Recommended Daily Dose
Recommended Daily Dose
Healthy Number Seven with Dr. Jonathan Baktari
Meet Dr. Jonathan Baktari, triple Board Certified physician and Founder of e7 Health, a company that leverages technology to offer innovative medical care while providing cost savings for their patients and clients. We talk about the lessons learned from COVID-19 and how to better prepare for the next pandemic. We also discuss why AI and digital health are the future of healthcare. Check out his podcast BaktariMD
https://jonathanbaktarimd.com/
Okay, you can see one patient at a time and you know make an impact, and it is still the biggest honor on the planet to take care of patients. If anyone takes that for granted, they're missing the boat. It is probably the. It's a unique thing that only healthcare providers, and specifically physicians, have the privilege and honor of you know having these kind of interactions. Right, but can you help even more people? Can you help tens of thousands of people potentially with your knowledge? So I think I think understanding that you can impact one patient at a time, but then, as you go through your travels, are there any opportunities to impact many more multiple of the ones you're currently touching?
Speaker 2:Just your collar is getting away from you, minor. No, yours is fine.
Speaker 3:Just be aware it's pretty irregulant. Irregulant is that the word, and unscripted. We find it's better that way. So I mean we have some talking points to discuss with you, but it's really relaxing. And I don't know what those are.
Speaker 2:Those are my readers.
Speaker 3:All right, so Dr Clinton can screen. Why don't you start us off with our screen?
Speaker 2:You know you're getting old when you I recently had to increase my font size on the iPhone. I was always making fun of people who had to do that, but now it's like I've reached the age. So welcome back to recommend Daily Dose. I'm Dr Clinton Coleman with my readers and Dr Seraad Sucker with his collar who's your trusty sidekick with that collar. Sidekick back from Norway. Right, I came out from Norway yesterday.
Speaker 3:It was an amazing trip from my parents 50th Wang anniversary and Norwegian glow to you. Yeah, exactly, you know just ate a lot of cheese and pink salmon, so chief.
Speaker 2:All right, we have a special guest, triple board certified not one, not two, but three Dr Jonathan Baktari. He's a healthcare CEO and founder of multiple companies, also a vaccine and COVID-19 expert. I'm looking at your your resume. It's pretty impeccable. I don't want to shortchange you. I wonder if you'd be willing to give us an introduction of who you are and everything you do.
Speaker 1:Oh thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for having me. What an honor, by the way. No, I'm sorry. You know, kind of a straight arrow, probably like you guys, went to college, premed, then got into medical school, residency, fellowship, got my boards in internal medicine, pulmonary critical care, and then went into clinical medicine as well as teaching, and then eventually kind of branched out into administrative medicine and then eventually sort of we started our own healthcare related companies that focus on technology, and that's really been my story in a real short version. It's been the exploration of obviously getting into medicine and being a physician and then, you know, trying to figure out ways that you know you can make a difference, you know, in addition to seeing patients, and that's been our the journey so far.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to dive into it. I will see in much more detail. But just on a very broad level, I always feel that you know, as physicians for a long time you get pigeonholed right. You go to I even went to grad school before, you know, worked, I did my time in the lab at NIH. So you kind of just focus, very straightforward, you know. And then you reach this pinnacle right of your career and I think you talk about this that okay, now I'm triple board certified. You know, probably now we're getting to the age where we can become not just diplomats of our boards but even fellows of our boards. But then what's?
Speaker 3:next is you know, it's a privilege obviously to see patients and take care of patients and always will be. But then you know, for those that may have the desire to do more, I don't think that medical and this way teaches us how to be entrepreneurs or think outside the box of straight straight medicine. So how did you kind of think that, hey, I need to me, you know, I've done very well, I reached a pinnacle my career that you need to move on to something else? I mean, what is that process like for you?
Speaker 1:Or was?
Speaker 3:it like for you.
Speaker 1:Right. I think a lot of people think like it's just sort of, you know, you wake up one day and you've had an epiphany or something happens. But for me it was much more gradual. I think when I finished sort of getting board certified and becoming a senior partner in my group and teaching, you know as clinical faculty, there was this need to try and do things more and I started doing administrative medicine, got on committees, and what I found is one door would open another door. So it wasn't this sort of set plan where I sat down at the kitchen table and said, okay, I need to do these other things.
