Have you ever wondered how a trauma surgeon navigates the turbulence of life and work, and where they find the courage to face the daunting challenges that stand between life and death? Meet Dr. Thayer, a dedicated trauma surgeon with a deeply inspiring life story soaked in resilience, empathy, and extraordinary experiences in medical missions across the globe. From his childhood travels that expanded his perspectives to his challenging experiences in the aftermath of an earthquake in Haiti, Dr. Thayer's tale is a testament to the power of empathy and service to humanity.
Dr. Thayer pulls back the curtain on his unique upbringing and its profound impact on his career and parenting views. A man who has overcome tragedy and reading disability, he still maintains a positive attitude and is always thinking of others. Dr. Thayer's stories paint a vivid picture of the resilience, dedication, and sacrifices needed to thrive in a demanding yet fulfilling profession like trauma surgery.
But there's more to Dr. Thayer than just stitches and surgeries. He's a firm believer in the healing power of camaraderie and social interaction, convinced that they are essential for our overall wellbeing. From sharing his insights on the impacts of culture and diet on health to discussing his leadership lessons learned under high-stress situations, his wisdom is as abundant as his experiences. His new endeavors include a new book Saved, One Trauma Surgeons True Account of the Miracles in His Life and podcasting on the show Raising Expectations. So, get ready to be swept off your feet by this enlightening conversation with a man who has wedged his footprints deeply into the sands of trauma surgery and medical missionary work.
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Dedicated technology for medical schools, residency and health programs looking to optimize performance on in-service and licensure exams. Students get access to the content, questions, explanations, and all benefits of the SmartBank to help enhance their performances on high-stakes exams. TrueLearn provides national average comparisons, including score, percentile, and category weaknesses according to the exam blueprint.
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Have you ever wondered how a trauma surgeon navigates the turbulence of life and work, and where they find the courage to face the daunting challenges that stand between life and death? Meet Dr. Thayer, a dedicated trauma surgeon with a deeply inspiring life story soaked in resilience, empathy, and extraordinary experiences in medical missions across the globe. From his childhood travels that expanded his perspectives to his challenging experiences in the aftermath of an earthquake in Haiti, Dr. Thayer's tale is a testament to the power of empathy and service to humanity.
Dr. Thayer pulls back the curtain on his unique upbringing and its profound impact on his career and parenting views. A man who has overcome tragedy and reading disability, he still maintains a positive attitude and is always thinking of others. Dr. Thayer's stories paint a vivid picture of the resilience, dedication, and sacrifices needed to thrive in a demanding yet fulfilling profession like trauma surgery.
But there's more to Dr. Thayer than just stitches and surgeries. He's a firm believer in the healing power of camaraderie and social interaction, convinced that they are essential for our overall wellbeing. From sharing his insights on the impacts of culture and diet on health to discussing his leadership lessons learned under high-stress situations, his wisdom is as abundant as his experiences. His new endeavors include a new book Saved, One Trauma Surgeons True Account of the Miracles in His Life and podcasting on the show Raising Expectations. So, get ready to be swept off your feet by this enlightening conversation with a man who has wedged his footprints deeply into the sands of trauma surgery and medical missionary work.
Picmonic boosts confidence and grades. Our IRB study proved that with the Picmonic learning system students increase retention and test scores.
Years ago, psychologists and education researchers found mnemonics to be an effective tool in increasing retention and memory recall. Today, lots of different strategies for learning and memorization using mnemonics exist including keyword, phrase, music and image mnemonics.
Use code OFFWHITECOAT for 20% off
Dedicated technology for medical schools, residency and health programs looking to optimize performance on in-service and licensure exams. Students get access to the content, questions, explanations, and all benefits of the SmartBank to help enhance their performances on high-stakes exams. TrueLearn provides national average comparisons, including score, percentile, and category weaknesses according to the exam blueprint.
Use code OFFWHITECOAT for $25 off your purchase.
Hello everybody and welcome to the Off-White Co podcast. I'm your host, jordan Amney, and today I'm joined by a trauma surgeon, a community leader, a motivational speaker and the co-host of a radio show. I'm very interested to speak with him today. He has turned his tragedies into triumph. He's the author of a book called Save. Please everybody join me to welcome Dr Thayer. Yeah, greece was amazing. I highly recommend going, just because it was beautiful and the people were super nice. Like I guess I met Greeks, like I have a really good friend, his family's Greek, and I mean just a character, just a great fun loving guy. But you go there and it's like everybody's that yeah yeah, Very fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I sent. There was a urologist who was a somoposist was his last name and yeah, he'd come back with just an accent. He couldn't understand what he was saying in English. So, but yeah, just that's what I found. I mean, I was blessed to like travel when I was 10, to go to England and then Europe. The people were amazing, you know, and then I grew up competitively swimming and I knew the West German and East German athletes. I knew the Russian athletes and they're just people, you know. It's like you hear this propaganda and what gets posted in the media. I think I think 10 was my big experience about media. So I'm at Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard and something happened and I got to witness what happened. And I get back to America and I'm looking at the newspapers and the news and it's like no, that's twisted, it's not exactly what happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got a full hand exposure into the propaganda machine, right? Yeah, how the filter can change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so my uncle took me when I was like 19 to Machu Picchu. He's like a big traveler, but that was my first time really like leaving the country and we spent like a month in Peru and just that experience alone, I don't know, like reshaped my brain and I love it now. I love like seeing new cultures and how people live and you realize that America is really really young compared to all the other countries in the world, and so it's weird that we sometimes, coming from America, there's kind of like the patriotism pride, you've got this emotional connection to it, but then you go and see other places and you're like, oh okay, there's other ways to do this and it increases your empathy too. I think they really did that for me. Totally, yeah, totally agree. It allows you to connect with other people. So I guess I really I wanted to ask you anyway, because I heard that you do like medical missionary work. I do, yeah. Where do you usually go?
Speaker 2:2010s when I started. So I was going to a church and they had begun going to Honduras, and it was by the. It began with a couple, husband and wife. She was a ICU nurse. He was one of those crazy max face people that go and do an ENT residency and then go back to dental school to learn how to take care of the palate and the teeth and all that stuff. So they're doubly docked, so they, and then they come and they do, and so they started doing cleft palates, almost got stopped, but then they had photographs of these kids looking incredibly different and they continued.
Speaker 2:And then I guess the story was he had a Lamborghini or a Ferrari and sold it, and then they bought they were working for a health or doctors without borders, and it didn't have really a Christian. It has a service mentality, but it didn't have a Christian one and they wanted to make it more Christian. So they bought the end of this building and converted it to an operating room. And so I came and I had retractors were like the ones you put in someone's mouth to keep their mouth open oh, my goodness. And the emergency repairs. It was all outpatient stuff. So just so, that was 2010. And then, in November of 2010, we went to Haiti.
Speaker 2:So it was nine months after the earthquake landed in Port-au-Prince and went to the Northwest area, close it's closest to Cuba. It's supposed to be a hurricane, charted by like three weather services, to come right at us. And then I'm going between us. The fact that we 62 people from the church went on this, the fact that we got there, was a miracle. It was the first day the TSA had a brand new program.
Speaker 2:That's always a bad day to travel, and so it literally took my wife and I 15 minutes. We were the first ones to step up and go through passport check, all that stuff, and I go. We've got 60 other you know 60 other people to do this. There's no way we're going to make it. And then God created a lightning storm in Dallas, which is where we're going to land, and then Dallas to Florida, florida into Port-au-Prince, and we all got it. We all made it. And then one of the OB guys had this $40,000 ultrasound machine that he borrowed from Kaiser permanent medical group and then it didn't show in Florida, where I was supposed to. I was like, oh my gosh, he just prayed and there it wasn't. In Haiti.
