Transcript:
Will: Knock, knock,
knock, knock. Hi. Hello. Welcome to Knock, knock High with the Glock fls. So we got Kristen Flannery, that’s me, lady Glock and Flecking. And. Will Flannery, Dr. Glock Flecking. Together, we are the Glock fls and we have a very, very exciting show. We are, uh, we are pumped about
Kristin: this one. Yes. One of my all time favorite doctors is here
Will: today.
We’ll get to that in a second. Yes. Uh, first, let’s, let’s, what’s going on? So you just, a lot, I asked you like, like you don’t know what’s going on. Like, we don’t live together in the same house. Mm-hmm. Um, but you just got back from a trip. I did, yes. You were at a conference?
Kristin: Yes. I was, uh, a, an education, education conference.
That’s right. So we, and
Will: I got to be a solo parent for like 10 days. Yes. While you were
Kristin: gone. I, I wasn’t sure what I would come back to. So it, the kids are alive. The house wast burned down. They’re un they are unharmed. They’re sca. Little dirty, little stinky,
Will: but, but did you
Dr. Jen Gunter: enjoy the conference?
Kristin: Um, yeah, it was good.
I ran the, the booth for my organization that I was representing. So I got to stay in the exhibit hall all day long and,
Will: uh, and it’s like a straight education, like it’s this, it’s a, uh, association for gifted for gifted
Kristin: children. Yes. Gifted children. Yep.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Mm-hmm. . And you ran
Will: the booth? I did. Uh, my most important question for you, did you have swag?
Kristin: Of course you have to have swag. Nobody comes to your booth if you don’t have any
Will: swag. So it’s the same, uh, for like medical conferences. Yeah, that’s, yep. But what kind of swag? Cuz I’ve never been to an education conference. So what kind of swag did you offer?
Kristin: Uh, You know, at education conference, it’s, it’s lot of stuff like teacher stuff, right?
Like, there’s gonna be like pencils and little handheld puzzles and things like that. But, uh, we had, uh, these little square shaped key chains with our logo on it. Uh, but then it was a little multi-tool. So on the little square there was like a level, right? Like the, the bubble, a level, A level. That you like would hang a picture with.
Oh, gotcha. Alright. So there’s a little level in there. And then, uh, so people would come up and they’d check it out and they’d be like, oh, there’s a little level. And then I’d be like, well, did you notice it’s actually a multi-tool, there’s a little tape measure. And I’d pull it out from the bottom, this little tape measure.
And they lost their minds. Teachers love a good measurement system. So yeah, I would pull it out and they’d be like, oh my gosh. And then they would want like two or three to take with them. So it was a big hit. Okay. I mean, not to toot my own horn,
Will: but they enjoyed a big hit. They enjoyed the measurements.
Kristin: They did. Yeah, they do. Okay. They only criticism I got was, oh, I wish this was the metric system.
Dr. Jen Gunter: So
Will: the metrics, they, so that was the only downside. Yep.
Kristin: You got inches,
Will: not centimeters. We, we, we have, uh, I’m, I’m so glad that they get excited about
Kristin: that. They do. They get so excited. Did you
Will: have a lot traffic at your booth because of these multi
Kristin: tools?
Yeah, we had people, no, I’m not kidding you. There was like words spread around the conference that you had to come down to our booth to get one They loved. .
Will: Uh, medical conferences are a little bit different, but it’s, it’s also a very important part of the conference going experience. Right. We have to have swag.
Right. And usually it’s like, usually
Kristin: your swag is better. Yeah. Like, there’s, like, you have different,
Will: different budgets. For me it, like, I, it’s not, it’s never, for me it’s, it’s always like, what can I, my kid, as soon as I walk in the door Right. Our kids are going to, why’d you bring me, demand something. Right.
Right. Because once I, I did it like the first conference I went to. Yeah. That was your first state. And once you do it the first time, set the tone. They, they have to have the gift, the whatever it is, so. Right. So that, that’s, that’s what I’m looking for. Like one time, one ophthalmology conference, they had fidget spinners.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. That was lit. One. They play with that for quite some time, right? Yeah, usually they’re usually, it’s like a gift, like you give it to them and then they just kind of forget about it. Cuz it’s not that exciting to be honest.
Kristin: Right. It’s just free garbage toys. So that’s all. But I did find, so I thought about the same thing, have to bring the kids something.
And so actually in the hotel where I stayed, I stayed separate from the conference hotel. And in the hotel I stayed, they were having another conference that was a medical conference. It was for physician recruiters and they had the exhibit tables just lined up along a hallway that was just publicly accessible.
And so really I just went shopping after hours and I just picked up a little of this, a little bit of that. Got some little squishy fishies. Right. Okay. They were like these little handheld squishy boys. Like a, like a stress ball type thing. Uhhuh like a stress ball. But it was in the shape of a fish. So, yeah, that was the, these are the
Will: things that we get excited about.
This is, we’re old now. When you’re, when you’re married with, with kids and we are both in our late thirties. Um, we get excitement any way we can. It’s true. And so swag, mostly
Kristin: just trying to avoid pain at this point. So trying to avoid the confrontation of, you didn’t get me anything. Just make. Smooth as possible when you walk in the door.
That’s
Will: furious. That’s true. Well, I think you did good. I think they were happy with what you found. Yeah. They liked, they were good. So let’s, let’s, uh, we’ll, we’ll get into it. Um, uh, let’s talk about our guest. All right? Yes. We have Dr. Gin Gunter. Yes. Very excited
Kristin: about this. Very excited. She’s a big name in the medical world.
Uh, very awesome gynecologist, author, lots of things.
Will: She’s a New York Times columnist. She covers women’s health. Um, she’s written several books. Yes. Uh, and, uh, I think she has a book coming out she’ll talk about too. And, uh, she’s a specialist in Chronic Pain Man, uh, medicine and Volvo Vaginal disorders.
And she’s also from Canada. That’s true. Which is exciting. Uh, and she’ll talk about that as well. Yeah. So, uh, we’re excited. Uh, let’s get started. Let’s get going. All right. Here
Dr. Jen Gunter: we go.
Will: All right, Jen, thank you so much for joining us. I, I can’t tell you how excited I am to, uh, to, to finally get to talk to you. This is, this is great. Um, you may be
Kristin: the first OB gyn that he’s ever seen in real life. Well, ,
Will: I, I, you know, you did have two children and so I, this is true. I, I have met at least I forgot that you were there Ones.
Yes. And once upon a time I did do an OBGYN rotation in med school.
Kristin: Oh, I definitely forgot that. So did you, you forgot everything
Will: about it’s right. Jen, do you, do you work with med students or resident? When was the last time you kind of interacted with trainees and. .
Dr. Jen Gunter: Uh, well, they, you know, so I’m very, very subspecialized.
Yeah. So, and you know what happens, like the further down the subspecialty tree you get, the fewer and fewer interactions you get. Um, cuz people don’t wanna know about you unless they really need you, and then they, then they really wanna know about you. Right? That’s right. So, um, so I don’t get that many medical students or residents anymore, which is sad cause I, I really enjoyed it.
Uh, but, um, every now and then they percolate through and Yeah. Yeah. And then they get like the full-on experience .