Speaker 1:What I found is this really interesting phenomenon of one door opening another door, you know, getting on the you know some pharmacy committee at the hospital or becoming chief of medicine at the hospital, and every time I did something like that, you know someone came up to me and said, hey, you seem like you enjoy this. Would you mind being on this committee or would you mind being involved in, you know, with this insurance company or this hospital thing? And so for me it was a gradual thing. It was like watching grass grow over a long, long period of time.
Speaker 1:I think the only difference was I knew I wanted to do additional stuff. I didn't know what it was, but I didn't want to stop the expanding learning and the journey and I think, if I, I'm gonna anticipate what you're looking for. So let me give you two things that hit me over the head. That caught my attention early on. I had a friend of mine who pointed this out and he said you know, doctors think they're really smart, but how smart are they really? Because if they couldn't practice medicine today, could they put food on the table?
Speaker 3:Right, our repission holds into one. You know one trick, right.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean. But think about it. If someone says, okay, you like, how could we make a living? If we're so smart, Could we make a living?
Speaker 1:So that's number one, and number two is this concept that someone taught me is and I think you hit the nail on the head with it's an honor and a privilege to take care of patients. But in addition to that, can you impact patient care on a more broader sense? Sure, Right, because, okay, you can see one patient at a time and, you know, make an impact. It is still the biggest honor on the planet to take care of patients. If anyone takes that for granted, they're missing the boat. It is probably the. It's a unique thing that only healthcare providers and specifically physicians have the privilege and honor of you know having these kinds of interactions. But can you help even more people? Can you help tens of thousands of people, potentially with your knowledge? So, I think, understanding that you can impact one patient at a time, but then, as you go through your travels, are there any opportunities to impact many more multiple of the ones you're currently touching?
Speaker 2:I think the challenge is whether you stay in medicine and just bang your head against the wall or you try to. You know do something inside of medicine actually, like you said, benefit the lives of patients. So I want to talk about your companies, because I think that's important, especially with the technology aspect. What prompted you to want to get involved in that?
Speaker 1:Well, I think the first company we set up was E7 Health back in 2009. And you know, back then we realized that adult vaccination was a big, big hole in the healthcare system. We were essentially think of it almost like a COVID company. Before COVID hit, that was a whole idea of vaccinating adults. Because what happened? I think in the 70s, 80s and 90s, primary care doctors started to not stock adult vaccinations anymore. Just, I assume, partly because of reimbursements in the house Reimbursement expands.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of them didn't know how to properly code for it and they would feel okay, I bought X amount of vaccines and no one used them, and now they're expired. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, and actually now that I'm in the vaccine world it gets even more complicated than that, because to properly store them you need, like a Panasonic vaccine refrigerator which costs $10,000. And they were using sort of you know, home depot refrigerators to keep them, and some need to be frozen, some need to be in the fridge and their MAs need to understand which one's sub-Q which one's. You know, I am. It was a whole learning curve that if you really wanted to have a lot of vaccines and so, besides expiration coding, there was how to store them. You know how to deliver them as your MAs and nurses turn over. Who's training all of them on how to dilute? You know, get the diluent and uncertain vaccines. It's a whole universe. It's almost, I would argue, vaccine medicine is. You could almost do a residency.
Speaker 2:Specialty yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so I think having primary care doctors do this vaccine thing as a side hustle in a good way didn't make sense. And, of course, when they stopped doing it or started pulling back, you know Walgreens and CVS and pharmacies started doing it, but you know what I mean. Truth be told, pharmacists weren't trained to touch patients and give them shots, and so there was that whole thing. And you know the pharmacies are busy selling diapers and Frito-Lays and other stuff. Now they're giving vaccines, and you know. So that didn't seem like the right solution either, of course. So it just seemed like we needed to come up with a concept for adult vaccinations.