Speaker 1:So it showed up in.
Speaker 2:Haiti. It showed up in Haiti. Oh, and then the fun part of Haiti was works in the serious. Some of us half of us got on a plane and went to the airstrip that we were landing in. It was a gravel field. They had to clear the animals out of the way for you to land, but they had to have special tires on the plane, so some got on right there. Some had to fly to another airport to get on a plane that had the right tires, and that's what we had to do. So I think we had five airplanes that were on that trip. But, yeah, so just the poverty and the fact that nothing had been done.
Speaker 2:And then the incredible story of Jude in the book, this 14-year-old. We were there when the UN one of the UN troops from, I think, southeast Asia brought in cholera and Americans never see cholera unless you're doing mission trips and third world countries. And, man, it was like we started seeing 100 people a day and then 300 people a day. They had all these supplies that weren't used Because, I mean, I think everybody went to Port-au-Prince for medical care and they have six operating rooms. They could have done all the wound care and amputations that you see Eye care that you see with earthquake victims, and it just never got used and so and I didn't have anesthesia with me, so I really couldn't do anything other than local surgery with numbing medicine and I'm like I feel like my skill set's not being used.
Speaker 2:And then I finally, about the third day, I did a couple of minor procedures and then I went to the cholera clinic. It was a classroom, one room, cement floor or a risana, with IVs and antibiotics going, and there's these infants that are dying. They're not even moving, their eyes are so sunken in that they and I'm like you know the paramedics that were there and the nurses couldn't get IVs in them. And I walk over to a table that had supplies on it and there's this brown box of solid needles. They're 14 gauge needles. I'm like why would we have these? It's going to get stuck by these things we're not giving I am intramuscular shots, so it's like this is an interosseous. This is trauma for a kid.
Speaker 2:So I went over the first one and literally, if you've ever had a antenna on a car, that's what that's kind of the caliber of this needle, and it's also solid too. If you bend that antenna and you try and bend it back, it's going to snap and then in a child it's going to be in their shins. So I'm like nervous and keep pushing and then finally it gives and I think man did it go all the way through the leg and I go no, because it would take just as much force to get through the backside of the bone. So aspirate there's marrow, give fluids in the marrow and resuscitate these kids. So that was my purpose on this trip was to be there for these infants and stick the needles in their shins to give them fluid and save them.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So when there's so many questions, just write them out 60, 62 people, are they all medical?
Speaker 2:No, and that's just the thing. I mean people will go. There was one trip I went to Honduras, one good friends of mine. He's a tile layer, so he's, you know, blue collar, and he's just sitting there at the table at dinner and he's like man, I'm just, I'm not doing anything.
Speaker 2:I go, what are you working on? He goes, we're putting in this. Well, you know, and I'm like, it's out in the middle of the village, we have to go through these streams and you know, it's like Indiana Jones jungle like. And I go, dave, how many people is this going to give? Could give fresh water to every day? It's like 5,000. It's gravity fed, so it's not sustainable. I go, you're saving more lives than I ever will on these trips. I mean the last two years it's been a. I had an 18. This last trip we did 48 and a half. I say half because we had one person we put under anesthesia and then his heart rate went to almost zero and we're like, oh, this thing going to happen? So, and then I have cardiologists that are going to come over and put a pacemaker in, or all the things we do in America, but four laparoscopic gallbladders and 44 hernias in four and a half days.
Speaker 1:Man, yeah, that's jamming yeah.
Speaker 2:Because we had. We had Brenda Rice who was one of the pioneers and the founders of this. She went back to school and became a CRNA sort of fight, nursing RN, so she could do anesthesia. She brought a trainee with her so I had two anesthesiologists and they could just tag team it. You know they were the glan them up, get an IV in a preop and then get them in, get them under and then recover them. So this was amazing. And then the other key was which I'd never had there was a PA from Idaho who's a cardiothoracic PA, so he knows how to close the incisions to skin and not to the repair but the skin. So he would be the doc out in the villages and then come in the afternoon when he got back to the operating room and then just help. So he'd come in and close the incisions, like a five, 10 minute break of just sitting down, hydrating and you know, next up.
Speaker 1:Good Lord, that's a. That's a lot. Oh, I wanted to ask more too. When you were doing the interosseous with the needle, were you just taking the needle going straight into the shin? Perfectly?
Speaker 2:perpendicular.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in America they have guns that like just I've only seen the screw gun, yeah, so for anybody that doesn't know, I guess what we're talking about is, if you can't get the IV access, sometimes it's easier to go in, especially in children, correct? Like you could go interosseous, which is like kind of drilling into the shin bone. I've only seen it like a used a screw gun specifically, I'm never. Just I didn't realize that you could just take the needle and nail it.
Speaker 2:Well, that, that was my brain. I mean that was a God moment, right? Some voice in my head says these are big, they're, they're solid If you don't bend it and you maintain perfect force perpendicular to the bone and just steady, you shouldn't bend it, you shouldn't break it. And so I mean they didn't move when I did that. That's amazing. Not at all. I'm like it was spooky, but yeah, but it was a miracle that you know, a lot of our bones are hollow on the inside. That's where the marrow is. And so that's what we found. I mean, there's, if you watch the videos which you can YouTube, these things now people listening want to really be wicked and watch, but there's a stern, there's a sternal one for adults. I'm like man, that's not going to go into the heart. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, You're like I'd rather take it in the shin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, not the heart, not the nickel stage and the rock, I think.
Speaker 1:What is the name of the like mission group that you use?
Speaker 2:It's the Rice Foundation. They're out of Pennsylvania and they've teamed up. I think they do it perfectly. My recommendation from mission trips and especially medical is you want to be linked with the native people. So Ricardo was a bright scholar out of Honduras, got a free scholarship, got an MBA in Texas and now he's back taking care of his people and he links with the churches. So the pastors reach out and what happens is they'll announce medical brigades going to be here on these dates. They have some skin in the game so they have to pay a small amount of money for a ticket to get through the door but then they're there not looking for shoes or sunglasses or all the other things we do. So we do dental, pediatrics, family there's a family doc that goes and then construction and then DBS. So we're going out to villages.
Speaker 2:I think my wife would go every other year and are too youngest man. They started going when they were seven. They're playing soccer along this. It's the Pan American highway. I'm like it's busy but it's literally like romancing the stone. There's places that it's washed out and you got to get across it and you're in a bus classic mission trips. We had a one handed driver one time and it's dark. It's a long day. You sleep deprived all those things You're like. Please, just let us get to the destination.
Speaker 1:Well, that's awesome. I also think it's great for your kids too. Just to see, for one, you putting in that work. It kind of shows them a good role model but also allows them to interact with people from different countries and in poverty or more destitute than they would be Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean they're not wearing shoes. So yeah, and then they get to go out and see.
Speaker 1:That puts it into perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, honduras is known, I think, for tobacco and coffee, so they were out helping spread coffee beans out to dry them out and stuff. Then they get offered coffee, but you're always worried about the water. So how hot did you get this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, please tell me if it was boiling before. Well, dr Thayer, I didn't want to slow us down and honestly I really enjoyed talking to you, so but for anybody that doesn't know you, could you give us like a little bit of your background and your medical journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, medical journey wise, I think it began like in high school. So I was just blessed to know what I wanted to do. I was tutoring some blind students, so I knew I love to help and teach. It was in geometry, which is a challenge when you're blind, because how do you see a circle. So, like you said, you become an empath because you have to think outside of your own brain and go how are they doing this and how do I need to teach them? And then I love working with my hands. So I knew I wanted to be a surgeon. And then junior year I took an anatomy physiology class and that was it. It's the human body's amazing. I got to go on a medicine, be a surgeon. It combines all those gifts and talents.