Will: Oh gosh. Well we, um, this, another reason I’m excited to, to talk with you is because I first knew about you obvi from Twitter and I got my start on Twitter on social media. That was the first Glock flecking, you know, the place you could first find me.
And I remember seeing you come across my, you know, feed on Twitter, be. Who is this person and how does she have so many followers? Like, how do you, how do you get an audience on this, on this app? It didn’t make sense to me. And, uh, so I’ve been following you since the beginning and, uh, um, it’s, it’s, it’s been a pleasure.
It really has been. Oh, it’s been, yeah.
Kristin: She’s your fairy god
Will: gynecologist. That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. I guess so. I feel like I know you, even though this is the first time we’re actually talking to each other in person.
Dr. Jen Gunter: It’s, you know, that’s one of the amazing things. Twitter. Um, and one of the sad things, I guess with everything that’s kind of going on is that it has been this amazing place where people have really forged amazing friendships.
And, you know, I’ve met many people in real life and, you know, you get to know people and Yeah, I mean, we’ve been friends on Twitter for, I wanna say like, it must be five years, six years. I don’t know, man. Maybe longer.
Will: Yeah, I think so. And I mean, by the time people like hear this Twitter, I don’t know what’s gonna happen.
I feel like it’s being blown a little bit outta proportion. Like all the, the Doomsday Twitter’s gonna go away. I almost feel like it can’t, it has to exist in some form in people’s lives. Uh, I could be wrong. Maybe it’ll go away next week. Who
Kristin: knows? Where else will everyone go to complain? I mean, you.
There
Will: are plenty that’s just timeless of social media apps for people to complain. I I, that’s, that’s the one constant is people will complain on social media somewhere. Yeah. But, um, I don’t know.
Dr. Jen Gunter: We’ll see. Yeah. I don’t know. I think one of the concepts that’s really difficult for us to imagine is, you know, none of us know what it’s like to have money to burn.
and, uh, when 44 billion isn’t a game changer for you, you know, all bets are
Will: off. Incredible. It’s true, right? I, I can’t, I honestly can’t even believe it’s, it’s, it’s happening the way it is, but, um, you know, just, I’m gonna stay on it. I, I’m gonna go down with the ship. If, if it, uh, if it does go down, I don’t know about you.
Are
Dr. Jen Gunter: you gonna, are. Well, you know, I’ve always thought of Twitter as the biggest cocktail party in the world, and I throw a good party, , and I’m a girl from Winnipeg at heart, and we close parties, um, bars there are open till two in the morning and there are many after bars, clubs to go to. And, uh, yeah, I’m, I’m, I’m, is that right?
I’ve got, yeah. Oh yeah.
Will: I’m not, I’m, I’ve never been to Winnipeg, so I, this is fascinating to me.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Okay. It’s, it’s, um, it’s, it’s a special place in a lot of ways, but everybody from Winnipeg party’s very hard or many of us do. So, yeah. So I’m there till the end, baby , you and me. We’ll be like, you know, closing it down.
That’s right. Closing it
Will: down. Good. That’s, that’s, that’s what we hope for. Um, and so I’m excited to hear, it sounds like, I think you brought a couple stories for us.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Are Sure. I mean, I have stories. I
Will: have kinds of stories. I Sure you have tons of stories, right? , I mean, just say you can’t practice medicine for a certain number of years without just accumulating all kinds of interesting, strange encounters and stories.
So, so what do you have? Let’s, uh, I want to hear something. Let’s hear it.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Well, I, you know, the story that I think is, is one of the most interesting is the one that you know, happened to me was when I was 11 and I was skateboarding and I was not very good and I fell on my back and it hurt a lot. And, you know, I rode my bike home because that’s what you did when you’re a girlfriend, Winnipeg.
And, uh, I spent the whole night in agony and, uh, my mom, who was not a very nice person, uh, said it was my fault for skateboarding. And. We had the good fortune of mm-hmm. living a few doors down from a pediatric surgeon, . And, uh, she spoke to him in the morning and said, well, he said, I know Jennifer and she’s not a complainer, so I, maybe you should take her to the doctor.
And so we went to the doctor, but my mother, an interesting character, uh, didn’t drive because that’s a sign of weakness. Um, and oh, so, uh, we took the bus, uh, to the doctor. Gotcha. And turns out I had a ruptured spleen, .
Will: Oh, wow. Okay.
Kristin: I spent
Dr. Jen Gunter: the whole night that way. I spent the night with a ruptured spleen. I walked to the bus with a ruptured spleen.
Oh. Um, and this was back in the day when, um, CT scans didn’t exist. Ultrasounds didn’t exist, and so I had to have an emergency angiogram. Oh, wow. Yeah. Do
Will: you remember, was this pain, like how much pain were you in? Um, well,
Dr. Jen Gunter: do you remember. Always less pain than my mother could inflict . So let’s put it that way.
close. But you know, it was always a line you walked. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, yeah, so I got to the emergency department and they were gonna give me, what I’m gonna guess is Valium, they were gonna me this injection. And I said, can I watch? And I was, you know, precocious as I’m sure that’s shocking. And uh, and so I said, I can hold still.
Uh, and they said, okay. And I got to watch the whole thing. And that’s when I got interested in medicine. Oh, that’s
Will: so cool. .
Kristin: See, the spleen is good for something. It brought us spleen and
Will: right onto the spleen. Did you know I’ve, you know, people know that I, I make fun of the spleen a lot because ultimately I think we should have two livers instead of a, a liver and a spleen.
Um, I think that would, that would serve everyone quite well. Um, but even so, even though it did provide this wonderful story and it sent you on a path to medicine, it’s um, uh, it’s still screwed up. It’s, uh, it’s, it’s still a bad thing. The spleen did something that wasn’t good to you. And so I stand by my assessment of how important the spleen
Dr. Jen Gunter: is.
But what if you heard out My spleen actually helped me medically too, because when they did the angiogram for my spleen, they found out I had kidney disease. Oh really? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Now, how, how did they find that out? Um, I guess my left kidney didn’t take up the die properly. Oh. So then I had a whole bunch of tests and found out I had Hyd nephrosis of my left kidney.
So I essentially had to have my kidney removed cuz I ruptured my spleen. How’s that first story? That’s, oh,
Kristin: they took out another
Will: word with it. Wow. They just two for, what? Was it at the same
Dr. Jen Gunter: surgery? No, they didn’t take my spleen out. Oh. Because of my mother’s negligence. I, they, they decided to manage me conservatively.
Oh, really? Well, yeah. So I, I was one of the first cases apparently at that hospital managed if splenic rupture managed conservatively. How do you, how do
Will: you manage a ruptured spleen?
Dr. Jen Gunter: Conservatively, I guess tamp, I don’t know. It had tamp at it to stop bleeding. I mean, I don’t, I was 11, so I wasn’t, you know, I, I wasn’t too up to date on any of it.
But yeah, the end of the story was I kept my spleen in loss of kidney.
Will: Okay. All right. That wasn’t the organ you thought you’d lose. Um, importantly, did you ever go back to skateboarding? No. , that was What time of year was this? In Winnipeg.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Oh, was the summer or spring I think, I think it was. May
Will: I, I assume there’s not a lot of skateboarding opportunities in the winter in
Kristin: Winnipeg, which is what, nine months of the year?
