Transcript
Will: [00:00:00] Today’s episode is brought to you by Microsoft Dragon copilot, your AI assistant for clinical workflow. To learn more about how Dragon copilot can transform the way you work, stick around after the episode or visit aka.ms/knock knock high. That’s aka.ms/knock knock. Hi.
Kristin: Hey Will. Hey. What’s up? I’ve been thinking the US healthcare system, it needs some improvement.
Will: Yeah, it’s, it’s, there’s room for improvement
Kristin: for sure. Yeah. It’s a confusing, scary place for everybody involved.
Will: Absolutely.
Kristin: Physicians, families, patients, everybody.
Will: Everybody. And I’ve experienced it from both sides, right? I’m a physician. I’ve also been a patient, so I wanted to use my platform to give people practical education.
Really the only way that I know how. By making jokes. So Dr. Glaucomflecken really fun and super uplifting guide to American Healthcare is out and it’s a free resource that includes all my videos from the 30 Days of Healthcare series, [00:01:00] alongside deeper explanations, also reliable facts. Emphasis on reliable.
Yes. Alright. Uh, uh, figures, uh, numbers, insights into how each of us can fight for a more humane, better healthcare system. Also, it has jokes. Did you mention the jokes? I did. I jokes. Okay. Yes, definitely jokes. Well,
Kristin: this guide is great for anyone looking to learn more about US healthcare, but especially if you are experiencing it from the clinician side for the first time.
That’s right. We really hope you’ll check it out.
Will: Get the free guide sent straight to your inbox by signing up for our mailing list. Glaucomflecken.com/healthcare. Enjoy.
Knock, knock,
knock, knock. Hi.
Hey everybody. Welcome to Knock, knock High with the [00:02:00] Glaucomfleckens. Over here we have Kristin Flanary, also known as Lady Glaucomflecken.
Kristin: Yes. And you are Will Flanary, also known as Dr. Glaucomflecken. Did you think of a
Will: different, like you settled on Lady
Kristin: Uhhuh?
Will: Is there, is there, like, did you have a, a few options, things you were trying to decide between?
Kristin: Ooh, this was a long time ago and I never thought it would turn into an actual thing, so it was like a joke. It was just meant to be a joke. A lady. Yes. Because a, I am there, there is a lady,
[music]: right,
Kristin: right. Of the couple, but also. It felt like a title. Right? Because I don’t have doctor
Will: like Royal or something, so I needed
Kristin: a title.
Will: You didn’t wanna be to go along
Kristin: with Dr. Glaucomflecken.
Will: You didn’t wanna be Mrs. Glaucomflecken. I mean,
Kristin: technically I could be master, but nobody uses that and it’s got some negative connotations, master Glock that I would want to avoid.
Will: Yeah, master Glaucomflecken would’ve been a bad business move, I think. Yes.
Kristin: Right. So, you know, settled on Lady, it felt that’s good. Uh, it felt right. That’s good.
Will: I’m excited about our guest today.
Kristin: Me too. I always love hanging out with him.
Will: Kaveh [00:03:00] Hoda. Of, uh, of the House of pod fame.
Kristin: Right.
Will: Great podcast.
Kristin: Really good podcast. He, he really,
Will: he is a, he was like made to be a podcaster.
Yeah. I like, uh, I feel like, like, at least for me, I like in
Kristin: fact, what are you all doing listening to this podcast? Go jam my way. Go listen to his,
Will: into the podcasting world and just figured it on the fly. He’s like, I, I just, I’m very impressed by his podcast.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Um, and, um, I’ve been before and he was one of
Kristin: the original medical podcasters.
Will: Yeah. There were only a few. Uh, he is been doing it for quite a bit longer than we have. Yeah. And, um, and so he is got a nice little, uh, array of, of different, uh, eclectic
Kristin: Yes. Array knows guests, he knows everybody to people from the music world and
Will: the comedian world and everything. Yep. We did talk about, uh, butts.
Kristin: Well, he is a gastroenterologist, so you can’t avoid it.
Will: Yeah, absolutely. You can’t, you can’t get back. He did correct me. I felt bad. I I, I did start talking about poop again. Mm-hmm. And he had to remind me that he is not a poop specialist.
Kristin: That’s right. Yeah.
Will: Very rarely in [00:04:00] there are other doctors that are more poop adjacent.
Kristin: Right. You know why? I think everyone, uh, just like talks about poop with gi eye because it’s the well, because I think that’s what people are like afraid of. Right. You don’t wanna go to a doctor and have a poop problem and you don’t wanna get a colonoscopy and do all that poop prep. Right. Have ever been
Will: to the doctor for a poop problem?
Kristin: No, I haven’t. And I would like to keep it that way.
Will: It took our daughter there for a poop problem. Okay.
Kristin: Well she probably won’t appreciate you sharing that with the world.
Will: Oh. And, you know, 20 years when she listens to this episode, our kids will never listen to this podcast. Are you kidding me? No, they
Kristin: won’t.
That’s true. Podcasting.
Will: Will podcasting even be around
Kristin: in 20 years? That’s a good question.
Will: What’s, what’s going to be the next thing? This podcasting wasn’t around Back to
Kristin: radio.
Will: Just, it’s be a, well, it’s like, it’s like a podcast, but it’s on the radio. Yeah,
[music]: exactly. What
Will: is that? All right, well, [00:05:00] let’s just not, uh, delay this any longer.
All right. Let’s, let’s, let’s get, it is a great conversation. A lot of fun here is Dr. Kaveh Hoda.
Hey, Kristin. Yeah. I’ve been, you know, grossing you out about these dex mites, although I’m not sure why they look like adorable. Well,
Kristin: these are cute, but it’s the real ones that kind of freak me out a little bit.
Will: Yeah. But I have some new facts to share with you. Oh, great. About Dex.
Kristin: Alright.
Will: These mites have likely lived with us for millions of years.
Oh. Yeah. Does that make you feel better?
Kristin: No.
Will: Like they’re passed down through close contact, especially between mothers and babies.
Kristin: Oh, wow. Such a special gift for our daughters.
Will: They’re born, they live, they crawl around, and then they die on your eyelids and in your lash follicles. Their entire life cycle lasts about two to three weeks, all spent on your eyelids.
Kristin: Well, thank you for that. This
Will: isn’t helping, is it?
Kristin: No. How do I get rid of them?
Will: Well, it’s, it’s, it’s fun to gross you out, but we do have all of these, it’s really common, but there is a [00:06:00] prescription eye drop to help with these now.
Kristin: Okay.
Will: That probably excites you.
Kristin: That makes me feel better.
Will: Yes. Any way to get rid of them, right?
That’s
Kristin: right.
Will: All right.
Kristin: Sign me up.
Will: Visit Mights love lids to learn more about Dex Blep, which is the, the disease that these little guys. Mm-hmm. Cause mm-hmm. Sure. Again, that’s M-I-T-E-S. Love Lids. L-O-V-E-L-I-D s.com. To learn more about Demodex and Dex Blepharitis and how you can get rid of it.
All right. Kave, you’re here. I am. I think you’re our, you might be our first.
Kristin: You say this for every repeat guest.
Will: Oh, I’m trying to make Why? You have
Kristin: to tell me.
Will: I didn’t, I to know. I was trying to make him feel special. Yeah. But the audience know. I was gonna say he’s first call you, he’s first repeat gastroenterologist.
Kristin: Okay. I think that is true. That’s true. I think to hope.
Will: I was gonna say I be a friend of the pod here. Kaveh. Yes. And, um, we, we’ve talked a few times I’ve been on your [00:07:00] podcast and, uh, you’re known to curse, uh, you know, here and there, and
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I can.
Will: And I, and I, so you asked, before we started recording, you’re like, is it okay?
I was like, just be yourself, whatever. We can always, if it’s something egregious, you know, we’ll just never invite you back. It’s not a big deal.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Fair. Fair. But, uh, why would you wanna invite me back? I mean, there’s so many reasons for you to never invite me on the first place,
Will: much less. But lemme tell you because like I, people always assume like I never curse.
Right. Which is not true. Like, I curse in real life. Yeah. But,
Kristin: uh, yeah, just ask our children.
Will: But the, I’ll tell you the reason why I don’t, and I’ve gotten in the habit of not cursing in my content is because one time I was at a conference and, uh, a doc came up to me with his two little children. Oh. And they acted out one of my skits.
Oh boy.