Speaker 1:People take it for granted. I mean, people just think the flu shot, but getting people caught up on their childhood vaccines that they missed, getting caught up on hepatitis B, the Gardasil, the sexually transmitted vaccines that we have, and then as well as Zoster and what have you, so there's a whole pneumonia. And then, of course, covid came along. So I think the CDC reports there's about 50,000 vaccine preventable deaths in the United States. That is more than the number of people that died, or equal the number of people that died in the Vietnam war, and that's annually.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I always tell, like med students, you know, if you add up all the lives saved by modern medicine and I'm all together still doesn't equate to all the lives saved by modern day vaccines. I mean, and people unfortunately, I mean you know this and we all know this, but we'll, I think, any opportunity to get it out there, talking about the one in you know, 10 million adverse effects that may happen when they don't realize all the lives that are saved. So you're talking, obviously, on a public health point of view. You know, between that and adding fluoride to the water and iodine, the salt is really great things that have shown to be such a benefit throughout humanity. Right, it affects so many people.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, well, said Right. And then you know, the other thing that kind of as I got more into it, is some of the travel vaccines. For example, I would say 90, and I'm gonna include myself. When I was practicing and someone, if someone, came up to me when I was practicing and I was triple board certified, I thought I was the smartest guy on earth, theoretically, and someone said to me tell me about the yellow fever vaccine or Japanese encephalitis vaccine. I wouldn't even. I wouldn't even know where to start.
Speaker 1:So this lack of education among physicians for some of these vaccines that are out there. I can't tell you the number of times we see people in our clinic who come in for a travel consult because they're going to a developing nation and we start telling you about yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis and some of these other travel vaccines and they tell us well, I went to my primary care doctor, how come he didn't tell me about any of this? And he said, well, just don't drink the water. It was like the only advice they could get from their primary care doctor. Well, that's not going to cut it if that's what the primary care doctors are saying, and I don't blame them because I don't think the training is there to educate. I mean, even if you go to Mexico for the weekend, you theoretically need travel vaccines.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think the awareness, like you said, is not there, that there may be travel clinics, right Even the ID world, myself included. Our office doesn't see the volume to justify the cost and expense and expertise to stock something like yellow fever.
Speaker 2:But then whose whose purview should that be? I mean it's literally preventive medicine. So I mean your primary should be preventative.
Speaker 1:Well, so that was our concept, what we thought we would revolutionize. The concept is could we set up a clinic that would only do adult vaccinations at the expense of doing primary care and urgent care?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So what we did is we set up E7 Health back in 2009. We built two brick and mortar locations and then we wrote software to support it, because the other thing we found is none of the EHRs could handle it. So that's how we actually slowly became a technology company, because if you come to our clinic, nothing you touch will be a third party software Everything from our electronic health records to appointment software, to portals, patient portals. We're like the only clinic in the country that we don't have a medical records department. Everything we do for you is pushed to the cloud.
Speaker 1:And then we started providing services around the vaccination. So if you're getting student health vaccines for allied health schools and you need a TV skin test, physicals quantifierons, we an audiometric test and vision testing for any either school related or employment related need. As you got the vaccines, we provided all the services around the vaccines so you could come get the vaccinations and everything you needed around there. You know, if you need a visa to go work in Saudi Arabia, there's a whole host of vaccines you need to get If you wanna, if you work for a civilian contractor, you wanna get deployed to, you know, iraq, afghanistan. You need a whole host of vaccines for civilian contractors. So there's a whole segment of adult vaccination that was not being addressed, and so we thought we would tackle that. At the exclusion of primary care, urgent care and occupational medicine, almost everybody that tries to do what we do can't help themselves but sneak in a few primary care patients, or sneak in a few you know Ocmet patients, or sneak in a few urgent care patients Because-.
Speaker 3:So was that what that done, so that you, the primaries that may refer to you, would feel comfortable that, okay, they're just doing this one niche thing and that they wouldn't necessarily take my patient away, so to speak?
Speaker 1:No, not really, Because honestly, my staff is in terms of, it takes them six to 12 months for us to train it as a typical nurse to understand what we do without doing primary care. Imagine if we did primary care yeah, I mean, if I have a new PA, literally first of all, for three months they can't even see a patient. So it's not something that someone can just start tomorrow, and even my. You know, I'm sure you guys are really smart guys If I put you into our community.
Speaker 3:There's more than others, but yeah, yeah one of us.