Speaker 2:And then the end of my junior year I had a twisted intestine. Ate a bunch of lasagna that my mom had made and then drank some milk and it just gets in a loop of your small intestine and twists. And then you're in trouble. I'm throwing up all night. I'd lost almost 30 pounds from vomiting all night. My dad finds me on the bathroom floor upstairs and go to the pediatrician's office, and but that's funny because I didn't really think about general surgery at that point.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to be a cardiothoracic because that seemed like. You know, you watch Paka and MASH or that kind of stuff. He's a chest cutter and then it was getting into undergrad which was just incredible at UC Davis. But I mean that was a challenge because my freshman year my mom dies. She has a heart attack, pretty much in her sleep, and you know I'm black, dark dorm room with my other roommate and phone rings and and it's my dad. You know he's just like. I don't know how to tell you this. I don't know how to tell you this, but your mom just passed and so I took off to go home to be there for my dad for a bit. I was on an all male dorm floor and they're like I'll never come back, I'm gonna come back I did.
Speaker 2:I finished sophomore year when I'm taking the organic chem, physics, bacteriology, biochemistry, biochem lab 18 units I come around the corner after a back to the lab and I'm on the wrong side of the road. It's my fault. And this girl pulls out on her bicycle and I just jacked my wheel and go over. I get up, make sure she's okay, Didn't hit her, she's fine. The next thing I remember I'm sitting on a curb and there's an ambulance in front of me. So I got knocked out. They take me to the health center.
Speaker 2:I have a last right here. They stitched that up, they sent me back and that evening I'm like I can't hear very well out of this ear and there's this fluid coming out of it. What is this? So I call on some grad student that just answers the phone and I'm like, is this a problem? He goes I don't know. What do you think? I don't know, but I have a. I have a bacteriaology midterm. It ends at 3, 30. I could get to the clinic at you know, 4, 30 ish and I did the x-ray in my head and I've got a basal skull fracture.
Speaker 1:So it's like oh yeah, and so because the final with the skull fracture, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I got air in my head and I'm in their head anyway, I guess. Yeah, so so they admit me until that stops. They got me on antibiotics. It was like almost two weeks of it was growing a quarter system at Davis, so that's like almost 20% of your. And I'm like, oh my gosh, again everybody's, he's not going to make it and if you get off series you're not going to graduate in four years. So it's like I made it.
Speaker 2:And then junior year my dad gets diagnosed with lung cancer. He's got a white out of his chest so he's got a bunch of fluid on that one side and they, they drain it and sure enough, it's got cancer cells in it. So it's a stage four. And then he's going through chemo and stuff and I'm offering to come home and he's like, no, you got a bigger purpose. And and the miracle that year was I was in a five person dorm suite and then down the hallway was a phone jack. For folks that don't remember old phones, you had to pay for long distance calls and so and you know, rotary phone phones, then punch phones, and so I would hook up to that and I would call my dad in the Bay Area. It was a long distance call and I wouldn't get a bill on our room. And then I'd go to the office and I'm like, are you guys getting the bill for this? I don't want to make sure you guys get paid. And it wasn't going anywhere. So I never got charged for talking to three hours to my dad every night that year.
Speaker 2:And then junior between juniors junior he passed away. I was, it became paralyzed and I had to carry him in. Yeah, yeah, so. And again they were like yeah, he's not. And I did.
Speaker 2:But then the interview process and you've gone through this. So Georgetown, most expensive men's school in the United States. I hadn't really been back East at this point, so, but I had been to Europe. Like you said, do you think America's old? But it's not. You go to Europe and it's like thousands of years old and this is, you know, 1600 or whatever. And I hadn't really thought about this.
Speaker 2:So one of the interviews was with the financial aid office and we're all parked on a wooden bench outside this door and when we go on you'd move, slide down to the next spot and I'm the next one in and I hear this guy talking and the question was. You know how do you pay? Are you going to pay for your school? And I hear this weird noise and he says cash, cold, hard cash. And I'm like okay. So then I go in and I drop my pen and I lean over to pick it up and I hear that noise which was just the chair squeaking when you lean forward. So I'm visiting him, leaning forward and saying, you know, closer to her face, cash, cold, hard cash. But that was that moment. I'm like how am I going to pay for this?
Speaker 2:Because my parents are gone and you know anyway. So I think I said like, well, military may pay if you know, whatever way I can do it, I want to do it. So luckily I got it. The Davis thing was crazy because I interviewed there and then if you get a thin letter, you know you've been rejected. And so I had like 18 or 20 thin letters that I could have wallpapered my room with. And then I get one from Davis and it says congratulations, you've not been accepted. So I'm like, okay, there's, there's still hope. And then somewhere in the summer I was waiting for a roommate to give me a call to pick him up, and so I answer the phone Craig's Taxi Service and and this lady, oh, this is UC Davis Medical School. Is Craig there there? I'm like, oh, just a second, let me go get him.
Speaker 2:Same boys, no change. I'm like she hasn't been scratching her head like what was that? So I got in yeah, so that was a miracle. And then in in med school. It was a couple of experiences. I still was interested in cardiothoracic. I did my own acting internship with a group that was downtown and Sacramento and just realized you know, hey, they do incredible stuff in there, incredibly dedicated at a seconds moment. They're in there with people bypassing their hearts and stuff. But they do really two things valves and bypass, and that's not technically challenging, but the brain work and that.
Speaker 2:And then being in a VA hospital where a guy had a lung cancer and started to bleed and he's basically drowning and they couldn't put a tube in his trachea to breathe for him or do a tracheostomy, and I'm like I want to do something that I can save anybody's life. Anyway, I can. And the way we got trained back back in the day in the late 80s and 90s was, you know, from head to toe. So we learned how to drill a hole, bur hole in the skull and trauma was huge. Uc Davis has the highest amount of blood trauma in the United States. So not as much penetrating stuff. But yeah, so it was just I got to go into general surgery, and that's what I did.
Speaker 1:I mean, I feel like you were almost destined to go into general surgery just because a significant portion of your childhood, you were either having to go to the hospital or something.
Speaker 1:Spending time in surgeons, yeah, true, but I really first off my prayers go out to you and your family. Like I know that must have been really tough for you when, especially when you're growing up. But I, looking from the bottom in and I know I just met you and everybody seems like those hardships really created a person that was very motivated, and it's odd how the world or the Lord works in mysterious ways. Totally, I hate that that had to happen, but I think you've saved a lot of people in the process, so I'm sure they would be proud of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so, thank you for saying that and grew up part of the mandate. So I was also an orphan so my natural mother was in from Michigan and then six months out she started to show. So she would have been shunned by the Catholic Church. So she moved to California to a friend and then had me in Monterey, california, and then had me for 10 days. Let me baptize, because my wife is one of these techie people that she could be a PI if you want needed somebody. But she found my natural family and then I've gotten pictures and been back for reunions and that kind of stuff. So great family and it's like I can't imagine the courage she had. So, like I posted for Mother's Day how many people have two moms? It's great. And my mom would have passed away tomorrow. Literally she did the night he died.