[music]: Oh boy. In
Will: front of me, oh boy. At this like nice dinner. And I was like, oh man, I didn’t realize like little kids, kids, children are watching. Yeah. Kids watch my content. So ever since then I was like, let me, I’ll tone, I’ll just, you know, [00:08:00] censor myself a little bit. But they probably don’t listen to podcasts.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I, I mean, and there’s so much worse stuff that they’re probably being exposed to. I feel like that is true. It’s true. I feel like you’d steal no matter what you did. Whatever you did, would still be probably the least worst thing that they’re getting from YouTube.
Will: You’re probably right.
Kristin: Probably.
Will: I gotta ask, what is this?
So, you know, for those of you who may be watching this on YouTube, what’s the disc thing? There’s a disc. Oh, this thing, thing around, in a case in a, in a old looking
Kristin: case, it looks ancient. Is that didn’t hexagonal? I couldn’t tell
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: if you could see that from my, so this is called the Daft, it’s a Persian drum.
Kristin: Oh. Oh.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I, I don’t think the sound will come across, but it’s like this. Oh, it looks like
Kristin: a great big tambourine though. Without the, like a
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: great big tambourine. Yeah. Okay.
Will: I don’t know if you could, can you hear that? Yeah, absolutely. This is a podcast. We can hear audio fairly well.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Yeah. But sometimes it cuts out like at least, you know.
That’s good. Anyway, so that’s, that’s a d
Kristin: That’s cool. And it’s got little, are those chains on the back? [00:09:00] Can’t tell. Yeah. It’s like little, little
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: rain, little metal rings. These are called frick and fracks.
Kristin: Fricken fracks. All right.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Um, I’m just making that up. I don’t know. They’re g going with it. Locum flecking.
Yes. Yeah, they’re little Glock fecking all around and they help, uh, these little texture for the sound.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: What’s the, uh, were you just hoping I would ask about that? Is that why you just set that up in the background? You displayed it
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: nicely. I, I have it always in the back, uh, waiting for somebody to ask and you’re the first person to do it.
Well, this is also like, I don’t, you’re like me. Maybe I don’t have a studio space where I do my stuff. So this is a guest room slash music room. So my guitars are over here, right? All my instruments are here. So I do like recording stuff in this room as well for music. So all my stuff is here.
Will: That’s how you know so many music.
You always have musicians that you’re talking to. Yeah, because he’s a musician. But what’s, so gimme the background. Where have you, are you in a band? Are you.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I wouldn’t call myself a musician. I consider myself an entertainer.
Kristin: Okay. [00:10:00]
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: But I have at times played a musical instrument. So I have been in a band, I’ve been in a band since college, since like the first year of college.
Will: I have to assume it’s some kind of pun related to medicine.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Um, no. ’cause up until recently there was, I was the only doctor in the band. Okay, gotcha. Um, although the, the, the band, so I’ve been with a bunch of bands over time. Yeah. But the one that I’ve been with the longest, the name changed about 10 years ago to the Resurrection Men, which does have a medical connection.
Will: Yeah. Do you know what it is? All I know of is that, uh, the hospital I, I went to, I did my intern year at the hospital called Resurrection Medical Center, but I’m sure that’s not it.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: That’s not it. Although that’s pretty cool that you did that sounds like a good, like TV show. It does Resurrection Medical.
Yeah. Yeah. But so back in the old days, Victorian England, like when they were studying cadavers and stuff and there’s like these guys like working on the bodies. They got the bodies because people would dig [00:11:00] bodies up and bring them to them to do called Resurrection Men. Those were the, that was the name of those guys.
So, but it has given, or people do think our band is like a religious band because of that, which it is not. So I don’t recommend going that route for other people. Um, so I play guitar mostly. Uh Okay. And we’re, we’re still playing. We have a gig coming up in June, June 28th. Nice. At the Hotel Utah in San Francisco.
If you’re in the area. That’s awesome. And now is
Will: this a Persian guitar?
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: This is a Persian, very Persian guitar. Okay. No, it’s, uh, American guitar or western guitar. I’m not sure. I wish I could play the guitar. That’d be rad. Yeah. But there’s a lot of strings on that and six is already too many for me. So that’s,
Will: I mean, you’re only a gastroenterologist after all.
I’m a simple man. Your finger
Kristin: dexterity is
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: not, have you seen what I do for a living?
Will: Very basic stuff. You see? Yeah. You jam cameras up people. That’s exactly what I do. So, yeah. There’s not a lot of dexterity. No. There. Uh, I wanna ask you, have you seen the pit?
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I have not, but that is something I, [00:12:00] everyone tells me it’s really good.
People are saying it’s really like accurate. Accurate, right. And it does sort of play on not just the medical accuracy, but like the emotional pathos that, of like working through Covid, et cetera. So I am very curious to why is it good? I I’m too,
Will: well, so I, I haven’t watched, I’ve just seen little clips of it.
I haven’t watched a whole episode of it yet, but I hear the same thing. And I actually saw a post from an emergency doc who was like, um, you know. Er was the show that made a lot of people like fall in love with emergency medicine. Yeah. And like wanting to, to maybe even become an emergency physician. The pit is like the last thing you want to show to like incoming, to like a med student too.
Real. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it’s too, too real. It’s too real. It’s like, uh, you know, the, all the worst possible things that, that you can encounter in an emergency setting. Which, but, but it is accurate, right? Yeah. Which caught me thinking. Um, I think [00:13:00] people, because the, the most recent episode apparently showed like a birth.
Like, uh, with this showed it. Wow. Yeah. Like the baby emerging from the vaginal canal. Yeah. Yeah. And like, apparently I saw some still, I mean, I haven’t watched it yet, but, um, the whatever prosthetics they use. Wow. Yeah. Like it, it looked,
Kristin: can you imagine if that’s your job to make those prosthetics, you’re like, how did I get here?
Thought gonna say be
Will: obgyn. And, and so, but what got me thinking, what, what we haven’t seen yet in a medical show is, um, uh, is a, a visceral, realistic evacuation of the bowels.
Kristin: Yeah. Oh,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: someone taking a dump, is what you’re saying. Oh, no, we haven’t seen that on tv. Well,
Will: I mean, in no uncertain terms. Yeah. I mean,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I feel like there’s laws against
Will: that.
Yeah. Um, think about what happens in the, there’s dis impactions that are happening, like. You’re, you’re, if you’re gonna be realistic, you’re gonna show all the things that happened there. I mean, Katie
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Couric did have a colonoscopy on tv, which is [00:14:00] like about as close as I think it’s gonna get. Oh, that must have
Will: been a big day in,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: in gi.
Do you not
[music]: remember?
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: No. Now
Will: he’s saying, I
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: do remember that, but No, but I wanna address what you’re doing here. Lemme see. Lemme tell you what you’re doing here. Okay. What am I doing? What you’re doing is like the whole GI doctor, our focus is poop. I want you to understand, okay. I am not a tologist. I’m not a physiologist.
I am a gastroenterologist. I don’t study poop. Okay? Poop is sometimes something that we have to deal with, correct? Sometimes there are physical ailments or there’s problems regarding poop, but I don’t study poop. I deal with the GI system. I would say. Is just a hobby for you? I would say just a sidekick. I would say the the typical ER doctor deals with poop way more than I have to deal with.
That’s totally fair. That makes sense. Yeah.
Kristin: Yeah.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Okay. Fair enough. All right.
Kristin: Yeah, he’s calling. I feel like that’s a soapbox. Hey, he really was passionate about that. I’m
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: here to defend my fellow GI [00:15:00] brethren and sistern against Jesus. Malicious attacks on the merchants.
Will: Fair enough. Well, wait, I guess we could, I mean, what have you, what’s the most invasive thing you’ve done in an emergency department as a gastroenterologist?
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Oh, we, we scope people in, in the er, not infrequently. I mean, you just bring your little. Little al scope or, well, we have, we have like a whole tower and it, it’s not easy. It’s not like we just walk in like an ENT doctor does and they open up like a case and they like, you know, we have to have a big tower with our equipment on it and it has like a camera on it, at least one if not two TV screens.
And it’s a whole setup. So it’s not an easy process to do. It takes a little bit of time to get it going. But yeah, in the ER there’s people with big bleeds sometimes you can’t get them to the ICU or stabilizing. You have to do it there. More commonly, the most common thing I would say that we get called to the ER for is if somebody has something stuck in them, usually from above.
Oh, usually like someone’s got something stuck in their esophagus. Mm-hmm. And we kind of wanna get it going. They don’t really need to be admitted [00:16:00] most times for that. You can usually get it going and then get through and then deal with follow up stuff as you need later. But that’s probably the most common thing that we actually do in, in the invasive wise, in the er.
