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[00:00:00] Knock, knock, hi! Knock,knock, hi!Hello! Welcome to Knock, Knock, Hi! with the Glockenfleckens. I am Dr. Glockenflecken, also known as Will Flannery. I am Lady Glockenflecken, also known as Kristen Flannery. I should like, act like it’s like a rock concert. I’ll go out whenever I’m a little bit louder. I You know, when we do these, we’re recording after lunch and, uh, I always wonder what it is that you have in that cup of coffee that you have with your lunch because you come back like this.Uh, just so you know, I have not had my afternoon coffee yet. Maybe that’s the problem. Yeah, it could be. I don’t know. Uh, thank you all for joining us today. We’re talking to one of my favorite people. We’ve talked to him before, Dr. David Hilden, Chair of Internal Medicine. [00:01:00] Uh, the internal medicine department at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis and host of the Healthy Matters podcast.Which is where we talked to him before. We haven’t had him on our podcast yet. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. We, I was, I’ve been dying to get him on. Um, I just, I, I don’t know why I love talking to people from the Midwest. Yeah. I like They’re easy to talk to. They are. Yeah. They’re great. Friendly, polite. And it’s, it’s, it’s really, I think what’s fascinating is.living in different parts of the country, you just really get to see and experience like the differences. Would you say we’ve lived in every major region of the country? Maybe not the southeast, but everything else? Not southeast, not southwest, like Southern California. Well, Texas is kind of southwest. Oh yeah, I guess so.If I had to put, I mean, it’s not southeast, it’s more southwest. So grew up in Texas, and how would you describe the people in Texas? Like the personalities. [00:02:00] Well, like socially, like, like the social glue that holds everything together is, um, how to put this. Uh, inauthentic, perhaps? Alright, but you all, Kristen here is also a bit biased.She is not a big fan of, of what didn’t, you didn’t enjoy your upbringing in Texas. That’s true. And I also grew up in a different part, like a different subculture of Texas than you did. Right. Cause you were in the city and I was very much out in the sticks. So it was different. I would say what’s, what’s.What was so striking to me when we moved from Texas to New England was how slow I talked. Yes. It’s a slower pace, people take their time, they kind of have long, winding stories, they kind of just meander around in their thought process. But that’s just kind of what’s considered polite conversation, right?Like you [00:03:00] don’t want to come off as standoffish or… Yeah, rude. And so you just like engage in conversation. That’s how it works. Right. And you give people, you ask things that in other parts of the country feel like very personal questions, right? Or like, that’s none of your business. Why would you even ask me that?You know, I’d also say that, um, people are, are sometimes fake nice, right? Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about with the inauthentic thing. Like, like there’s a, yeah. I mean, I think it’s, it’s perhaps well intentioned, right? Like, it’s meant to be sort of social lubrication, that like, in front of each other, we’re all just gonna get along and be nice.But then you hear what people really think in, uh, smaller, more private groups. But then we moved to New England. And it literally, it was like I was, like I had like cotton balls in my mouth or like marbles. Like, I felt like in hearing people up there talk, I was like in [00:04:00] slow motion. It was the weirdest thing.And I still feel like that’s the case. I still feel like I talk slow. You’re a slow talker. I’m just a slow talker. I’m a fast talker. I did okay out there. You did okay. Yeah. But then like, it was like the second week that we were living up there. And I was at the store or something and, um, some, I think some lady bumped into me and she said, Oh, sorry.And I said, Oh, don’t worry about it. And she turned to me and she’s like, why would I worry about it? You’re like, no, it’s just a, it’s just what you say. That was the, that was the first moment where I was like, things are different up here. Yeah. Like people are in, in some ways I respect it. Like people in New England and the Northeast.They’re just like up front. Yeah, they’re just they tell you what they think right and Honestly, that’s my preferred way to be it’s because it’s just so much simpler. Yeah, yeah guessing [00:05:00] games. I those are just exhausting Yeah, it was it really was fine, but it is a more it’s just a more of a shock direct or a culture shock Do you like see like a little bit more abrasiveness?You know? See, that’s, that’s interesting, because I think some people do see that as abrasiveness, especially if you come from somewhere like the South or the Midwest. And then I don’t really see it as abrasiveness, I just see it as, like, honesty and direct communication, which is the most efficient kind.And then we moved to the Midwest, uh, which we wanted to stay, like, we love the people out there. Yeah, it was nice. It was nice. It was, I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as we did, yet we did. Yeah. I told you I wanted to go to Iowa and you were shocked. So sad. You were, you had all kinds of questions. I really did.What on earth is going on? But uh, no, we went out there and we loved it. And you see that with our conversation with Dr. Hildon, just, uh, [00:06:00] just, just laid back, like easy going. Laid back, kind of down home, right? Like just down to earth. Yeah, you know people that if you needed something they’d show up. Yeah, you know, I mean they have great potlucks Yes, in the Midwest.The potlucks are good. I bet they’re great. The hot dish. The hot dish. The tarot casserole. Remember that? But, you know, I mean, it’s a little bit like the South in that there is still a little bit of that, um, kind of indirect communication, right, like it’s still to everyone’s face, you’re all very polite all the time, even if you might not really truly mean that.So, you know, that can be a little tricky. Certainly for me, that’s a little tricky. Yeah, but in the case of people from the Midwest, I think they like genuinely, like, are just… Happy with you at all times. Yeah, they’re just kind of easygoing. Yeah for the most part. I would say yeah Well, let’s uh, should we get to it?Oh, we didn’t do the [00:07:00] Northwest. Oh the Northwest. Oh, what do I say about the Northwest? What do you think the people here are like? I mean, we’ve been here a while now. Gloomy. The people are not gloomy No, you’re the Actually, I don’t have a good sense. I think what do you think we’ve lived here for what? Six years.And I don’t talk to people, Kristen. You talk to people every day at your practice. Oh, that’s true. I gotta edit this out. I talk to people all the time. What are you talking about? I meant like, like Okay, you’re right. I think that people out here, like, culturally, it’s a little more, like, there’s this spirit of independence, right?Like, like, you do your thing, I’ll do my thing. I won’t ask what you’re doing, you don’t ask what I’m doing. It’s kind of that thing. But then, like, if you need something, they’re not, like, rude, they’re just… Kind of letting everybody do their own thing. Well, um, hopefully we managed to piss off every region of the country [00:08:00] Certainly what we were going for.I guess we pissed off the southeast by ignoring it. Oh, sorry We left it out. Yeah, I’ve been I’ve visited but haven’t haven’t but let us know Well, we’re happy to fill out the rest of the map and the next few episodes will Let us know in the in the emails comments and things. So, all right Anything else to say before we get to it?No, I don’t think Dr. Hilden deserves any, uh, any more about this. All right. Here he is, Dr. David Hilden.Today’s episode is brought to you by the Nuance Dragon Ambient Experience or DAX for short. This AI powered, ambient technology is helping you, physicians, be more efficient and reduce clinical documentation burdens that cause us to feel overwhelmed and burnt out. To learn more about how DAX can help reduce burnout, and restore that joy of [00:09:00] practicing medicine.Kristen, you gotta have that joy. You gotta have it. Stick around after the episode or visit Nuance. com slash Discover DAX. That’s N U A N C E dot com slash Discover D A X.All right, we have Dr. Hilden here. Can I call you David? Is that okay? Yep, or you want to do more formal? I mean you are David’s good David. You are an internal medicine doctor. You’re you’re fancy You’re smart. He’s also you’re also dressed much nicer than me where he’s also a Minnesotan So I feel like you know, very friendly.Is that what they’re called? They’re Minnesotan. Yeah, is that yeah. Oh, yeah We’re very yeah. First of all, that was a good. Oh, that was really good. Oh, we got to get that straight right now It’s Minnesota. Thank you And you can call me David. David’s good. Although internal, internal medicine people are a bit nerdy, but, uh, but, uh, but we can keep it casual.You are, I like your aesthetic. So people who are just listening, you know, you got the coat on, [00:10:00] you got, you’re dressing down a little bit, no tie, just an open collar and you, but you got the nice glasses. I’m always, I’m a big fan of a good pair of glasses. So I applaud you on your choice of frames there.You know, well, I appreciate that coming from a guy who like takes care of people’s eyes and I have really, really bad eyes. So this, these glasses, if I were to go on the side view, it’s just like one of the bottom of a Coke bottle. It’s pretty bad. Yeah. Can you guess the prescription? This is his party trick.Let’s see. He’s kind of looking at me a little bit dead on. Turn your head a little bit to the right. Uh, uh, you’re, you don’t have a real strong prescription actually. Well, in one eye I do. This one, I do. Oh, okay. I’ve got multifocals. I got the whole, the whole shooting match. , he got it all. He’s stumping you, but I, yeah, I think he’s hyperopic.Are you hyper? Are you farsighted? You look a little farsighted on that left eye. Like a plus. That could be my left eye is everything. Sight. I think the eye is not shaped right. It’s you know, I’ve got a [00:11:00] refractory problem. I had a surgeon. It’s just all messed up. I had a surgeon work on my 18 month old lateral rectus muscle and I know you can be impressed that I know what a lateral rectus muscle is.That’s pretty good. That’s pretty good. Because I forgot about it in med school. You know, there’s other, do you know all the extraocular muscles? Are you familiar with, with how many are there? Do you know? Uh, oh, there’s, there’s, um, uh, there’s six of them. That’s pretty good. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. That’s good.That’s perfect. And when I do patients, I like, I make an H in front of them. Aren’t you supposed to make an H in front of them and see if they all work? That’s really extraocular movements. That’s better than most people. That’s, that’s fantastic. There you go. But I’ve now told you the sum total of what I know.That’s it. Ha ha. Well, now I compliment you on your glasses, you’re an internal medicine, can you compliment me on, I guess, my what, my liver function? Yeah, I was gonna say, your liver looks really good, I can’t see the lower edge of your liver. Let’s not tempt fate, shall we? His internal [00:12:00] organs haven’t really been kind.And your A1C looks terrific, both of your A1Cs look really good, I can see it from here. Well, I want to, I guess if you, if you’re, if you weren’t talking to us, would you be in on the wards right now? Do you, how much clinical medicine do you practice at this point? So I’m about 20 or 30 percent only now, uh, because I have an administrative job.So I’m the chair of the department of medicine of somehow or the other. Uh, yeah, thank you. Thank you. Cause you know, that, that’s been like six months I’ve had that job. And, uh, so I, I have a couple hundred doctors I have to corral, but I see patients in the clinic. You’re at a big county hospital in downtown Minneapolis, and then I am in the wards just two or three weeks a year.Now, how was that? Was it an agonizing decision to go the administrative route? Or were you, uh, was that something you wanted to do? Was it, uh, Were you coerced? How did this happen to you, and do you need help? [00:13:00] Yeah, I don’t know, and yes. No, I, I was, for the last few years, I was in a hospital administrative job.You know, we’re a, we’re a, uh, you know, this big hospital, but we’re just a single hospital where the county hospital we have, we’re like this big, huge dysfunctional family. And I thought, well, I’ll be the, I’ll be on the, on the administrative team, but that got to be meetings and meetings and meetings that I swear to God, we would have meetings to plan the meetings.And it was agony. I shouldn’t say that in case my boss might be listening to this, but I loved that job. So now then, I got back into it. I took a year long breather where I just saw patients in primary care. And I just… A1C is in heart failure and all that. And that’s what I did. And then, uh, I do tend to talk a lot.I do tend to do a lot of public relations for the hospital. So now, as the chair of the department, it’s much more of a people job and less meetings. So I’ve canceled all the meetings to plan the meetings and it’s much better now. Don’t forget the meetings [00:14:00] to debrief about the meetings. We have those too.Oh yeah. Mm hmm. Exactly, it’s like this, it’s like, it’s like this, this problem we have, it’s pathologic. We have a meeting to plan the meeting, and then we have the meeting, and then not the right people are at the meeting. So then you have a meeting to debrief the meeting. Yes, I’m a recovered academic, so I feel like this resonates with me.I have no idea what either of you are talking about. You don’t have to do that! I am, in private practice, we, uh, we all equally loathe meetings. I feel like… And maybe in an academic setting, there’s some people that maybe kind of like the meetings. I mean, I’m just throwing that out there. That’s a strong, strong statement.I don’t know. I mean, I could tell by the look on David’s face here. Exactly. And then, you know, he does not agree with me. No, not at all. I’m on the faculty of the medical school and so then we have, that we have meetings to talk about promotions and then we have, oh my goodness, it’s ridiculous. So, how long have you been at the, this, uh, Hennepin [00:15:00] Health Care, which is the Safety Net Hospital, you mentioned?Right, right. I’ve been here about 25 years and we’re, um, it used to be called Hennepin County Medical Center. Before that, you know, about a hundred years ago, there was like a giant house. in downtown Minneapolis, which is a dirt road, I assume, and it was a city hospital. That was like in 1890 or something.That grew into the general hospital, which grew into this county hospital. And now we’re down here on eight city blocks in downtown Minneapolis. And, uh, we have two helicopter pads on the roof. It’s this big sprawling campus, but deep down, we’re just this county hospital, sort of the, uh, staffed by a bunch of Dr.Martyrs down here who are caring for, uh, uh, lots of vulnerable patients. And it’s actually the best place to work. I absolutely love it. Is it the only county hospital in Minnesota? I mean, I was, is it? I guess probably the largest, I have to assume. Right. Yeah. Yes and no. You know, there are lots of little critical access hospitals, but we’re, we’re mostly a state of one big [00:16:00] city, Mayo Clinic, a little ways south of us, and then a bunch of trees and lakes and deer.I heard about that place. Yeah, you’ve heard of them. Yeah. Maybe heard about that? Once or twice maybe. Yeah. I’ve never been to Hennepin. I have been to Mayo and I don’t, I went to interview for residency there and um, the one thing I really remember the most is just walking in. And it’s just marble. As far as the eye can see.I assume Hennepin’s similar? Yeah, we’re just like that. We give art tours as well. That’s a funny thing though, cause here’s the I actually love, um, art and art is part of healing. And so you go to Mayo, and I love Mayo. I love Mayo. Of course. We all do. Yeah. But they like literally have Picassos and things like the originals.It’s incredible. It’s beautiful. Yeah. You can get an art tour and a history tour. You come to our hospital. We don’t have that. We have like two dogs, you know, a velvet dog thing and they’re, they’re drinking out of a hose, but we have hundreds of pieces of art here. Not even a proper bowl. No, [00:17:00] exactly. It’s like, it’s just one notch above dogs playing poker.But we do, um, when we built our new clinic building at six stories high, it’s beautiful. It’s this nice glass building. It’s the only new building we’ve built in years. We have four or five, 600 pieces of artwork that people donated and they’re lovely. They’re just not Picassos, but they’re done by employees and local people.So it’s, you know, I really think that the power of art in healing is something that even here at the county hospital that we need to have. Yeah. Yeah. What is it that kind of just keeps you, I mean, guess what, what fascinates you? I don’t know what the word is, but what. What is it about the county hospital, the working there, being in that environment that is so appealing to you?Yeah. That one I think about a lot because, you know, and I do this to the people in my department. I go, why do you work here? You know hospital? I was gonna just say that. Why do you work here? That’s something you can only say internally, right? Like, you [00:18:00] can’t make fun of someone else’s brother. Only that person can make fun of their brother.That is exactly it. Because, you know, I do literally say, you know, and everybody knows this. I’m not telling them what they don’t already know. The hospital down the street is paying a lot more than we are. They really are. And, um, and they don’t have some of the, uh, more challenges that we have, but our patients are generally lower income, not all, but generally lower income.There’s a lot of immigrant population, non English speaking people. We see a ton of people who are experiencing homelessness and I, you know, I can look out the window and see some of our patients, unfortunately. And but at the same time, our patients are kind and they’re grateful and they’re wise. And they’re forgiving of our frailties, you know, in our, our healthcare systems.Frailties is maybe a nice way to put it. Sure. They’re, they’re forgiving of that. And, you know, and I have patients, I have a Muslim patient who he goes, I’ll pray for you today, you know, so I got a lot of people praying for me. Which is probably a good thing. Um, and we have people that’s, [00:19:00] that’s gotta be a, uh, a perk that you probably sell the, the people coming in to, to get, exactly.It’s very mission driven and it’s, and frankly, it’s a riot. I mean, it’s fun to work here. It really is. There’s never a dull minute. Our patients do the weirdest things and they, they’re, um, uh, Not for any fault of their own. They’re just, we just have a cross section of humanity, and it’s a wonderful cross section of humanity, and they don’t look like me.They’re not northern Europeans, Scandinavian, Minnesotans, you know. They look like the world, and I love that. And so that’s what most of our people here are like. And I did my training here, all the way back to my training. So I’ve been here. Oh, really? Wow. Is it, um, you mentioned, you know, other hospital systems being able to pay more.You know, so I feel like all of us in