Speaker 2:I'd been there the weekend before for Mother's Day and it was kind of the first time, I think, because I was just one of those rebellious sons that I always gave my dad credit for teaching me to be a better empath and learn about my own body language and behavior and tone of voice. But really my mom was the sounding board or the punching board. So and that was like the first weekend that we just had a great time and think I was now a young man to her Right. So she grew up in World War II with, I think, 12, when the one of bombings were going on. So it's like just blessed. But, like I said in my book, I felt like I was like any half of a car and my mom and dad were pace cars and they would just they let me out, drove off, I hit the gas and there I go.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, and then, just being rebellious, I tortured one of my friends during a summer work program and he'll packered. My dad works there and he was going to seminary school and I'm like, hey, what do you think a love's up on starway to have? I just ask because I knew enough to like drive him crazy and ask about his faith. Yeah, I wasn't as solid at that point, obviously so. But I would say, look my parents. I'm a better doctor because I know what death is like and what you go through when you lose your first parent and you bonded the second one and realize parents aren't a mortal. And then you lose the second one and you realize, hey, I'm probably not a mortal either. So yeah, you get perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've, because my childhood was a little twisted as well. But I always have said, like the brighter side of it is that all superheroes have tragic backstories, like you don't get to be the superhero without something going on. And you're really a testament to that because with all the missionary work and then the time I mean trauma surgeon, that's, it's pretty impressive. So that pace car, they really set the pace.
Speaker 2:You're going that route. You matched in the ER. Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's hope we both love a little chaos. Honestly. Why I love emergency medicine too is that feeling of whenever you are in that critical position I kind of feel more calm than I would be like scatterbrained, like I'm like things have to be perfect, obviously, but are not perfect, but things have we've got to make do, but I just can like really compartmentalize Right, and that's kind of what makes it fun, like I, instead of going all crazy, I'm like, oh, this is like really neat. Yeah, he did come in with a gunshot piercing the diaphragm, but like now we've got, now we're on the ball, right.
Speaker 2:And you know, I mean ATLS, right. So it's a, your brain gets into compartmentalizing and algorithm, airway breathing, circulation defects and environment type stuff, so yeah, and you keep your brain on that and then it's kind of like Kevin Costner's movie I forget, for the love of the game, I think where he's trying to pitch a perfect, perfect game and he you know his verb is just quote of the mechanism, right. So you got to, you got to check out and just focus and then that's that's. There's a part of the book that I wrote that goes through really kind of harrowing cases, one of which was like a six year old.
Speaker 2:You know, you, you've done all you can do, and then you pull back the drapes because you've open their chest to the open heart massage and then explore their belly and there was nothing there, it's just a head injury, and, yeah, that becomes real. You weep. Yeah, you have to experience. I think If you over compartmentalize, it's like it's just gonna come back to hunt you. But yeah, I, memorializing things is key, taking time and we're experiencing and going through it, and that stuff is important.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and I I definitely want to get back to your book. I actually the the cardiothoracic thing, the fact it was funny that you had wanted to do that, because I Actually, when I was younger I was like, oh, this would be so much fun. And then my first surgery rotation I had like two weeks down there or in the cardiothoracic unit and the surgeries were so long, right and and you're standing and I was like and I had no role besides just standing, scrubbed up.
Speaker 1:So, I just was in the way the tubes were running like through my legs, my hands were like up here and I was like this one's on here as much fun as like the general.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely not. No. And neurosurgery is even worse because now you're under a microscope. Yeah, you can't see what's going on if you're just standing there pulling some retractor and like, okay, how's it going? Oh, another eight hours, okay, great, yeah. Yeah, turn up my stockings please. I need.
Speaker 1:My god yeah. And I'm sure, because with me, I'm sure residency was even a lot tougher because they've made a lot of like concessions or Changes to the whole schedule so that there can be more time off for the residents, right? But even now you're gonna be working well over the average Like a American. So how was your residency whenever you were okay?
Speaker 2:so, yeah, I was blessed. So six years, one research year. So I did transplant. So I was like putting thyroid in the Mice and pancreases and rats and that kind of stuff. So I got some micro surgery was just really fun.
Speaker 2:I drink too much coffee. There's no way I could do it. Yeah, you should develop this tremor under a 10 power microscope. Or you drink alcohol the night before. I'll give you a tremor the next day that you can't see to the IP. You'll see it when you're doing that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, there was no 80 hour week. That was just starting to come in the mid, probably like 1994, 95. So I mean I'd work 164 hour. But I'm just like you where I, I loved it. I the problem with being on every other day. She missed half the cases. Yeah, right. So but yeah, I got married during that time and had two kids while I was in residency and one after that. So it was like, yeah, you can still live and and, and the wives will say, yeah, they feel like single moms a lot of the time. But but it just I mean the draw and the thing and because it's just so life-changing you know I think, but it's also can go the other way. So it's Remember when I sat down with one of my professors to say, look, I really want to go here, and he was like the one the world renowned pancreatic Surgeons and dr Fry and he's like.
Speaker 2:His first question was what are you gonna do when your patient you've operated on dice? And my answer was I'll just know I did the best job I could do that day. And you know it's kind of in God, not that you're not watching for a complication of your own thing, but it's not like you just walk away. But you know, at some point God heals that wound. I've heard somebody and then I close the skin and all the miraculous things that our bodies do Do not part of what I can do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing like how will and Just divine intervention or I don't know, it's something that has nothing to do with you put the groundwork in, but it's not, it's out of your hands, right, which is just amazing. It's also amazing, like I don't think people understand that when you say you worked well, over a hundred hours a week, the Average, or there's only 20 if there's 24 hours a day and seven days a week. I just looked up as that's 168 hours, right, and if you sleep, you know, eight hours a day, which never really happens, that's 56 hours. So that means you have six hours to do whatever you would want to do, right, including driving home or doing whatever.
Speaker 1:So you know, and so it's like you gotta make a lot of sacrifices.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do. Yeah, yeah, Not all services were like that, so it was. But like for for trauma was 24 on, 24 off. It was really Like 36 hours on because you wouldn't want to leave your intern.
Speaker 2:Really are you know, without all the sky getting done and and I remember it's, this is also in the book Blaisdale. Dr Blaisdale was like one of the pioneers out of San Francisco for trauma all the 19 late 60s and early 70s, vietnam war riots at Berkeley, etc. And they did. They came up with a trauma team that only took care of trauma and then they published their data comparing it to Orange County and the preventable death rate in Orange County was like 2037% and it was 0.1% in San Francisco. So that began trauma centers across the United States.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and you need the same thing in Sacramento was just make it all come to us and that guy's work work ethic was just crazy. So yeah, but yeah, and I was coming on for trauma and as an intern and he stands, everybody he believed in beginning around in the ER. Trauma surgeon should know every patient in ER so he can be helpful to the ER docs and know what's going on. If there's a belly, that's, that's not good to help expedite. You know, whatever, someone needs a wine or something or you know, be there and be helpful and know what's going on. So they would present every single patient and yes, so I'm coming on and I don't, I guess I don't look all that good and he stands us all around, all medical students like who looks the worst of this team and they're like pointing at me and I'm like he's come, he's coming on service. Thank you, dr Blaisdell.