Dr. Jen Gunter: Yeah, it’s cold a lot. We call it winter peg. Um, and yeah, and like I said, we’re hardy folk . Were you wearing
Will: a helmet?
Dr. Jen Gunter: Uh, no. Good question. It was like 1970s.
Will: This is before this is, this is before people. Knew that you could hurt your head doing these types of activities
Dr. Jen Gunter: Right. And wrist injuries. Right.
That’s right. And all this stuff. So that was the first wave of skateboarding. So anyway. Gotcha. Yeah. That, that was my big introduction to the healthcare system and I just thought it was cool. I was, I was fascinated that everybody talked to me like I was an adult, which probably wasn’t good for most 11 year olds, but for me was Right.
And so, uh, the, you know, the doctors explained everything to me and they talked to me just like I was an adult and I loved it. And I thought, wow, this is a place where, where people do cool things and they explained things and those things are really neat and I wanna be a doctor.
Will: I feel like that’s a very forward thinking way of approaching patient communication.
Like, it, it’s just speaking with a child, you know, as if, you know, not underestimating their intelligence and, and what they can understand and know. Um, cuz I, I think a lot of people do that. A lot of people just assume that they’re not gonna be on a certain level and, and can, you know, talk down to kids and I think, um, that’s, that’s, that’s great.
And.
Dr. Jen Gunter: I mean, it might not have worked for every kid. Mm-hmm. certainly, you know, my kids have had a lot of medical issues and I’m not sure it would’ve worked for them. So it might have just been bad luck, like blind luck basically. And it was the right thing for me. But when my, um, when the pediatric urologist was explaining about, you know, what was going on with my kidney, uh, he was explaining it to my mom who did not understand.
I mean, she left school when she was 12 or 13. So, um, so he, you know, she just, she was not getting it. And so I think out of frustration, he looked at me and said, why don’t you come and sit over here and I’ll explain it to you? And I totally understood it. And what’s really fascinating is, you know, when I was in medical school years later and they were explaining U P J obstructions, which is what I had, it was no different than what I’d been told when I was 11.
Wow. And so that’s how good he’d been at explaining it. Yeah. And I was sitting there going, oh, I know the answer to this one, .
Will: And you said it, it sent you on a, a path to medicine and, and made you want to interested in being a doctor. Um, were you, did you wanna be a surgeon? Did you wanna be taken out spleens and kidneys?
Dr. Jen Gunter: No. I don’t know really what I wanted to be. I found, I don’t know what it was like for you, but I found the whole thing very overwhelming at the beginning. I mean, our first class was on the brachial plexus. Like, what’s up with that? That’s the first thing. That was the very first lecture trying to weed off the bat.
That was like having a fire hose. That’s no
Kristin: good. That’s, that’s like the med school equivalent of Oche Andre in, uh, undergrad. Like you, you put that out there and it gets rid of it. Everybody who’s not gonna be serious enough or
Will: it’s, I’m trying to, that, that would be on the short list of, of the worst ways to start med school.
I think Brachi Plex is like kreb cycle, coagulation cascade. Like all of these things would scare the hell out of most people.
Kristin: Yeah. I find it interesting though that you’re scared by these concepts, but cutting open a dead human. Totally fine. You’re good
with
Will: that. Well, it’s. Good point. I, this is why I have Kristen here, cuz she can think, uh, uh, she knows all the things that, you know, we do in med school and things, the experiences, she’s not normal and, um, and we, that we think are normal.
And she recognizes that, no, these are very much not normal things that we’re doing.
Dr. Jen Gunter: So it’s good to have that foil because it’s true. You get very like, oh, well, you know, this is just, isn’t this just the way everybody thinks? And I think sometimes that’s really bad when we’re trying to explain things as doctors, right.
Because we forget how much basic knowledge we have on this subject. Yeah. And that’s why, you know, my partner, you know, will often stop me. He’ll be like, okay, so you assume everybody knows how you got to point C, but, but we actually don’t. Right. So you need to go back and explain that.
Will: Did you, was there a turning point for you in med school?
You said it was hard at first. Did you, at what point did you start to kind of get it and feel comfortable?
Dr. Jen Gunter: Um, I don’t think I really felt comfortable until I got on the wards. Uh, and, uh, you know, I think that since I was very comfortable talking with adults and, and sort of interacting with people in that way, I found that it was super easy, not easy, but I felt really comfortable taking histories from people, interacting with people.
And then it started to all make sense, like all this weird, you know, biology that you learn in this very sort of sterile environment that’s not connected to somebody’s actual life. That it just, all of a sudden all the puzzle pieces started to fall into place. And I was like, oh, that’s why that’s important.
Oh, right. And I was like, why? Like, why could we not have done this earlier? You know, .
Will: Yeah. It provided that context. Yeah. How was, how was your, I have a another very important question for you. How was your ophthalmology education in med school? . This is,
Dr. Jen Gunter: okay, so , I don’t, I think we had one lecture on the eye.
I don’t know, maybe there was more than one. I don’t remember at all. I’m sorry. And we had no clinical ophthalmology experience. The only thing I learned about it was in the er. And I hate eyeballs. I just think it’s the grossest part of the human body, the worst.
Will: And you know, it’s, that’s actually one of the main decision points in to being an ophthalmologist is are, if you think eyeballs are gross,
That’s, that’s a very important point. Uh, yeah.
Dr. Jen Gunter: My best, my best friend’s an ophthalmologist. We went through medical school together and she obviously had a different experience. She did an anterior chamber fellowship. I’m like, what? It took you two years to learn three millimeters, like, what’s up with that
Kristin: Seriously. And there’s like, what, six different subspecialties for this tiny
Will: little Yep. It’s, it’s, it’s outrageous. The retina is like 500 microns thick and you can do a whole profession in it, which is good. I know, because I don’t know anything about the retina for the most part.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Well, I mean, we all want our retina to be functional and, but it’s like if the retinal surgeon needs the or then it’s like
Will: full stop.
Yeah. Yeah. And. So, but going one lecture, one lecture of ophthalmology, it hasn’t gotten any better. You, it’s like, it’s, in fact, I think maybe it’s gotten worse. It’s, it’s like a part of a lecture now. It’s just, it kind of brought into, I don’t know, e m t or something. So it’s, it’s, uh, very, uh, not great,
Dr. Jen Gunter: but, well, you know, you think about things like, I don’t know how many lectures we spent on the Kreb cycle, but we did actually, I do remember that, you know, I remember sitting in like, we had to do like a breakout group.
There were like eight or 10 of us, and, and I thought, you know, now looking back, you think, well, like, it’s good to know the summary of the Kreb cycle. Mm-hmm. , but that’s it. Unless you become a metabolic expert.
Will: But yeah, just generally knowing the word Krebs cycle and, um, and I, I couldn’t tell you. I know it has something to do with energy.
Yes. Making atp. I think that’s it. That’s, that’s, that’s all any of us could ever hope for. Understanding and remembering.
Dr. Jen Gunter: So I don’t know. I think that, I think there’s a lot of basic science that, you know, actually could be reshuffled to residency, basically. You know, that it’s more important in certain specialties, but yeah.