Speaker 1:But there is such a learning curve to understand vaccine, adult vaccination, medicine and everything that goes around it that it's not something that someone can just walk in and do. So if we had to do primary care and urgent care we wouldn't be able to provide the service we do. It's sort of like you know, if an infectious disease guy wants to add dermatology, I mean it can be done, but it's not going to help the case.
Speaker 3:So, just to be since you started the beginning and I know Clint is interested because he has several startup ideas that maybe he can talk about but how did this grow? So you started this in the year you know, 2009, 10, where did it grow into, or where are you at now and what did you learn? I understand that you kind of use this as a platform to just springboard off into other ventures as well. So I think really what it comes down to is you know, can other people listening out there myself included you know that would want to have the entrepreneurial spirit still help people on a broad base. You know, how do you have that foresight? So you said, okay, we've got something here and where did it kind of naturally progress from there?
Speaker 1:Well, so let's compartmentalize that. So, when it comes to E7 health, what we then did is, and we continue to do, is write technology. So if we opened up another E7 health in Texas or whatever, that it would be scalable. So our current software is getting to the point where, literally, we could open up a store anywhere in the country and, just like if you opened up at McDonald's, they provide you with all the software, the technology, the policies, procedures, even the marketing, the training. We have an online university that trains your front office and online university. We have a phone module that you know.
Speaker 1:We found that people didn't answer the phone correctly. So someone's calling for a certain vaccine related stuff. The staff wouldn't know what to say. So we actually have an algorithm depending on what they ask for it. Actually the screen is almost like a teleprompter so they can walk our staff through how to navigate and provide the right information to different types of caller if they're trying to get an immigration physical that needs vaccines, or deployment or SCD anything that needs vaccines.
Speaker 1:So we've been writing technologies so the concept is scalable. Sort of like if you go to McDonald's, you know and you want to buy one, they're going to give you all everything. They're going to give you the technology. So we're on the forefront of probably the next 12 months completing that so we'll be fully scalable and literally our software cloud-based technology could support 500 clinics across the country, if need be. You know we wrote it all in Microsoft Azure. We've literally thought of everything in terms of our appointment software. When you come in, there's no clipboard. We actually have four computer terminals. If you didn't register on your phone when you booked the appointment, you upload whatever we need, you answer whatever questions we need and visit after visit we already have everything. So we don't have a medical records department, we don't have a billing department.
Speaker 2:It's a pretty cool concept and does everything need to be like brick and mortar? I know in McDonald's you have to have a physical location, but I mean with online visits and, I guess, outsourcing, maybe if someone set up an appointment with you guys and they'll come to Dr Suggur and get their vaccine with something like that work.
Speaker 1:Well, because the vaccine is only 1% of it. And here's the thing if your staff is busy doing other stuff, they're not gonna be able to pull off what we're talking about. But we did branch out you can see over here, e-national testing, so the part that is the part that. So that's a separate company, but it's really the same concept in a non-brick and mortar fashion. So the stuff we can do at E7 Health that doesn't require someone giving you a vaccine or giving you doing a physical.
Speaker 1:We started another company which connects to thousands of laboratory centers where you can go on E-National testing order, what you need a quantifier on or what have you, and literally it's sort of like Amazon-esque you just three clicks away, there's a lab within a half a mile and we have doctors who are licensed in all 50 states to write the orders. So that is the sort of the problem, sort of the part you're referring to. And then the drug testing component of our company is another one that we can use and leverage a network of sites to collect the drug testing. So that became US Drug Test Centers. So those two companies are exactly what you're talking about, the national version of E7 Health, but E7 Health itself has to be brick and mortar because we do audiometric testing, vision testing, give vaccines, do physicals. So that is the part that probably within 12 months will be ready to go.