Speaker 1:Oh it's, that's amazing. It probably actually was very beneficial, not only for you to see all the patients but also your interactions with the doctors and to know them. And then that allows you to like hand off, like you don't really understand what your teachers are really doing until you look back and you're like, oh, this guy was actually, he had a whole plan. Because that handoff to between the ER and trauma surgery when something serious comes in is a very big deal, like it's. Sometimes it's hard to explain that where there's only a certain amount of time and there's only certain things certain people can do and so, like you need to get them to the OR but you have all these walls or whatever that need have to come down first. You can't just run someone straight through the ER and right, right and and with residents I know, I've saw, I've seen that it's just like, especially if it's a new resident, if people aren't as trusting or whatever it, it just slows down the time and that's only participation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's in my, my approach to leadership as a team, and I may be the quarterback, but I'm no more kind of like. You know Christianity there's the head, which is God, and there's the body, and all those parts are essential to the survival of the entire body, right? So same with the team that's in there in the ER and then the OR when they go off to the operating room. So it's like I can't do that without Other people doing their job, whether they're putting the EKG leads on putting in IVs, strong labs, getting x-rays, portables, you know, doing parts of the physical exam that then let you know, people know what's going on and yeah, those are people blown here, or you know stuff.
Speaker 2:So it's like, yeah, and that transition, yeah, because I mean you guys do a great job and you take a lot of ownership over what you're doing. So it's like there's a point at which you know the reins get handed and it's like, yeah, okay, and then you don't always get to hear the follow-up. So I always come back afterwards and go, okay, this is what we found. And because that's the great thing about my job is, I get closure and I get instant quality control, because I thought it was this and I go in, and it was something else that needed to get fixed, but it's not what I thought it was that helps me refine my skills down the road.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they actually really appreciate that because, I don't know, it just allows for you to have a better connection with them and Because they, they really won't get to see it and it's weird, it's everybody wants to handle the situation and so it's hard to pass up something and I'm sure, as I said to, it's hard to pass Um, it's the next person, even if it is the situation. So right, I mean in the reality is.
Speaker 2:You know, if I'm the lead, I shouldn't be doing a lot of procedural stuff, because I need to pay attention to the whole thing and when it needs to go somewhere else, we need to run a CT to get this ruled out, you know, and trauma is a disease of rule outs, so it's like black box. What's going on in there and we don't know. And we have an idea, but you know it's real bad because their vital signs are horrible or whatever. So you got to do something quick, get that golden hour, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Okay so if you had two kids during residency.
Speaker 1:How did you balance that? Work and like home life and Maybe sleeping, yeah, yeah, well, I, I, we had some control over.
Speaker 2:We would do like a two-month block of stuff, so it would be vascular or there'd be thoracic, cardiothoracic, there'd be peeds, we didn't really rotate through the burn unit, but so different things and so, knowing dates of Worth and stuff, I could take that month off for you to month vacation Each year so I make sure I time those there or lighter services that don't have Is demanding a call and all that stuff, and so that worked. Actually I was really lucky. So, yeah, I was on pediatric surgery when my first one was born. So it was like, hey, you know, which was also weird, because in the Lamaze class, yeah, like please do not come in. Yeah, no, there was a couple that was there and their baby had some weird heart defects so we had to put them on ECMO. So I knew these people. Now I'm helping operate on their baby, putting these big tubes in their neck and sacrificing a carotid artery and a Juggler vein. I'm like how could you do this? You do that in an adult, they're gonna stroke. Yeah, and yeah it was it was interesting.
Speaker 2:I've had some friends reach out to me Now that I'm actually a doctor now.
Speaker 1:And they, they say, because I guess I was Finding myself a little bit as a kid as well, and they were like you know what, I'm not sure if you'll ever see my kid and like the good. My answer is always like the good thing is, if you're seeing me, you're gonna be desperate enough that you'll let me do whatever. I mean, right, yeah, yeah, we see people at their worst.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm understanding that yeah, yeah, no, no, that's. I mean, that's the.
Speaker 1:The crazy thing is you actually get acclimated to seeing people at their worst and then you can kind of pick up on subtle things Because of it but yeah, you're always on the same page. Settle things because of it but yeah, you're always gonna see them At the worst. So if someone's acting up or acting like a fool, it really is easy to understand, because it's they're absolute worst day. If it wasn't the worst experience they wouldn't have come to hospital scared to death.
Speaker 2:I mean, obviously they're coming in to get poked and I can't stand needles myself, so I can stick anybody, no problem, but Keep them away from me. Yeah, I wait for my tb test as long as I can and All those things. Yeah, it's pretty funny.
Speaker 1:Like, just because we've been talking about the or and everything, do you have any music that you play specifically when you're in the or?
Speaker 2:I. I'm a classic rock and roll guy, but I'll listen to anything. So I know if you're playing some stairway to heaven and the but sometimes like it really awkward, queens, you know, another one bites, the dust comes on Because you're about to go to sleep. Probably not like great or a cbc. Or who's the one that has called me a doctor?
Speaker 2:Dr Field, yeah, I know that's not like true, yeah, yeah, or somebody I'm like Although it's funny because I think I was a chief resident and there were medical students in there and Jimi Hendrix comes on and I go name this artist and none of them get out of my operating room until you can find out who this artist is.
Speaker 1:That's awesome yeah.
Speaker 2:But the reality is anesthesia's got control, that it's like. You know they're not scrubbed in and I've got the, the radio right behind and oh yeah, they're just they're running the show.
Speaker 1:It's either that or it's. Usually I found that it's really. It's somebody else controlling the music.
Speaker 2:I remember one of the things on the mission trips that I do. It's called the circle of fire. So we get done at the end of the day. Honduras has nice cigars, so I'll buy those, bring those home, give me the people, and I'll bring them back for the first day and then usually buy more. But all the guys will gather around the other day and talk about where they saw God and we call it the circle of fire.
Speaker 2:So, and I'll I'm admitting this publicly, I guess I'll bring an algeene of a leader of whiskey and it'll have a medical tape on there that says beta 9 prep, and then another one that smells like it's vodka and it's, and we'll just sip on that at night and just talk about what we saw. And you know, just guys talking. I remember we stayed up till late At two o'clock and at the end the one guy who actually is Buddhist so it's fun that it was good to hear about what Buddhism is in his culture but it was like, hey, all you guys that have married and gone through a divorce, could you hang? I got some questions. I'm like, oh God, give me a word there for like another two hours of just being a brother to somebody and giving them advice.
Speaker 1:It's amazing how and I think we're actually kind of figuring it out more more recently but how camaraderie and everything really goes to your general health, like so, stuff like that. While some people would say, oh, cigars are bad for you, oh, alcohol is bad for you, but they, we found that, like those interactions though that usually are that, and sometimes that's what drags men, people, into doing stuff like that, that is very helpful. I think they just released something that said that like loneliness and was just the equivalent of smoking. I think it was a couple packs a day, which was insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look at the, I think, women between the ages of 25 to 45. At a six fold increase in suicide with COVID right, all this sheltering in there's a there's a risk benefit to doing that. Be gregarious and socialize. And yeah, it's not good to be isolated in a room and watching YouTube all the time. Yeah, certainly not. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's just weird. You have to play. We're all, oddly, animals in the system. We have to play to who we are. I want to. I know you're a very busy man, that, so I want to get to your your book because that was very interesting. How was like the writing process? Because I think that it said something about you having a reading disorder. Right, no, about until much later in your life, yeah, just like eight years ago. What was the reading disorder?
Speaker 2:So I just read slow. I mean first grade teacher he needs to read more. Second grade teacher he needs to read more. Third grade Walk into a dinner lit room and there's a screen with words that look like you know, star Wars at the beginning and land far away line. And I can never now keep you, keep up with the speed to slow it down, or just our positive. You know I hate titled movies where it's different language and so I just all I knew is I didn't, I didn't read quickly, so they all horribly.
