Transcript

Will: Knock, knock. Hi,

knock, knock. Hi. Hello, and welcome to Knock-Knock High with the Glock Flecks. We’re the Glock fls. I’m Dr. Glock Flecking. Also, I’m Lady Glock 

Kristin: Flecking. You didn’t let interrupted 

Will: my real name. How people are gonna need my real name. Although they’re probably my, honestly, Dr. Glock Flecking is, is more famous than my actual name.

It’s 

Kristin: true. No knows your real name. No. When they find out your real name, they’re like, oh, I’m kind of disappointed. Like, that’s true. That’s a stupid name. They . 

Will: I don’t think, sometimes people don’t like to hear it’s, I don’t know. It’s weird. It’s 

Kristin: telling when they think. Will Flannery is a more stupid name than Dr.

Will: Glock Flan. I, I think it’s, it’s not, it’s a, it’s a little bit of a, it’s just very Irish. That’s, it’s very Irish. That’s all. It’s, Hey, but you, you took it so well. True. Kristen Flannery. True. You’re flannery as well. Mm-hmm. . Um, but anyway, uh, you can just forget about our real names and just, just, you know, know us.

Kristin: Irish by marriage and apparently that’s the point. 

Will: Our show today is, is very exciting for us. Yes. Because we’re talking to one of our favorite people. Love him. Yeah. Dr. Ben Abella, he’s an emergency physician at the University of Pennsylvania and the reason that we know him and are so familiar with him is because of my crazy medical history, uh, which I’ve talked about here and there on.

Social media platforms, certainly on TikTok and Twitter. Um, and, uh, I, I’ve, as many of you probably already know, I had a cardiac arrest, uh, in my sleep back in May of 2020. Um, it was, uh, we just don’t know why it happened. That’s somewhat of a mystery. Uh, but Kristen here woke up and started CPR on me Yes.

And saved my life, which is why, and anytime she gives me, um, you know, uh, 

Dr. Ben Abella: Yeah, I have cart 

Kristin: launch to just say whatever I want. 

Will: Yeah, exactly. Whatever she wants to say. Uh, to me, 

Dr. Ben Abella: I just kind, 

Kristin: it’s to revenge for, for dying on 

Will: me. Yeah. And here’s the thing you guys, like, when, when your wife saves your life, you just don’t win any arguments anymore.

That’s, that’s it. So it’s, uh, yeah. It’s just part of our new dynamic here, which is, which is totally fine because after all, b c alternative, I’m still here. Right. So, uh, but. Recovering from the cardiac arrest and, and, um, you know, together, going through all that, uh, Kristen connected with Benbella, who is a big name in cardiac arrest research, get.

He’s done a ton of work in just c p r advocacy and awareness and a e d awareness and uh, and that’s something that we are very interested in. So we’ll talk a lot about that during the episode. Yes, he 

Kristin: also, I think, has never met a person that he did not offer to help in some way. Like he’s a very generous person, just a kind of a natural mentor.

Um, and also I think he knows everyone 

Will: on. He might. And, uh, he is also an emergency physician, and so those are also fun people to hang around if you’ve never hung out with an emergency doctor, uh, or you’re maybe, you know, one and you’re, you’re gonna go out there and try to become friends with them or, um, date them or something.

Uh, you wanna show up with some diet Coke? Can I just Yes. Just mm-hmm. , they, one thing that you should know about emergency doctors is, um, the caffeine must be flowing free. And, um, constantly, uh, they live for adrenaline. They, um, uh, they love the fast pace of an emergency, uh, experience emergency departments.

And so, um, that’s how you can get in. Good. Also, just offer to go biking with them. , that’s another, um, totally true or skydiving. Totally true, uh, stereotype that I play up very much in my content is the whole biking and wearing a helmet and all that stuff. And so, um, that’s kind of what they’re like, but they’re also wonderful people and they do incredible work.

And so we’re excited, uh, to, um, talk to Ben and hear some of his stories. Pretty crazy ones. Yeah. And just his thoughts on cardiac arrest and just what he does. And so it’s, it’s a great, great conversation. We’re excited about it. Um, so should we, should I stop rambling? Yes, please. Let’s get to it. I could tell whenever, whenever you start looking at me like, okay.

You’ve been like, do you, you’re obviously not thinking ahead of what you’re saying. You’re just saying the first words that I like you’re doing right now. I’m still doing it. All right. Let’s get going. Here. Is Dr. Ben Ab.

All right. We have Dr. Ben Abella. Ben, it’s good to talk with you always. Uh, thank you. You look, so you’re wearing scrubs right now. . Yes. And so I assumed you were either, you’re either coming from work about to leave for work or you’re just pretending to work. . What’s, what’s the situation 

Dr. Ben Abella: here? I, I am just pretending quite honestly, and , you know, it, it, it’s interesting that you’ve caught me on that

So I call this, I think in the acting world, this is called playing too, type in the covid. Things all went to heck, as we all know, and I just sort of like honestly gave up on clothing and realized that I could wear scrubs almost every day and everyone would assume that I’m just a hardworking ER doctor going to or from a shift.

And I, I just would smile generally and not like dissuade them of that thought. I wouldn’t lie. I did, I would just be like, yeah. It’s just working. You know, I 

Will: just assumed every emergency doctor always wears scrubs. There are some that don’t. Yeah. Like 

Kristin: you sleep in them, you shower in them. 

Dr. Ben Abella: Yeah. Well, it’s either that or the fleece and the cargo pants.

You know, it’s 

Will: uh, yeah, yeah. No, you never wear a tie, right? You never wear a No, no. That would actually throw me off. I’d, I’d be a little concerned. Like with the, the hospital administrator, the, are they hiring those to see patients in the emergency room? I don’t 

Dr. Ben Abella: know. Yeah, I think something would be Amis, there would be a, there would be a disturbance in the force in that sort 

Will: situation.

But I, I knew, I knew you weren’t like actually working when I first, when you first came on here. Just because I didn’t see any diet coke, no form of caffeine. Nothing around you. So clearly 

Dr. Ben Abella: trauma shears, no trauma Shears. No Diet Coke. Yeah. Yeah. I’m missing some of my key tools for. . Now, I, 

Will: I felt a little bit bad because, uh, we were emailing each other before, uh, we started recording here, uh, last couple days.

And, um, you know, I always think of you in terms of, of cardiac arrest because that’s how we know each other, right? Um, you and Kristen actually started talking to each other, um, uh, as. Actually, I don’t even know like how you guys ever actually kind of connected the first time. But that’s, that’s my, that’s how I know you, because you are a big name, you do a lot of work, uh, surrounding cardiac arrest and survivorship and everything.

And so whenever I was emailing you, I, I, I, uh, called you a cardiologist. Yeah. That was an accident. That was embarrassing. I felt, I felt really, Because God, I know no one wants to be called a cardiologist if they don’t have to be . 

Dr. Ben Abella: Well, the, the therapy bills have been expensive since our conversation, but I’m, I’m mostly better at this point.