What do I,
Will: I think, no, I think that’s a good point. Um, it’s, uh, just tailoring it to, to your field. Like if you’re, you know, certain, certainly there’s some specialties that do more with genetics, and that would definitely be more applicable, I think.
Kristin: Right. Why don’t we take out the Kreb cycle portion and replace that with patient communication.
Will: There you go.
Dr. Jen Gunter: How about that? Yeah. I mean, I think that that’s, that’s one thing my school did actually very, very well. Our teaching on the wards was spectacular. Mm-hmm. . And we had really great people for, you know, teach, you know, about, how we interacted with patients and, and how to talk to them. And, and that was actually, I think, an incredible strength of my school.
And that’s something I think that, that we need more schools to have. I mean, as a subspecialist, a lot of times what I’m doing is I’m saying the exact same thing. Mm-hmm. , as the other doctor said. I’m just saying it in a way that people can understand that makes sense to them. Yeah. That happens like, like 30% of what I see is not something special that I like, you know, like I take care of people who have graft versus host disease of the vagina.
Right. Like, that’s really subspecialized. But a lot of what I I do is, is not at all, it’s very general, but through whatever sequence of events, it just didn’t make sense to the person. Or maybe they had a complication with the therapy. And that the ability to kind of explain that I think is, is something that I trace back to my really great training at the University of Manitoba.
Will: I was gonna ask you where, where you went to did your training, did you do it? All of it in Canada? .
Dr. Jen Gunter: Yeah. So University of Manitoba in, in Winnipeg. Mm-hmm. for a medical school. And then I did my residency at the University of Western, which is in London, Ontario. So, uh, and OBGYN in Canada is five years, so it’s an additional year of
Will: training.
Okay. And so, yeah. So you do how med school is four years?
Dr. Jen Gunter: Uh, yeah, let’s close four years. Then four years of medical, uh, four years of medical school, five years of residency. And then I did a fellowship in infectious diseases, and that’s how I came to the States. I went to Kansas City. Oh, which one? Uh, oh, I lived in Kansas City, Kansas, and we, and the hospital was on the Kansas side.
So, and I was there for six years and that was my first introduction to living in the United States. That is, uh, ,
Kristin: that’s trial by. .
Dr. Jen Gunter: Well, it was, you know, I, I was under the mistaken assumption, I didn’t really understand the whole right wing sort of religious politics of the United States, because I grew up in the Midwest in Canada, which is really very liberal.
Mm-hmm. , right? So I just assumed that Kansas City being straight, straight south would be very similar. Um, and I think one of the first questions someone asked me was what church I went to? And I made a joke and I said, church of Satan . Oh no. After that went over well, They thought I was serious ,
Will: like, I, like never my children a
Dr. Jen Gunter: little closer to, to us.
Yes. Like, never in my life would I have thought to ask somebody what church they went to. I just, that would not, that was just not part of my vernacular. That’s,
Will: that’s a solid joke. Uh, and a daring joke for someone coming from, uh, Canada to live in the United States in a place they’ve never
Kristin: before who studies female
Will: reproductive health
That’s, I love it. That’s great.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Well, you know, I always, I’m like the person plundering ahead, you know, is there, if, if there’s a door I can ram my head and it shut, I’ll ram my head against it 20 times before I look for the handle.
Will: I like. It was 15 minutes in and we’ve already talked about the Church of Satan a little bit.
This is
Dr. Jen Gunter: good. Right? I like it. You know, I and you to say that with the, uh, church lady voice , Satan .
Will: Well, I wanna make sure we get to, I think you have another story for us, right?
Dr. Jen Gunter: Oh, well I do it. I mean, it’s, again, it’s a, it’s a personal story. Yeah. And um, you know, I, cuz I, you know, whenever people talk about their most unusual cases, certainly from my standpoint, I think people would be identifiable.
So I, I try to, to shy away from that cuz in ob, g y n the weirdest stuff can happen. Like, that’s this, and my case is an example of that. You know, we always say in medicine, and you probably have the same belief that the weirdest, awful, craziest things can happen to. to doctors, or they often seem to, and so I had a triplet pregnancy and I went in, I ruptured my membranes at 22 and a half weeks, and I delivered my first son who, you know, who died, which we plan not to resuscitate.
And then I managed to stay pregnant for three and a half more weeks and delivered my other two sons at 26 weeks. And they had the whole, you know, NICU experience and then on top of it, because, you know, being, you know, 783 grams and 843 grams wasn’t tough enough. Um, my son Oliver, who was the smallest, had a severe congenital cardiac defect.
So he had, um, a severe pulmonary valve stenosis in a large a s d and he needed to have surgery on his valve, but he was too small for any of the equipment. Mm. Wow. So you’re in this. How does this happen? You know, trauma, you know, you know, total just like what universe have I been plopped into? And so, you know, getting my kids through all of that and, you know, they were on oxygen for a year.
And my son Victor, you know, uh, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, fortunately was mild. But you know, I took a year off to work with him. Um mm-hmm. , you know, Oliver had severe lung disease of prematurity. That’s actually why we had to leave. We were living in Denver. We had to move to sea level. Um, cuz his Oh really?
His lungs were just so bad. You know, he had repeated, you know, admissions, you know, he had R S V when he was two and a half and was, you know, in the P I C U and it was like, uh, this could be it, you know? So I’m having like major flashbacks with all these like RSV cases Yeah. That are surging right now.
Right. Um, and so yeah, that was quite a, you know, we, we met every single pediatric subspecialty and that’s where I actually learned more about the eyeball cuz both my kids had retinopathy of prematurity.
Will: Oh my goodness. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You must have interacted with almost every area of medicine
Dr. Jen Gunter: in, you know, hospital.
Did they know you? Every single one? They probably, yeah, it was, they were, you know, they were all great. Um, except I had the same, were, you know, very similar insurance issues that I see that, you know, that you, you talk about on Twitter. Uh, and, uh, they, um, at one point I actually threatened a c e O of one of the hospitals with , with, um, with having a news conference, um, with my two kids on oxygen so the public could see what would happen.
And I, wow. I got around. The issue was, um, I had been billed twice for an x-ray. So, um, the insurance company wouldn’t pay for the second billing, of course, which actually it’s not the insurance company. This was actually not the insurance company’s fault, and the hospital wouldn’t, um, wouldn’t drop it. And they sent me to collections.
So weird. So I faxed, I called up the, this CEO’s, um, secretary, looked it up and said, hi, this is Dr. Smith. I’m your new orthopedic surgeon who’s gonna be starting next week. Um, I just need, uh, I, you know, I need your fax number so I can send some documents. And they gave it to me. So then I faxed the letter.
This was, you know, before, you know, when we did those things and said exactly what I was gonna do and that I said it wasn’t a threat, it was a promise, unless they pulled the bill from collections. And they did. Wow.
Will: Oh wow. Good for you. Oh, we, we also, we used, we still fax everything. Yeah. I mean that’s That’s true in medicine.
You do. Yeah, we’re way behind the times. But, um, you know, for a lot of people, you know, the first really, uh, uh, first real interaction. With the medical system as a patient or as a family member who’s has, uh, you know, members of their family going through serious medical issues, um, the dealing with the insurance side of things is just a sh a huge shock.