So like esophageal
Will: foreign bodies? Yeah.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Or yeah.
Kristin: So like when our daughter. Aspirated and then coughed up and then swallowed a piece of her extender when she got her braces off. Yes. That would’ve been you.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I have gotten, gotten, uh, extenders and I’ve gotten, uh, actually this is gonna, this is gonna terrify your listeners ’cause this is only something I’ve experienced twice, but it’s happened into the last two years.
Someone’s going to the dentist, they’re getting their work done, and the dental drill, a piece of it falls off and gets swallowed, which I’d never seen before, but now I’ve seen it now twice. It’s another little thing to make you freak out about going to the dentist. Yeah. But um, button batteries too,
Will: that’s a thing, right?
Yeah,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: mostly kids. I don’t do that much stuff
Will: with kids, but yeah, that is, that’s a risk. What, how do you grab it? That’s like what, how? Um, [00:17:00] because the scopes that I’ve seen, they’re just. They come to an a point at the end. Is
Kristin: it like one of those, uh, games that the arcade, the claw game game, c claw game and you just does pick it up?
That’s exactly what it’s like. It drops a thousand times.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Um, it, it’s actually not that far off. We have like, the scope is a long, flexible tube for your listeners, and at the end of that long flexible tube, there’s a camera and a light on it, but there’s also some channels that we can work things through.
And so we can put in nets, we can put in grabbers, we can put in snares. We have all kinds of fun stuff, huh? Yeah. That’s a fun gig. People, you guys should, I, I did a rotation. Young people, listen,
Will: gi I did a rotation and I, I actually really liked it. And you’re right, there wasn’t a lot of fecal matter involved.
Uh, I watched a lot of, of colonoscopies. It was just the rounding that I, yeah, so I, I think I had a very, the, the, the chief resident was just very much into rounding. I think maybe I just got, you know, a bad. Surrounding experience? Mm. Like as far as length of [00:18:00] time? Right. Yeah.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I would say actually that’s probably not the case with most GI doctors.
Yeah. I think most GI doctors went into this field ’cause they didn’t wanna do nephrology, and they were like, they want to do procedures, do their stuff and get going. So for good or bad, I would say most GI doctors and I, I do a lot more liver stuff, you know, than most GI docs do and biliary stuff. So that sometimes does require more rounding.
But I think a lot of GI docs, they’re like, let me do the case and just let me do the, put my hands in people. Let me just do that real quick.
Will: Well, this, this chief resident I worked with also would wear, um, dress pants and a scrub top.
Kristin: Interesting choice.
Will: Terrible, terrible person. Not okay. Yeah. It’s a bad person overall.
I, yeah. That’s a lot of red flags there. I didn’t know if it was a i for a long time I thought, I just thought it was a GI thing.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: No, it’s absolutely not. And now I feel like you could have been a great GI doctor. Had you had a better experience.
Will: I didn’t, Mike. ’cause I, it’s, you know, it’s obviously very different from ophthalmology, [00:19:00] but we also have like a, like half clinic Yeah.
Or clinical half surgery. Right, right, right. And so, you know, there’s, I don’t know though, it, it’s still a lot of hospital I Mm. Kave hospitals. Yeah. They, they smell bad. They’re, yeah,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: they’re, well yo happens in them right. No. What? Like people die, people get sick. Oh yeah. That’s right’s puking. There’s vomiting, there’s blood.
Yeah, there’s lots of blood. I don’t,
Will: I don’t deal with any of that stuff. You’re
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: smart, smart man. But I’m, but I will say, I mean, I don’t know. It has its moments. It’s fun. I mean like, so you,
Will: you, you could have been a nephrologist,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: is that what you’re saying? No, no, no. Although I did come close, I considered dermatology at one point.
Oh, did you? Which is like very different from my experience and I’m glad I didn’t pick it. No offense to dermatologists. Fantastic stuff. They do. But GI was the right choice for me. But there was a moment when I thought about, you know, derm and Yeah. Skin. And, and I, every now and then when I’m woken up at like three in the morning, I, I, you’re like, what, [00:20:00] what could life, if this was a derm, yeah.
Probably would not have happened if I was a dermatologist. But you’re certainly
Will: beautiful enough to be a dermatologist.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Thank you. That is, that is my real concern. My real concern wouldn’t, my real concerns was a, was that people would look at me and be like, how are you, my dermatologist? Like, I make sense as a gastroenterologist.
Like this guy likes to eat and like, sure, I like to eat. I want to help eating, so let me go to this guy. So dermatology, they’d be like, this is,
Will: you do kind of need, I think it does help to look like your specialty.
Kristin: Oh, well how do you.
Will: Well, uh, well, I mean, I’ve, um, I don’t know. I don’t think you do. I said that I didn’t, I didn’t through eyes.
You very pretty. Yeah. Well,
Kristin: yeah. Yeah.
Will: Well, it’s funny, I say ’cause we had a, I had an attending as a cornea attending. Mm-hmm. And he always, uh, had just
[music]: nice corneas,
Will: excellent tear film, corn, his eyelids nice, long eyelashes, just amazing. So, I don’t know, I think it helps. And dermatologists, they all have wonderful, like, amazing skin.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. [00:21:00] And they, they’re keeping all their secrets to themselves.
Kristin: What specialists would I be?
Will: I think
Kristin: you, based on these,
Will: uh, you, I gotta be very careful with how I answer this question. Yeah. I’m curious to know how you handle this one. Certainly, uh, uh, absolutely a pathologist,
Kristin: Uhhuh. Okay. Thanks a lot.
Will: Maybe radiology.
Kristin: No,
Will: no, he’s putting me in the basement. I’m out. You can’t be in the basement. You can’t be in the, um, you could do dermatology. You gotta get, you
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: know, you have a skincare routine. That’s, I do. That’s pretty impressive. You could do that. You could definitely do that. I could see you. And this, I’m biased because I’ve heard you talk so much about, you know, the, the psychological strain mm-hmm.
That happens to patients’ families, you know, yes. When their loved ones sick. But clearly I think like psychiatry or something in the mental health would, would also make sense for you. But I’m a little biased because of what I’ve heard you already kind of cover. Well, it’s not too
Kristin: far from what I did study, which is why I speak to that all the time.
So you’re not wrong.
Will: He’s, he put more thought into that than I. He did.
Kristin: Yeah. Who’s
Will: [00:22:00] the better husband? You just drink your little drink there. Okay. You just, you have your, your little whatever, whatever. Whatcha are you drinking? Whatever. Persian apple juice. You’re tea. Oh, okay. There you go. There you go. Um, all right.
So Kaveh. The match just recently happened. Now this is, this episode’s gonna come out in April, so it’d be a, a few weeks old, but, um, this is match week when we’re recording this and, uh, and so do you remember your match?
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I do, yeah. I remember pretty clearly.
Will: How did it tell me about it.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: You know, I, I have to be honest with you, I, I don’t, I didn’t have a great match day.
No, I, no, I, I didn’t like. I, I didn’t get my number one pick, which again, in the long run, I’m very happy with where I went, um, and how things landed for me. But I had real concerns about whether or not I had made the right pick, um, made the right selection, and whether or not I was making the right choices.
So there was a lot of like doubt, I had a lot of concern. In terms
Will: [00:23:00] of specialty or just the location, the, the, your match list
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: a little bit. Both. I decided I really wanted to work at like a county hospital, something that, where I got a good vibe off of the people I was feeling very punk rock, Johnny Cash at the time.
And I was like, I need to be working with the people. I don’t wanna work in like a academic, two academic institution. Right? And so, and then I was like, oh, but I also want to do gi so maybe that wasn’t a great idea. So, so it, it was a little, I was a little concerned. Yeah. Um, and then of course it’s hard when you’re like that and you see everyone else like.
Losing their minds with joy and that that could hurt, you know? So I, I remember that pretty clearly. I remember, and again, if there’s no lesson to learn here from someone who might be listening to this and didn’t get their top pick, I am super happy with the way things ended up for me. And they ended up working out very well.
I’m not even one of these people who’s like, everything happens for a reason. I don’t sure, I don’t even believe that. But I do believe that you’re going to have great potential no [00:24:00] matter where you go if you put in the time you put in the effort. So I do think, I do think that, um, it’s a, it’s a bit stressful.
Uh, uh did you guys not, was yours stressful?
Will: Uh, you know, mine. Different. I wouldn say it was different, that stressful. I also didn’t get my top choice. Yeah. Um, I got my second choice, which is Iowa. My first choice was Michigan, and I only ranked that higher because it had a better, uh, uh, ultimate Frisbee scene.