healthcare, you know, we’re always thinking about like staffing issues. I’m sure you more than anybody else, you know, in your role as an administrator. Is it, have you found it hard to [00:20:00] recruit people? Either physicians, uh, nurses, you know, support staff, whoever it is. Is it, is it more challenging in this environment?To some degree it is. First of all, if people aren’t from Minnesota, um, I’ve even been told this by physician recruiters. It’s really hard to get people to come here because all they can Yeah. Well, it’s quite cold there. That’s what everybody thinks. Yeah, it’s beautiful out. It’s beautiful. But it’s also, they tell me it’s hard to get people to leave them.So it’s hard to get people to come here, but then it’s equally hard to get them to leave because they found out that, oh my God, we’re in God’s country here. This is, this is where you want to be. But to come to the hospital, I, I come straight out. I hire a lot of people. I hire doctors all day and, and, and nurse practitioners and the whole shoot and match.And I say, I’m just blunt about it. Um, if, if maximizing your income is important to you, there’s no judgment from me. I get it. You might have medical student loans. There might be lots and lots of reasons. But we do pay a competitive [00:21:00] salary, so I just set it aside. I put that part aside. I go, here’s why, here’s why we might be the place you want to work.You get to teach students. You get to teach residents. You get to care for a broad swath of humanity that needs you. And that really does resonate with a lot, a lot of doctors. And many of them say, no, that’s kind of why I went into medicine, you know, and that’s okay with me. Right. Yeah. I would imagine in a place like that, it’s easier to see the difference that you can make in somebody’s life.You know, like the, the, the, the difference that you are able to make in their life is maybe larger than for a population who’s a little more, you know, affluent or homogenous. Yep. I think that’s exactly right. Um, you’re, you’re a hundred percent right. You know, and, and we try, I always tell people, you know, when I’m hiring them, I don’t want to hear any excuses about why you couldn’t provide good care.Uh, I don’t want to hear that they were, well, they didn’t take their meds. Well, no, they sure didn’t. And I don’t want to hear, yo, they were poor. They didn’t speak English. Well, those are all true. Nonetheless, [00:22:00] do your best and do everything you can. And I think you really can make a really big difference. Um, yeah.Now, who, who is it that, uh, you mentioned students is at University of Minnesota, like who all comes through? So when I, when I, it’s University of Minnesota, we’re an affiliate hospital of the University of Minnesota. And so it’s, it’s maybe several dozen of them here on any given day. I can see the university from here.I’m going to wave to them, but we’re, and then we have our own residency and then, and that’s what I did. So like when I did residency here, it was. We didn’t have work hours. It was 110 hour work weeks, and I’m not even kidding. We did walk uphill both ways to and from work. And it was snow, doing snow. Were you doing your own gram stains?Doing your own gram stains? We did our own gram stains of spinning our own urines down. Oh yeah. We did all that. But it is true. I, I came into my first day. As a trainee from the university and, you know, I come in on a Monday morning, it’s seven in the morning, I’m doing a surgery rotation. I’m terrified of that.I’m still terrified of scalpels and all that. And I, they [00:23:00] said, okay, your shift ends tomorrow night at dinnertime. Are you kidding me? It’s like seven in the morning on Monday. And I called my wife and I said, I’m coming home tomorrow night. Like she said, like. 36 hours from now night? And that’s what training was and that was it.I didn’t have a toothbrush. I had to steal one from one of the patient, you know, rooms. So that was our training here and then I just never left. And so we have students, we have residents, and then I just stayed on the faculty. You’re a lifer. I am a lifer. That’s kind of dorky, isn’t it? You’ve been all over.Yeah. Yeah. Uh, we’ve, it’s taken us all over the, all over the place. Yeah. So, you know, Texas to New like a big circle around the perimeter of the country, essentially. I feel like we’ve always tried to get out to where we are now though, Oregon. So, you know, we, we, we moved from Texas to New England. Like we knew pretty quickly it wasn’t for us long term, um, uh, just the snow, my God, the snow.The snow. You didn’t pick it up? So [00:24:00] you were in like New Hampshire or something? Or New Hampshire. You didn’t pick up ice fishing or? Seriously? Come on. Ice fishing? This Texas boy is not going to be out there ice fishing. I walked out the first day it snowed in sneakers and, um, and I was, I was not ready for it.So, but then we, we got to the Midwest and we tried to stay in Iowa after my training. It’s similar to what you just said. He told me that. You know, there’s a good chance that we were going to be moving to Iowa for residency. And I was like, why? You know, the only thing I knew of Iowa was like cornfields and I don’t know, pigs.And so, which actually is accurate. Right. I’m not wrong. You’re not wrong. There are little, you know, there’s there’s pockets of Iowa that I did not know about and so we ended up really Enjoying Iowa City and and yeah did our best to stay there, but it didn’t work out Her Kristen’s parents lived in [00:25:00] Illinois at the time.So we were I was I applied to a bunch of Midwest programs. I applied at University of MinnesotaDid you come across his resume? I was not offered an interview. I didn’t play up my love of Minnesota enough. I think. All you needed to do was talk about the ice fishing. You should have said, you know what, I can’t wait to take that big, that big drill bit. What do you call those things? An auger and you know, like go through two feet of ice and talk about the walleye.God, you would have been their top choice. I have a feeling you have that, a similar conversation with patients often. Do you, is that a big topic of conversation around the winter time? Oh my gosh, yes. Come on. Yeah. All the time. You know what, you know, we’re fish fighting out there and you know, that’s what we do.There’s, you know, um, and you’re from Texas, right? You guys are from Texas. Yep. Yep. Oh, you just haven’t experienced it yet. You know, going out in the, in the snow in your sneakers is not a bad [00:26:00] idea. It’s not problematic until you literally can’t feel them, your toes. And then you’ll get over it. So ice fishing in the winter.What do you, what do you talk about in the summer? Yeah. What do you have against summer fishing? I actually don’t do much fishing at all, which makes me not a very, but I talk about it a lot, you know, I talk about, no, but no, that’s what they do. There’s lakes everywhere. There’s lakes, it’s beautiful. There’s deer, there’s hunting.There’s the twins. There’s, you know, there’s all that stuff. I did get, one time I was invited to come up to Duluth to do a thing. Oh, Duluth is really pretty, but it’s very far north. It was in like February, and I was scared, I, I did, I was, and so I was like, I don’t think I can do it. You know, you lump me in with this a lot, but this is your issue, really, the snow and the cold.It’s, it’s cold. I mean, it’s not my favorite, but he has like PTSD from it. And I say I’m not that bad. Oh, let me ask you, David, do you have, do you have tunnels underneath? Like underground? [00:27:00] We more like, we have skyway. Like sky bridges. Yeah. Skyway. Okay. Okay. The correct term is skyway. I don’t know where they came up with that.But no, you can get around downtown Minneapolis and never see the outdoors. And then you go over and there’s all that. Yeah. So you can, but we’re hardy, you know, if it’s, if it’s above like five. You’re good to go. Shorts weather. Yeah, exactly. If it’s about 40, it’s shorts weather for sure. That’s a for sure thing.Well, I wanted to, I want to talk with you about, uh, radio. Yeah. Because you have, uh, some experience here that I think a lot of people don’t have, and I think it’s fascinating. You are the radio doc, right? Exactly. Tell us your background in radio, how that started. I’m fascinated by this. Yeah. So I was minded in my own business.As a primary care doctor, you know, stamping out diabetes. All the best stories start that way. Yeah, minding my own business, once upon a time, stamping out diabetes wherever I could find it. I’m [00:28:00] doing that, and so, the hospital put out an all points vote, and we’re going to do this radio show. It’s on AM talk radio.Who wants to do that? And I have two friends. Still, they’re still my friends. They go, well, you never shut up. You should audition. And I don’t shut up very well. I’m working on it. I’m working on my listening skills. So I go down there and I did some, some made up thing about colonoscopies at the radio station and I got this job and it’s on what’s WCCO radio.Which is in the upper Midwest, kind of a big deal. WCCO is the precursor of General Mills who makes Cheerios. That’s here. And so they had a radio station a hundred years ago. It’s this giant radio station that everybody listened to. I listened to it, you know, growing up. If your school’s closed, it’s on WCCO.So I go on this radio station and I talk to people every Sunday morning live about their medical problems and they’d call in with everything. And I, it was an older Audience, as you maybe could expect, because who listens to AM radio on a Sunday morning? So I went over there and I did that [00:29:00] show, my first show, in January 2009.And it’s unscripted, it was an hour long of live radio. And people would call in, I would just answer their questions. And it got, it went for 13 years. And I did 676 shows every Sunday morning, live. And, um, it was really fun. I’d get farmers calling in. Like, they’d call in, one guy called in a lot. And I can’t remember his name or I wouldn’t use even if I could.He would say, well, you know, it’s 7 in the morning, 7 in the morning. I’ve been up for a few hours and, um, you know, I’m having a little chest pain. But I had to feed the cattle. And you know, so this guy’s out there. I just imagine this old guy, he’s like in his eighties, he feeds the cattle, but then he has some medical question, but he had to feed the cattle first and he would call me to get advice.So I really got a conversation with. Good folks in the upper Midwest, this is what that was. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds, I, I could have used that to do research for my videos. They need like a farmer hotline, right? Cause the, they don’t want to leave [00:30:00] cause you know, the, right, the cattle need fed or the crops need to come in or whatever needs to be happening.So if they had a hotline to call. Maybe you could direct them in the right way. That’s, uh, so you just recently stopped then. You said it went for 13 years? So what It did go for 13 years. And, and, you know Did you just, did you fix it? Did you answer all the questions? Yeah, there was no other problems. You know, there was no other problems.It’s funny, it’s funny you bring up Duluth though. You brought up Duluth. You know, Duluth is going to be the one climate change safe city, so you’re going to love Duluth in about 50 years. Kristen Yeah, I’m into that. Kristen’s a, um, a, uh, amateur doomsday prepper. Are you? No. No, I wouldn’t say that. Because there are professional doomsday preppers, but she’s not quite that bad.I’m not. Yeah. But she knows the places. I like to think of myself as a rational, future oriented thinker. I think it’s just, that’s exactly what you are. You’re just thinking ahead and planning for what’s going to happen. Well, Duluth, you know, it’s got it all. It’s going to be like the climate of Kansas City.And it’s going to be, uh, not that this is any of this is good. Don’t get me wrong. None of this is good. [00:31:00] But they’ve got a big lake there. There’s going to be beaches. You know, it’s going to be Duluth. Duluth. And one time on the radio show. You know, I was new in the radio show and some woman calls in and says, I have sound in my ear.It sounds like a, you know, and she’s describing tinnitus. She’s, I’ve got this, this thing, it sounds like a fog horn in my ear. And I was new at this thing. It’s live radio. I didn’t know what the heck to say. So just what came out of my mouth is Well, you don’t live in Duluth, do you? And because Duluth has ocean going ships and I was just well, maybe you’re actually hearing a fog horn.And so, um, so maybe, maybe you don’t have tinnitus. Maybe you’re just living in Duluth. But I was just, I was just tap dancing on live radio because I was talking about, but that’s, um, that I stopped it. You asked why I stopped it. Well, you know, 13 years at seven in the morning. And although we had a pretty decent audience, you can imagine what the.the audience for AM Talk Radio is. It’s, it’s not exactly growing. [00:32:00] And as much as I loved the listeners, it was probably the same listeners each week. And we decided to try different things. So now I have a podcast, it’s called Healthy Matters. And it is mostly for the lay public, similar to the radio show, but it’s produced now.And so I can’t have live call ins. I do miss the live call in part. But we try to give trusted, medical information to the community via a podcast. And all of this has led to all other kinds of media stuff where I go on the news locally, just to give sort of in the age of misinformation, give a little good information.Yeah, that is so desperately needed. So I’m glad you’re doing that. And it all started just because you. You said, yeah, I’ll try, I’ll try this. I’ll try it, sure. I’ll try it. Who goes talking to a microphone? You just say yes to some opportunities and you never know, uh, you could end up on AM radio. You never know.You could, you could. That’s right. And you know, it’s, it’s really ballooned, um, you know, just from that. I remember the, you know, so the Superbowl, the Superbowl came to Minneapolis, I don’t know, a few years ago. 2018, it was pre pandemic. So [00:33:00] flu was what all, everybody cared about was flu. There was no such thing as COVID, no one had heard of it.But everybody was definitely afraid of flu. And so I was on national news, you know, standing outside the stadium, which I can see also from my office here where the Vikings play and where the Superbowl was. And I had ABC world news tonight, you know, talking to me, do you think it’s a good idea that all these people are coming together because they could get flu?I’m like, so the radio show has led to some funny things like that. Like I’m, I’m literally, uh, I talk so much to so many people about flu and then obviously it switched to COVID, but it has resulted in things that I never, ever, ever dreamed I’d be doing. You mentioned you tried out for this, uh, who did you beat out for this job as an AM radio host?So I think, I’m not sure, but I understand there was a psychiatrist and a gastroenterologist to try it out for it. And, uh, I’m not sure you can make years, a decade’s worth of stuff out of the GI tract though. [00:34:00] Yeah. think maybe that guy could have been the best one in the whole wide world, but I got it because he’s going to talk about your intestines, you know, how much can you go with that?I think it was smart to go with someone with a little bit more broad spectrum of, of expertise. Like what if I had gone for that? Like I would have been a terrible choice for that. Oh yeah. Like how often can you, I can kind of talk for, I can talk for maybe a couple hours. One woman calls in and she says something like, I swear to God, she was having a stroke.I know she was having a stroke. So I have this little lady call in and she said, well, I woke up this morning and I can’t talk very well and my arm’s weak and all this stuff. And I said, Oh honey, you need to not call the radio and you need to be calling 9 1 1. And so we did. We called 9 1 1, but I’m not sure, you know, I know that ophthalmologists are smart.But I’m not sure that the whole breadth of, of, of medical topics. I would have, I would have fumbled the tinnitus, uh, question for sure. Like it’s in the neighborhood, you know, ears, eyes, [00:35:00] don’t give me too much credit here. Uh, I could handle the stroke stuff though. I can, I can recognize if someone’s having a stroke.Yeah, Kristen could handle the stroke thing better than you could. You know, I was thinking that, but not saying, like, even I know those are stroke signs. Slurring your speech. Absolutely. Yeah, well, no, but Kristen, in general, I think you could handle that show better, and all due respect, better than the ophthalmologist.Better than Will. Well, yeah, probably so. That’s true. So did people, um, Whenever they came in to see you as a patient, like, did you ever get recognized for your voice? Has that, has that happened? Yeah, that still happens to this day. I’ll have, um, well, during, during the pandemic, um, I had many of my colleagues say I had this patient who just simply said, I’m going to get this, this COVID shot.Because you told them to, on the radio. So that happens all the time. All the time, all the time. But many times, um, uh, I’ll have another colleague saying, Can you, can you come down to this inpatient room because Mildred is here, and [00:36:00] she’s a big fan, and she listens to you, and she visited you at the live show at the State Fair, and she would love to have you.And I’m thinking, Oh, you’re going to be so disappointed when I show up. You’re just like, it’s just some guy showing up. I’m like nothing. You know, I’m not bringing eight by 10 glossies, you know, to the side of just like this local County doctor that, but she listens every week and she used to come out to the state fair.I did a lot of state fair shows, you know? Yeah. What’s the, I mean, that’s a big thing in Minnesota. Yeah. I mean, all over the Midwest, they got the Iowa state fair was a huge thing. They got the butter cow. Yeah. Yeah. So you guys are from Texas. I happen to know this because I did a lot of the state fair things.The country’s biggest state fair is indeed in Texas. Of course. But Texas cheated because the number two state fair in the country is Minnesota’s. This is facts. Yes. And more people go to the Texas state fair. But it’s like 24 days long and the Minnesota, Minnesota State [00:37:00] Fair is like 10 days long and it’s almost the same number.So a quarter million people all pack into this fairgrounds. And, but all the radio stations are there, including ours. So, I’m sitting there on this little porch, it’s very porch like, it looks like a veranda of a cottage, and I’m sitting out there with a microphone like this, and people come out at seven in the morning, and, and, and I do the show live from there, and, and there’s like goats walking by, because it’s an agricultural fair, like somebody’s walking their horse.And, and, and then I’d have 20 or 30 people sitting right in front of us drinking their coffee, egg coffee. You know, you’d make egg coffee. That’s a Swedish thing. What is egg coffee? I don’t know about egg coffee. Oh, egg coffee. You put eggs in there. Yeah, I don’t know. They’re eating these scones, and they’ve got cheese curds at seven in the morning.And there’s like 40 people. Like, who comes out at seven? Maybe that gastroenterologist would have been a good idea after all, I don’t know. He would have been a good idea there. Sounds like. Literally. You do need your stomach pumped after going to the Minnesota State Fair. I mean, it’s just, it’s actually, [00:38:00] um, not fit for polite company to talk about what you eat at the Minnesota State Fair.It’s disgusting. Oh, it’s. And they do, they have butter sculptures and all that. But anyways, I’m sitting out there trying to talk about healthcare. And often it was the little old ladies and my, my, my radio listeners and they’re showing up in wheelchairs and they’re in there. And so I had a pretty loyal following and I met them just twice a year at the state fair and many of them would be here in the hospital.And so I would come visit them for that. Oh, that’s so great. What did, I know it’s, it’s Minnesota and everyone is like, nice. It’s like Minnesota, it’s like, you know, people are, my point of what I’m getting at is did people ever get mad at you? Like, did you ever make any, you know, have any difficult conversations live on the air?Or is it more like, well, I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed in you. Is that more the Minnesota style? That’s what people do. Yeah, we’re very, so there is a term called Minnesota nice, which other people call passive aggressive. Right. They have that in Iowa too, [00:39:00] Iowa nice. It’s very similar. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But people I know that are from other places, I had a friend from Colorado, born in Alaska.Went to Colorado. She said, I can’t get to know anybody here. You guys talk about how nice you are, but you’re just a little bit hard to warm up to. That’s what, that’s what she said. But people are very… Of course, it’s like minus 20 half the year. Exactly. Is that a pun? I don’t know. Yeah, exactly. People do get angry.I’ve had patients do that. I had like a, I had this one time. You know, and maybe she was a little confused, I don’t know, but she said, this is no way to run a hotel. And she takes the phone from the hospital room and throws it across the room at me. I’m like ducking, you know, ducking it. But that was, she was, well, she’s not wrong.No, she’s not wrong. You know, and, you know, and, and because I don’t know what I had done to, uh, what my transgression was, but the phone came flying across me at the hospital. But that isn’t a typical, uh, Minnesota nice thing. Yeah. It sounds like maybe there were some other things going on in that case. I think [00:40:00] maybe there were some other things going on.Yeah, I had another patient, she, I think it was she, you know, we’re going to protect the innocent here. I’m not going to say anything about patients because patients are, um, the reason I’m here. I just love our patients. But I had, I had a patient call, you know, the local TV news station to the, to the investigative reporters to say how we weren’t feeding patients at this hospital and, well, she was having a surgery done.So she was, you know, NPO and she couldn’t have had a surgery. But the patients here are, like I was saying earlier, are. Absolutely, positively the reason I’m here and we just, we do attract kind of an eclectic group of doctors. You know, uh, we’re all just a little bit, um, maybe a little earthy crunchy because we’re at the county and could, could work elsewhere just as easily, but choose to come here.Um, and, um, the patients I would say are, if anything, they’re, They’re more grateful, they’re more kind, they’re, um, they’re just lovely. And frankly, the reason I’m here, I think. That’s awesome. It makes [00:41:00] me want to move out to Minnesota. Should we go to Duluth? It’s just like Portland. We’ll be fine there. I’m sure.You’re out in Portland, right? That’s right. I don’t know. It’s always out in Portland. I came up to Portland just like last year to visit some friends. I have a friend who’s a colleague on the faculty of the University of Portland in the business school. And we go out there and it’s freaking rainy. It’s raining and they wanted to go for a bike ride and we said, well, it’s too bad we can’t go for that bike ride.And they looked at us like, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? I’ve got an umbrella. I was the only guy in Portland with an umbrella, no one else. Cause they said, it’s just mistine or whatever. Yeah, exactly. You go out in the, in the mist. You don’t even feel it. It’s just kind of, you just accept it as you’re just going to be a little damp.Here’s the deal though. Does the sun shine? Some of the months, right? Kind of. It’s like trying to right now. You get, you get much more sunshine. I’ll say that. I think we do. You do. We get the extremes. We get like, no sun, just clouds for a few months, and then [00:42:00] no clouds, just sun for the whole summer. This is such, this is turning into such This is a very weather based episode.This is such a midwestern type of episode. We’re talking about the weather. Oh, do you want to talk about the hog prices? How about some hot dish? Do we have any? Oh, you actually used the correct term. Duck, duck, gray duck, or whatever the heck it is. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Isn’t there, that’s like a duck duck goose, it’s like duck duck grey duck.I’m in awe, I’m in awe of your knowledge. Thank you, thank you very much. Because the correct, I know this is probably exactly what listeners want to hear about, but but but you are correct that the the name of the of the Children’s game is duck, duck, grey duck. Yeah. That’s right. And all of the rest of you are wrong.Well, let’s, let’s, let’s take a break. We’ll be right back with Dr. Hilden.Hey, Kristen. Yeah. Do I look like a cardiologist when I hold [00:43:00] this? You look like you’re trying to be a cardiologist. Oh, because I’m an ophthalmologist. Well, and just, like, what are you even doing with your hands there? I, I do, I feel like a cardiologist. Yeah. And that’s the most important thing because of the stethoscope.Yeah. This is so cool. It is the tool of the trade. It’s an Echo Core 500 digital stethoscope with three lead ECG. It even makes an ophthalmologist feel like a cardiologist. That’s saying something. Right? And it’s got 40 times noise amplification, noise cancellation, three audio filter modes, and a. Full color display.Yeah, it’s bananas. It’s it’s what stethoscope has all of that. I know we live in the future No, just the echo core 500. That’s right. That’s it. And you can also record, review, save, share Yeah, all the things you’re listening to. That’s right. It’s great for teaching. It’s great for just learning yourself And also we have a special offer for our US listeners.Visit echo health dot com slash KKH and use code NOC50 to experience ECHO’s [00:44:00] CORE500 digital stethoscope technology. That’s EKOHealth slash KKH and use NOC50 to get a 75 day risk free trial and a free case and free shipping with this exclusive offer. Hey, Kristen, do you mind if this little guy stares at you while you talk?Well, you know, they’re kind of growing on me. I mean, hopefully not literally, but, but these cute little guys. You know what they are, right? Yeah. Demodex mites. That’s right. They cause itchy, red, scaly skin on the eyelids because they live on the eyelash follicles. Yeah, just eating up all your dirts and oils.That’s why it’s important to get your eyelids checked out if you have those types of symptoms. Don’t freak out, get checked out. To find out more, go to eyelid check.com. That’s E-Y-E-L-I-D check.com to get more information about Dedex Leitis.Alright, [00:45:00] we are back with Dr. David Hilden and uh, Minnesotan Extraordinaire. No, Minnesota. Minnesota. Oh, that was better. Minnesota. Uh, he needs some work. Wouldn’t you say? You pronounce the T Do you like enunciate the T? So, no, it’s softer. It’s softer, soft. T Minnesotan. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Anyway,So what I thought, uh, what I’d like to do with you, um, is, uh, do a little, a little activity. A little game that, um, I actually don’t have a really good name for this. We’re just going to rank organs because one of the things I find so interesting about, um, internal medicine doctors actually, so I will say impressive is that you just, you know, so much about all these things that you can’t see.You see, like, I can look at the eyeballs. I can actually see exactly what I’m treating. Only the front, though. I can look at, I can see everything. Oh yeah, you have the torture devices. Yeah, we can, we can, uh, anything we diagnose for the most part, unless you’re like a neuro ophthalmologist, but [00:46:00] they’re like unicorns in ophthalmology, uh, I, I can, I can see everything that I’m diagnosing and treating, unlike you, who can’t.And there’s, there’s so many things inside the body. And so I just, I, it sounds, it seems really hard, what you do, I guess is what I’m saying. Like, why did you choose such a hard job? Yeah, you, I appreciate that because it allows us to sit around and drink coffee and eat donuts and talk about stuff.Because that’s the real reason, right? Got your egg coffee. All day long, you drink coffee and talk about what we can’t see. Well, you know, the differential is really long on that, Will. Let’s go through it. Okay. Um, all right. So, so what I thought we could do, I, I wrote down, um, ten different internal organs.Okay, now these are all things that I don’t have a lot of knowledge about, just what I remember from med school, uh, and, uh, but since we’re talking with a [00:47:00] bona fide internal medicine doctor here, I thought we could do something that, this is actually a variation of a game that’s, that’s done on TikTok, believe it or not.So You are going to rank these, we’re going to draw them randomly, and you have to slot them 1 10, alright? Not knowing what’s going to come up next or what’s going to come up later. Oh, okay, okay. Do I get CME credits for this? That’s what I want. Yes, you do. This is definitely, you get all your CME, you can just, whatever.Yeah, sure. Okay, I think, okay, I’m ready to go. Is it going to be like the optic nerve, the lateral rectus muscle? No, no, no, no, no. These are all, I didn’t cheat. These are all things that