Pooky. Oh, forever.
Will: That’s, that’s a way you forever get the nickname of Pooky. Yep. Oh, man. All right. Our second story comes from, uh, Francesco. Here’s one from when I was an idealistic med student. I was walking by a patient’s room when I heard help, help, I went inside and there was a patient laying in bed with the food tray positioned over his lap.
I want to eat the food. He said, what’s wrong? I said, I can’t reach the food. He said it was in that I realized that he had two point restraints on his hands, but someone had positioned the food tray far further away from him, even though I was late for morning rounds. I undid the guy’s restraints and let him eat.
And then, um, and the patient was happy. So I, that’s, uh, I feel like that’s one of those things that we could do better with, you know, just paying attention to. Yeah, the [01:00:00] whole surroundings, the whole situation with the patient and like realizing, oh wait, I’m putting this food tray here, and the patient can’t actually reach the food,
Kristin: but Okay.
But we’re skipping over the most obvious point, which is why is he in restraints? Like in what
Will: situations? Yeah. Sometimes, um, you can, you need restraints if, if a patient is agitated and might be like trying to pull out IVs and lines and stuff, sometimes they need to be in some like, soft restraints mm-hmm.
To like keep them from being able to do that. Um, but yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t know about
Dr. Jessi Gold: that one. Yeah, I mean, I think that we forget like what it’s like to be a patient when we get further along and that med students are the best at that. Like, and then residents who, like the person said they were ideal, like idealistic.
That’s not idealistic. That’s human. It’s human, right. Yeah. That’s, that’s my whole shtick when we, we get older, like it’s almost like, well, like that takes time. Or who, [01:01:00] that’s not my job. Or like, well, I need to just get that diagnostic test and that’s easier. Like whatever that thing is, like, I think we forget like some of these like really simple things.
Like I remember being much more aware of that stuff when I was younger and like I’ve had to like pause and be like, oh wait, like that’s not okay, or whatever. Things like giving someone a tissue when they cry right, is like very simple, but makes a really big difference. And so like, it’s not idealistic like it should be.
That’s just good hot as normal medicine. Yeah,
Will: I remember I had a, an internal medicine attending who would always talk about doing things like getting a warm blanket for a patient, getting a cup of water, you know, or ice chips or something. Like not going and finding someone to like, tell them to do it.
Like just do it like, you know, the patient needs something and just, just get it done and Right. Usually
Kristin: the things that really make a difference hardly take any time at all. Like Yeah. You know, five seconds or less. Yeah. Like pushing someone’s food tray [01:02:00]
Dr. Jessi Gold: closer to them or Exactly. For sure. Don’t call psych for it either.
That’s,
Will: man, I’m sure that’s probably a whole nother topic for another podcast of, of the inappropriate consults you get, because I imagine that, uh, kind of on the, on the line of me getting a consult for putting a patient’s glasses on so they can see better, it’s probably kind
Dr. Jessi Gold: of a similar thing, like a patient cried because you told them a diagnosis that would make them cry, is not.
A reason to have a psych consult. That’s a reason to be a human again. Right, right. Yeah. So it’s very similar, like people would call psych. But why is, why they’re crying with their face is
Kristin: leaking and I don’t know what to do about it. What are those? That’s a normal human emotion. Yeah.
Dr. Jessi Gold: Coming from their Alzheimers, there’s some
Kristin: salt that’s coming onto their cheek.
Salty discharge. Yes. Salty discharge from their
Will: lacrimal. Well, thank you for those stories and I, I hope that the med students maintain their, um, idealism. Yeah. That, that just human [01:03:00] connection with patients. Yeah. Don’t try not to lose that. It can be easy to lose that, I feel like in today’s world of medicine.
But, um, yeah, those are good stories. You can send us your stories. Knock, knock high@humancontent.com. Dr. Gold, thank you so much. Tell us, uh, what you got going on. Uh, you know, what do you want people to know about you? Where can they find
Kristin: you? Sh
Dr. Jessi Gold: Oh, sure. I
Will: mean, need color, I don’t know.
Kristin: Whatever you’re,
Dr. Jessi Gold: you know, I’m hanging out with my dog on a typical day, doing nothing, watching a lot of tv.
Um, you can find me at Dr. Jesse Gold on, uh, like Twitter, Instagram, trying, TikTok not as good. Uh, I spelled Jesse, j e s s i cuz I was an annoying child that was like, there’s no e in Jessica. And so if that helps you remember, that’s why, um, I, you know, I’m always writing stuff and it’s there. Or on my website, which is my same name, dot com.