Speaker 2:After a couple of girls got up there reading that 50 million words per minute and I'm like jumping lines and back and forth. And then our youngest son was just kind of getting in trouble at school. He's really smart, active, like a boy is, and then he get done with something that's half hour long and then a minute and a half. But so we had him tested and he's ADHD but he's also dyslexic. And then when I were reading what the symptoms were and what, how that's a disability reading wise, I go, that's what I do Every test I've ever taken and you take a million as a doc, I would look at the length of time I had, the number of questions and I would worry more about keeping up that. How many seconds per question? And then I'm cats, all those things I'm like, and it was distracting and I just but it wasn't like a disability. I kind of say it's like having polio with a atrophied leg. As long as I'm walking around and have a standing or desk job, it's not a disability, it's just what. It is. Same with me.
Speaker 2:And then the challenge to me was I did a Facebook survey of should I do an audible in the book? Yes, 100%. Should I do the audible because I've got a deep voice and people like to hear it or whatever? Yeah, I'm like. It was like one guy from high school said no, have a coyote do it, he's better. And I'm like you know, and as I'm going through it, I use this place. That's awesome. You have a coach and he was a theatrical director, so he could. You know I have a fairly like when I present medical conferences and stuff. It's just like so monotone that I was like boring. But he could see the frequencies though they're narrow, they're definitely you can tell emotion and the voice because there's some pretty hard things to talk about. So I got through it. Yeah, so I didn't know. I had that until eight years ago when we diagnosed our youngest son.
Speaker 1:So you had already written the book correct, I already written the book.
Speaker 2:So, and then writing the book. You know, again, these are just like coincidence, luck, lucky. Those are God moments. Einstein would say, coincidence is just God remaining anonymous. My grandma, who I took to Sacramento Kings games for 15 years.
Speaker 2:You got to write this book. You motivate people. Look at the adversity you've gone through. You know other people have done worse than and need that input.
Speaker 2:And then I went to a Grant Cardone 10 X conference as business and heard Kevin Hart speak about business stuff and Magic Johnson and John Travolta and all these other people that are stars.
Speaker 2:But, and like four people said, you need to be on stage, you need to write this book and you need to be up there talking to people and giving them hope. And then at that conference I met someone who uses program that you can put on your phone call rev, and you just like chapter one, whatever the title is, you just begin speaking and then 10 minutes later you got a transcript of that and then you can put that into word and then you can just write it and add to it and realize how stupid you sound when you speak Just off your, off the cuff, right? So, and then I hadn't. He also recommended an editor, so that's where I would send it to her, and then she corrected for language and stuff. But then she'd write comments like what's this? That I don't quite understand. You clarify that? And chapter by chapter by chapter or a year and a half later, it was done.
Speaker 1:Hmm, that's actually. That feels like it was pretty quick. I'm really impressed with, like the technology where you can like speak into it, because I get a roadblock when I'm typing and, trust me, I know editing these podcasts and everything. I'm like, oh I am. I sound so stupid right there. Really, god, I wish you had thought before you started speaking. But just like where you can like talk and then edit afterwards, because I find that some of the process is like while I'm typing, my brain's thinking too far or thinking about the sentence. I'm like I'll change that sentence already and then I've lost myself, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that the typing for the dyslexia, you don't use your cortex to read, so, like there's a limited number of characters per minute, you can. You can go through if you read using the cortex of your brain and dyslexia is supposed to be using a more grey matter, and it's not as fast, at a higher speed, but it's not as organized. So, you're right, you lose, lose where you're going, or, and I think typing for me, making it manual, like Lincoln, president Lincoln, would he get pissed off about something? I mean I can't imagine having a country that's that's the most divided. I mean we're killing each other right in mass quantities.
Speaker 2:And he would write stuff down and then he'd sit down and he'd read it out loud, so we'd use different parts of his brain to process what he was writing and then usually sit on that, because it was written emotionally, and then go back and revise it. And sometimes he never handed those letters to anybody or sometimes he did get them to the people that he was trying to speak to. So, or speech yeah, so, yeah, so our brains are. Our brains are funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's super interesting. I mean, even when I was doing the interview process for residency, you know, first they say you should already know, kind of, what you're going to say about certain things. They're going to ask you about what are your leadership things, and so I like typed it out and then me and my buddy we did like a mock interview. Of course we're recording each other so that we can go back and watch. I was like, oh my God, I'm just okay.
Speaker 2:The whole time. That's painful.
Speaker 1:Right after that I was able to pick up like your brain fixes what you want to. You hear ohm. Too many times. You're like, yes, you're going to stop saying that and I think it really helped me. But what were you saying about your wife?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, the um, exactly I, my brain pauses and then you go stop that. You got to stop that. So yeah, I'm better at, if it's just a storytelling thing, to keep it going without a pause. But if there's like, if I'm trying to do something, like I did a health coaching thing and created a web page just for docs, you know, you know you can do those MDs, nurse practitioners and PAs so that we could do open on adulterated peer review of health coaching and health in America and and my wife uses a program that you lose the weight, your diabetes goes away, or inflammatory disease. You know, fat is inflammatory, we all know that. But it's like just amazing, anecdotally, seeing these people's diseases like lupus and stuff gone. And you know, right now we're talking about the youth. They've got half the grip, strength, strength their great grandfather did and testosterone. That's half the and that's that's. That's overweight. I think that's just. Our kids are 20% now obese.
Speaker 1:I don't know the exact number, but I know it. I thought in America it was actually higher, like per, but maybe and like other like in the world, it's more than likely. But I thought America was even more, which that might be, I don't know.
Speaker 2:about kids, maybe that's like adult populations like over 40% now, with 80 something percent overweight.
Speaker 1:And that definitely affects your testosterone. Like some people might work out, but they don't like work and do laborious jobs people used to do all the time Me, my granddad. He's retired and he still works outside almost like every day, like that's just his enjoyment time. I think it's so he can get away from my grandmother, but he just loves a friend that does that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he just that's just what he does. He'll build things in a day. It's very impressive. Now I'm like you also have a fib, so let's tone it down. On building a bridge in a day, you could take it. You can make it a two day thing, right? Like we think our consciousness is the whole body, but it's really the body and you're living in like a small part. The part that is you is just a small part in the brain. It's not the whole brain, because you can feel like driven to do things and that's your body, or the Lord or whatever. I don't, maybe both. So you really have to follow that to those little proddings instead of just being like oh, this is, I'm just going to watch YouTube all day. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I was talking to a friend I grew up from, two and a half on yesterday and his mom's got Alzheimer's. And it's interesting. So down syndrome and Alzheimer's or dementia for that matter at all Towards the end of your brain. So there's a connection to that. Your organs, you forget how to work. Like your bladder doesn't work, your kidneys start to not work, it's like it's not that you're thinking you know, or that you're mentally even controlling your kidneys, or anyway, it's all autonomic stuff, right, it's just that's what it does, but somehow there's a link between our brain and organ function.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's also amazing that we've realized too that sometimes it's like what we are eating, what we are doing, is causing the inflammation. I know they link some kind of diet, like if you are having chronic inflammation it can dispose you to Alzheimer's later on. And even if you have like gut inflammation or like chronic disease or all sort of colitis, like if you change your diet. You see, if you change your diet, a lot of those people do like the carnivore and then they start cutting things out. They realized that there was something that was actually that they were eating that you just didn't realize, didn't sit with them, right. You know, even when you're taught in medicine there's a genetic component. So you're when you're telling somebody about it, you're like maybe this is just how you are Right. It's really you're eating too much. Yeah, broccoli or whatever is not. Maybe broccoli is probably really good for you, but you're eating whatever jump food, some process thing. That is just not good for your gut.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, the latest American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress had a lot of different courses but one of them which is really interesting. So you know we're looking at culture within medicine, right. So racism, equality, those things, and one of the questions is kind of the nature nurture thing, right? So in the black culture, such community, they have a higher instance of hypertension and stroke, heart disease. So how much of that is because of where they are culturally? You know it'd be an interesting study.