That was the only reason.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Wait, wait, wait. No,
Kristin: no. He’s not even joking. Kidding, please. I’m not. That’s not, no, that is, I’m not true.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: You made your career decisions based around ultimate Frisbee. Of course. Yeah. Where did hacky sack play into your decision making?
Will: I know I, I’m a, like a, a standup comedian, uh, play ultimate Frisbee.
What the hell am I doing in medicine? Comedy? I don’t know. Uh, no, I I, it’s true. I could not, I I loved both programs so much and I understood. Put that up there because they did, they had better Frisbee.
[music]: Geez.
Will: And, uh, and so I was honestly [00:25:00] very much fine with, with ending up at Iowa. Yeah. Um, but did you open an envelope?
Kristin: Yeah, we had a different match experience. Because you were ophthalmology.
Will: Well, yeah, I, that’s right. ’cause ophthalmology, we find out, we find out like two months early. Oh, it was like January. Yeah. And
Kristin: you just like, you just open an email at your house, right? Oh, no. Like there’s no pomp and circumstance.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Ours was, there’s a big, like room big. All the medical students are there. There’s like a talk, there’s a speech, and then there’s, everyone gets their envelopes and then you open ’em up right there in front of everyone and everyone looks to you and they’re like, Hey,
[music]: hey,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: how, how are you? And you’re like, you did one at a
Will: time.
Like
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: each person? No, everyone opened at the same
Will: time. Okay, okay. Because our class we it at Dartmouth. Where’d you go to med school or uc? Davis. Yeah. So I don’t know how big your class was. We had like 70 people in our class at Dartmouth. It was a very small class. Yeah. So we did, everybody went up one at a time.
[music]: Oh no. In front of a big, to the front of the room. Was this a
Will: spelling bee?
[music]: What the hell? Well,
Will: and we got to choose our own walkup music and, and everybody. That’s kind of [00:26:00] cool. Yeah. When, what did, what did you pick?
[music]: I re,
Will: I recorded myself, narrating myself, walking up to the front. It was like, it was the
[music]: stupidest thing.
It’s like,
Will: here comes, will that checks out. He’s standing up. He’s, he’s, he’s trying to get through the aisle. He’s, he’s, he’s tripping over people. Me, excuse me. Fortunately, he’s very tall, has long legs. He’s, he’s, he is walking up to the front. Think at
Kristin: one point there was a dodo. Yeah.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I think that’s amazing.
And, and I’ve never loved you more than doing that, but
Will: it was,
Kristin: it was not, that was for your intern year match? That was
Will: for my in, because I already knew. So less pressure. I already knew where I was going for ophthalmology. Yeah. So it, the only, the only thing I found out at the same time as everyone else was where I was going for intern year, which I was also very equally excited about because I was doing a transitional year in Chicago, which is, can barely be called an intern year.
Um, it was, it was phenomenal. But, um, uh, so you, you opened your envelope and, and initially just a little bit of. Just like, ugh, I didn’t get, I didn’t get exactly what I wanted. It was, it didn’t get exactly what
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: [00:27:00] I wanted, which, you know, what was number
Will: one?
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: It was, uh, I think it, it was UCSF at the time. Oh, okay.
Yeah. So you were sad from, you wanted to be California? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I’ve been in California my whole life and it’s, it’s a whole thing. Other places scare me. God forbid you, you leave, uh, I the West Ghost, you can’t, if I’m being honest, fathom, I’ll tell you the truth right now. For the first time in my life, I’ve actually wondered, uh.
If, if I should have done that. You know, I, I, ’cause I’ve, I love California. My family’s here. I love everything about California. I, I’m a Californian first. Maybe before, uh, I would say even American, but like the, there are times where I’m like, I would’ve loved to have like, lived in New York and or some other city and now it’s too late.
I mean, now New York is just too much for me right now. I, I can barely handle it. Like, I don’t think I, I could maybe go for like a week, right? But like living there seems like so hard. I. Anywhere where there’s snow. I, I’m, I, I can’t do. So I, there was times when I was like, young enough to have handled it. I do feel like maybe I should have done it.
So yeah, [00:28:00] there’s a little bit of that, but then again, it is California, so I mean
Will: like, come on.
Kristin: Poor. Are you, well, well, I, I wanna,
Will: I wanna ask about, uh, about interviewing, uh, in your experience, uh, with, with like all the interviews stuff, but let’s take a break first.
Alright. We’re back with Kave. Um, and so, so back when interviews for residency and you got to do fellowship interviews too. Yeah. So I’m, I’m curious to hear the difference between the two, but all of now most interviews are virtual, which I, I guess pros and cons there, right? It’s, it’s cheaper to do that, but I, I honestly can’t imagine having done in-person interviews.
Uh, do you have any fun interview experiences? I.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Fun. You know, the only ones that I remember distinctly are the ones that weren’t great. Oh, even better. Even better. Those, you don’t have to give names, you don’t have to give names of programs. I’ll name names of people. I remember there, there was, okay, I’ll tell you first.
The first one was [00:29:00] a guy who, uh, I actually ended up working with. I’ll say his names Steve Rowe. Steve, you know who you are and you know why, you know why I’m doing this. We’ll go into details about it later, but his question was like, well, give me your life story. And that’s what he asked. And then I’m like, alright.
I tried to give him abridged version of it, but like he, he started yawning and I was like. Maybe you didn’t want the whole story, so maybe that’s a little bit on me too. Uhhuh. But like, that was, I remember that being like, oh boy, that’s,
Will: that’s when you’re like, well, my Apgars were nine and 10.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I started with my parents.
Um, yeah. So that was one. And the other guy, I actually don’t remember his name, but it was at USC. And I remember going in, and I remember the guy, first of all, making me wait like the, uh, it was an attending. And he made me like, wait outside his office for like 20, 30 minutes while he did something else. He, he calls me in and the first question he asked, he looks at my name and he is like, Kave said, uh, what are you, Virgin?
[00:30:00] I’m like, oh, yeah. Um, because I, he’s la I’m like, he probably knows. And his first question for me is, is your dad making you do this? Oh. And I was like, oh
Kristin: my goodness.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I was like. Well, yeah, but still jerk. That’s kind, that’s kind of funny, but like that’s risky. That’s risky though. Say if threw it, threw it off.
No, I, I, I have to be honest with you, I was mad. I did not like it. Yeah, yeah. I was like, dude, don’t, don’t come at me with your sense of like what I’m all about. Because you may know a couple Persian people, you think you can come at me like that. I was like, it was, it’d be, it wasn’t good. Um, so you, you
Will: emphatically put your Persian drum back in its case and you walked away.
Right. I didn’t play in wearing
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: the traditional garb. Played it into you. I was trying to be daring. Right.
Kristin: I was trying
Will: to be different.
Kristin: You gotta be memorable. Yeah. Yeah.
Will: You, you probably didn’t rank that program very highly. I didn’t rank it at all. Yeah. Oh, and yeah, that’s true. I didn’t, there were a couple I didn’t rank too, but
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Um, no, it made me mad.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I was like, I was done with that place. I was a little, maybe a little too hardcore in my youth. Yeah.
Kristin: Hmm. [00:31:00] My, a rock Gen X all the way kind of. Yeah, that’s right. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Cusper a cusper. Okay.
Kristin: Boomer in Gen X? No. Well, I You’re sper
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I, I have to decide. I could, I could maybe fall into like a geriatric millennial or like a juvenile Gen X.
So I think juvenile Gen X sounds better to me.
Will: You could
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: do it when it’s convenient for you, when it
Will: suits your, when you need to
Kristin: pull either card. Exactly.
Will: Oh, ab that’s what I would do for sure. I’m not old enough.
Kristin: I’m, I’m definitely an elder millennial, but I feel like I’m, I don’t really identify much with the X.
Will: You’re not close Enough of us are close enough to X. Yeah. Yeah. That’s okay. I don’t really want be, aren’t missing much. Um, my, one of my more memorable experiences, I don’t remember a whole lot from, I remember my Iowa interview very well ’cause I remember just clicking with them. Mm-hmm. Like absolutely just cracking jokes.
It is great.
Kristin: Well, you, were you meeting with Tom Oing?
Will: Yeah. Yeah. It was like who was also, we just we’re on the same wavelength there. Yeah. Uh, sometimes you just know, you go to a place, you’re like, oh man, this is, [00:32:00] yeah. I could start. So myself, we had that guy
Kristin: on the, he was his program director. We had him on the podcast at one point, and two of them just giggled the whole time.