You can always get all my writing and stuff there if you’re interested. It’s the easiest way to get me. Awesome. I respond to dms, so there
Will: you go. [01:04:00] Well, uh, this is a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. A lot about myself.
Dr. Jessi Gold: That was the goal. Now, now you can go sleep because I made you emotionally exhausted.
That’s right. That’s
Will: right. Alright, well thank you. Take care.
Thank you to Jesse Gold for coming on. Uh, we finally got to talk with a psychiatrist. I bet. It’s been like on my list of, uh, specialties of people I wanted to have on for quite a while and she was such a great guest and I learned a lot about my characters. That was fantastic. I wanted to do all of them.
That’s good. Did you learn
Kristin: anything about
Will: yourself? Uh, uh, I don’t know. You know, let’s, I don’t, I’d rather not talk about it. Um, and thank you, uh, for sending in your stories. Yeah, we’d love to hear those. And, uh, it just helps to. Humanize the world of medicine a little bit more. So send in your stories and tell us what you thought about our episode today of the, of, uh, what we talked [01:05:00] about with Dr.
Gold. Um, and let us know if you have any suggestions for other people you want on the podcast. Uh, there’s lots of ways to hit us up. Email us, knock knock high@human-content.com. We’re on social media. TikTok, Twitter, YouTube. Uh, Instagram, Instagram as well. Um, and you can hang out with us and our Human Content Podcast family at on Instagram and TikTok at Human Content Pods.
Big shout out to all of the listeners. Thank you for, uh, being here and leaving wonderful feedback and reviews. We really appreciate that. If you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube, we’ll give you a shout out. Uh, so like Al Andrew Alfred on Apple said, thank you for making a podcast, love listening to the show while I’m driving.
I enjoy the show. Keep up the good work. I hope, I hope it’s a, a long enough drive for you. I don’t
Kristin: know. Yeah, that’s, that’s maybe the full week of commuting. We
Will: try not to go, uh, too long on some of these [01:06:00] episodes, but we get carried away sometimes talking. We’re having so much fun. We are having a lot of fun.
Uh, and our episodes are found on YouTube full episodes every week at at d Glock Fleck in my YouTube channel. Also, we have a Patreon, lots of cool perks, bonus episodes where we react to medical shows and movie. Hang out with other members of the knock-knock high community. Uh, we’re there, we’re posting things, uh, stories.
I’m making videos. All kinds of stuff behind the scenes.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Knowledge, early ad free episode access as well. Interactive q and a livestream events, and a lot more coming. patreon.com/glock fleck and or go to glock gleen.com. Speaking of Patreon, community Perks, new members, shout out to Lisa. A Hello Lisa.
A thank you for being here. Shout out to all the Jonathans, as always, virtual, uh, virtual head nod. Shout out, head nod. Patrick Lucia. C Sharon, S Omer, Edward, K Abby, H Steven, G Robox, Jonathan f Marion, w Mr. [01:07:00] Granddaddy Caitlin, C Brianna, L Dr. J, Mary H. Thank you all and Patreon Roulette. This is where we give a shout out to somebody who’s on the.
Emergency medicine tier of Patreon. So here we go. Do you wanna do, how don’t you try it this time? I, I just,
Kristin: I really can’t, the drum, you can’t do the drummer. No, I think, I think you are better. I’ve had some dental work recently that pro precludes me. Then
Will: you tell the name. I’ll do the, okay. Ready.
Kristin: Shout out to Alyssa L for being a patron.
Thank
Will: you, Alyssa L And thank you all for listening. We’re your host Will and Kristen Flannery, also known as the Glean. And our special thanks to our guests today, Dr. Jesse Gold. Our executive producers are Will Flannery, Kristin Flannery, Aron Korney. Rob Goldman, Shanti Brooke. Our editor and engineer is Jason Porter.
Our music is by Omer Bids fee. Learn to learn about our knock-knock highs program, disclaimer and ethics, policy submission, verification, licensing terms, and HEPA release terms. You can go to gule.com or reach out to us [01:08:00] at knock knock high human content.com with any questions, concerns, or fun medical puns.
Pun. See, I figured I would, I maybe try like a little, um, ASMR thing. Mm-hmm. So that people will listen to all the, like the legalese like nonsense. At the end. Knock, knock. High is a human content production.