Yeah. 

Will: Yeah. Because you are not, you are an emergency physician, as you’ve already mentioned. Yes. And so how, but how did you get, I, I, I haven’t heard this from you. How’d you get on that track to like really being an emergency, but focusing on. Cardiac 

Dr. Ben Abella: arrest. It, it, it is an interesting story, uh, to tell, um, or at least for those in the medical business because, you know, many of us in medicine set out with a certain goal in mind.

Like, I’m gonna be a X, I’m gonna be a pediatric neurologist, I’m gonna be whatever. And then sort of life happens, you know, cuz you go to med school, you meet different people. There’s sort of this randomness of your rotations and experiences. And it’s worth mentioning that I went to medical school at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

at the time. I’m a little bit older at the time, um, emergency medicine was still young. I mean, technically it is still young, but even at that time at Hopkins especially, it was honestly a little bit frowned down upon. It was sort of really what ha Yeah, it, in the, in the grand traditions of John’s Hopkins, you either did surgery or medicine.

I mean, I don’t even know if they thought of ophthalmology, but, but yeah, it’s surgery and medicine and that was like it. And, and, and, well, 

Will: I can’t even, hold on. I can’t even imagine like a world where emergency medicine, like as a specialty, doesn’t exist. Well, that’s actually surprising to hear. Like, so it, it’s a relatively new field.

Yes. So what were people doing? , are they, they, I mean, yeah, 

Dr. Ben Abella: so, so emergency medicine, residencies and emergency rooms as a, as a concept were really, believe it or not, sixties and seventies. Um, in 1950 there was no emergency medicine physician. There was a place where people who were having problems could go and then their doctor or someone would come downstairs and meet them to do an evaluation, and then some, as best I can tell, and I.

Excellent historian. So, so there might be some pedantic listeners who go, Hey, he doesn’t have it quite right. But this is like, mostly we’ll 

Will: give you benefit of the doubt here. 

Dr. Ben Abella: Yeah, yeah. What is mostly correct is a number of physicians in the sixties said, this isn’t, this isn’t working because it’s, it’s a whole thing unto itself to have sort of a, a sense of an, a rapid workup of patients in extremis of knowing some procedural skills.

And, and so emergency medicine is really arguably only around 50 or 60 years old. And so I went to medical school in the. and at Hopkins, not other places necessarily, but at Hopkins was frowned down upon. It really was. And people did it, you know, and that was fine. But, but, but I was earmarked as a man of medicine, it was clear that I was meant to do medicine and, and, and my, and I was the first doctor in the family, so what the heck did I know?

You know, I, I don’t know anything. . Um, and, and I distinctly remember a conversation with a dude. I’m sure he had a bow tie. He must have metaphorically, he was a bow tie guy, and I think you know what that means. There’s the doctors at the white hair and the bow tie. Of course. Yeah. And, and he said to me, young man, Emergency medicine is a job.

Internal medicine is a career. . Those weren’t his exact words. I mean, do people talk like this? I don’t know, but he, but he, and you know, I just sat there going, oh, oh, okay. Sure. You know, what did I know? Yeah. First document, actually, 

Will: my, my mentor told me like, ophthalmology is a job. TikTok is a career that, that really changed my life.

It, yeah, sure. It, it really got me on the, this track anyway, . 

Dr. Ben Abella: Nice. Very nice. Well, an excellent career. It is. It has provided, yeah. Yeah. So, so I did medicine because I was sort of semi brow beaten, semi ignorant. I just didn’t know what I was doing. And, um, back then internal medicine residents did a lot of time in the ER and, and I just loved my months in the er.

It was just super fun and I did not love. , I did not love rounds and I would have a lot of discussions with my new emergency medicine friends about how I was really, you know, sort of like going back to, to wondering if I made a mistake and if emergency medicine was for me. And I distinctly remember one of the moments that just did it for me.

It was a night shift. And one of the residents who knew he was gonna just like nail me right in the gut said, well, Ben, that’s fine. You, you can stay with internal medicine. After all, I think you enjoy calculating FNAs all day. And Phoenix, for those who don’t know, fractional excretion of sodium. Totally boring, like renal math stuff.

And I’m just, I’m nodding like I 

Will: know what you’re talking about, but yeah, keep going, 

Dr. Ben Abella: keep going. And, and I was just like, that’s it. I’m done. Like, I’m out . This is, you know, I, um, and, and I now, my wife would tell a slightly different version of the story. She would say, what really did it for me was I did emergency medicine and internal medicine, both.

I, I’m boarded in both, which really, Ooh, you know, um, at University of Chicago where I’m from, Chicago. and the University of Chicago program had a helicopter program, and the second year residents were flight docs who got to fly in the medical helicopter all the time. I’ve always been a flight buff, like I love little airplanes and helicopters.

I did hang gliding at one point in my life and my wife would say, yeah, it wasn’t about the medicine. You just wanted to get in that helicopter . I mean, it all 

Will: makes sense. I can’t, it’s not. Hang lighting, like you’re, like, you’re, you’re, the more I hear you talk, the more it just makes perfect sense.

Emergency medicine, right? 

Kristin: This is just what you were born to be. You got, 

Will: you got a little like adrenaline, you know, thing going on, so, but then, but you held onto that. That, you know, feeling like you needed to be a man of medicine. Right. And I just 

Dr. Ben Abella: Well, that’s right. So I wanted to be involved with heart stuff.

I still like the heart. Mm-hmm. And I fell in with a, with a mentor who was just a cardiac rest researcher. And, and actually the, the moment I knew I once started cardiac rest was actually when I was still a medicine resident. Um, and, and I was at University of Chicago Medicine. Residents would take turns being what’s.

Dr. Cart, it’s in for cardiac arrest response team. And so 1 24 hour period I was Dr. Cart and we had the record for the most cardiac arrest in a 24 hour period in hospital while I was on eight cardiac arrests. So we did eight codes in a four hour period and a code sort of an hour, hour and a half from start to finish.

Yeah. So basically I was coding people all day long. We couldn’t finish rounds. We kept interrupting rounds to go code somebody and the poor attending was like left, like standing around doing nothing. And, uh, uh, it was a pivotal moment because it, it got me thinking, my goodness, these codes are crazy. Um, the, the quality of care around codes is a mess.

Uh, uh, people’s understanding of why people code and how to get them back is a mess and it needs work, and it just sort of captivated my attention. 

Will: And it’s, it’s still somewhat of a mess. Like there’s a , you know, the more, the more I’ve learned about it from you and others, um, and, and really in the, in, in the public sphere, right?

Because, yeah. Part of what I do is kind of, you know, tow this line between like the medical, medical people and non-medical people. Cuz I have people that watch my videos on both, both sides. And whenever I’ve talked about my own cardiac arrest, I, I, I still have people like say, oh, I’m sorry, sorry you had a heart.