Was that the case for you? Was it, was it, were you having to like, learn things on the fly, figuring out what all these different moving parts were, why you were being billed for certain things? And, and, uh, was that a huge learning process for you?
Dr. Jen Gunter: it was, but I think actually I was better off than most American physicians because when I came from Canada, I didn’t know the system at all.
So I had to learn it. Hmm. And so the person who taught me about it actually was the billing person at the University of Kansas. So I actually learned a lot about like, how it all worked, what happened when things, you know, because I didn’t know the importance of filling out a billion, like, I, like this was literally like learning a completely new language Yeah.
With a different alphabet. Like not, you know, like, like what did these characters even mean? Like, so I had to learn it from the ground up. So when this happened, I think I had a greater awareness of how the system had failed me. Mm-hmm. , you know, and so was able to sort of pull more strings. Uh, but it was, I mean, my kids had, you know, lost their oxygen benefits six months into the year, like,
Will: Well, I mean, the fact, fact that you had to resort to, to, you know, threatening the CEO of the hospital, you know, to to, for them to do what’s right, really, really speaks to just how people are taking advantage in this system.
Yeah,
Kristin: and, and also the thing that motivates everyone is, and always has been bad press. So, yeah. You know, we like to think people would be decent people, and some of them are, but sometimes you just have.
Will: I mean, we still see it. Right? Right. Yeah. We, we’ve done that Yeah. A few times. Uh, you know, when I was going through the cardiac crisis, you don’t have any other options.
Recovery and Yeah. Right. Dealing with health insurance, you know, it’s like at some point you get fed up and you go to Twitter and you, you know, you make a big stink about it. Yeah. And
Kristin: then they
Dr. Jen Gunter: wanna help you and Yeah. Well, and they’re counting on people not doing that. They’re counting on people being afraid of being sent to collections and Right.
You know, I mean, I had the same thing happen. I think you had tweeted about, you know, having somebody out of network who was looking after you and you know, you’re unconscious. How are you even supposed to like, right. Like, what is that? Yeah. You know, that happened to my son. He got into an, he needed surgery.
It was all pre-approved and everything from the insurance company, and I get the bill and the anesthesiologist wasn’t part of the system. Yeah. And again, right. CEO of the hospital, I’m like, that’s your problem. , if you didn’t schedule the right person with me, yes, that’s your problem and gonna have a news conference about this tomorrow.
Is this what you want me on the steps of your hospital holding my kid?
Will: It’s like, no, that’s definitely not what they want. . Um, and it’s, and going back to your point about, you know, being a physician, you know, or being someone from Canada who’s a physician. You, you had that head start in, in learning and, and being able to navigate the system.
And that’s the thing, like I I try to talk about with people is, is as, as, as hard as it is for us as physicians to navigate this thing, it’s just so much harder for people are not in medicine and they gotta, they gotta just figure this out from scratch. And, and again, these insurance companies, they’re, they’re, they, they’re banking on people just giving.
And being afraid
Kristin: and accepting
Will: what they say. Accepting what, what the outcome is
Dr. Jen Gunter: of Yeah. And you’re so overwhelmed, right? Because you’re sick, I mean, yeah. Right. You’re sick. That’s actually how I got into being active on social media was after I finished, you know, not finished, but you know, when I sort of came up for air when my kids were about five, I thought, okay, this is ridiculous.
I just went through this basically war zone situation with my kids and, and we’ve come out. Relatively unscathed, I mean scathed, but in the grand scheme of things. And I would find myself sitting in the doctor’s office with my kids at all these visits. I think in the first month we had 40 visits with special.
Like so, you know, I would, and I would hear people crying about their interaction with a doctor or frustrated about this medication or that. And I would say, okay, what you need to do, you need to say this the next time you go in to see the doctor or you need to use this word. And so I was helping all these people sitting in the waiting room cuz you’re there sometimes for hours waiting with like two kids on oxygen.
It’s just awful. And so that’s why I wrote my first book was to help people who had premature kids navigate the system. And then I, someone said to me off the cuff, well you should get on Twitter. That’s how people are promoting books these days. And that was back in 2010. That was it.
Will: B History, , . Um, well thank you Jen for sharing those stories.
Uh, just unbelievable. That’s, and, and I, there’s so much, God, we could talk about it for a long time. There’s a lot to, to, that you could get into. And, uh, uh, we appreciate, uh, you taking the time and we’re gonna take a, a short break and come back and we’re gonna play a game together. We’re gonna, it’s gonna be fun.
I, I just came up with this like a couple days ago, uh, that it’s gonna be called Common Ground and uh, it’s, uh, we’re gonna get into the rules here in a second. But, but you know, we’ll be right back with that.
We just wanna give a big thank you to our listeners. Yeah. It’s not easy to
Kristin: listen
Will: to you. That’s, that’s true. It’s, I really appreciate, although I do have a, like, a nice voice for voice for a podcast. Um, it’s a new show. All right. We want you to spread the love, so share with your friends and family, uh, whoever you want.
Um, uh, please leave a rating and a review. You can be honest with us. We can take it. All right. I’ve been on social media for a while. I can accept some negative feedback if you have any, but we want you to, uh, tell us what you think. All right. Um, later today we’re going to share some of our own medical stories.
Um, share yours, tell us your stories. Uh, cinnamon to knock-knock high@humancontent.com. Uh, also you can check out our Patreon. Come hang out. Yeah, it’s fun over there. Yeah. There’s other members of the Knock-knock, high community. Uh, uh, you’ll get early access, uh, to episodes, uh, check out bonus episodes.
We’ve got all kinds of stuff there. Yes. Um, uh, exclusivity. That’s right. And just hang out with us. All right. That’s where the party is. Yeah. So, uh, uh, check it
Kristin: out. Back
Will: to the show. You’ve gone on long enough. I Okay. That’s fine. All right. Back to the show.
And we’re back. And we are going to play common ground. So I asked Jen to put together a list of similarities between two very dissimilar fields, gynecology and ophthalmology. Uh, and, uh, this is something that I, I try to do whenever I, you know, talk to different specialties and I, I try to find some kind of similarity.
It’s actually very hard for our two fields, so I thought it’d be fun to go back and forth. All right, we’re gonna take turns and we’re gonna see how many of these things, how many similarities we can find between our two fields. Uh, and so, um, uh, Jen, I’m gonna let you go first. All right? What do you got?
Speculums. Speculums. I, I had that on my list. You stole it from me. Okay. That’s, that’s good. Now they’re very, uh, slightly different. Specul. Yours are bigger than mine.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Larger, absolutely larger, and don’t have the weird hooky things that keep the eyelids open. You hook
Kristin: on something that goes in your eye.
Will: Well, it, it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s the speculum part. It’s the part that hooks into the eyelid. Okay. That
Kristin: should not be different,
Will: but should be. That’s the next question I had was, uh, whose speculum is scar?
Kristin: I think speaking as a woman and human being, I’m more scared of, of the hook in my
Will: eye. I think that having, I think that’s the answer then, because I can’t really speak to in any other time.
What do you
Dr. Jen Gunter: think, Jen? Um, well, I certainly could not watch when my children had the eye speculum in their eyes and they were having their retinopathy of prematurity exams. I was just like, oh my God, .
