This weeks guest is Dr Jessica Hochman's dad, Dr Andrew Matthew! Dr Matthew has been practicing pediatrics for 43 years, and he has much wisdom to share. In addition to being a pediatrician, he also lives a very well rounded life. He has been married for 45 years, a father of 3 daughters, and grandpa to 9 grandchildren. He is known by his patients for being dependable, caring, and for his stories. On this podcast we will talk about the evolution of practicing medicine as a pediatrician.
Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.
Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss? Email your suggestion to: askdrjessicamd@gmail.com.
Dr Jessica Hochman is also on social media: Follow her on Instagram: @AskDrJessica Subscribe to her YouTube channel! Ask Dr Jessica Subscribe to this podcast: Ask Dr Jessica Subscribe to her mailing list: www.askdrjessicamd.com
The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.
Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.
Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss? Email Dr Jessica Hochman askdrjessicamd@gmail.com.
Follow her on Instagram: @AskDrJessica Subscribe to her YouTube channel! Ask Dr Jessica Subscribe to this podcast: Ask Dr Jessica Subscribe to her mailing list: www.askdrjessicamd.com
The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.
Unknown:
Hey everybody welcome to ask Dr. Jessica the podcast where we interview experts with a goal to help you worry less about parenting. I'm your host and paediatrician Dr. Jessica Hochman. Today's guest is the best paediatrician, my dad, Dr. Andrew Matthew, we will talk about childhood illnesses and how they've improved over the years. For those of you who don't know I practice paediatrics alongside my dad. And it's really the best. He's incredibly hardworking, devoted, and truly my role model I learned from my dad every day. So I'm thrilled to share some of his wisdom and stories with you. If you're enjoying this podcast, I would be so grateful if you would take the time to leave a review. It really helps the podcast grow. Dad or Dr. Matthew, I have been asked by many, many people if you were ever going to come join the podcast. So I'm so excited that you're here. Well, I appreciate the opportunity. Although I've probably have been reluctant to get on the podcast. This is your first podcast. Yes. But you are very good at telling stories. You're a very good paediatrician. So I think you're going to be a natural. We'll come from you. Thank you. So I wanted to just talk to you about being a paediatrician and what it's like, how many years have you been a paediatrician now? I've been in practice for 43 years plus, do you like it? I still like it. I still enjoy the stimulation. I enjoy the patients. And I'm happy doing it. So 43 years, do you feel like it's changed as you've practised or do you feel like it's been as rewarding the entire time? It's just as rewarding. And what I noticed that's positive is that kids are healthier now. Do you really think so? I do for the following reasons. One, immunisation has taken away a lot of different types of meningitis, that the HIV vaccine and the Prevnar vaccine have pretty much eliminated. But also because of the Prevnar vaccine, we don't see as much ear infections. The treatment for diabetes is far superior. There was then when I finished my residency or an early practice, the treatment for new neonates and newborns, and preemies is much better. And the treatment of asthma is just remarkably different than what we did early in practice. And it's especially during residency. It's very rare now that I had met so many to the hospital. So that's why I think kids are healthier now than before. So when you first started in practice, was it more common that you'd see kids get sick enough where they had to stay in the hospital overnight? Yes. A lot of our coop patients were in the hospital overnight. We used to routinely do spinal taps on people who had febrile convulsions, which no one does anymore. We used to admit more for pneumonia. We used to admit for meningitis for asthma, for viral gastroenteritis. So kids who would be admitted for vomiting and dehydration, we don't have to do that so much anymore. Wow. So it sounds like not only is your job less stressful in a lot of ways, but also kids are, are better, they're healthier, right? And the as far as being less stressful. Back in the day, we used to attend all the C sections. So I could be in my office, and then the hospital call me to attend a C section at three in the afternoon. I didn't have to just drop everything and go to the hospital, reschedule my patients in the office. Or I would be asked to go to a C section in the middle of the night. And there was one, top up one time where I had three C sections in the middle of the night. So I was leaving my house coming back home to go to hospital three times. Then you're going to work the next day. I have to be honest, I've heard this story a lot, but not so much from you. Well, mostly from you know who my better half? Yes, yes, she she definitely recalls being you getting up many times in the night having to go to the hospital, and then come back and go to work the next day. But I have to be honest, you don't complain very much. Once you complained, you start to be worn down and have bad attitude. And that's not going to be where I'm going to be truly admirable. So I just as a sidenote, there's many times where I'll complain about a night on call. I'll tell my dad Oh, my goodness, I got a phone call in the middle the night about you know, and not to not to throw the hospital under the bus. But they'll call about a phone call that maybe could have waited a couple hours in the wake me at three, four in the morning and can't go back to sleep. And I'll tell my dad about it. And do you know what your advice is to me? I think so. Probably just just don't worry about and go back to bed. That's what you say you say? If you let it bother you and get into your skin, then you're gonna stay up and you're the only one that loses. That is correct. So it's an impressive skill that I'm working on mastering. I don't know if we'll ever get there. I think he will. I think you will. So okay, just to bring it back to immunizations I think This is really interesting to talk to you about because not a lot of paediatricians have the perspective of practising before their immunizations. I think we, a lot of us, we don't want to but we can take them for granted because we didn't we're not exposed to illness in a way that you were immunizations that we did have with a wholesale DTA DTP, polio, diphtheria. We had separate measles separate Muslims have separate rubella and we used to do TB tests all the time. Now they combined the MMR. There is no longer the whole cell DTaP but it's a cellular pertussis, we don't get the reactions from the DTP that we used to get. And then they've added the HIV, the Prevnar or hepatitis B, hepatitis A, the chickenpox vaccine. So all those Oh, in the Gardasil vaccine, so a lot of immunizations have been added in to our repertoire. So