Kristin: Well, I even thought you had a heart attack. Like I, yeah, the doctors didn’t explain the difference. I didn’t know there was a difference. I’m a highly educated person. I’m just not in medicine. Had no idea 

Will: they were doing, so even going down to that level, right, of like what is a cardiac arrest is a lot of people just don’t 

Dr. Ben Abella: know.

When, when I get out there sometimes and talk about cpr, someone will say, oh, my brother a heart attack. He didn’t need cpr, so I’m totally confused. And, and they sort of just don’t even get it. Mm-hmm. and, and there are famous media figures that I’ve worked with, I shouldn’t name names, but people you would know who are on TV all the time were after I met with them to do his piece on cardiac arrest on air physicians.

Media physicians would say, oh yeah, for heart attack. And I, it would like, you know, make my, 

Will: was it Dr. Oz? Was it Dr. Oz? Not, not maybe. Ok. We’re not, not gonna speculate. No, I know. It was, it was Dr. No, I don’t know. I dunno. 

Dr. Ben Abella: It was a certain other famous television doctor who will, we’ll just leave nameless, but, um, that’s fine.

Yeah. Not Dr. Oss. He, he and I are not friends currently, so, um, yeah, so , uh, we shouldn’t even go there on this podcast, but, um, 

Will: I. No, well, you are from Philly, so it’s probably been a, a, you know, a, a, a topic of discussion, but yeah, we’ll move on. So I, I’m sure that, uh, you know, in thinking about, you know, going the internal medicine route versus emergency medicine route, um, at the very least emergency medicine probably provides you better, um, stories and fun, like interesting things that happen in your day-to-day life.

Uh, I, I think you’re probably the, the, the best person to talk to about that. And, um, and so I would love to hear, you know, tell us what’s, what’s going on? What, what are the kinds of things. Happened to you that you experience in your line of work? Because it’s, it’s very far outside my, I try very hard not to go to the emergency department Right.

As an ophthalmologist. So it’s a, 

Dr. Ben Abella: it’s, you seem 

Kristin: fine to be going there as a patient. Oh 

Will: yeah. I’ll go. Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s fine. Uh, although that, but as an ophthalmologist, I, I probably should have rethought that decision if I was 

Dr. Ben Abella: thinking at time. Well, I gotta say, I, I just loved, you know, I was at your asap, um, little lecture where, where both of you just did such a masterful job.

I mean, you really, you really killed it. And, uh, one of my favorite bits from that was when you said to all the ER docs, all right, you did it. An ophthalmologist is here on a Saturday. Give your consults. Let’s go. Come on. That’s right. And they’d, they’d love that cuz everyone really at a deep level understood exactly what you were talking about, you know?

Will: Yeah. Because you can’t get us in there. Absolutely. 

Dr. Ben Abella: Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, it, it, it is certainly true that emergency medicine is great for the stories. Um mm-hmm. , some of the things we see and. Are just crazy. Um, many of which are not G-rated. Um, um, you know, some of which, uh, take a strong stomach, I imagine.

So, so I, I, I, I’ve thought about this a little bit and, and I’ve got a couple of stories that are sort of for general consumption that speak to just sort of the, the zaniness of, of some of the things that we do. Um, one of the things that, um, I think both attracts people to emergency medicine and makes it fun is for those of you who are of a certain age listening, you know, the term MacGyvering or being a MacGyver, there’s this, uh, a television show where this guy, MacGyver would get out of all these scrapes by just really clever use of everyday things.

He’d, he’d like hang himself from the thing with a toothpick and use a paper clip and duct tape and, and emergency. Tend to fall off what the textbook would say fairly rapidly because the situations just require creative on, on the go thinking. And, and so a story from my residency that I think, um, typifies some of this, you’ll never find this in a textbook, um, is the following middle of the night.

I’m a resident, a, a junior resident, I think an intern. And the senior resident sort of laughing as he hands me a chart. Back then it was paper. I’m that old and he said, Hey, see the guy in bed four. This guy’s great. And he’s sort of cracking up and I’m like, all right, what’s up? Like something, something’s weird here.

He said, well, couple of things to know. He’s a young guy who’s incoherent. He is. Naked. He was found naked in a park with no identification, no anything. And he speaks a foreign language. Go enjoy, find out what’s wrong, boy. So I’m like, you gotta be kidding me. Right? So go to see this guy and Alicia know he is not carrying any weapons.

Yes. That’s 

Will: good. Although you don’t know what language 

Dr. Ben Abella: it is, right? So I got in the room and this guy is clearly intoxicated, so he’s not coherent even in his own language. The police who were there said they found him in the bushes in a park at two in the morning in Chicago, buck naked. No, ID, no watch, no wallet, nothing.

Buck naked, all scratched up in some bushes. Didn’t seem to be particularly injured or anything, but was clearly intoxicated. Um, and not speaking English. And my attempts to speak English, Tim weren’t really doing so well. Um, now as luck would have it, you know, you, you pull together everything you got and, and I’ve traveled a lot.

So I have a, I have an ear for languages and after he was jabbering on for a while, I was like, this guy’s speaking. That is Dutch. I just, it’s had that sort of slightly Germanic, slightly guttural kind thing. Yeah. Yeah. He’s speaking Dutch. Great, great 

Will: impression of a Dutch accent. Thank 

Dr. Ben Abella: you. Thank you.

Definitely. We just, we just offended the entire nation, the 

Will: Netherlands. You’re, you’re a man of culture. Oh 

Dr. Ben Abella: yeah. Keep going right there. Exactly. . So, so, so at least I got that far. Okay. And, and I asked him his name. Was able to tell me that. So I got a name, I’ll, you know, whatever. Uh, Han Shufen, I just made that up, whatever some name.

Yeah. And, um, so I say, okay, but this doesn’t tell me anything else cuz I don’t speak Dutch. We, this was well before there were translator services. Mm-hmm. So, so what am I gonna do with this guy? So, you know, I had to, I had to MacGyver so I knew the Chicago being a big city had consulates and I figured there must be a Dutch consulate.

And I had his. . So I just said, tell with it. I’m just gonna call the consulate. So I called the consulate and there was a 24 7 counselor emergency number, and I woke up some sleepy counselor guy , who’s like, yeah, yeah, what, what? I’m like, I got this guy. Here’s his name. I, I, I think he’s like, from your country, and I don’t know what to do with him.

He seems medically fine, but like, help me out here. Mm-hmm. . Well, the guy said, oh, okay, give me, gimme some time. He looked into it, he calls me back and wouldn’t you know it, they ran it through the Dutch computers. This guy had run away from home with his parents’ money and credit card. Had gotten into a whole like, drug situation in Chicago.

Oh no. Oh, wow. And must have been intoxicated and gotten robbed, blind. They took everything, like literally everything, including his clothing and, and threw him, including, and threw him in the bushes and left him for whatever. You know, and this is the best part, every er doctor, every physician I think likes the staples easy button.