Speaker 2:So say, those folks that have gotten out of the ghetto or whatever you want to title the community that they're gangs and stuff Does, does it kind of like? The Japanese is a great example. They have a lot of fish that have a very high incidence of stomach cancer. They moved to America. Now that goes away. Now I have a high incidence of colon cancer versus what we have. So diet has a huge influence on gastric and colon cancer. But it's interesting and I think that's what's going to happen is that we're going to tease out how much of the things that have happened to that culture have had an impact on their health and it really would give a lot of impact, it changes, it does go away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it's just amazing how medicine kind of builds on each other, because you I think they somebody told me recently which made me kind of worry, because they said something like 15 or 20 years after medical school, half of the stuff you learn will either be wrong or change. And I was like, oh crap, because I I'm like holding on to that stuff now and they're like that's not what you're going to really care about at all. Right, it's all going to change. You're going to realize that whatever they taught, so you just have to be adaptable in the moment, because, I mean, we're just constantly learning new things and it's it's the beauty of it. There's something beautiful about not knowing. Everything you know gives you something to work for. So it's a really interesting life that we live being.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, I mean the classic example I think that everybody that's listening can relate to is babies. You lay them on your back, you lay on their side, you lay on their stomach, right you know, with for crib deaths and it's like they went back and forth every year. It's like I think, finally now the sides are OK.
Speaker 1:So yes, I mean yeah, we constantly change us.
Speaker 2:then Best practices not always, and they're all different. They're going to make it just fine. Just love them. I met some old couple once. I got what's the secret to go Just base your kids in love and be there for them. Yeah, and then and then. Since then it's like, especially having five kids, it's like they learn more by not what I tell them about, by the example I portray Exactly.
Speaker 1:It's amazing how that's what people remember, right Like the kind of man you were in, right, yeah, yeah. So how old is?
Speaker 2:your oldest. She may first just turn 32.
Speaker 1:Oh, OK, I guess it's 15. Yeah, oh, big gap then. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So 32, 27,. Nicole turned 25 in June and then 17 and 15.
Speaker 1:That's how my little sister she is, so I'm 30, but she's 13 now, and so when I was carrying her around, she's maybe one or something. They're like oh I didn't know, you had a kid already. Yeah, no, yeah.
Speaker 2:The oldest played volleyball, so we'd be all over, actually, Denver and Dallas and a bunch of places all over the United States. But yeah, we're standing in at McDonald's and my wife is younger than I am and so they look like not quite sisters, but enough of a difference that they're definitely my wife's older. But but she's Chelsea's holding the doubters, holding our baby. She's the 17-year-old now and some lady comes up. That's horrible. You're way too young to have a child. What are you thinking? She's like oh no, it's, that's my stepmom right here.
Speaker 2:She's this is my dad's kid. They flip it on you.
Speaker 1:They're like you're way too old to be having a child, but you know what?
Speaker 2:Hey, they keep you young because they need to. I mean, I'm not, I stay in shape so they can keep doing stuff with them, play water polo. So I have to get in and I'm not a good, exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I, because I'm from like a big family, I'm the oldest of seven, so there's just something I don't have any kids myself. Honestly, that's probably a good thing. I'm going to do your method and just wait till residency, but I just have been waiting, yeah, because their kids are awesome, but it's a lot when you're going through all the transition periods of your life, and because my parents had me like very young, so I can I remember them like my first memories. They're only like 24 or 25. And so I know for a fact that I'm older than they were when I, like, could start remembering things, and they were just kids. So that I look back I'm like, oh, I'm glad I got exposed to that, but, heaven forbid, I don't know if I right, it's hard it is hard, and timing.
Speaker 2:I think timing is never the right time, right so but I will say they're my five greatest accomplishments. So, oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I want not to change topics, but I just wanted to kind of ask you how did you find because you've you've gone from almost like you've been this trauma surgeon for years, then you motivational speech speaker, you are, now you're also a co-host for radio show and stuff how did you find your inspiration to accomplish all this?
Speaker 2:So I think I'm an oldest daughter played volleyball and she was on a club team. So several different high schools and they would go to a Bible study with all these kids that were in high school, and so then they went to this church and that's the church that I got picked up with, to go to Haiti and under us, and so I got back into Christianity and I think now the inspiration is just a second calling, so to say. It's not just serving with my hands and my brain operating, but now it's just being there for people speaking and a light in the darkness. You know, give hope, like the last chapter in the book. If you don't read the book at all, you just read the last chapter is going to give you hope.
Speaker 2:It's about a friend of mine who we would go to Pasadena, california, every year for a trauma conference and he didn't believe, he had no faith and he started, he retired and was dying from a Parkinson's disease that was really accelerated, and I'm not going to give away the story, but yeah, you'll see, there is hope in this world and I'm a stronger Christian now. So it's just, I'm not pushing anybody, but I'm there for answers, right? So if you, if you're struggling in life. We all want to belong in the world, we all bleed the same and I just feel a calling to be there for people.
Speaker 1:So, people, you'll have to buy the book. What's the name?
Speaker 2:It's saved. And then the subtitle is true accounting of trauma surges miracles in his life.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to have to check out the audiobook now because I do have audible. I just find sometimes I'm like doing things and I can just listen and it'll be like we're having a conversation again. I think for one, just hearing your life story is it's pretty amazing. You come through, you come through a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it's, it's hard to believe, you know so. And just just again, just like you asked me about residency, I went through like the first three years where everything was done, opened big incision, and then the last three were with a camera, right, so it's like minimally invasive stuff. And now they've got robots which are pretty cool and I've been trained on those. So it's really weird to step away from operating table and look under a thing and rotate your wrists and pinch things and and it works. So I mean, medicine is just always changing, so, but so is the world. So you know, and I think Gen Z is just looking for places to belong and and faith, I mean, if you're, if you think you got to ask the question okay, how do we get here? Why are we here? Do we have a purpose, or you know, and those things, and so just to help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I'm going to butcher it because me, coming back from Greece, I can remember that Aristotle said something about, like he made the change on Socrates, but it was. Socrates said something about if you can't question to understand life, then there's no point living. And then Aristotle is like, well, there's no point in questioning anything if you don't have a plan. And but, all that being said, like it, it really is. Like you, we all are going to wonder what we are, purposes or because we need purpose. It's weird, I you, if you don't have purpose, you feel. I mean, if I sit on the table.
Speaker 1:I feel like I'm about to drive myself insane. I can't be left with my own thoughts, almost yes. So I think finding that is the key, the key really to happiness and life. Like you just got to figure out what it is, so I do have one more question for you, though. What were some of the like leadership lessons? So, coming from managing the trauma room to now making the book and going on missionary trips, what were some of the leadership lessons that you were able to come away with throughout this process? Right?
Speaker 2:So I'll give you the biggest one. So one is leaders of team though. You're the captain and you go into a meeting and you should have an idea of where something should go, as far as a process or review or whatever, and then either facilitate, where you're just letting it happen, naturally but trying to speed it along, or mediate where you have an opinion and you're trying to guide it to that middle ground. And the reason for that also is that if I have a teammate that didn't do quite well, they're going to feel horrible that they let down the team. So they have skin in the game and I don't have to say anything to some of them. They just feel bad that they didn't do as well as they needed to right. And the second thing is always listen to both sides of the story.