Kristin: Yeah. Do people ever vomit in your,
Will: oh, no. Come on. It’s not that bad.
Kristin: Oh, well, I kind of feel like I need to vomit right now.
Will: Okay. It’s, uh, it, it’s fine. You know, it’s a little bit more dramatic appearing when you’re actually, when you’re putting it a little. Cause we have pediatric speculums for, for right. Neon. So do we , there you go. Another similarity. Um, and, uh, and so the, the, uh, the kid ones are, it’s a little bit more dramatic appearing because the babies are so small and, and you just have this thing, it’s like really stretching their eyelids.
You know, this sounds like torture. Right. All right. Maybe we should move on to a, uh, uh, uh, to my first, um, uh, similarity here. I have dilation. Oh,
Dr. Jen Gunter: oh, very good. Very good.
Will: Very different types of dilation.
Kristin: You know, I’ve had both. Um, yours is worse in my eyeballs. Yeah. There’s no way. I hate that. Oh, I hate
Will: it so bad.
But, but yours is because it’s, uh, connected to contractions, it’s very painful.
Kristin: You know? I don’t think the dilation itself is painful, though. It’s the contraction. Sure. But I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, Jen, but I think
Dr. Jen Gunter: the, yeah, it’s dilation, the contractions that produce the dilation, right. Are, are that are the actual
Will: pain.
Here’s a question. What if ophthalmology eye, eye dilation was just as painful? ?
Kristin: Well, that’s why I’m saying like, the dilation in ophthalmology is painful. No, it’s not. Yeah. To me, I hate
Will: it. Oh, okay. So you’re, you’re sensitive to light. Yeah.
Kristin: Yeah. And, and I don’t like those drops that like numb your eyes. Your eyes shouldn’t, awful numb.
Yeah. It’s horrible.
Will: It’s horrible. Good. We’re, we’re hitting on all the worst parts of ophthalmology here. This ist Great. All right. What do you, what do you got, Jen? Your turn? Lubrication. Okay. Lubrication. Yes. Yeah, because we, we both take care of, uh, mucus membranes.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Yeah, right. Cute term too. And a dry eye is probably about, as is uncomfortable as dry vagina.
That’s
Will: true. Sure. We have artificial tears. You have, and we
Dr. Jen Gunter: have artificial,
Will: artificial tears for the vagina.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Yeah. We call them vaginal moisturizers, but yeah. Not artificial tears. That would be like, I know your vagina wants to cry, but it can’t, so here’s some tears. .
Will: Good.
Kristin: I like that. That should be the name of your next book.
Yeah.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Okay. .
Kristin: Vaginal tears. I know your vagina wants to cry.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Yeah. . But it can’t, it’s, but it can’t . Okay. I guess that’s what you’d say in, in response to a really bad sexual encounter. My vagina wants to cry, but it just can’t, it’s parched. Sorry.
Will: There you go. This is, uh, this is turning out better than I would’ve ever hoped.
Um, . I love it. Okay. All right. How about, um, gonorrhea?
Dr. Jen Gunter: Yes. Mm-hmm. ? Yeah. Ocular gonorrhea, cervical gonorrhea. Mm-hmm. rectal gonorrhea. Yes.
Will: It’s, uh, absolutely, it’s, it’s very, it’s probably more common, uh, in your field than it is in my field. I’ve, I’ve seen one case of it in my career so far. Uh, it’s always, um, it, it’s an interesting conversation to have.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Um, yeah, I mean it’s, this is one of those things where, you know, screening has made such a massive difference in getting people into prenatal care and then, you know, universal treating at birth. And obviously it’s one of those things that certain segments of the population be it, you know, Uber anti-vax or Uber right wing, you know, are trying to get rid of, you know, and I think people forget, you know, how many of these things that we take for granted, they’ve actually how they’ve helped people.
Yeah. I was gonna follow that up with chlamydia. Uh, there
Will: you go. I was, I was, I was, I was expecting to hear next, um, Kristen is just, is squirming is dying right now.
It’s
Kristin: so uncomfortable. , . But you know what, it’s all in the eyes. Like, I’m, I’m like, it’s the eye. Want to scratch my eyes. It’s the eye stuff for me.
I can’t do
Will: it. Ugh. It’s, it’s, um, you know, usually in, with, with chlamydia and gonorrhea, usually with, as far as ophthalmology goes, it’s conjunctivitis. So it’s, it’s lots of discharge. Okay. And God, Is it the discharge? Another similarity. Yeah.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Discharge. Right. There you go. Um, what were you gonna say with chlamydia?
I was gonna say with chlamydia isn’t there Cobbles, stoning underneath the mm-hmm. the eyelid. Do I remember
Will: that correctly? You, that’s correct. Absolutely. Uh, two breaths. And you’re gonna, you’ll make it through. We’re, we’re, we’re almost, I think this was the worst thing that I had on my list, or at least the most difficult for a non-medical person like you to listen to.
Um, and, uh, okay. So, so you’re okay. I’m in the interest of making sure Kristen wants to keep doing this podcast with me. . We will, um, we’ll move on. Um, okay. I only have like a couple more, uh, okay. That I could come up with. Um, is it my turn? I think it’s my turn. Yeah. You, I think it’s your turn. You did Chla.
Okay. Um, fund. Oh, that’s
Dr. Jen Gunter: a good word. Yay.
Kristin: I’ll be proud of myself. What’s a fundus?
Will: Fundus? It’s a, it’s an anatomic. Do I wanna term, uh, why don’t you, Jim, explain what the fundus is?
Dr. Jen Gunter: Your Yeah. The fundus is the sort of the top or the body of the uterus. So the uterine fundus. Yeah. So when we measure during pregnancy, we’re measuring the fundal height, right?
Yes,
Will: I remember that. And for me, the fundus is the back of the eyeball. The back of the eyeball. Yeah. So you’re looking at the retina, you’re looking at, you threw the pupil into the back of the eye. We just, we call that the, the fundus. The fundus exam. The fundoscopic exam is your, you’re using an, you’ve heard that term, sort
Kristin: of I halfway
Will: listening to you.
Sometimes she listens to what I have to say. Um, and, uh, so there you go. The fun it would, and there’s also a, a fundus in the stomach. There’s like multiple, uh, fun die. Yeah. The human body. I, I don’t know if there are other funess, uh, elsewhere, but at least that’s one that we have in common.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Yeah, I, that was a really good one.
That was the
Will: only like anatomic structure that I could come up with that is remotely similar between the two
Dr. Jen Gunter: Yeah. Of us. So. Okay. So, um, I was gonna go with, um, uh, blocked, uh, follicles, sebaceous, uh, glands. Things like, you get sts Yes, we get ingrown hairs, um, folliculitis, that kind of thing. That’s just,
Will: yeah, we can just do hair in general.
That’s a, that’s a, that’s a good one. Uh, we have, um, eyelashes. Eyelashes, yeah. Yeah, I guess eyebrow. I don’t know if
Kristin: I, I have one. I have one. Oh. Um, speaking of that, you both, well, I don’t know what they are technically called in, you know, gynecology, but you have the mites that I hate and I think you have Yes.