Just something that makes the whole thing like, go away or better. Mm-hmm. , the Dutch that day endeared me. They provided it, they said, We shall be coming with a car. We have emergency repatriation tickets. We will clothe him and put him on an K l M aircraft to Amsterdam where his family will meet him. We got this.

I was like, oh my God, I love, love you. And I will wear wooden clogs for the rest of my life. . And, and so, so, so, lo and behold, it’s over two here. And by the way, my senior resident was so impressed, like this car shows up. Two really serious dudes and suits get out. They’re very polite. They, they thank us, they like, they speak Dutch in the sky.

They pass. It looks like 

Will: international relations incident at this point, so. Wow. Yeah. You like that? 

Dr. Ben Abella: So that, that’s one of my, that’s so cool. It’s just like a rocky 

Will: story. That that re that actually reminds me, uh, saying how you want like an easy button, right? Right. To just because you’re, you have so many, uh, things you’re doing at, at, at the same time in emergency medicine.

Um, I did, during my intern year, I did two months of emergency medicine at a small community hospital. And um, I don’t remember a whole lot from those months, but the one thing that really sticks in my mind is calling poison control and. It was amazing. I was like, okay, well, the patient had this. What do I do?

And like they just ev outline it. Like, you do this, you check this slab at this time, you do this, you do that. It, it was the most incredible thing. Like, and then you get to take 

Kristin: credit for all of their work. You go in the room and you’re like, here’s what you do, here’s 

Dr. Ben Abella: what we’re doing. Exactly. And they thought you’re a genius.

Yeah. And, and to make a broader, I think, serious point. I think we need more of that in medicine because there’s too much to know. Mm-hmm. for any of us and point of care, you know, just, they call it just in time education. Just in time training. Poison controls like a great example of that. I often wonder if for post arrests care, we need that because, you know, when a patient rolls into the ER and like, oh, I do this once a month, I, I don’t see people who survive cardiac arrest.

I wish I could get on the phone and walk ’em through it. And so anyway, I think you, you, you’re very right to highlight poison controls a really good illustration of, um, a certain efficiency where, you know, we don’t need to know that stuff. Yeah. There’s one guy who knows everything there. Right. And you get that guy or gal on the phone and you’re good to go.

Yeah, I’m 

Kristin: impressed that you thought to call the consulate like that. Nowhere would that have ever entered. 

Dr. Ben Abella: That’s amazing. My mind . Well that certainly wouldn’t be in a textbook. And and, and that’s the thing. Yeah. So many things that, and actually the next story too, I think is a little bit extra textbook in, um, um, too.

Yeah. So I’ll, I’ll tell you one more. This one’s a shorter story and it involves a medical student who got a big surprise. Um, Set the stage. I’ve known love surprises. They love surprises . So, so I have a, a, a very young and impressionable, um, female medical student with me. She’s, uh, I think she’s not even a third year yet.

She might have been a first year shadowing actually. Um, and I go in a room and it’s a busy shift lot going on and there’s this guy, a construction worker, big burley guy who was doing some work on something and he clearly jacked up his finger. Um, it was dis. The end of the finger. The end of the finger was just like in the wrong place.

It was clearly dislocated. He was tough. He started, you know, um, and I sort of felt it. Nothing was broken and, and it was like he was jammed it against a piece of wood, so it was clearly just dislocated. And the textbook would say that you need to relocate it reasonably soon and that you can inject anesthesia, anesthetic like lidocaine to make it better and then do it.

But I’d have to get the lidocaine. It was really busy shift. It takes some time and the more it swells, the harder it is to relocate. Oh, okay. As an attending, trying to manage the room and everything, I looked at him and sized him up quickly. Big tough, dude. You see where this is going? And I look at him and say, Hey, how are you with?

And he, he got it. He like was right there with me and he goes, doc, do what you gotta do, . And I just grab it and I just yank and it goes, and, and he makes a, a loud gasping noise. It’s one second, it clicks Uhhuh . And he’s fine. The med student boom, passes out instantly. No, no. Pass the deck. Total VA avel hits the floor, and suddenly me and the construction guy are both in partners in medicine, like lifting this girl up.

We put her on the bed, we get her legs up. We’re like, Hey, now she’s the patient. And she was poor. Poor thing. She was so embarrassed. She’s like, what happened? What happened? But, but I didn’t, and it was my bad. I didn’t warn her. I didn’t say. We’re about to do something really quick here. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think it just caught her so unaware.

And, um, and you know, some people when they see pain or, or hear a painful thing, so she just, she just dropped. Um, so I, I don’t think I got great points for like, oh, knocking on medical student 

Kristin: goodness. But how common is that? I mean, like, I feel like that happens, right? You think knocking out. Yeah, well you would think that like if you’re going into medicine, if you’re a med student, that you’re like, okay with seeing some of that stuff, but that’s not always the case.

Like there might be certain. You know, parts of the body that you just can’t handle or whatever things. 

Will: So like how, and the operating room’s, the classic example or like, like labor and delivery right? Happens there in the eye clinic. It happens. 

Kristin: Yeah. Seems like you have to kind build up a tolerance sometimes.

Will: Eye stuff. Yeah. How do you are you are, how do you feel about eye stuff? . 

Um, 

Dr. Ben Abella: well, I mostly just yell about the broken slit lamp, you know, that’s what I mostly do, . Right. It’s that approach. Then you sound like you’re talking about, no, it’s not broken, but I say, oh, that’s that thing, and that’s who adjusted this knob and that thing.

And well, you know, and, and people are like, oh yeah, 

Will: yeah. Do you get a little, like, whenever, I’m sure there’s probably nothing that shows up on the board. Oh, maybe there is something that shows up on the board that like kind of, you like feel like, oh man, like this is gonna. Kind of tough. It’s rough. Um, yeah.

There’s such, can you feel that way about eye problems? 

Dr. Ben Abella: Yes, absolutely. , most emergency docs are, uh, I think I speak for many of us. Yeah. Eye problems are not our fave and it, it’s just because we’re not, we don’t see it enough. We’re not, you know, it’s such a discomfort thing. Um, and, uh, and, and we’re not great at the slit lamp.

I’m not great at the slit lamp. Um, yeah. And, and so yeah, we don’t, we don’t love it. And we also, the 

Will: thing. We have low expectations of you too. Right? . Like, and, and that’s good. That’s fine. Like we, we we get it. Like nobody had what? One lecture in med school and then that’s usually it. All 

Dr. Ben Abella: I understand you tend to like us to ultrasound it, right?

You want us to ultrasound the eyeballs? Boy do we going there, we’re going, you just threw down. I’m, what 

Will: can I say, ? In certain situations it’s okay, but, uh, uh, uh, it’s. I do know that, uh, I, I found a big change once I went from, uh, like an academic center residency program out to the community. Um, because you got the, you got the sense in residency that.

Nobody outside of ophthalmology could do anything. Not even look at the eye. And I think that’s just because there’s a residency program. Yeah. Why wouldn’t you just, if you have access to residents, ophthalmology residents who are eager and need to learn, like eye problem, bring them in. Let’s do it. Once I got into private practice, like I’ve actually been very impressed with my local emergency doctors and I’m, I’m not just trying to endear them, uh, to me who might be listening right now.