Like, that was their dynamic. No words just giggling. Yeah. Just,
Will: just, yeah. Constant guy. I would watch not a very highly rated episode. Uh, I’d repeat it. I will say,
Kristin: yeah, run it again.
Will: Um, I went to, uh, Stanford, uh, for ophthalmology residency interview, and they got us drunk.
[music]: Wow.
Will: Yeah. Like. Not that they were trying to, but it was one of those not
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: at the interview.
Like the night of No, the night night. Because that would be rad if they didn’t like, during the interview,
Will: this was actually, it was the night before the interview, and we were at a, we were at a restaurant. It was like a like slash wine bar. Mm-hmm. And it was one of those things where they just, they kept refilling our glasses.
Right. And I was, as soon as I like, got up to leave, I was like, whoa, I, there’s no way I can drive this rental car back to wherever the hell I’m staying. And, uh, and, and so I had [00:33:00] to just sit in the parking garage where Oh wow. For like two hours before I was, this
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: was like pre Uber and like Yeah, exactly.
Had to get rental cars everywhere. Right. Um, God, how many medical students did they cause to crash that? Well, that was,
Will: that was like thinking back on it. I was like, man, that was really not great. Like to, that is pretty wild. Was it a
Kristin: test and you failed?
Will: I. Oh, if it was, I, I mean, I, I didn’t, I I was not, uh, they were like middle of the pack for me, so I, I didn’t really enjoy it.
Yeah. Why, why not? Why would you
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: not say that? I, I’ve spent some time at Stanford. I know it well. Yeah. So I feel like I may have some understanding of, of why you didn’t choose, but what, why not? Because I think most people would hear the name and they’d be like,
Will: wow. Yeah. And I was really excited to go there.
I honestly, I think it was, and sometimes this is all it takes. It’s like one little interaction that makes you like, like really question whether or not you wanna go there. Uh, it was one of the residents who had, um, five kids and was, uh, living in like a 1200 square foot [00:34:00] apartment. Mm-hmm. Because that’s all I could afford.
Yeah. Yeah. In Palo Alto. Yeah.
[music]: Yeah.
Will: And so I was like, okay, all right. That tells me a little bit about what I can expect. Yeah. In terms of, not that we had five kids, but you know, we had one. And, um, and so it was, uh, you know, I, I didn’t. Your family. I was not enamored enough by the area to be like, I, I wanna be barely living in like a studio apartment.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Right. Yeah. You came in with a very different mindset than a lot of us probably would because, you know, you were already, like, you had a family, you were building and growing a family. Your, your priorities change
Kristin: point well and a cancer run as well. So that was mm-hmm.
Will: Yeah. And they were really, that does
Kristin: things to your,
Will: and they were notably at Stanford very mean to cancer patients there.
No, I just mean
Kristin: that, that changes your priorities. Yell, it kind of changes the way you look at life. That’s, but you could be a jerk if you want. That’s fine.
Will: Oh, what about
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: fellow inter fellowship interviews? How is that Fellowship is better. Fellowship is a lot better because at that point you’re sort of like, you have [00:35:00] maybe published a couple papers you can talk about, you have something you can do. Um, you’re, it’s a little bit more mellow in general. You feel like you have something to offer the world a little bit.
It, I have to say the, the hardest part of, of the whole thing is. You know, getting into medical school, the second hardest part is internship, and then it gets a little easier every step along the way. Yeah, because you, you’re so vulnerable, like in the, those early stages, and then as you get a little bit further down, you have a little bit more confidence.
I was a little bit nervous because I. I was coming from, uh, an AC non academic powerhouse. It’s a great place. Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. I love the place and I love the mission of the people that work there. The doctors are some of the best I’ve ever worked with. I, you know, I, I was able to do research there and at Stanford and I was able to do things around the area and, and it was an amazing, it was an amazing time, an amazing place, but it wasn’t like known for putting out people in, in, uh, difficult fellowships.
And GI is a, especially [00:36:00] them, no, I still say probably even more so now actually is a challenging fellowship to get a spot in and to get one in California, where’s where I wanted to be. That was difficult to do. So I was a little bit nervous because of that. But in general, your confidence is up a little bit more.
You’re already a doctor. At least you know you have that and you know you can do something from there. So it was easier in general than the medical school and internship.
Will: Yeah, the, they wine and dine you. Because it’s probably a smaller group. Right. It was just like, I mean, imagine when they interview you, it’s just a, there was a couple places that met up,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: but you know, I, I was,
Will: I dreaded
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: those things.
I dreaded those one. Yeah. You didn’t like the schmoozing. Oh my God. Having to go and I. Schmooze with people and drink and then not know if you’re drinking too little or too much and like, and not knowing what to say. You’re being tested the whole time. You know that like people are coming at you like chill and like, Hey, I’m just cool.
I’m a cool, hey fellow kids. And they’re like, [00:37:00] they wanna be like, but to arm you. But you know that they’re gonna go back later and be like, that was a cool guy, or that was a problem. So like, it’s just not very natural and comfortable. So I don’t love those experiences. You
Will: know, they went back, they’re like, well he’s got the body of a gastroenterologist, but smells like one.
He’s got the face of a dermatologist. I’m, I’m not totally sure this is, if he’s really in it for the right reasons.
[music]: For the right reasons.
Will: There’s so many wrong reasons to go into gi. Yeah. So I guess
Kristin: they probably don’t do that stuff anymore though if all the interviews are virtual.
Will: I mean, not all of them, but honestly I think it’s probably for residency.
’cause residency’s just gonna suck.
Kristin: It’s gonna be difficult.
Will: Okay. Yeah. It’s gonna be very challenging. And in the end, like you need the information, like what, you know, what the, what it’s like, what the, ask the logistics about the, about the residency, the experience, the [00:38:00] numbers, how much of this you’re gonna do and that, but like, where you’re at, like going to see it.
I, there’s some utility in that for sure. Mm-hmm. But I think for residency you can probably get by and get a good sense of the people. Like virtually, I’m just thinking pros and cons, right? Mm-hmm. Like the amount of money that we spent on interviews
Kristin: Yeah. It was, we had to take loans out. We just
Will: take extra loans out.
Yeah. Which we’re still paying back. Right. And so I, I see how, how it’s, it’s gonna be hard to get away from virtual, um Right, right. Because it does make it just more accessible.
Kristin: I, I mean, I don’t know, maybe this from like an equity standpoint, the whole cost of it overall, but like, it seems like you sh you could do virtual as like a first round, and then I think
Will: a lot of programs do
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: that.
Yeah. Do they? Yeah. They have like second look. That would make sense. They have second look. Yeah. Yeah. I, I would, I mean, I agree. I think the concept of the virtual interview is great because it allows students more options.
[music]: Right.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: And I think that’s wonderful. But I, I do think no matter, you’re right, [00:39:00] you’re gonna be in the hospital a lot of that time, but where you are I think is kind of important.
I think you should be in someplace that you’re, you know, gonna be able to enjoy your time outside of work. Because I really highly recommend you do in a residency. You find ways to get out of the hospital and do things on your own. And it’s not gonna be easy and you’re gonna be tired, but it’s also something you kind of have to learn to do, like ultimate Frisbee.
That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I’m playing in
Will: a band with a let’s Persian
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: band with a no no, let’s start a podcast about ultimate Frisbee. I think that’s a great idea. Oh man, that’s what this should become. So, so I would say even if you don’t, um, even if not for the interview, I do think you should check out the place.
If you’ve never been there before, you may, you may have a chance to fall in love with the new city. I think it’s worth checking out. Well, that was the case for us.
Kristin: Like, I cried when he said we were moving to Iowa because all I, I’d never been, all I had was, you know, my mental image of it and then it turned out to be one of our favorite places that we’ve ever lived.
True. Because it was like the particular city [00:40:00] that we were in Yeah. Um, was really cool. So yeah, you just never know.
Will: And the cornfields do look nice,
Kristin: especially when the setting sun hits them just right. Yeah. The sun.
Will: Exactly. But yeah, I, I think the second look thing is like a good way to do it. Yeah. You know, like get a first pass, do the interview, and then so you don’t
Kristin: waste your money going somewhere that turns out you just hate the.
Program or whatever. Right.
Will: I don’t know. I’m not sure how it’s gonna change in the future, but, uh, certainly the best interviews were like when you’re interviewing for jobs, so Yeah. Kaiser treat you well.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Yeah. They, they, they, most places all, you know, I mean, they, they know what they’re looking for. They know what they want and that’s pretty nice.