Speaker 2:So we had a case where Doc was a leader of oncology group. He leaves for vacation, which he hadn't done in like 20 years for two weeks, goes to Europe, comes back. One of his partners complained to the CEO that she didn't have the same contract that her husband, who's a pulmonologist, did, and why not? And so I mean the board and the physician panel were ready to just impale this person, the leader, and I'm like, has anybody asked this doctor what his side of the story is? And so no, so I go, I'll go over.
Speaker 2:And it turns out I ended up bringing them both in the same room and their stories both made sense. He had offered her a contract but there was some things going on that that made her potentially liable for something and she didn't want that because she was. I think she was a professional for her, so she was used to being employed by knowing this institution and not on your own where you have to understand the contract. So she legitimately did. You know, he did offer her and he was like, well, open his books and I'm not holding anything back. So he was completely honest, she was completely honest.
Speaker 2:They're both were right, they both had, but it wasn't grounds to, like, you know, fire somebody or, you know, telling them they're doing the wrong thing. They're both doing the right things. And just there was a misunderstanding, and that happens a lot of times. We were at this, this course for some reason, or hospital, or now I want to do this Bill Adamski thing, which was a retreat, and there was an ER group that had this misconception for 20 years of you did this and I, and it didn't happen that way and the right people were there at the right time to go. No, this is what I saw, and everything got resolved after 20 years of these people having horrible feelings about each other and like, wow, listen to both sides.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we may be doing even more now than ever. Coming across to the other person's side and just seeing their point of view it really does make the world of difference, because you come to find out, like in an argument if you listen to one person say their side of an argument, it really seems like the other person's the bad guy. But when they are both together, some kind of compromise and I've done it where you know somebody irritates me and then I'm telling it to somebody else I've only said the things that they said that were bad, not my response to the bad thing, especially if you can be a level headed middleman.
Speaker 1:You can actually you can bring people together where they would be on two opposite ends of the spectrum and they can find common ground. But if there's not anybody to kind of listen to either one of the sides, then there will not be common ground. So you said 20 years will go by, nothing will happen, they won't speak to each other. So I really like that lesson because we need that more, not just in healthcare but really in society in general, because choosing sides is not the way to get it.
Speaker 2:We're all in this together, yeah, I mean, I think that's what's going on in society. They're so passionate and angry. I'd love to just walk around some quad area and just walk up. Why do you think society is so angry and quick to be passionate about things? Just give people's response, yeah, or see what they say. I mean because my wife was walking out of Costco and she said a kid was. You know, one of his mom had five kids and the other one just kind of burst because they were tired and needed to go to sleep and was protesting, and that's what she said. And then a lady in her trunk lowered and said you're a racist and she's like why. You know, people just jump to conclusions and that's needed.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Take it easy, take it easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't know what the other persons going through, right, I think, angering them or doing, you know, putting yourself on the opposite side of them, never and it never says it, just it essentially just starts a war, like instead of us coming together. Yeah, and I feel like if you asked everybody, if you went around and you asked people what was angering them so much, I think a lot of people would probably just be like social media or the internet, for some reason, has leached into a lot, of, a lot of people's psyche.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I mean, it doesn't matter what side you're listening to, it's inflammatory on either side. It's like my dad had. He called it the three steps. So, and it's exactly what you were saying Someone says something offensive to you, your first steps forward to throw a punch right. Don't take that step. Take a step back and ask yourself why you feel that way. And then take the third step back and say why did they behave that way? What's going on in their life? Someone brodewages you and breaks you know, breaks in front of you or cut you off, or maybe they're going, they've got an emergency, who knows? I don't know if it's in their life. Just try not to be negative, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, it's amazing how that you can diffuse that amygdala or those emotions. When you just start to put yourself in the other person's shoes, you're like, oh yeah, they probably were, they might have had an emergency. And then you go I've had emergencies before and they're like, oh yeah, okay, well, I'm not angry anymore. So yeah, dr Thurr, it was great speaking to you. I don't want to take up much of your time because I know you're busy and no, no, hey, I was looking so forward to this because it takes you back.
Speaker 2:You know, I get to relive where you are in your life and it's just that was such an amazing time and so good to see you. I think one of the podcasts, your fiance got to interview you, so that was fun.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, she sounds like a great lady.
Speaker 2:So, man, I wish you all life, and if you ever want to be back on, I'm always there.
Speaker 1:Of course, of course. We'll be in touch then and, everybody, I want you to go check out his book Save. And what is the name of the radio show Raising?
Speaker 2:Expectations. It's on BBS, so it's British Broadcasting Satellite, and it's on Monday nights from 6 pm Pacific time and 9 Eastern time. So yeah, you can just log in there and on BBS Raising Expectations that we interviewed. We've interviewed some I don't know how Joe Schofield finds these people at the Brigadier General of the USS Reagan. Reagan died and handed the flag to Mrs Reagan and he had the same commentary about team approach and leading. So it's, you know, it's just these people are. There's a lady, ms Sintron, who's a dyslexia expert that my wife met, that's. We've home schooled for like nine years. So her biggest health coach thing during COVID was teaching moms how to home school, because the schools are gone, you know, virtual. So yeah, so yeah. And then I've got my own website. It's just Craig therenet. So, and then Facebook. I have a nickname tank from Waterpole, so it's Craig Tank there.
Speaker 2:My wife wanted to give it a tank. For a while it was just Tank there and then all my friends said worst tank and Craig Tank there. So anyway, yeah.
Speaker 1:I always think of Frank the Tank from that, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, when I, when I was nicknamed that it was on a whiteboard at the beginning of practice and I was playing masters in 2001. And I go that that means I'm slow, I'm tanking in or whatever he goes. No, we can't get around you. So yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a, yeah, that's a. Usually when you get the nickname, it's not because you're the worst person on the team, it's because you're good.
Speaker 2:You're good. There's a whole community in Waterpole that have no idea what I do or what my real name is. Oh really, cause I you know. You get artificially raised on the pedestal as a doc. You know great ER doc first day in men's school. Look, I'm going to talk about instruments, death scope, otoscopes. You look at me as a student, as this guy on a pedestal, because I've had all this training. So don't do that. You need to evaluate whether you want Welsh Allen or whatever brand, hp, death scope or rapoport or whatever. You know they have different qualities, so don't take what I say, as you know. Absolute victim.
Speaker 1:Yes, you've got to make your own distinctions, but I will say that going and like reaching out and speaking to those people, like going to that seminar where the guy is talking about scopes and then going to another one where another guy is talking and you can see two different opinions, that allows your brain to understand, like the knowledge, or like having people speak about their lives like you do, and things like that, like you're able to process your own tragedies or your own stuff, and so I think, yeah, I think people like you and people that are very like motivational and intelligent thinkers are important in the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, and you, I mean kudos for doing this. You know I mean podcasting is an art and it's a lot of work. I've read you know 15 minutes of taping is going to be an hour's worth of editing. Yes, it's work behind the scenes like the audible and like I feel sorry for that editor. He's probably going. I can't fix that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So yeah, my editor, who is my fiance, is currently on strike. I think she's just trying to take my role as the speaker now.
Speaker 2:So, I'll be the one editing you gave her a taste of being the interviewer.
Speaker 1:She's never going back to editing again. Well, Dr Thayer, it was great to have you on. Everybody go check out his book, his radio show. It was really great speaking to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you too. Yeah, Honor a man and I'm you know, I'm proud of you. You're in a great service industry. I mean, it's just, it's not even an industry, but it's just helping people and that's cool and you're in the trenches.
Speaker 1:So kudos to you. Yes, thank you so much, sir. We appreciate it. Thank you everybody for joining and throughout.