Uh, Not bother me too much on call, but it’s true. Um, I, I’ve been, I’ve been impre like just the, I think what you gain on the job, you know, in, in figuring out what’s a serious eye problem, what’s not a serious eye problem, which I think is a big thing with emergency medicine, right? Like, what’s really bad and what’s not so bad.

That’s right. You know, I think you’re, I think you’re good at that. Well, and, and actually the, the first I’m gonna give you credit here. I’m gonna give you some eye 

Dr. Ben Abella: credit. All eye credit. Outstanding. Well, and, and my final story actually speaks to, um, the eventual realization that something is serious when we thought we could not think of was serious.

And I thought, if it’s okay, I had closer the story on, and, and my storytelling. Cause this one involves me personally, and it’s very embarrassing and it’s Oh, perfect. Yes. That’s, and it speaks to the fact that physicians are the. Doctors for themselves and their families. Oh, yeah. No physician does a good job when they’re diagnosing their kids, their loved ones, right?

Yeah. All 

Kristin: he says is They’re fine. Yeah, they’re fine. They could be like, gushing blood. They’re fine. 

Dr. Ben Abella: They’re fine. They’re fine. Yeah. And, and, and sometimes they’re, 

Will: sometimes it’s oozing or squirting. Is it oozing or squirting? Right. That’s, that’s, anyway, go 

Dr. Ben Abella: ahead. That’s it. Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s right. So, um, I’ll set the stage.

My, my wife of 21 years is pregnant with child, no, currently 21 years back. A long time ago she was pregnant with child number three. Uh, that child number three is now 15 years old. In fact, these are his Xbox headphones. Um, . She was pregnant with number three, and we go every year from Philadelphia to Washington DC to celebrate Thanksgiving with her family.

And the baby was due on Thanksgiving. that OB guy and said, you know what, you’re, it’s your third kid. They come fast. Do it Thanksgiving. Why don’t you stick around? Why don’t they come here? Why don’t you chill out? Do your own Turkey. Don’t go to dc. My wife was like, no, no. We’re we’re going, we’re gonna DC that, that’s, that’s not a thing.

I’m like, honey, are you sure? She’s like, sh we’re going to dc That’s actually, she didn’t say, she said something else, but, uh, inappropriate. So, so, so I’m like, all right, fine, whatever. So we go to DC and wouldn’t you know it one in the morning, Friday morning after the Turkey, I get the elbow and the. Get the, we got, we got, I’m in labor and, and we’re in dc.

And she’s liberal. So doctor mistake number one was not listening to her OBGYN and just going to DC when, when third babies come fast. Mystique number two, I think it’s worth 

Kristin: pointing out. Isn’t your wife also in 

Dr. Ben Abella: medicine? Oh, thank you. I forgot to, I neglected mention. Thank you for that. He’s not really, she’s a, she’s a doctor as well.

She’s a cancer doctor. An oncologist. Uh uh, so, so mistake number one was we didn’t follow or begin wise advice. Mistake number two is about to happen. Mistake number two is we say let’s get in the car and drive to. At one in the morning for baby number three. I’m 95 for baby number three because that’s smart.

Um, and 

Will: the distance between Philly and dc 

Dr. Ben Abella: Two and a half hour drive. Two and a 

Will: half hours. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That’s not 

Dr. Ben Abella: just down the road. All right. No, no. And, and she’s 10 minutes from Holy Cross Hospital in DC a perfectly fine hospital that probably has perfectly fine labor and delivery floor. 10 minutes, two and a half hour, right?

So we get in the car, we start cr. Just hiking it up 95 at high speed trying to get there. We’re timing contractions on the car clock, you know, like we know what we’re doing. Um, And it turns out when we get to Baltimore, the contractions are really speeding up and she’s having a lot more pain. And that’s the moment when you say like, you know, when it’s serious.

Where we woke up, we were like, you know what? This is totally stupid. We’re not ob gyn doctors. We actually have no, I mean, I’ve delivered babies occasionally, but, but we really don’t know what we’re doing. It’s dark. We’re in a car, we’re in the, like, what are we doing? Like this is just ridiculous. So, so I remembered Hopkins well enough to know that Hopkins Bayview, ironically, where I did emergency medicine, was right off the highway.

I’m like, we’re gonna Hopkins Bayview. We pull off, we pull in, we go to the er and then, and we say we’re having a baby. Um, the intern delivered us, uh, the attending was the attending walks in afters. Like, Hey, congrats. Nice baby. You know, ? I’m sure they build, they probably, they said like, present for all stages of the procedure, you know, attestation.

Will: Yeah. The p. Parts of the 

Dr. Ben Abella: procedure. So, so, so, and, and by the way, once they found out I was an emergency doctor, I was teased mercilessly, . Like, they’re like, oh, doc, nice, nice. Because, you know, people come in like this all the time to hear, so here I was, the thing that we tease, I was that guy, you know? Yeah.

So, so the, the teasing was endless. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Um, and, uh, uh, yeah. And so our third child was randomly born in Baltimore, even though we’ve never lived there. 

Will: Before you, you, you drove into the hospital and the baby was born. How, how? Good question. Not 

Dr. Ben Abella: long. How fast was that? Like, like an hour, like 

Will: not long.

Oh my god. You just, you just made it so you probably would not have made it to 

Dr. Ben Abella: Philly. We, yes. Especially with all the bumping in the road and all the nonsense . Yeah. I, I, I don’t know if it would’ve worked out. Um, what kind of car were you in? Yeah, , a Honda Odyssey and the upholstery. Okay. I mean, oh my goodness.

It would’ve been a, it would’ve been such a mess. 

Will: It was would’ve been quite a job for the detailer. Uh, yes. Try 

Dr. Ben Abella: just try explaining that to the detailer. You know, Uhhuh, I, I bet they’ve seen 

Kristin: that a bunch. 

Will: A be . I a bunch. I, I dunno. I was like, this is their specialty. You have a, if you, did you have a baby in your car?

Come to 

Dr. Ben Abella: I, I detect meconium. Sir. , yeah. Yeah. It’s, um, it was, Yeah, so, so this, this is a big hit as you can imagine, at like dinner parties and stuff, because Oh, sure. We’ll have people over and they’ll say, oh, Asher, you know, he’s like, yeah, I was born in Baltimore. And they’ll say, oh, when did you guys live in Baltimore?

We’d say, oh, we didn’t. And they’ll be like, wait, wait, what? And, and then, you know, that provokes the story. Yeah. It, it always brings the house down. People love that story. 

Will: I love it. I love it’s, it’s great coming from an emergency doctor too. It’s, I’m 

Kristin: also amaz like, knowing you were going against medical advice to go to DC in the first place, that you didn’t just like have a plan of, okay, so if she goes into when, well, there wasn’t a lot of goes 

Will: into labor frontal cortex activity going on.