Will: Demodex something. We have, we have demodex
Dr. Jen Gunter: mites. Uh, we don’t have those, but pubic lice can affect the eyelashes. Oh God.
Will: Oh god. That’s true. That’s right. I’ve never seen that, but I it is. Exactly. Yeah. There you go. Thank you for bringing that up.
Kristin: You’re welcome. I’m I, yeah, a little surprised that that’s my contribution to today, but there you go.
Dr. Jen Gunter: So that’s the similarity that, that, that eyelashes are the same distance apart as pubic hair, which makes the ideal ecosystem for pubic li. Okay. I did not know that. You’re welcome everyone. I did not know that. Yeah, so it’s, so that’s why you can’t get pubic lice on other parts of your body because it needs the hair follicles that like the right jumping distance or something.
Yeah. Oh, nice. I mean, I’ve said that very eloquently. I know. Yeah,
Will: that’s good. Uh, that’s something I could, well, congratulations. I could bring up both with my patients. That’s good. Yeah.
Dr. Jen Gunter: That will totally make them feel comfortable as you’re coming really close.
Will: Did you know , this has nothing to do with you, but I just thought you might want to know about the, uh, the, you might get reported the migration patterns of pubic, uh, lice.
Yeah. . Um, so that’s a good one. That’s a good one. Okay. That is someone’s career by the. That’s fine. You know, we need, we need smart, hardworking people in the pubic life world. That’s of course, thank you, whoever you are. Um, okay. Ooh, I think I, there’s like one more. I have, um, um, anatomy that confuses people,
uh, because I don’t wanna speak for you Jim, but I know that, um, I, I see a lot of what you are talking about on social media, uh, at times is, uh, related to people very much, uh, misunderstanding and not really understanding, uh, female anatomy.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Yeah. I imagine it’s the same thing. People don’t, don’t know their sclera from their retina.
Will: Yes, exactly. And so, uh, uh, it’s, it’s, um, people don’t, also don’t know that whenever you lose a contact lens underneath the eyelid mm-hmm. , it’s not gonna go back into your brain. It’s, uh, you know, things like that. Mm-hmm. , um, it, it can’t, by the way, I don’t know. I assume you, you knew that that’s not the case?
Um,
Dr. Jen Gunter: well, I actually have a fear of contact lenses.
Will: Ooh. That’s a healthy fear to have. I, I actually encourage that. I think you do too. Even though you don’t wear them. I don’t, I I have a, a fear for a different reason. I see what goes wrong with contact lenses. Um, a lot of wrong. What’s your
fear,
Dr. Jen Gunter: Jen? What’s your fear?
Well, I, I, I literally can’t, like, I, the idea of putting a contact lens in my eye is like, makes me wanna vomit. Like touching your eye. The touching and fishing around and I, I can’t, I can’t put eyedrops in. So once I got like a splash in my eye, the way I dealt with it was I filled a sink with water. I can open my eyes underwater.
I put my face in the water and open my eyes and switch the Oh,
Kristin: that’s good. Very creative
Will: solution. You know, people come up with very interesting ways to, to get context in and out and, uh, but you’re not alone. There are a lot of people that just cannot. Touch come near their eye. In fact, um, I think Kristen, you mentioned, you know, do people throw up, you know, whenever I’m doing things to their eyes, they don’t throw up usually.
But I do have a lot of vaso vagal responses.
Kristin: Oh, hey, that might be another
Dr. Jen Gunter: that’s similar similarity. I was gonna go with vagal responses. Oh, there you go. Yeah. How does it come up for you? If you tug on the cervix, you can. Absolutely. So in the operating room, if we’re doing like a vaginal hysterectomy, I have absolutely had it with a, you know, an older patient where you go to pull on the cervix and all of a sudden you hear this boop boop.
And the anesthesiologist’s like, just stop what you’re doing, . And then boo boop, boo boo boo, boo boo. And then, He goes, okay, do it again. You tag again. Oh, interesting. Boo boo. Uh, nope, sorry. That’s just not gonna be happening. So, um, you know, you know, but it, but yeah, so vagal response from stimulating the cervix.
And that’s why, you know, some people probably find, some people hate the feel of pap smears. Mm-hmm. , other people like the brush. Other people don’t notice it at all. You know, we’re all wire. Same with the eyeballs. Probably some people can tolerate a lot more touching than others.
Will: Yeah. There, there are two situations which we’ll get a, like a vagal response.
Uh, one is, is just in the process of doing an eye exam, like coming near someone’s eye, just. You know, you can see it. They start getting real sweaty. Oh, Uhhuh, . They just kind of like, I’m looking through a microscope, their head is in the mic, and all of a sudden their head just disappears. And I look over and they’re just kind of slumped over in the chair.
And then we get the ice packs out, we, we lay ’em back and, you know, they’re smelling salts. Yeah. They, they do okay after that. But then the other one is similar to what you talked about with, you know, moving the cervix around is, uh, um, eye muscles. So, um, oh, so with like extraocular muscle entrapment, like if you have an orbital fracture and one of the muscles around the eye, usually it’s the inferior rectus, the one on the bottom part of the eyelet of the eye, it gets trapped in that fracture and starts pull.
Then, um, then that can cause a dramatic decrease in heart rate. Well, now that we’ve lost all of our lists, there you go. That’s awful. Uh, I, I think, I don’t know. I, I think I had hit on all of my similarities. Can you think of
Dr. Jen Gunter: any more? Yeah, I mean, my last one was gonna be just like the close personal nature of the exams.
Will: Yes. Yes. Very much so.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Very close. Because nowhere else in medicine is it, like that close, you know, . Yes, very
Will: true. Where in fact, both windows to
Kristin: the soul . Yes,
Will: exactly. . That’s good. I, I, I think, I think we found more than I thought we would.
Kristin: That’s pretty good. Pretty, they’re all disgusting. And I think you two might be sociopaths, but aside
Dr. Jen Gunter: from that, it was fun.
I’ll take it . Hey, I’ll take it. Sure.
Will: Well, uh, Jen, thank you so much. This was so much fun. Uh, we just love talking to you. Thank you for joining us. Uh, and before that we, before we wrap up, uh, tell us what you’re, what’s going on in your life? What, do you have any projects you’re doing, books you’re.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Yeah, so I’m working on my fourth book, um, which is called Blood, the, uh, blood, the Science, medicine, and Mythology of Menstruation.
Kristin: Yeah, badly needed right now, I think.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Awesome. And, uh, yeah. When is it coming up? September. September. September. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Okay. And then, um, I’ll be working, I think hopefully on the next series of my podcast body stuff next year. Maybe we should do an eye episode. Ooh,
Will: I would love that. I, any chance I can to, like I told myself I wouldn’t try to talk about eyeballs too much in this, in this podcast.
Uh, I think I probably overdid it a little bit with the eyeball stuff, but anyway. Um, and then where can people find
Dr. Jen Gunter: you? Yeah, they can find me. Well while Twitter’s still afloat, um, they can find me there. Uh, Dr. Jen Gunter on Instagram, Dr. Jen Gunter TikTok, Dr. Jen Gunter masked on Dr. Jen Gunter on the med social in, uh, instance, I think they call it.