Speaker 3:Nation one and just a reminder, what you're based in the South of the East, right in Vegas. Las Vegas. So here on the East Coast, very heavily saturated, large academic centers and very more dense population, so could something like E7, is that something you're looking at? Is it going to be more regional, like in the desert southwest and Texas and, like you said, in that area, or is this something that could be done and scalable, even franchised, in the Northeast, mid-atlantic or the West Coast?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we have a pitch deck that we've been starting to write and the good news about our concept, since really we have no natural competition. Everyone does a little bit of what we do, but they do it as a sort of side hustle. Urgent Cares do a little bit of it, walgreens does a little bit of it, but no one does everything we do. And what we found is most of our clients and half of our clients are businesses, they're allied health schools, they're defense firms we have Fortune 500 defense firms that are our clients, as well as anyone who needs an employee health department, for example, but can't afford it. I mean, think about the hospital you're at. They have an employee health department with a nurse, with a refrigerator, but not every home health company can do that. Not every nursing home can do that, can have their own employee health there.
Speaker 1:So we become the outsourced employee health department for all the organizations that can't do what your hospital is currently doing, which is highly dedicated, and that's just with employee health. Then we have student health, travel medicine, std All of these. Instead of thinking of it as one store, think of it as a food court with seven stores. But they're related because they're all vaccine related. So our clients who need student health, whether it's an allied health school, who can't afford to have their own student health department for every UCLA or Stanford, there's 20, 30 allied health schools which don't have student health departments, so we cater to them. So literally what we do. We've created this space and it's a multi-billion dollar industry that currently is being spread out to a bunch of different providers who are doing it as almost like a side thing versus us, where it's our core.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I appreciate that clarification and I have to ask because I face it in my own practice all the time, especially after COVID, some of the politicization of vaccines. After a pleasure doing COVID. I always wonder if you could just touch up on that in all your experience of vaccines, of how you may deal with that. Just in the community of people say, well, vaccines are money, revenue, they are revenue for big pharma, et cetera. Are you seeing a decrease in demand or are you still seeing that people are seeing the important public health and personal health attributes and not listening to all the political noise that are out there? Because, as we always say, covid-19 was a pandemic of misinformation as well and I think still to this day, talking to patients, I still will get some negative feedback about if I even bring up vaccines with them.
Speaker 1:Right, you know, to answer that question I had to actually come to a resolution in my own mind why vaccines even fall in this debatable category.
Speaker 1:Because I don't see a Facebook group of moms that don't believe in anti-migraine medications for their children, right? I don't see a Facebook group of people that are against. You know antibiotics for their children. I don't see a Facebook. So what is it about vaccines? Excellent question, but I think I stumbled onto the answer. I think because I didn't understand it myself. Like why are people not blaming? You know different things on antibiotics, or you know white, or you know antacids, or you know anti-ulcer medicines.
Speaker 3:What is?
Speaker 1:it about vaccines.
Speaker 3:Why are those acceptable without you know, without and taking Right, I mean?
Speaker 1:because they all have side effects, right? I mean, we all, you and I prescribe medication for most of our career. A lot of them have known side effects. We all know it.
Speaker 2:I can give you a weight loss medication that may cost thyroid cancer or ED medication, without you know. They'll take it without even asking a question.
Speaker 1:Right, that's it. And nobody says like, even if you have a procedure, nobody, like everybody, knows if you have a knee replacement, a certain percentage of those things don't go well, but nobody stops getting knee replacements, right. So what I realized is that the reason vaccines seem to fall into this weird category it's the one thing that is mandated for public health reasons, like schools and what have you, and it's sort of it kind of once it crosses over where you know the government or the school system says your kid can't show up to seventh grade without these.
Speaker 3:Then the conspiracy theories start right.
Speaker 1:Right, because otherwise it's. I would argue there are a whole host of other things that are much worse. You know anti-migraine, anti-alcertain. The other thing that was really interesting that I, now that I'm in the vaccine world, is I love people who, like, say I want all natural. You know, I want to give birth at home. I don't want an epidural, I don't want this, I don't want that. But I cannot think of one medication, one category. It's not even medication. I can't think of one category that is more organic than vaccines. Because at the end of the day, let's take your typical vaccine, what are we really doing? We're, you know, as I described to my patients for inactivated vaccines we're taking a bug, we're putting it in metaphoric blender and we're giving you the toes and elbows into your system so your body thinks it's seeing the whole bug. If you view it like that, vaccines are probably the most organic thing you can get right, because everything else is a chemical for the most part. When you get rosephan, you're giving a real chemical 100% chemical structure.
Speaker 3:yeah sure Right.