This is all, this was all brainstem, you know. 

Dr. Ben Abella: Must get, Turkey must get right, right. Yeah. This was, this was not a very cerebral, uh, uh, kinda thing. , so, so I love it to the point being that, that doctors are, can be really dumb about healthcare. Yeah. Um, but we did have that instinct kick in eventually that said, oh, this has suddenly gotten serious and we need help, you know, and, and we got help.

Will: Well, we could certainly all be better at taking care of ourselves and Yes. And each other, , 

Kristin: all of us that are attached to you can attest. 

Dr. Ben Abella: Yes. Although, I mean, I mean, Kristen, my goodness, the, you know, CPR delivery queen over here, I, you know, . 

Kristin: Yeah. Well see, that’s the kind of stuff you put us through, so I gotta do that.

I’m not 

Will: even trained. Gotcha. I mean, I, I, I’ve thought to myself, well, this is the other way around. Would I have done as good of a job? I mean, oh, decidedly 

Kristin: not. Well, I’m a doctor. 

Will: I think that’s just a general, but I am an ophthalmologist, so I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s, it’s, uh, hopefully we’ll never have to find out.

Hopefully not all. Well, let’s, let’s take a quick break. Okay. And, uh, we’re gonna be back with Benbella and we’re gonna play a game. Ben, I’m excited about this. All right. We’ll be back in just a minute. A big, big thank you to all of our listeners. This is a new. Spread the love. Please share with all your friends and coworkers and anybody you know in life.

Leave a rating and review. Be honest with us. Tell us what you think. We wanna keep this, keep the good stuff going, improve the stuff that’s not so good. Let us know. Later today we’re gonna be go, uh, sharing some of your own medical stories. You can share yours, knock-knock high@humancontent.com. We also have a pat.

Uh, come hang out with us, you know, other members of the Knock-Knock High community early episode, access bonus episodes. We’re doing a, a, a monthly show called the, the Monthly Eye Exam, where we, uh, react to medical shows and movies, clips and things. It’s, it’s great. It’s great. You’re love it. Come join us and, uh, um, next week there’s gonna be a new monthly eye exam.

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All right, we are back with Ben Abella and, uh, Ben, I’m excited. We’re gonna play a game, uh, here called Battle of the Specialties. Okay? Okay. So here’s the way it’s gonna work. Kristen is gonna be like the mock med student. All right. So she’s, again, not in medicine, but she’s gonna pretend like she’s interested in medicine here.

Uh, and we’ve been doing it for 12 years. And, uh, you as the emergency doctor, will be trying to convince Kristen that she should not choose emergency medicine. She should choose ophthalmology. Okay? Okay. Okay. And I, as the ophthalmologist am going to convince. No, no, no, no. Ophthalmology. No way dumb. Don’t do that.

You gotta go into emergency medicine. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna argue for each other’s specialties, and then Kristen’s going to decide who came up with the best argument. Okay? Okay. Uh, so do you wanna go first or do you want me to go first? Uh, I’ll, I’ll give it a shot. Yeah, give us a, give us something and then we’ll just go, kind of go back and forth here.

Alright. 

Dr. Ben Abella: Kristen, you, you, you can’t even imagine how gross emergency medicine is. I mean, so for example, see this finger? This finger has been up thousands of rectum, thousands of them. And these are just like, you know, and this is the same finger I have to like, eat peanut, um, eat peanut butter with, I mean, it’s just, it’s just you that it’s just.

Foul. You, you, there’s no way you want that in your life. You just don’t. So the eyes are clean, they’re above the neck, you know, you’re not getting your hands in the goop and all the body fluids and the, you know, um, you know, I’ll, I’ll tell you, I had a, a college student urinate all over me. A drunk college student urinate on me from head to toe in my first year as an attending.

You don’t wanna be peed on eyes. Do not pee. They do not urinate them . 

Kristin: Okay? And, and there’s the quote for this episode. 

Will: Eyes Do not pee. Compelling points. Uh, Ben. A, a counterpoint. All right. Imagine though, Kristen, you’re going to med school. All right. You’re, you, you learn everything head to toe. So much about the human body.

Why on earth would you wanna take all that wonderful knowledge and then just forget all of it and just focus on the eyeball? The, i, it’s, it’s two and a half. Two and a half centimeter. Like, that’s what, what’s like, wouldn’t you want to do something like emergency medicine where you have, you can use everything you’ve learned head to, like all the parts of the body.

I’m not gonna name them because I don’t know a lot of them, but, uh, it’s, um, it’s, uh, uh, you get to, to really, uh, just apply everything that you’ve learned the last four years versus, um, The eye. I mean, it can only do so many things. You know, there’s a lot of 

Kristin: very expensive information. It’s 

Will: to forget. It’s kinda, it’s kind of a, it’s kind of boring.

Like, come on, you’re gonna get, you’re gonna get sick of eye stuff. That’s all I’m saying. Emergency medicine, uh, come on. New thing every day, all the time. Uh, it’s, it’s, it keeps things interesting. Mm-hmm. , you know? Mm-hmm. . 

Dr. Ben Abella: Well, Kristin Will’s got some important points there, but, but I would say that, um, in emergency medicine, there’s something we are really lacking and I, I can say the whole argument in two words.

No, Jonathan. So, so we’ve no scribes. We have no Jonathan. And, and if I’ve learned one thing from your husband, it’s that having a Jonathan, having a scribe who can feed you grapes, who can take care of you, who can soothe your soul. I, you know, this is a wonderful, wonderful thing. I dream I go to bed at night and say, oh, My, uh, Jonathan, I just wanted Jonathan, and, and I’ll never get one, because when we ask the hospital administration or Jonathan, they say, yeah, that’s, yeah.

We’re gonna, we’re gonna put that on the committee for discussion ? Yes. And we’ll get back to you and, yeah. No, Jonathan. Okay. All 

Will: right. Well, that, that’s a good point. Um, but, Ben, you know, you heard Ben talk about how gross emergency medicine is. Alright, I wanna come back to, this sounds very gross because I think you’re really underestimating how disgusting ophthalmology can be.

Have you ever seen bacterial conjunctivitis? Oh, dear. All right. Yeah. No, the eye cannot pee, but it can produce copious amounts of muco purulent fluid. Okay. Uh, as, I mean, gonorrhea is bad wherever it is, but, um, when this is gay men, especially, especially when it, when it finds its way maybe onto the, And, and, uh, you know, what are you gonna do when a patient comes in says they think, uh, they were traveling, uh, they went to, uh, south America, and they think they might have a parasite in their eye.

What are you gonna do about that? I’m gonna run. Exactly. You’re runaway. You’re runaway. It’s a story. 

Dr. Ben Abella: I had a loved one with that. That thing that gets under the contact lens and eats the eye out. The EBA thing. Oh, a can eba. Yes. And he had to get all this specialty stuff. Nearly, nearly lost his eyesight actually.