And um, my blog is called The Agenda. There
Will: you go. That’s the perfect name. That’s l I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much. This is a pleasure. I appreciate
Dr. Jen Gunter: you. Thank you guys for having me so much, and I wish you all the success. You too. Oh, thank you too. Take care.
Will: Thanks again to Jen Gunther. That was great. That was so much fun.
Kristin: She’s, she’s the best. I really like her. I, I look up to her a lot. Yeah,
Will: me too. Yeah. Um, and so before we go, uh, we’re gonna, uh, take a look, uh, at some of the favorite, um, some of our favorite medical stories that were sent in by listeners. Uh, and so we got a couple good ones today.
Um, so, uh, here’s the first one. Uh, I’m just gonna read it off. I broke my knee playing basketball when I was in college, but the funny part is, it happened when I was stoned. Oh, dear. So after I landed, I knew it hurt, but I was so high. I started laughing. Nobody believed me since I was hysterically laughing.
But luckily, somebody who was there was a nurse, thank God. Uh, they saw the blood fill my knee. A friend brought me to the hospital and then I was on crutches for three to six
Kristin: months. That’s a fun one to explain to your mother.
Will: That’s also, uh, uh, quite an endorsement of marijuana as of nurses. Yes. But, uh, for a marijuana as a pain management.
Yeah. . There you go. Why cry when you can laugh Hysterically. . I love that. That’s great. Um, let’s see. Here is, uh, uh, the second story here. My husband was in the hospital and wanted candy after his surgery, but you’re not supposed to have candy after surgery. He threw up blue candy all over himself. , ladies and gentlemen, that is why you’re not supposed to have candy after
Kristin: surgery.
I love that. It was blue too. Like it was just, it’s like when you’re at the store and you buy clothes and you walk out with the ink thing and it explodes everywhere, right? Where you, when you try to take it off yourself. I feel like that’s like, that, like a, like a, you know, alarm that lets everybody know that you did this thing you weren’t
Will: supposed to do.
There’s, there’s so much, uh, time and energy that goes into making sure patients. Um, either eat or drink or don’t eat or don’t drink around surgery. Yeah. And like we’re, it’s so confusing. It’s confusing, right? It’s, it’s like, uh, there’s this like eight hour limit, but then, you know, within two hours you can have sips of water or, or an ice chips or, and it is like, it, it’s just, yeah.
There’s so much into it. Go. That goes into it. And as a, on the surgeon side, um, it’s uh, you know, one of the classic conflicts, uh, between surgery and seizures, whether or not patients have to get.
Dr. Jen Gunter: Because
Kristin: they ate something. Or
Will: ice chips. Yeah. Uh, well maybe not ice chips, but just blue candy. Exactly.
Kristin: I have so many questions too.
Like, like where did he get the candy? Like, did this person give him the candy? It kind of sounds like, you know, yeah. The
Will: person, uh, it’s, it does sound like, like are they, maybe the person knew
Kristin: better, are they implicit in this crime? Or did they just let this person suffer their own natural consequences?
I’m, I have so many questions.
Will: I could see that the husband being very persistent and, and the, the, the spouse saying, you know, to hell with it. Yeah. Whatever. If you wanna do this, this is on you. All right. I’m not gonna clean up your blue vomit. Right. , uh, and so, uh oh, I love those.
All right. Well thank you so much for those. You can send us your stories, uh, in a couple different ways. You can reach out to us on social media. Uh, I’m, you know, just search Dr. Glock, flecking on pretty much any social media platform. Uh, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, uh, and, uh, lady Glock Flecking. That’s right on Twitter.
Twitter, uh, you can send us your stories there, um, or you can email us at knock knock high@humancontent.com. Knock knock high human-content.com. Send us your weird, amazing, funny, outrageous, uh, harrowing stories, uh, about, uh, your time, uh, as a medical professional in the medical field, whatever interacting with the healthcare system.
Yeah, yeah. Uh, anything you want, you want to belittle, uh, health insurance companies, I’m all for it. And so, uh, uh, yeah, I think that was, that was a great, great episode. Great interview with with Jen. We enjoyed it. Let us know. Let us know what you think we want to. Feedback from you guys. This is, uh, we we’re, we’re taking you all as the audience on this journey with us.
Do you, do you have your, a favorite doctor or a person who, uh, pretends to be a doctor on TV or whatever it is? Anybody that you think, uh, that we should interview and talk with and play games with? Yes. Yeah, game ideas, anything we’re up for, uh, uh, really, you know, whatever you guys have in mind. So let us know.
Um, hit us up on social media, um, or with email. And, um, uh, I just also want to thank all the listeners. Thank you everybody for, for being here with us, for leaving feedback, leaving reviews. We also appreciate this is a new podcast. We’re getting started here. And so, uh, if you wanna leave a review, um, on, uh, any of wherever you’re listening to the podcast, uh, and, um, if you subscribe to us and comment about, uh, um, you know, either on, on, uh, YouTube or wherever you find, uh, this podcast.
Um,
Kristin: can give you a shout out if you like this podcast. You might check out some of the others by, um, our friends at Human Content. Mm-hmm. . Um, so you can, you can find them too on Instagram and TikTok.
Will: Full episodes of this podcast will be up every week on YouTube at Dr. D Glock Flecking. Uh, we also have a Patreon with lots of cool perks.
They’re gonna be bonus episodes where we, I don’t do things like react to medical shows and movies, uh, you know, making fun of the medicine they’re in, um, hanging out with, um, other members of the Knock-knock high community. Uh, we’re gonna be active in it. We’re gonna be interacting, posting, responding to comments.
Um, also, uh, as a member of the Patreon, uh, you’ll get early ad-free episode access, uh, and then interactive q and a livestream events. They’re just, we’re always coming up with new ideas. Uh, and so, uh, we’re excited about this. So check out the Patreon. Um, at patreon.com/glock flecking. Yeah, you can, they
Kristin: can come make fun of you
Will: with me.
That’s true. Yeah. I’m always, I’m, I, I welcome heckling, please. Uh, you can also go to our website. So thank you for listening. We are your host, will and Kristen Flannery, also known as the Glock Flecking. Special, uh, thanks to our guest, Dr. Jen Gunter. Um, our executive producers, Aron Korney. Rob Goldman. Shanti Brooke, our editor and engineer, Jason Porto.
Uh, our music is by, um, Omer. Ben-Zvi. Okay,
Kristin: so here’s all the legal stuff here, doctor, not a lawyer. So let’s see if you can do it. Should I
Will: try to do it as fast as I can? Yeah, do it as fast as you can because this is not gonna be the most popular
Kristin: part of, and they usually, you know, in those legal things, they, they speak like 10 x.
All right, here we
Will: go. I’ll do it. To learn about our Knock-knock Highs program and disclaimer and ethics policy submission verification, and licensing terms and HIPAA release terms, you can go to glock flecking.com or reach out to us at Knock-Knock high@humancontent.com with any questions, concerns, or fun medical puns.
You did it. Knock dot High is a human content production. I think I did that quite well. I, I,
Kristin: that was okay? Yeah. Okay. Solidly C plus. It’s C plus. All right. We’ll go with that. Maybe as we go, you’ll get better.
Will: Thank you for being here with us and we look forward to seeing you next time.