are in the, inside the body that you can’t see. What would be considered internal organs? Okay. Are you ready? And you say, and the, the criteria is whatever you want it to be.It’s, it’s your personal ranking. What does define that? However you want. All right. This is very scientific. Yep. All right. One being your favorite, the best 10 [00:48:00] being the worst. All right, here we go. And Kristen’s going to draw these randomly. Let’s go. That’s a heck of a one to start on. The heart. Oh, number one.Ooh. All right. Do I have to tell you why or is it, you know, and I can change my answers later. You cannot change your answers. No. And Will’s writing them down, so you’re not going to do that. I’m keeping track. I think the heart is number one because I kind of want it to be a cardiologist. Oh, did you? Yes!It’s so cool! It’s got, it’s, it’s a, it’s first of all a chemical reaction that leads to an electrical current which leads to a mechanical pump. It’s like the full package of engineering dorkiness. That is true. I have never heard it presented that way, but yes, it’s pretty good. It is. It’s very cool. Very cool.Number one. I’m almost buying that. Okay. Yeah. All right. So we got one out of the way. Let’s go. All right. Just a single lung. He didn’t say lungs. A single [00:49:00] lung. I’m gonna go with number four. Oh, okay. A single lung is number four. All right. Number four is lung. I, I do, just for the record, I do know that there are, I do know that there are two lungs.I don’t know why I just wrote lung, but lung is what I wrote. Is there another sheet in there, Chris? Is there another sheet in there that says the other lung? No I think it was just a Freudian slip. I just wrote down one lung. Just one, whichever lung is your favorite. Have you had to choose a right or a left lung to hold on to?You know, it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be the, um. The, the right one, because it has three lobes and the left one only has two, and so it’s the better one. And I’ve actually held a lung and they’re kind of gruesome, so I don’t think that’s why it’s only number four. I know it’s important, but it’s not. Oh, that doesn’t matter how important it is.It’s up to you. Yeah. It’s whatever your criteria are. Your subjective opinion. That’s right. Okay. Okay. Momentum.You did study something in med school, so omentum I’m going to [00:50:00] have to go with like number eight. You’re going to have to tell our non medical listeners what is an omentum. It’s part of your guts, it’s, you know, it slides around in there and kind of holds all the guts together and it’s kind of, it’s kind of got a high U factor.Like sausage casing. Oh, yes. That’s kind of, that’s kind of what, that’s something you might find at the Minnesota State Fair. Exactly. You could, you could probably eat that if you, if you deep fry it. Oh yeah. Also, put some eggs in there. Perfect. Oh my. Um, yes, the omentum, it’s like a, isn’t it like a fat curtain?That’s how I always remember It is like a fat curtain in there. Your surgeon has to cut through it when they’re, you know, when they’re operating in you. And it kind of holds things together, connective tissue, sort of, of your gut. But also seems extraneous. To a certain extent. It really does. You know. What if you didn’t have it?Would you have a problem? Good question. You know, I don’t, you know, I think you, you know, things would slosh around in there a little bit. Oh, [00:51:00] yeah. It provides a little, a little firmness that might be helpful. It does. It kind of holds, it kind of holds your bits together in there. Hey, don’t look at me like that.You’re the one that put it in there. I did. I can’t believe you put that in there. Okay, and again, a single kidney. Oh, kidney. I’ll say, kidneys are very cool. So kidneys, kidneys are very cool. So I’m going to have to go with number two, two on the kidneys. It’s another internal medicine, dorky thing, but kidneys do like 10 things.And most of us think they just make urine, but they do like 10 other things. No, no, no. They’re very cool. Um, and, and yeah, that’s number two. So cardio, uh, the heart and is, takes the, takes the number one in kidneys and number two, and, and you’ll find in internal medicine people, you’ll get a cardiologist recommending one thing for the health of the heart and it’s always exactly the.Opposite of what the nephrologist is recommending for the kidneys. That’s why we [00:52:00] often say things like, well, it’s why the good Lord gave you two hands. One of them is to get more fluid in the body because that’s what the kidney doctor wants. And the other is to take more fluid off the body because that’s what the heart doctor wants.That’s yours. Isn’t it the cardiologists and the nephrologists that are at war in your skits? Always going at it with each other. Assault. That’s right. They never agree. It’s like, good grief, I have to pick which one of you I like better and take your advice and hope it’s the right thing. You’re like the child caught in the middle of divorcing parents.You are. Which I’m sure is great comfort to people listening to this show. Exactly. Alright. Okay. Gallbladder. Oh, gallbladder’s gotta be, like, number nine. Nine, okay. Who needs a gallbladder? All my gastroenterologist friends are gonna hate me. That’s how you can live without the thing, you know? Yeah, that’s, yeah, absolutely.I mean, it’s, it’s kinda cool. It makes these stones. Yeah, I don’t, what does it do? It does make these [00:53:00] stones, and have you ever seen the stones? Uh, I mean, I’ve seen like a, not, not in person, but I’ve seen like pictures of them. Oh, you know, they got jars of them down in the GI lab. You know, that’s great. Dr.Hilton. Yeah. That’s fantastic. They do. They’ve got, it looks like stones you’d go collecting on the seashore or something. They’re these beautiful, colorful stones of various shapes and sizes. Look at that. Like a, like a pearl, but much grosser. Yeah, very much so. If you didn’t know what they were, you’d think they’re beautiful.All right, so Goldman is nine. Okay. What else we got? Ooh, spleen. So, so here’s the deal, nobody, nobody knows what the spleen does. I mean, I like, that’s what I’m saying. Nobody really knows what the spleen does. So, so this is a number 10 right here. Number 10. Thank you. Have I given you a 10? No, you haven’t. We got 8, 9, 10, omentum, gallbladder, spleen.You’re going to piss off some, uh, hematologists [00:54:00] here. Well, yeah, seriously, but no, you can do without it as well. Although I’m sure it has a very important job in your, in your immune system and red cells and all that stuff. But you know, it’s a, it is the often neglected organ, even in internal medicine. Oh, poor spleen.The poor spleen, I don’t know what it does anyway, so. But then you like, the spleen is also weird because you can get like little, they’re called splenules. Have you heard about that? I’ve heard that word before. Yeah, it’s like, like little baby spleens that go in it. Yeah, they can. It’s, it’s a, yeah. You can have all that.Or like, I don’t know. Inside itself? It’s just, I don’t know, they’re just there. There’s like little spleens everywhere. It’s kind of gross. They grow on the eyeball, I think. You know what? I don’t know. That scares me, though. I think that it might. If you have a splenule in your vitreous. Nope, we don’t want that.I don’t think they grow there. We don’t want that. Oh, I’m not sure how to pronounce this one, but I’m going to give it a shot. Seek um. [00:55:00] Oh, you’re Seek um. Oh, did I get it right? You did. Nice! You nailed it. Yeah, uh, I do have to ask you about your, about the GI tract situation. Yes. I think it’s over represented in this game.The GI tract is over represented. Well, how many internal organs are there? I mean, come on. It’s like half of it’s your GI tract. A lot of it. Well, now we’re down to sub units of your GI tract. I mean, your C your C comes the most proximal part of your large intestine or your colon. So we’re, so it’s, uh, it’s right where your small intestine hits your, you know, you know, your large intestine where your appendix hangs off of there.Yeah. There’s a valve. There is the ileocecal valve. Yeah, I remember that because he, uh, asked our two year old to say that once. Ileocecal valve. I like the vocabulary you’re going with. Absolutely. Okay, honey, say ileocecal now. And she did. She was like freakishly good at language, and so he gave her that as [00:56:00] like a, like a, you know, stretch one.But yeah, she did it. Well, I don’t even know where I should put this. I don’t even know what numbers I have left. You got three, five, six, and seven. You know, I’m going six because I, you know, I’m hoping to have the gastroenterologist by me around at happy hour or something. There you go. All right. Well, stomach.I think we need to talk about the intestinal tract with a certain ophthalmologist. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Stomach. We’re going, we’re going seven. Not quite as high as the cecum. All right. Because it’s a disgusting situation, but you do need one. You do need one, that’s true, but yeah, it’s just a churning point for disgustingness.Seems like it causes a lot of problems, you know, you got your reflux issues and ulcers. Yeah, it does. All that stuff. Although when you look inside of it, it’s quite pretty on a, you know, uh, you know, when it doesn’t have food, you [00:57:00] know, it’s just beautiful kind of pinkish thing when it’s a healthy looking one.So it is, it’s quite nice. There you go. I’ve never considered what the inside of a stomach might look like. It is cool to watch like an upper endoscopy and you, you go and you see all the, the things inside of it. It’s like when I was trying to watch my… Well, no, not by that point. Usually it’s all cleared out, but…Oh, sure. No, yeah, yeah. We make people clear it out and then it’s as beautiful as the day we’re born. The inside of this thing, it looks lovely and… And, you know, Katie Couric watched her own colonoscopy on the Today Show once, and so I tried to do that, you know, and, and I, of course, you know, I’m in my own facility.And so I know the nurse, I know the doctor about to do the thing. And I said, I’m gonna watch this thing. I’m gonna watch this thing. So they said, okay, count backwards from 100. You know, because we’re going to give you some, some anesthesia or some sedatives. I didn’t even get to like 97. I was asleep for the whole thing, so I didn’t get to it.They’re like, okay, sure you’ll, sure you are. Hopefully they recorded it for you. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, I think we’re [00:58:00] escaping G. I. Trent. You got two more. Yes. You got three and five. I think I’m getting them right. Actually, you’re doing quite well, to be honest. It’s the definitive list. He’s getting them right.It’s his own opinion. Okay. Deliver. Deliver. Number three. Number three. So we got heart, kidney, that was said. Kidney with confidence. Kidney. Oh yeah, with confidence. That’s the other thing. ’cause the liver, you know the whole Prometheus story and all that. You know, Prometheus and his liver regenerated and it was eaten by birds and all that.And the liver can kind of regrow and it does also about six or seven things. And so anything that does like multiple duties like that. Sure. When the spleen can regrow, no one likes it. But no, no one cares about the s does. It cares about poor. Did you, did you know the liver could regrow? Did you know that?No, I don’t think I did. I mean, it’s not like you’re supposed to, but that’s what happened. You know, in mythology, Prometheus steals fire from Zeus and his liver, you know, he gets a lifetime of his liver. But it is an actual true thing that your [00:59:00] liver can be partially transplanted and it can, the cells can regrow, unlike your heart, your kidney, your liver can do that.And it does so many things. I think a little bit of it’s my own practice here. I see a ton of liver disease. And so I see what happens when your liver… Yeah, I mean, I’m on the record saying we should have two livers instead of a spleen. I’m just, we should have two livers and there’s space over there in the left side of the body.You know the liver’s over on your right side. They could, that’s insane. Yeah, I think you’re right. There you go. You’re right. What, what is the liver the only one that can do that? That could regenerate. Regenerate? Yeah. Yeah. It can actually grow back pretty well. I’m trying to think of, well, your intestinal walls can, here’s a, a, a, anything that can get cancer.Basically are things that can regrow because their cells are, are growing. You don’t hear about heart cancer very much, do you? Because you know, the cells aren’t really growing that much, but you hear about liver cancer, intestinal cancer, colon cancer. So the intestines can. Interesting. There you go. All right.All right. [01:00:00] Last one. This is a doozy. Pancreas. Oh, pancreas. So that’s whatever, what number do I got left? Slots, slots into five for you. I think that’s probably pretty good since we have like five things in the GI tract and the pancreas is too. I think it comes in top among the GI tract organs. All right.Perfect. All right. So here’s your list. Heart, kidney, liver, lung, singular, pancreas, cecum, stomach, omentum, gallbladder, spleen. Yeah, I That’s a good one. He stands by it. The definitive rankings here. I know, and I’m going to have to, with apologies to all my gastroenterology colleagues, including the eight of them who work for me.Oh, ask, I bet they don’t even care about the omentum themselves. Come on. They don’t. Let’s be honest. They don’t care about the omentum. So have you taught your kids about the omentum yet? I don’t think [01:01:00] I have. I don’t think we’ve done that one. It’s high on my list of parenting things to do. We’ll talk about it tonight at dinner.Yeah, and if they can slip it into a sentence. You know, that would be really good if you’re, I can’t even slip it into a sentence and you ask me about it, but if you can get your kid to, they’re, they’re well on their way. It looks like momentum, dad. Yes, they’re well on their way to a fulfilling life if they can do that at age two.Oh man. Well, we should probably wrap things up. All right. All right. Um, although I, I do want to hear more, um, stories from Minnesota at some point, so we’ll have to have you come back sometime. Great hanging out with you guys, you know, and you should come to, if you come to Minnesota, I’ll show you around.You need to ice fish. Yeah, we’re gonna have to go ice fishing, I think. All right, fine. Maybe I will come to Duluth in, in, in February. Yeah, I bet that’s the best ice fishing in the world. What kind of, what are we, what are we catching when we go ice fishing? Walleye. Walleye. It’s the state fish of Minnesota.Come on now. How do you know so much about [01:02:00] it? You lightly bread it, you fry it up. It’s really good, yeah. Well, um, uh, so you’re, the podcast is, uh, healthy. Matters, healthy matters. And you can find it@healthymatters.org. Um, and, uh, or the proverbial wherever you get your podcasts. That’s right. There we go.Healthy Matters. Check it out. Well, I, I’ve been on We do that together, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did. Yeah. We were on Healthy Matters. That’s right. That was when we first met. Loads of people have listened to the two of you, and I appreciate you being on the, uh, being on the Health Matters podcast and for having me on here.That was a great time. And, uh, also, you’re on Twitter. Or X. I am D. R. David Hilden. Yeah, I think it’s called X. D. R. David Hilden. Anything else you want to promote? Uh, uh, just Hennepin County Hospital? Yeah, if you’re ever in Minnesota, you know, uh, I would like to tell people, you know, look out for your county hospitals.You know, we have a hashtag around here that we just all kind of know with a wink, you know, hashtag county. You’ve got loads of people, not just in this city, but in every city [01:03:00] across the country who are doing um, really wonderful work for people who deserve the best care that this country can offer. And people are doing great health care everywhere, but just a big shout out to those who are doing it at a safety.Absolutely. That’s right. Alright, well thanks a lot, David. Good talking to you. Good talking to you both. Thanks. See you next time.Okay. Let’s take a look at a medical story that was sent in by one of our listeners. Today we have a story from Anne. Uh, the title is possums and eyeballs should not mix. That’s, that’s really, I mean, you want to catch my attention. All right. Uh, throw in some eyeballs and a wild animal. Absolutely. Okay. A couple months after getting LASIK surgery in the 90s, which is like early days of LASIK.So this is like, yeah, pretty early on. Uh, she’s, Anne says, I still have a vivid memory of the smell of burning [01:04:00] eyeballs, but I digress. Oh no! Is that a thing? You know what? Not as much now. Yeah. Uh, there, we don’t, uh, there is what’s called ablation of the eye tissue. Where you basically, like, solder it. Sure.Sure. Sure. Come get your eyeballs soldered! 2, 000 an eye. My husband and I were getting ready to go out to a movie. It was Saturday night around 8 p. m. I was a wildlife carer and had just finished feeding a baby possum. At this age, possums are called backriders because they love riding around on mom’s back.The closest experience they can get to backriding while in care is to ride around on their human’s head. This, however, is not encouraged, as having their needle like claws in close proximity to your face is fraught with danger, as you can imagine. I suspect you can see where this story is going. I was careful not to let the little guy climb onto my head, but the instinct…Was hard to [01:05:00] suppress. Anyway, I was having trouble getting him back in the cage, uh, at, on this night. He was nocturnal, he was happy, and he wanted company. I almost got to the, got the door closed on his cage when he leapt off the cage from my head. He made it across and grappled me for purchase. Oh no! But one of his claws hooked straight onto my eyeball.Ugh. And tore away the corneal flap from the LASIK.Not great. Just undid her LASIK. Not great. Well, didn’t undo it, but let’s see where the story goes. I managed to extricate him from my head. Check that he didn’t have the flap still hanging from his claw. It’s hard to do, those things are small. And place him back into the cage without further incident.Then I headed to the emergency room at a nearby hospital in quite a bit of discomfort. I, that’s a massive understatement. I enjoyed self serve laughing gas for an hour or so while we [01:06:00] waited for the… It’s not a bad idea actually. Self serve. I haven’t even thought about that. Yeah, we’re getting some anxious in there for you, because some people are very anxious.You may as well get something out of it. Some people are very anxious about, about their eyeballs. Eyeballs, yeah. Um, for a while, while we waited for the on call ophthalmologist to arrive from her dinner party in formal wear. That does sound like an ophthalmologist. That is, um, that sounds like she’s, uh.Well, because you know, when an ophthalmologist, an on call ophthalmologist, like, we never You don’t expect to go in. We don’t ever expect to go in. Oh, I know. I’m sure that ophthalmologist got a call, like, hey. Got a possum. This patient just had LASIK, uh, and uh, uh, it was a possum accident. Say no more. Say no more.Uh, okay. We apologized for wrecking her night. Uh, first of all, you don’t have to apologize. Yeah, I think the possum wrecked your night. Make the possum apologize. Okay? Uh, [01:07:00] turns out the corneal flap was still attached by its hinge, which does make sense, but had flipped over. So the underside was rubbing up against my eyelid and was otherwise undamaged.Very lucky. So she flipped it back. into the correct position, doused it with eyedrops, applied a patch, and admitted me overnight for observation. My vision was a bit cloudy, as dust and other muck had been caught under the flap, but I otherwise recovered well. A few weeks later, the surgeon was able to lift the flap, ablate the area clean with the LASIK laser, reinforcing my distaste for the smell of burning eyeball, and reattach it.My vision improved slightly as the first LASIK correction hadn’t been quite perfect. Oh, great. Silver lining. Plus, the surgeon had a cool story to present at his next conference, so it was a win win. And the croc and the possum grew big and fat and was eventually released. A happy ending all around. Yeah, so those LASIK flaps, so it is a flap.So you basically, you cut a flap that has a hinge, so you can kind of, you can lift up. What you do is you cut the flap, you lift it up. [01:08:00] Over kinda like a, this makes me nauseous. Kinda like a, um, like a, a waffle iron because it’s, it’s a flap of the eyeball. You know how a waffle iron has a hinge, like you open it?Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what it is. And then you ablate use the laser to change, to, to remove tissue from the cornea, changing the shape of it, uhhuh, allowing you to see better, and then you replace the flap. What you just described is. Horrifying. No, it’s not that bad. This is torture. It’s fine. You cut someone, you turn someone’s eyeball into a waffle iron, you burn it a little, sure, and you glue it back down.Okay, but they see 2020 the next day. All right, so it’s fine. You don’t glue it. You just put it back and it heals. But that’s what can happen whenever, uh, with anything, any kind of trauma, possum, claw, or otherwise. is it can, like, lift up the flap again, and you don’t want that. So that’s, that was what happened, fortunately.Maybe you should have glued it down. Well, sometimes you do. In fact, that [01:09:00] second time, I wouldn’t surprise me if they did put a couple of sutures in there, because if you have a traumatic flap dislocation, sometimes it’s better to just suture it and keep it down, but maybe not. Anyway, that’s… That’s Lasik Flops.I didn’t expect us to be talking about that, but neither did I. That’s a great story. Thank you, Anne, and, uh, good, good work with the possum, um, you know. I mean, I’m impressed. Surviving the, or, or. With her eye. Raising the possum and. Just cut open that she was able to. Yeah. Just put the possum back. Seriously, it’s like, oh man, this is, this is unfortunate.You little stinker. If you have any stories, let us know. Any opossum related or not, uh, knocknockhigh at human content. com. Um. You know, now we’re gonna get a bunch of opossum interacts with leech stories. Probably. Uh, always good to talk with Dr. Hilden. Yes, he’s, he’s a fun guy. I wish I had as much energy as he does.Minnesota to the core. [01:10:00] Oh, yes. It’s great. I wanna, I wanna hear more Minnesota, uh, state fair stories. I bet he’s got a ton. Yeah, absolutely. I bet the, uh, um, I, did you, did we ever go to the Iowa Fair? I did, yeah. I don’t think I ever made it. For work. I had to, like, work at a booth. Did you? For my organization.Did you eat some of the, the, the foods? I mean, I must have. Funnel cakes? I don’t remember. Yeah. Did you enjoy it? Did you have fun? Well, I was working. yeah. I don’t know, I didn’t get to go for funsies. Right. So. But yeah, it was quite the sight to see. Like, there’s a lot of people there. Does Oregon have a state fair?Yeah. I don’t think it’s anywhere near as big. You can’t, you can’t compete with Midwestern state fairs. Yeah. I mean, Texas is fine too, but man. But like, per capita, like, Texas is like three times the size of Minnesota. So if Minnesota is right there behind it. It’s impressive. Absolutely. Let us, uh, give us some state fair stories.Yeah! Lots of ways to hit us up. Knock, knock, hi at human content. [01:11:00] com. We’re on all the social media platforms. You can hang out with us and our Human Content Podcast family on Instagram and TikTok at humancontentpods. I am focused on this outro right now. I am killing it already. You’re talking about family like they’re just…Yes! Dysfunctional Christmas or something. We love our family. It’s great. We got several families. Um, and, uh, thank you to all the wonderful listeners leaving feedback and reviews. We love to see those nice reviews. If you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube, we can give you a shout out like Delaney H on Apple said, absolutely spectacular.The balance of humor with medical topics is so well done and Dr. and Lady G do such a good job making content that is accessible to all ages. Trainings and backgrounds try to do I do not have enough good things to say and we’ll definitely be a listener for as long as they continue to make episodes look forward to listening every time an episode comes out and appreciate the work they do bringing medical outreach topics to patients and health care workers across the [01:12:00] world.That is so kind. Thank you Delaney H. I appreciate that. And I’m just glad people aren’t tired of me talking about eyeballs yet. So, you know, well, some of them are sometimes I feel like maybe not. Are you, are you looking at me to… Verify. contradict that? Ha, ha, ha, ha. Full video episodes of this podcast are up every week on my YouTube channel at DGlockenflecken.We also have a Patreon, our other family. We got our real families, we got our, uh, our, um, extended families, we got our podcast family. Okay. And we have our Patreon family. What other families do we have? I was gonna ask you that, you, you’re on a roll. Yeah, I know, lots of families. Yeah. Uh. Yeah. Awesome family.Those are out there. Sure. Lots, our Patreon has lots of cool perks, bonus episodes, where we react to medical shows and movies. You can hang out with us and other members of the Knock Knock High community. Early ad free episode access, interactive Q& A, live stream events, much [01:13:00] more, patreon. com slash glockenflecken or go to our website glockenflecken.com. Speaking of I know, I know what other family we have. What? Work family. But that’s us. I know. We are a family. That’s why it’s like a, it’s pun adjacent. Oh, gotcha. Alright. I’m so glad you, you brought that back. Speaking of Patreon Community Perks, new member shoutout to Mohamed K. Welcome Mohamed.Shoutout to all the Jonathans, as always. Patrick, Lucia C, Sharon S, Omar, Edward K, Steven G, Jonathan F, Marion W, Mr. Grandaddy, Caitlin C, Brianna L, Dr. J, Ross Box, Chaver W, Leah D, KL, Rachel L, Anne P, Keith G, JJ H, Abby H, Derek N, Jonathan A, Mark, Mary H, Susanna F, Mohamed K, and Pink Macho! Woo! Did you do that all in one breath?I did. You were turning a little red there at the end. I’d like for us to get I was getting low on air. I know. I’d like for us to get enough [01:14:00] Jonathans that you pass out. Oh, we don’t want that. I’ve done enough of that in my life. Okay, we’ll at least have to take a second breath. That’s, that’s fair. Patreon roulette.Random shout out to someone on the emergency medicines here. We have Sax Daddy. Whoa! Sax Daddy. Thank you for being a patron, Sax Daddy. I like your name. And thank you all for listening. We’re your hosts, Will and Kristen Flannery. Sex, daddy. That’s so good. Also known as the Glock and Fleckens. Special thanks to our guest.Do you think he plays the sax? I hope so. Okay, special thanks to our guest, Dr. David Hilden. Our executive producers are Will Flannery, Kirsten Flannery, Aron Korney, Rob Goldman, and Shahnti Brooke. Is like a childhood nickname that he was given? I don’t think so. Probably not. It doesn’t sound like a childhood nickname kind of thing.It seems like I would have, if I had a friend who played the saxophone in like middle school band. Sure. Might call him Sax Daddy. Yeah. But he would have had to play the saxophone. Uh, reach out, Sax Daddy, and let us Tell us the origin story. Give us the origin of Sax Daddy. Um, our editor and engineer is Jason [01:15:00] Portizor, and our music is by Omer Ben Zvi.Did I, did I get everybody? To learn about our Knock Knock High’s program disclaimer and ethics policy, submission, verification, licensing, terms, and HIPAA release terms, FlocknFlockn. com is where you can find all that. Uh, reach out to us at KnockKnockHigh at human content. com with any questions, concerns, or fun medical puns.Knock Knock High. It’s a human content production.Hey, Kristen, you ready for the holidays? I am. I’m excited, but I’m also a little nervous because it’s a really busy time of year. We don’t have time to do anything. I know. And it’s really hard for physicians around the holidays. Yeah. Everybody trying to sneak in before January. Everybody, everybody wants an appointment.And so you’re just, you’re pressed for time. You have to multitask and just try to get it, fit it all in. That’s right. You know, with work and with home life and everything. But you know what helps? What’s that? [01:16:00] DAX. Oh, yeah. Saves you some time. The Nuance Dragon Ambient Experience, or DAX for short. It’s great.It sits in the room with you and helps you with the documentation burden. So it’s like one less thing you have to think about. Yeah. And it helps you connect with your patients better, which is always really important, especially around the holidays. Absolutely. We need to turn attention back to the patient physician relationship.And you should ask for it. Ask your company for DAX. Like who wouldn’t want a little DAX, like a little Jonathan, just hanging out with you around the holidays. It’s fantastic. To learn more about the Nuance Dragon Ambient Experience or DAX, visit nuance. com slash discover DAX. That’s N U A N C E dot com slash discover D A X.