It was terrifying. He’s fine now. Mm-hmm. . But it was not. You’re 

Will: making my point for me, Ben, you’re not doing a great job, . 

Dr. Ben Abella: Okay, so, so the, what else do you got? Yeah, so the other thing, Kristen, that is, um, important to think about is just lifestyle considerations. So er you work holidays, you work Christmas, you work Thanksgiving, and there’s only so much diet Coke that a person can consume to get one through these.

Than life, you know? And, and, and I would say about 90% of my body water comes from Diet Coke. And this is not a healthy way to live, you know? It’s just not, it’s not, it’s not great. It’s, uh, uh, so, so an ophthalmologist, they drink Fiji water artisanal spring waters that Jonathan brings on a, I’m sure there’s a silver platter involved somewhere.

And, and you know, 

Will: there’s a white, we’ll talk about our silver platters, please. 

Dr. Ben Abella: Oh, that was a secret. Sorry. And, and the little white napkin. And I’m sure there’s little spritz of lime in the artisanal water. And I. Hoking down two liter bottles of Diet Coke, getting all hopped up on caffeine. Like it’s just not a healthy, healthy way to live.

But, but if you have to get through at two in the morning, it’s, it’s, it’s french fries with hot sauce and diet coke all the way. You can only imagine how much PRIs to take. Okay. 

Will: Alright. Alright. And I, I get the last word here since you started. Um, so, excitement. All right. Excitement and patient satisfaction.

That’s, that’s what I wanna focus on. Patient satisfaction, because, You’re in emergency medicine, people are coming to you on the worst day of their life, all right? They’re like terrible. They think they’re gonna die. Sometimes they, they like, think that something terrible is happening. Sometimes terrible things are happening, and you save lives.

You know how often you save lives in ophthalmology? How often? Yeah. You don’t, you know, it doesn’t happen. All right? Occasionally you can save eyes, but 99% of the time you’re treating dry. It’s a lot of dry eye. All right. And that’s not very exciting. But in emergency medicine, it’s, it’s, there’s a lot more excitement now.

Yeah. Some of it’s gross. All right. We right. We acknowledge that, but it’s also very exciting and very rewarding because you’re saving lives, all right? You don’t want an ophthalmologist saving your life. Isn’t that why we go into medicine? I mean, it’s not why I went into medicine cause I, I never at one any point wanted to save lives in ophthalmology.

But, uh, a lot of people do. And, uh, it, it’s a very rewarding thing. And so that’s why, uh, you should absolutely do emergency medicine because we need, uh, hardworking, beautiful. kind. Mm-hmm. amazing. Mm-hmm. wonderful. Mm-hmm. Emergency Medicine. You’re talking about Ben, right? I, I was talking about Ben. 

Dr. Ben Abella: Yes. You said dry eyes.

There’s not a dry a over here right now. Oh my goodness. . 

Will: Um, and so I, I, I, we’ve both made very compelling arguments. Uh, what specialty do you want to go into? Oh, boy. 

Kristin: Um, you’ve, yes. You both did make some very compelling arguments. Mm-hmm. , very convincing. Of course. Um, Uh, I think you have to choose.

Ultimately, eyeballs are just disgusting and I like to think that I have honorary ER status. 

Dr. Ben Abella: Ah, so you’re gonna 

Kristin: take, I’ll choose er. Yeah. So, okay. Sorry, Ben. I think that means you lose the game, but it’s really win-win . That’s, that’s right. 

Dr. Ben Abella: It’s, it’s like, it’s like a won in my loss, you know? And you, 

Kristin: you, uh, lost the game, but win at life.

Dr. Ben Abella: I won the war. Yes, that’s right. And, and in fact, you’d be an amazing year doc, and I think anyone who does CPR r for like what, 10 minutes straight. Yeah. On a larger individual and saves a life. Um, earns the honorary title of Baff. Have you ever heard this term, BAFF? Yes, I have, but tell everybody what it means.

Well, am I allowed to, am I allowed to say bad words? You can, yeah. You can tell us. So we’re fully vetted for bad language. It’ll get beeped out or we can bleep it out. We can bleep it out if we want to. That’s fine. So there’s, there’s, there’s a, a phrase that circulates around Facebook and other things called a baff badass doc.

And it, it’s this notion of just a person who’s like, A little calloused, but in the trenches, working hard, just taking names, saving lives, you know, not breaking a sweat. And so the term baff becomes a bit of a, you know mm-hmm. , um, ideal to shoot for. And I’m kind of thinking doing c p r like you did and saving a life is, is kind of baffled status.

I’m kind of thinking that. 

Kristin: There you go. Well, I will take it, but I do have to say mostly it was just, there’s no freaking way that you’re leaving me here with the mortgage and two children get back here right 

Will: now. . Yeah, that’s. That’s a fair reason to wanna say you young man. Hey, whatever. Yeah, whatever.

I’ll, whatever reason you need to justify it, I’ll take it. So, uh, well, Ben, this was a pleasure. Uh, before we go, uh, you know, tell us, uh, do you have any, I guess, parting words for audience or things you’re working on or, or kind of a message you wanna. Leave 

Dr. Ben Abella: us with Well, sure. Uh, you know, it, um, uh, my work has to do a lot with cardiac arrest, and it’s very relevant for some of our conversation today.

And, you know, we’re, we’re seeing, um, uh, cases in, in the media, in, in the press of people. Christian Erickson, a soccer player at cardiac arrest, made a survival. Um, sadly, uh, uh, N B A NBA G League player did not survive. Uh, It’s out there as a thing. And, um, it’s, it’s really, I think, important that everybody learns cpr, that everybody understand what an e e d auto external defibrillator is.

And I’ve spent a lot of my time and energy pushing these concepts, um, because they’re, they’re really lifesaving and everyone can achieve wards status if they know how to do cpr and they, uh, they know how to use an a EED because cardiac arrest, you don’t know why it’s gonna happen and it’s absolutely life or death.

So that’s like a little, a little PSA that I should. 

Will: Aim into that every, we should have defibrillators everywhere, uh, in public places. Mm-hmm. and, um, yeah, there’s no excuse really. Everyone, if you can phy, if you’re physically able to do C P R Learn c p r. Uh, absolutely. So, Ben, thank you for all the, uh, amazing work that you’re doing as a cardiac arrest survival cyber survivor.

I appreciate it and I know Kristen does too, and, um, and so thank you for your time. So we will, yeah, we’ll be back, uh, uh, with some of your, uh, listener stories here in a minute. So thank you, Ben. 

Dr. Ben Abella: Thank you.

Will: All right. Let’s take a look at some of our favorite medical stories that were sent in by all of you, the listeners. So our first story comes from Jacob, s as a volunteer companion. I was responsible for keeping the patient company for the day. The patient saw this as an opportunity for me to scratch his back for three hours.

Oh, no. The nurse eventually got him a Benadryl, which was a lifesaver. I’m in my second year of vet school, so I guess it all paid off. I, I just wanna commend Jacob. Well done. Like, that’s, that’s great. Like Yeah. 