I think this is a really good point because so many patients will say, oh my goodness, there's so many more vaccines today than there were in the 80s, let's say, but what you're describing as we have as a huge benefit a lot healthier children. Undeniably I have never had to have a kid need a liver transplant because of getting hepatitis B. For hepatitis A, in the past, we used to use Holtz, we'd give gamma globulin which was obtained from people donating blood and give gamma globulin shots. And that was from pooled gamma globulin. We don't do that anymore. And the hepatitis A vaccine just certainly makes sense. If you're gonna be travelling and you might get something from bad food or bad water. chickenpox used to be take kids out of school for like two weeks, and then later on in life, they could end up getting shingles. So the chickenpox vaccine pretty much eradicated that possibility. The Gardasil vaccination helps women as far as getting possible cancer later on in life. It helps men to not with cervical cancer, obviously, but with anal cancer and some of the head and neck cancers. That's correct. Yeah. And were just just out of curiosity, since certain vaccines are you also seeing fewer ear infections Do you notice most definitely. And as a result, your kids are going to get tubes put in their ears. It's really nice. It's really nice for the family, the HIV vaccine, so a lot of parents wonder what HIV is for HIV was a vaccine that protects against a type of meningitis, but could also cause pneumonia, could also cause a bone infection, and also was involved with an entity called epiglottitis. So back in the day, when you had a kid with a croupy cough, you had to distinguish whether it was croup or acute laryngotracheal bronchitis or epiglottitis epiglottitis was a medical emergency. So I've only had one case of epiglottitis. And that kid had to go to surgery to get intubated in the operating room with an e and t nearby is because of the intubation didn't, was not successful, and the kid would require to have a tracheotomy. And that sounds really stressful. What does tell everyone what is a tracheotomy? Simply an incision is made in your throat, and they put a tube in so you can breathe. And so you bypass the epiglottis. So, again, I've only had one but but I'll tell you one thing, it was really scary when we had that patient. Wow. So you're grateful for the vaccines on the whole? Yes, yeah. That's great. As far as not giving the vaccine or complications from the vaccine, I've never reported to the vaccine adverse event reporting system in Washington, or with the CDC, so none of my patients have had a bad reaction from that. So in your 43 years of practice with all the vaccines you've given, you've never felt like there's been a reaction. I mean, aside from the typical fevers, maybe arm swelling, typical vaccine side effects, you've never seen anything. Great enough to report? No, that's really good to hear. Honestly, I'm happy about it. Honestly, good. Now just to ask you, so. So you like being a paediatrician? What are the parts that you like about the job? Like if somebody were thinking about being a paediatrician? How would you sell them on it? What what do you what do you enjoy watching a child grow up from being a baby to the point where, like 15 or 18 years later, we're discussing careers for that child, where they're going to go to college. We I like to share music ideas with kids, books, ideas, sports ideas, and so they become more of a The interesting individual for me though, was I used to ask questions when they're little about what their favourite ice cream is, and favourite colour and 10 or 15 years later that question is not going to pass. And then I find what what is also interesting is that the kids leave the practice then show up maybe 1015 years later with their own family and bringing their kids in for me to see, I enjoy that. And do you feel like do you feel like the job? Do you feel like it stays interesting for you? Yes. Look, it's as interesting as I want to make it. If I keep reading about disease and stimulating myself and, and making myself learn more new things than the job is interesting. Otherwise, I don't want to be complacent. I have to say it's really true about you. Every time I see you have a journal in your hands, you're reading something new, you're giving me an article to read. Well, there's a article, this week's New England Journal of Medicine that soon as we conclude our talk, I'm going to show you because it's has to do with like IGA nephritis, and a vasculitis. I, I can't wait to read it. Right. Now, that's so great. So so how did you know you want to be a paediatrician? Well, when I was in medical school is more like a process of elimination. So I ruled out various topics like surgery, and internal medicine. And then I found paediatrics. Interesting. I had good professors, and I had bad professors. And I even learned from the bad professors of how not to speak to patients. And so my good professors were very patient and talking to people. And I, I admired that. And is there anything in specific like any specific advice that remember them giving you that stayed with you? Well, one of the paediatricians that are internal medicine people that I saw, I was with his name was Kenneth shine, who ultimately was the dean of the School of Medicine at UCLA, President, the American Heart Association. I just enjoyed the way he just would sit with people and talk and let them talk about their illness rather than just rushing them. And I figured that that's a good way to go. Let people talk and explain their situation. Do you ever feel like people always say to me, okay, I could do with the kids. The kids are the fun part. Yeah. But the parents, the parents can be, you know, possibly stressed and difficult. Do you ever feel like that? And how do you deal with parents when they're when they're worried? I think it was, Abraham Lincoln said, You got to put your shoes your feet in somebody else's shoes and walk around a little bit. So I think if you put your if you think about how that from the parents perspective that their child's sick, they read about similar symptoms, either from Google or the newspaper, and they're concerned they're gonna lose their child and understand their their anxiety. That's really a nice perspective. So your, your sympathetic, sympathetic, empathetic, all of that. And tell everybody how many how many grandkids do you have now? 990? Maybe the most? I haven't anybody my medical school class. Do you think so? I think so. Do you think I'll get any more? No, not for me. I think the other two are are not going to be giving anybody soon. Well, it's so nice to have you on the podcast. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. You're my you're my favourite paediatrician, my favourite dad. Well, you're my favourite partner and I'm glad that you've been with me for 11 years and certainly extended my career. I love again. Love you, sweetie. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Ask Dr. Jessica. We'll see you next Monday.