You know, you get to actually sort of like get to talk to people on a real level. Um, and again, it, every step you go up further in this chain, you become a little more confident, you become a little bit more mm-hmm. You know, self-assured. And that I think, reads well in interviews too. So interviews become a little bit easier I think overall.
And, and the thing that is a hundred percent true, that is, sounds like a cliche, [00:41:00] but is absolutely something I would want, you know, young people to remember, is that you are interviewing them as well.
[music]: Right, right.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: And, and my number one, like, my number one tip for, and can we, do we do this make us like an interview like tip go for?
Of course. Yeah. Okay. This is my, my tip for you guys out there interviewing. If. You’re waiting to the very end to ask your question. I think you’re doing it wrong. They’re gonna ask you, and do you have any questions? And generally that’s like no one’s really paying attention. The interview is pretty much over at that point, and everyone’s tired at that point in the conversation.
I ask questions along the way, like, if you get asked a question, answer it. But then if you have a moment, be like, why did you decide that? Or what was it? Do you feel that’s true here? Ask them questions too. Get your interviewer engaged. Keep them engaged in the conversation, and, and it shows that you’re listening.
It shows that you care. I think that’s a better way of doing it than waiting till the very end to ask your question.
Will: That’s such a good,
Kristin: yeah, I agree.
Will: That’s such a good tip because it then, it makes it [00:42:00] actually feel more like a real human conversation. Right, right, right. Yeah, exactly. That’s another thing.
It’s, it’s, it’s not just like question, answer question. It’s just like, right. And
Kristin: it, it gives them insight into how you are thinking about this job, like how you are approaching it, what kinds of things do you care enough to ask a question about?
Will: Do you do, are you, do you work with fellows or, or residents or anything?
I did,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I don’t anymore. Not with my, my current gig, but I was teaching medical students before and, uh, fellows and, and I loved it. I, I, I do love teaching. I think that is, that is great. That’s a great part of being a doctor. That’s one of the best parts of being a doctor, to be honest. Do you, you,
Kristin: he, I don’t,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I don’t, no, it’s, it’s, you teach in a different way, you
Will: know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s not, uh, you know, in the practice, we’re in private practice, ophthalmology, it’s so fast-paced. It’s, it, it’d be actually hard to, to be able to take the time that you need to really do like significant teaching. Mm-hmm. But Kristin, um, did recently, uh, suggest that I do some shadowing.[00:43:00]
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Of whom, uh, you know, for cont for comedy related purposes for content?
Kristin: Are they
Will: on Some, get some ideas. Come on, man. Come visit me.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Yeah.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Thank you
Will: so much. Fun. Can
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I,
Will: can I, I shadow you? Can I, can I, you know, you, you can stay in the studio guest room
Kristin: and play the P drum.
Will: Can record some pods together.
I can, I can watch you do some, some sigmoid and, yeah. The, you
Kristin: can’t even say it.
Will: The colonoscopy sigmoidoscopy. See, this is why he needs
Kristin: the shadowing. It’s
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: a thing. It’s a thing.
Will: Yeah. It’s a thing. Yeah. I, I would love to see you get to that IC valve. Yeah, and just really just blast through that thing and then do the thing where you turn the scope around.
You can look at where the scope’s coming from. Retroflection. Yeah, you got it. Sure. Whatever. Retro. Yeah, yeah,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: yeah.
Will: I would love
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: to see it come with me for an endoscopic retrograde cholangio. Pancreatoscopy.
Kristin: That sounds fine. That’s
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: what I want you to come and watch me do and hang out with me to do. That’s what I want you to see.
All right. That’s the fun stuff.
Will: If I start doing some [00:44:00] shadowing,
Kristin: I would stand by. It’s a good idea
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: actually. It really is not a bad idea. I could be like you. It’s some good content. Yeah, that’s some good content right there. There. The only problem is if you do that, every doctor you’re working with is gonna really try to be like.
Uh, you know, like they’re gonna try and ham it up for you and like they’re all gonna be trying out material on you and they’re gonna be like, you could make a character that does this and then that’s gonna be kind comfortable. I think you’re
Will: overestimating how funny doctors are.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I don’t know if I’m overestimating the humor level.
Will: So you were saying as I need to wear some kind of costume. Yeah. You might have to go and cut something. Yeah. It’s
Kristin: pretty hard to disguise yourself. I dunno. He’s a six foot four curly headed, lanky white guy. Like
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Yeah. Well not, not that many white people in medicine. You’re right,
Kristin: you’re right. Yeah. No,
Will: not that many.
Not
Kristin: that many. No. White dude. Especially. Let’s, let’s
Will: take, let’s take one more break, uh, and then I’ve got a little activity for us.[00:45:00]
All right, Kave. Um, so we’re gonna have you perform a virtual colonoscopy on what? No, we’re not gonna do that.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: You know, there, like, there have been like attempts to do that, like games that people, training games and that sort of thing. You have to have like a special module. But like, I mean. A little fake job eventually.
You’re putting in eventually it, yeah. That’s, that’s literally what it is. Like a fake, but is like connected to a thing. It’s terrible. It never worked well, but the technology will be there to do ’em remotely. I mean, that’s gonna happen eventually. You know how, how’s, that’s, I mean, you’ll have to have, you’ll have to have like nurses in the room and like professionals in the room.
And I’m talking many years down the road, like probably when I’m, I’m done or retired. But like it, there, you would need to have someone there to help guide the scope, maybe from the outside you’ll put pressure on the abdomen, turn the patient when you need to, but there’ll be like a machine that you could like whirl up to someone in, like rural, like East, west, Jesus, Texas, and there’s no like gi doctor around.
[00:46:00] And then they, you say insert the scope and then the rest puts it, puts it in and it’ll somehow move forward.
Will: Automatic. It’s like the, the, the, like the garden hose. Like,
Kristin: yeah. Gee,
Will: the crank the house. Yeah.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Sort of, I mean, or something like that. Like for god’s sake, we have like, it is a bit archaic. Like it’s work.
We have great equipment that the screens get better every year. The technology gets better all the time, and we’re doing fine with what we have. But I, I mean, I would like to move forward. Don’t think that a robot
Kristin: could, could do the insertions and the pushing on the abdomen or whatever else you just said.
Like, can’t that be a robotic arm that you’re controlling?
Will: I mean, robots are taking over a lot of different s Yeah. We’ll just make an AI
Kristin: agent to do colonoscopy.
Will: And then for the, from the gastroenterologist side of things, it’s like knowing what you’re looking at and knowing what you’re, I mean, obviously the maneuvers are a big part of that too.
So I don’t wanna say that a robot could do exactly what Kaveh does. No,
Kristin: but if he’s controlling monkey, do what I do. He’s controlling the robot monkey. Did you miss that part?
Will: Oh, he’s control. Oh, I see. Yeah, [00:47:00] yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Um. Anyway, something to think about. We’ll see. Just something to think about.
We’ll see.
Kristin: Business idea of the day. There
Will: you go. I mean, people have been talking about like robotic people are currently talking about robotic cataract surgery. And my, my question is like, cataract surgery takes six minutes to do.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Like, what the hell are we doing? Yeah. You save yourself six minutes.
How much do we need to be? Right? Yeah. Like, let’s, why do you think we reimbursements continue to go down? Is because we could do cataract surgeries in the six minutes.
[music]: Yeah.
Will: Anyway. All right. So here’s what we’re gonna do. Um, I thought you could help me out with this. ’cause I was thinking, uh, Kave that, uh, UnitedHealthcare mm-hmm.
One of our, our, I’ve heard of those dear,
Kristin: dear friends. Our dear
Will: friends sponsored by Yeah, right. You know, the amount of shit I’d get in if I was suddenly unveiled a, a United Healthcare sponsorship. That would be pretty amazing. That would be a great turn.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Wow.
Will: That’s. Maybe that’s how I, I end my career right there.
That’s how you cancel yourself. That’s how I, that’s how I get out. [00:48:00] That’s what my exit strategy is. Alright. So, um, I think they need our help Kave.
[music]: Yeah.
Will: Because they’re doing this vertical integration thing, you know, so let just for the, the listener, uh, knows, you know, United Healthcare at this point, or United Health Group, which is the parent company.
They own hospitals, pharmacies, pharmacy benefit managers, they own physicians. They’re the largest employer of physicians in the us So, and obviously insurance companies. So every step of the ladder, they’re, they’re just taking over. They’re taking over so they can just, they can regulate everything, set prices, all the terrible things that’s happening.
Okay. But Kave, I think they can go further.