Kristin: You know, somebody’s itchy. You got 

Will: a scratch. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, um, that’s, uh, it, it just shows, uh, you know, dedication to patient care in whatever way you can provide it.

Right. Uh, and so, uh, thank you for being there as the back scratcher, Jacob. There 

Kristin: could have been worse things to have had to. 

Will: True. Yeah. Uh, uh, but I’m sure that, you know, you know how, how, how, when it’s hard to scratch your own back. It is. You can’t reach back there. You can’t do it. Can’t get it. Can’t do it.

Okay. Um, and fan story number two here. Uh, let’s have, let’s see. Raquel t it happened when I was a first year resident during a night shift in the er. I suddenly got a call from a phone pager saying, hi, I am the neurologist. I need to speak with Dr. and so I told Maria, Hey, neurology wants to speak with you.

As Maria is approaching the phone, I can hear the doctor say, not the neurologist, the urologist, and to that I responded. Sorry, Maria, the doctor of the other brain wants to speak with you.

Eternal laughing was heard among the staff and the urologist from the phone. ba. Fast forward one year later, and apparently I am known in that department for this story. It could be a chance for, uh, US nephrology or neurology and neurology to get along for the first time in history, all because of a misheard.

Uh, misunderstanding. I love that. Uh, that’s a common, uh, um, thing that people get confused about neuro cuz they sound very similar. Right. Especially 

Kristin: over the phone when you can’t 

Will: see the, that’s the first time I’ve really put two and two together, realized they, there’s a brain on both of them. That’s, yeah.

Right? That’s pretty good. I like that. And also urologists. Have, I think the best sense of humor in medicine as someone who has Well, you’ve got to, yeah. Has interacted with almost everybody in all different specialties. It’s noticeable the, the sense of humor from urologists, and you’re right. I mean, they, they kind of have to like this.

Yeah. You’re self-selecting. There’s, yeah, 

Dr. Ben Abella: there’s, there’s, uh, get made fun of quite a 

Will: bit, very sensitive, interesting things that happen with, uh, with penises. And so, uh, you know, And you just gotta, you gotta be okay with looking at a lot of penises. As I mentioned in one of my, in my urology video, an aggressive number of penises, aggressive.

And so I appreciate the urologist’s sense of humor. Uh, thank you for those two stories. You can send us your stories, knock, knock high@humancontent.com. We’d love to hear from you. Um, That was a fun episode with, oh, it was fun, Dr. Ab Bella. He’s, he’s a crazy stories we’re a big fan of, of Ben and, and the work that he does with cardiac arrest and something that we’ve both been active in, especially you.

Yeah. Um, and so, uh, we appreciate that. And I just want to reiterate, you know, the, the whole learning cpr, uh, definitely we all, we all know. Who, who doesn’t know c p r. And so if you know it and you have family members you think might not know C P R, then just talk to ’em about it. Tell ’em hey, 

Kristin: and you know, the good news is it’s not very complicated.

Yeah. They, they kind of make it seem complicated cuz you gotta go, you always hear about certification. It’s full process takes several weeks now. I mean Sure, that’s great. And do that if you can. But if, if you can’t, the important thing is just you. Probably the worst. It’s very simple mechanism that anybody 

Will: can do.

The worst, the worst way to have to learn is doing it on your own husband in real time. Yeah. That was, um, not fun. That was, that was probably a little rough. So we recommend not learning it that way in real time. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, yeah, and it’s, it’s a, it’s a quick certification actually just recertified recently.

Nice. So, yeah. And they actually do have to teach us ophthalmologists about it. Um, and because we forget. That’s okay.

Uh, alright, so if you know any doctors that you’d like us to, or medical professionals, anybody, people on the internet, I don’t know, someone in healthcare you want us to talk to on this podcast, hey, let us know. We’re always open to ideas. There’s lots of ways to reach out to us. You can email us, knock knock high human content.com.

We’re on TikTok. Twitter, uh, YouTube, and, um, uh, find it on our 

Dr. Ben Abella: website. Yeah, 

Will: website, plug.com. Dot com. Uh, you can also hang out with us and our Human Content Podcast family on Instagram and TikTok at Human Content Pods. I want to thank all the listeners for, uh, leaving wonderful feedback and reviews for us.

The reviews help. We want to, we want to hear those reviews, see those. If you, are you 

Kristin: saying that you don’t wanna thank the ones that did not leave wonderful reviews? 

Will: Uh, well, you at least listened and, uh, you gave it a, a good effort. And that’s, that’s that counts. That’s, that’s good. I, if you don’t like it, that’s fine.

You know, not everybody likes everything, but, uh, um, it is hard to like you sometimes. Yeah. I accept that. That’s okay. Um, uh, we’ll allow that one. Uh, you know, this is part of what you do, you know, as, and keep you humble. Yeah, that, that, that’s for sure. Um, all right, now I don’t know where I was. Where are we?

Oh, oh, what am I talking about? Oh, thank, thank you. I was thanking people. Mm-hmm. . I was thanking people. Um, and, uh, um, you can comment on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube. All right. And we might give you a shout out, so if we see your content, uh, or content, I’ll see your content. But if we see your comment, uh, we can, uh, shout you out on the podcast.

Like right now, Rachel g on YouTube said, first podcast, I’m excited about. And everyone has a podcast. That’s true. I was a little concerned about that actually. I was like, I’m doing the thing that everybody 

Dr. Ben Abella: got. Everybody’s 

Kristin: already done. Kind of cliche. 

Will: Yeah. Yeah. But I, you know, Hey, everybody does it for a reason, I suppose.

Um, YouTube will have a full video episodes up every week. My YouTube channel is at d Glock Fluking. Uh, we have a Patreon as well. Lots of cool perks, bonus episodes where we react to medical shows and movie. Uh, uh, hang out with the knock, knock, high member community. We’re there, we’re responding. We’re talking.

Uh, come hang out with us early ad free episode access as a Patreon and, um, uh, interactive q and a livestream events and lots more. We’ll see what we come up with. patreon.com/glock and plugin or go to our website, Glock and Flecking do. Thank you for listening. We are your host Will and Kristen Flannery, also known as the Glock Fleck.

Special thanks to our guest today, Dr. Benjamin Abella. Our executive producers are Will and Kristen Flannery. Aron Korney, Korney Goldman, and Shahnti Brooke. Our editor and engineer is Jason Porto. Our music is by Omer Ben-Zvi. To learn about our knock-knock highs program, disclaimer and ethics policy submission verification, and licensing terms and HIPAA release terms, you can go to our website block and plugin.com or reach out to us at.

Knock, knock high@humancontent.com with any questions, concerns, or fun jokes. I’m sure you probably, or bad jokes, bad, you can be bad jokes too. Doesn’t have to be good jokes. Bad jokes. I’ve got plenty of those as well. Knock-knock. High is a human content production.