Speaker 1:But when you're giving antigens, for the most part yes, there are some other byproduct, but for the most part you're just giving a little piece of the corpse of the bug which the person more than likely will meet the whole bug. As I would say, during COVID you got two choices you either get to see a piece of the bug or, more than likely, you'll get to see the whole bug.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:If you view it like that, vaccines should be the last thing that are controversial. If you view it like that, both of you probably prescribed medication this morning and that were 1,000% just pure chemicals. I'm going to argue that vaccines are just antigens. They're essentially in the world anyway. For the most part, we're just putting them in a blender and cutting them up and giving them a little delivery system.
Speaker 3:I think you said it very eloquently that the moment you say, well, it's required if you attend school, college, elementary school, that that's where the conspiracy theorists take it.
Speaker 1:And run Because nobody says that about. I don't know why I'm focused on migraine making, but I don't see anyone saying it. Probably to say a Z-Pack.
Speaker 3:People will scream at me that I didn't give them a Z-Pack for adenovirus. They won't be upset unless they leave with something in their hands.
Speaker 2:They never say let my immune system fight itself, but they'll say that about a vaccine. How did you guys navigate through COVID-19 with vaccines and especially testing?
Speaker 1:So we really lucked out because we had already written our technology and software to test for MMR Varicella. We were a vaccine clinic before this thing hit. We had our software up and running. So literally to add COVID to the list was just one more virus we were going to test for. So we set that up, we partnered up and we were one of the first clinics in the country to introduce nationwide home saliva testing where we would mail kids to employers as well as individuals, fedex them early on in the pandemic. And it was. We did the saliva in a tube, so it wasn't even the swab. So we launched that nationwide very early on, mainly because I think this is what we were doing before the pandemic hit. We were essentially a COVID company. Before COVID A lot of doctor clinics companies pivoted towards COVID. We just added to the list.
Speaker 3:I wanted to ask you just to switch gears for a second, because some takeaways that you can perhaps give to some of our listeners and viewers in terms of just everyday concepts that you have acquired through your developing these companies, that other physicians, whether they're interested in starting large companies or just interested in better being, better division chiefs, mentors, what have you? We're all the above. I feel like you hit on the head of the house. Smart, are we?
Speaker 3:And I remember when I was in grad school, someone said why are you going to med school? They, all you do is just learn what someone else found out. Why not go to get a PhD? And I remember thinking well, that wasn't for me. I'm very happy that I went to medical school, but I oftentimes think, like you know, I'm not inventing something right, I am reading and learning from physicians prior to me and I gained we all gain clinical knowledge. But you know, you have the unique experience of developing something from scratch as a startup and then learning all these experiences and learning all these Valuable lessons. So what can you port take to other physicians out there who forget those? The burnout and all that stuff which you know has been talked to death about, really. But just that may be interested in Doing something entrepreneurial in whatever scale it might be yeah, very small, I think. I think these lessons could be applied kind of universally.
Speaker 1:You know, can I do a shameless plug because you're like leading right into this. So I get this. I get this question a lot and so you know, as you probably know, I have my own podcast, baccari MD, and so this season, what I did was I actually Labeled the second season crash CEO school, where I talk about all the mistakes I made and what I learned in terms of leadership and Mentoring other people, enrolling people and skill sets that you need. I think my first video was top 10 mistakes people make and is. I think we're on episode five or six, but so I get this question a lot and and I go through it in my podcast, the one thing that I would say to answer your question is I think people think being a leader, a CEO or head of a division requires soft skills like I'm likable, I'm knowledgeable, people like me, people like to be around me, I make people laugh, I get along with people.
Speaker 1:Yes, though those are fantastic and if you didn't have it, you would be a failure in leadership. However, but you're going to need additional skill sets. You know how to enroll people in your vision, how to hire, fire, promote, how to Encourage and and how to calibrate all that depending on different personalities. So what I would say is you know, just because you're likable and you're smart won't make you land the 747 at 30,000 feet, and I and I think physicians make this mistake that I'm likable or I have a lot of knowledge, so I'd be great at running an organization and that doesn't translate.