[music]: Yeah,
Will: I think, I think there’s, there’s more meat on that bone. Okay. Don’t you think? Yeah. So, um, I have some, I wanna throw some things at you here. On, uh, uh, other ways that, uh, that UnitedHealthcare could be more vertically integrated than [00:49:00] they are now.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Okay.
Will: Alright, so here’s what we’re gonna do. Something we’ve already talked about. I think UnitedHealthcare should buy the match.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: I shouldn’t laugh ’cause that’s actually totally feasible for this to be sponsored. The match sponsored by,
Will: yeah. Not, not even just that. Think about how far match insurance.
Kristin: Oh my God. Ugh. It would be funny who, if it wouldn’t buy possible, wouldn’t everyone would
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: buy it and they would, they would think how much money you spend, you would spend so much
Will: money, you would, oh my God.
Like, hey, if you don’t match, we’ll, uh, you know, we’ll, we’ll give you, uh, you know, we’ll pay out a certain amount of money until next year. Uh, but then obviously they find a way to kind of. Re, you know, cut it, cut back on it, and,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: and
Will: you’ll owe them for the
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: rest of your life. I mean, you’ll be paying off that loan
Will: maybe, maybe while you’re, you’re, you’re, uh, receiving those benefits.
You have to, to work for
[music]: them.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Yeah.
Will: Right? Mm-hmm. Okay. Kinda indentured servitude. Yeah.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Mm-hmm. [00:50:00] Yeah, that makes sense. You buy into it. Yeah. And then you’re theirs. Oh, I like where this is going. Okay. Keep going. Yeah. You see what I’m saying here? We’re
Will: just, we’re vertically integrated. We’re getting, we’re getting everything.
Get ’em into United Healthcare’s ecosystem early. Alright. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So that they know that they’re, they get brainwashed early enough. I think it’s, you know, I don’t know why they’re haven’t done this yet.
[music]: No. Get Well, they’re young.
Will: Exactly. Alright, here’s the next thing. The NBME, the National Board of Medical Examiners.
Yeah. Let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s get, like, if you don’t
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: pass, then you
Will: have insurance. If you don’t pass, uh, yeah, you could do that. You could also, just because the MBME makes the step exams. So we, we, instead of, instead of, uh, exam or teaching them and, and testing them on medical knowledge, it’s medical knowledge through the lens of UnitedHealthcare.
Why, why don’t we just make it to medical school?
Kristin: See, now
Will: you’re thinking, now you’re thinking kave. See, this is, this is the way they work. [00:51:00] This is the way United Healthcare works. All right? Yeah. Now, now they’re own, they own medical schools. Why not? Yeah, why not? Yeah. All right. Just create your own textbooks.
Just, just really just get, get in, get your teeth in there early, and don’t learn how to
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: make those important medical decisions about Yeah. Why nobody should get covered. Mm-hmm. I think there’s something very interesting there. See, I think it should be its own specialty. Oh yeah. Like you, you like go to a, like, um, I’m assuming they, there’s like, these are all mostly doctors who have somehow they’re called medical directors, medical directors, medical directorship,
Will: medical directorship, medical director, residency.
[music]: Mm-hmm.
Will: Or fellowship. Yeah. Or both. Or you could just keep adding different, different types. You could do a fellowship in peer-to-peer reviews.
Kristin: I think what you need though is you need the lowest scores of your class to be considered for Oh
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: for, yeah. Opportunity if you a Absolutely. Because you have to be, um, they have to get those doctors that are willing [00:52:00] to do a little stuff around the edges.
Fudging. Yeah. They don’t have the highest scruples. Right. There should be separate. I mean, and you know what they say, the person that graduates bottom of their medical school is still called Doctor. Doctor. Mm-hmm. Um, but there maybe there could be like a personality test that’s Oh, that’s an even
Kristin: better, like an ethics
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: test.
Kristin: Right.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: And then you’re gonna see the outliers on either end and you mark them, the ones with the highest ethical standards, you mark them as problems. Mm-hmm. It’s good to know what they’re gonna be. Mm-hmm. It’s good to know what they’re up to. And then the other ones, those are the guys that maybe we take out for dinner.
That’s
Kristin: right. Those are the
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Dr. Oz of the World. Cheesecake Factory. Absolutely. Factory for
Will: those guys.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Uhhuh Cheesecake Factory. I don’t mean to be giving Cheesecake Factory any strays here. I think that perfectly fine.
Will: No problem there. All right. Here’s the last one. I think they should buy. McKesson. All right.
So McKesson is a company. [00:53:00] They are do medical supplies.
[music]: Okay. Right? Mm-hmm. But
Will: what they also make are automated pharmacy delivery machines. Mm. There’s something called, I don’t think McKesson makes this, I think they call it the McKesson, but there’s also something called a Pyxis machine.
Kristin: Is this like a ven vending machine that serves
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Yeah.
Serves the drugs. Right. Okay. So they go, they have to put their fingerprint on it, put in their information, they get the drugs. It keeps it all sort of, hopefully at a level,
Will: okay, here’s why they should buy this. Um, because you could do point of care prior authorizations, oh my God.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Does this patient deserve any more painkillers for their surgery that they’re experiencing currently?
Yes. Get actually AI
Will: involved. And so, so, you know, the nurse, they, they put their fingerprint on the thing, and it’s like all of a sudden you get asked a question that either the nurse or someone on the care team has to answer, and it’s, it’s all ai. And so and so. I gotta say, this last
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: one is gonna happen.
This is not even a joke. This last one, it’s like [00:54:00] they’ve talked about this.
[music]: This
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: is like, this is, this last one is like the low hanging fruit for them. This is, yeah. Too smart too.
Will: It’s too big. Good of an idea.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: You have a dark gift. Well. And I think, I think that they would do this honestly too much. I not kidding.
We, we might have to this one out. Come back to the subject. Let’s come back to the subject. No, no, no, no. You’re not giving them ideas. Don’t worry. They’re, they’re already working on it. Here’s already into their mind. They’re, they, someone’s talked about this. There’s meetings about this already. Trust me, there’s like this meeting board that’s happening right now, but they’re like, okay, here’s the money we’re gonna make.
Here’s the hit we’re gonna take Uhhuh, you know, in terms of public image, what is our, what’s, what’s the point in which we say it’s worth it? And there’s gonna be a lot of people, like even in the post Luigi world, they’re gonna be people on that board that are like, it’s worth it. They would Yeah.
Will: That’s, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a, a, uh, promotion worthy idea right there.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. For somebody, yeah. Point of care, prior authorizations.
Kristin: Scary. I think you can go even [00:55:00] bigger than, than medical school and MBME. Mm-hmm. I think, and now’s the prime time to do it. Medical research.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: They
Kristin: gotta own all the medical research.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: It’s, it’s probably gonna be the only way we get medical research.
Exactly. See in the future because it’s, it’s probably
Kristin: another one that’s already on the table. It’s
Will: already, ’cause they’re already trying to privatize everything. Yeah. ’cause now everything’s
Kristin: losing its funding. They’re gonna need some more funding from somewhere.
Will: Every sponsored, sponsored by, uh. Or, or just that or that.
UnitedHealthcare is the NIH.
Kristin: Mm-hmm. Pretty much. Yep.
Will: This is chilling,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: chilling words, but, but I mean, this is, this is not far off. I mean, the whole point of what there, this is, okay, and I hate to be political here, but it’s okay. This is a little bit of a, a Republican strategy. You take some existing structure that’s public, some public entity, something for the public good.
You defund it to the point, or you make it so hard to do what they need to do. You take away, you put so many blocks in the [00:56:00] way to the point where it no longer works well, and then you can say, this stinks. Let’s give it over to, to private equity. Let’s give it over to like Medicaid, capital, Medicaid’s a perfect example.
Exactly. That’s, that’s how this is gonna work. And this is, this would be the perfect example of, of doing that. And why not? Why not them? Why not United Healthcare? Hey, who gonna be McDonald’s? It’s probably them.
Kristin: Maybe it’ll be a joint venture National Institute between the two
Will: National Institute of UnitedHealthcare.
That’s
[music]: right.
Will: The NIUH, whatever. Anyway, they already have the title. Yeah, you’re
[music]: right. Yeah.
Will: Well, well, uh, we’ll, we’ll stop giving them more ideas for now. So I think we’ll stop there. Uh, Kave, any last words? You got anything going on?
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Uh, again, June 28th, if you’re in San Francisco, yes. Come watch my band, the Resurrection Man.
Play music. It’ll be an unusually fun and sweaty show. I think you’ll enjoy it. Um, now you’ll be
Kristin: sweaty or they will be sweaty.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Who’s gonna be sweaty?
Kristin: Maybe everyone,
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: a little bit of everyone. Um, and then, [00:57:00] uh, more importantly, listen to the podcast, the House of Pod that I am on. Yes. And, uh, that I do. And it’s a fun little look at the world of medicine.
It’s very similar to this, just not as good. And if you like this, that’s not true, and you’re like, I need more of this, but I can’t have enough of this, then I’m like, your Kirkland brand version of the Glaucomflecken and I will have an episode waiting for you. Um, so come check us out and I think you’ll probably appreciate it.
Will: You got, you have the most varied and interesting guests. Yes. You’ve been around the block a time or two, you know,
Kristin: and you’re much smarter than us people when you talk about it, you know, people. Yeah.
Will: And, uh, oh my god, no. And, um, you know, everybody that owns a Persian drum in the, in the, in the near vicinity of where you’re at.
15 people.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Yeah. I do, I do know, actually, I, I’m gonna tell you the truth, not a lot of Persians in San Francisco. I mean, we have a lot of, we have a lot of everything, but not enough Persians is what I’ll say in San Francisco. So if you’re. Come to San Francisco.
[music]: There you go. Check it out.
Dr. Kaveh Hoda: Um, but yeah, thank you guys so much for having me.
This is [00:58:00] super fun. I appreciate it.
Will: Thanks for coming on. We’ll see you. Thanks for coming. You
and Kave really makes me want to be a gastroenterologist. Does he? Oh, that’s all those scoping and, and yeah. Honestly, colonoscopies, they seem kind of fun.
Kristin: Do they?
Will: It’s video game-like,
Kristin: oh, okay.
Will: I mean, yeah. You gotta, you gotta put something in someone’s butt.
Kristin: Well, you probably don’t do that part. I bet. I bet there’s, they do it a tech or, oh,
Will: well, I mean, they do have like a helper Yeah.
Person.
Kristin: Right.
Will: But it is the one, the ones I’ve seen. No, I know that that’s
Kristin: what happens. But the, the GI doctor probably is not the one to do the inserting, don’t you think? Because they’re gonna be back at the video game console?
Will: No. Usually it’s like they have a, the monitor and the camera is at the end of the scope.
Kristin: Okay. So they just sit there. So they gotta drive the scope. They’re driving the scope. They’re, they’re,
Will: they’re threading it through. Okay. And all the way up in there. All up in those guts?
Kristin: Do they do anything we should have asked while he was on, do they do anything [00:59:00] without a scope or is, is it entirely scope based?
No, there’s
Will: other, there’s no, because there’s, they do because they’re also, like he mentioned liver.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Like so there’s other organs they’re involved with,
Kristin: but they don’t scope. Into there. ’cause there’s no tube into there, right? Don’t
Will: scope the liver.
Kristin: Yeah, I don’t, you don’t wanna do that? Probably
Will: a bad idea.
Scope the liver. Alright, let us know what you guys’ heard. Let us know what you guys thought of the episode, uh, and have any other guest suggestions or topics you want us to cover. You can hit us up. Email us, knock knock high@humancontent.com. We’re on all the social media platforms. Hang out with us on Human Content Podcast, family on Instagram and TikTok at Human Content Pods.
Thanks to all the wonderful listeners leading feedback and reviews. If you subscribe, subscribe,
Kristin: subscribe. If you
Will: subscribe and comment on your favorite, favorite podcasting app or on YouTube, by the way, at Glock and Flecking, that’s our YouTube channel. Uh, we might give you a shout out, like at Elizabeth Johnson.
4 9 1 6 on YouTube said, in regards to your brain being tricked into seeing [01:00:00] things like the dress color, I talked about the dress.
[music]: Mm-hmm.
Will: Remember the trend in the early nineties where they had those oops. With images that if you stared a certain way, you’d see an image in 3D Oh. Oh, I
Kristin: know what she’s talking about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The, yeah, the posters. Magic eye. Magic eye. Yes. That’s
Will: what Magic eye.
Kristin: I was gonna say Crazy eye.
Will: Different diagnosis. Sold together. I never
Kristin: could see those things, could you?
Will: Uh, kind of. I
Kristin: never could, didn’t ever see a single one.
Will: How Well he says. How come some saw the image? Yeah. See. And some couldn’t.
All right. I’ll do that for an upcoming episode though. You know the answer. Uh, well, it has to do with how much, um, stereo opsis you have, like how much your, your ability to use separate Yeah. To use both eyes, uh, and see
Kristin: independently of each other
Will: images independently.
Kristin: Hmm.
Will: All right. Full video episodes ev are every week on our YouTube channel at Glock and Plugins.
We also have a Patreon. Lots of cool perks, bonus episodes. Uh, where we react to stuff. We gotta get the pit. We gotta do the pit. Yeah.
Kristin: Well we’ve done one. We need some more.
Will: Yeah, we gotta be more. [01:01:00] We did the baby birthing episode of the pit.
Kristin: Yeah, that’s what we should do.
Will: Hang out with other members of the knock-knock high community.
We’re there. Early ad free episode access Internet q and a livestream events, much more. patreon.com/glock and plug an org glock.com to find out more. Speaking of Patreon community perks, shout out to all the Jonathans. Patrick, Lucia. C Sharon, S Edward Case, Stephen G Mary W, Mr. Granddaddy Caitlin. C Brianna, L Mary, HK, L, Keith, G Jeremiah, h Parker, Muhammad l David H times two.
Kaylee A I’m partial to the second. David H.
Kristin: Yeah, I know you’ve said that before. Yeah.
Will: Yeah. You’re gonna
Kristin: make the first David H feel bad. You know what, David? H number one. I’m here for you.
Will: Okay. All right. Then you
Kristin: each get one of us, you’ll,
Will: you’ll get, you’ll get her in the divorce. Yeah. Jeremiah h Parker.
Oh, I already said that. Kaylee. A Gabe, Gary. M Eric, B, Marlene, s Scott, m Kelsey, m Joseph, S Dr. Hoover, Sean, m Hawkeye, md Bubbly salt, and. S Paton Roulette. Random shout to someone of the emergency medicine tier Peter s Thank you for being a patron, [01:02:00] and thank you all for listening. We’re your hosts, will Krista Flanary also knows the Guam Flein.
Thanks to Dr. Kaveh Hoda and our executive producers are Wil and Krista Flanary. Aaron Corny Rod Bo Goldman and Shanti Brook, editor engineer Jason Portis. Our music is by Emmy Award winner, O Mayor Bens V. To learn about our N KK N High’s program, disclaim policy submission verification and licensing terms, and those KY little HIPAA release terms.
Go to Glock and plug.com or reach out to us at n Nack high@humancontent.com with questions, concerns, or any fun medical funds you might have. NN High is a human content production.
Hey, Kristin.
Kristin: What
Will: do you want? An assistant?
Kristin: I would love an assistant. I bet you would. I don’t want just one though. I want many,
Will: many assistants.
Kristin: Yes. I’ve got a lot of work.
Will: Well, I can give you something that does the work of many assistants.
Kristin: Okay.
Will: Have you heard of Microsoft Dragon Copilot? [01:03:00]
Kristin: Oh, I have heard of this.
Yeah.
Will: This is an AI assistant for clinical workflow.
Kristin: Mm-hmm.
Will: It’s amazing. It’s, it transforms the way clinicians work. Uh, it’s like a little Jonathan.
Kristin: Yeah.
Will: Doing lots of things for you. Uh, one of those things is, is helping you get information faster.
Kristin: Oh, yeah. That’s nice. Yeah.
Will: This is what I, one of the things I love most about it, like, you just ask and you can get answers on a wide variety of clinical topics mm-hmm.
With citations, sometimes, like we don’t, we have to like do research to like. Yeah, try to jog our memory about certain things. There’s a lot to to think about in medicine,
Kristin: right? And new stuff coming out all the time.
Will: Well, Microsoft Dragon copilot can just make that process faster and give you citations that lead you.
You can look up the latest evidence about things, guidelines. It just, it just makes that whole process seamless. I like
Kristin: it.
Will: Uh, to learn more about Microsoft Dragon copilot, visit aka ms slash knock-knock high. Again, that’s [01:04:00] aka ms slash knock-knock high. Thanks for watching the episode. You can find more on that playlist over there.
If you prefer to list or you just had your eyes dilated. You can binge full episodes wherever you get your podcast or join the party over on Patreon, where you get early access episodes. Hang out with us, get lots of exclusive bonus content, help you subscribe, leave a comment below, let us know what you think.