Speaker 3:Well, you're saying right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've heard about the concept of the Peter principle, which is, you know, people get Promoted to the level of incompetence. So just because you're a great engineer Doesn't mean you'll be great at being the head of the engineering department. And just because you're a good accountant doesn't mean you'll be great being the head of the accounting department. Sure, and I think physicians often mistake Every all the great things that they do as they. Well, naturally, I would, I should be there, and all I would say to them is acquire those technical skills to be in leadership, so you don't have to make them one by one, and and, and you think that's acquired by an executive MBA, which oftentimes I've looked and then realized I didn't have the energy to do.
Speaker 3:Or is that on the world, on the job? You know real-world experience. Where is that? Is it like Clinton who reads the Eclipse notes? You know about how you're leader, like where, where those heart I. Like audio books up soft skills in the hard skills. I think a lot of us have the soft personal skills, but some of the more hard skills is that only learned in business school. Or where can the average physician acquire those things?
Speaker 1:well, here's what I would say. If you, if you watch my podcast and some of the skills that I go through, you'll see that it's not somewhere you can necessarily pick up in a course or what have you. But what I would say to that is that, short of finding a mentor, as You're going through the process, you know there's really no other way. Those books will help, courses will help, but I was super lucky because I stumbled on to a couple of mentors and the one thing I knew is I sort of used the strategy when I was a fellow or when I was an intern, or when I let's go back to being a medical student.
Speaker 1:When I was a medical student, I shut up and I listened to my intern. When I was an intern, I shut up and I listened to my resident. When I was a resident, I shut up and listen to the fellow. And was a fellow, I shut up and I listened to the attending. So when I started doing this stuff, I'm like I looked around, said, hey, how have I gotten this far? Let me use the same strategy. Okay, and just because I think what happens by time we're attending, we're like, okay, we now always have to be the smartest guy in the room and this whole idea if you're about to go into something out of sight of traditional medicine After you are at the top of the heap, to then shut up again you know, I already went through this.
Speaker 1:No, no, there's one more time. You, you got to find mentors and you, you cannot be the smartest guy and I told this to myself because I'm guilty of it. You cannot be the smartest guy in the room all the time. When you, you know, if you want to talk pulmonary critical care, I'm okay with saying I'm as smart as anyone else in the room. But as soon as you stepped out of that purview, you got to step back and say I'm not the smartest guy in this room who is. They can't just go up to any random person. You have to seek out true mentors who and who have a connection to you, who are willing to help you.
Speaker 1:So it's not so simple, but it's not so complicated. But what? And then the other way is to do it by hard knocks. You know, pay tuition by making crazy mistakes that you don't want to. So I think a combination of Just like when you were an intern and resident, you know you kind of grew and what have you. Hopefully there was someone there to Catch your mistakes. But it's the same concept taken to a different direction.
Speaker 2:I does that make sense? Yeah, I think that's a difference. They spend so much time working hard to try to get where they are. They don't want to spend that much effort trying to do something different. It's like starting from scratch again.
Speaker 3:No, I like that on top of the heap. It's hard to. It certainly is hard to Step, you know, admit that you know, now you're the top, and then to take a step back and again being learning mode. But I think we're all taught that we have to be learning our whole lives, so Sometimes it's just better to just you're learning how to play tennis right Like that was a new thing that has come naturally to me, my friend.
Speaker 3:Well, another thing I want to you know is you were talking about not being the smartest guy in the room. So you know I wear a couple of hats, actually many hats, but you know the hair is going but I don't have the beautiful hair that that the Coleman has. He was me to wear a hat, but, is you know, I'm the director of our research department, so we do a lot of clinical trials, a lot of industry, industry experience, etc. And so you know the hospital say you know what.
Speaker 3:We want you to be more involved with innovation and kind of vetting innovation and and technology, and, of course, a lot of it has to do with AI. So I wonder if you could touch a little bit about, because this is the big buzzword, but no, I still think a lot of business, don't they like to say AI and it's like crypto. Right, you say it, maybe you invest in it. You have no idea what you're investing in. So, same idea with AI. Want to know what your thoughts might be with AI and healthcare and where you might see that. I think it's a big, it's like the next, you know, a calm. There could be a lot of potential there for investments and entrepreneurship, as well as Physicians being obviously being involved in development of startups and companies. But what are your takes on where that's headed and how that's gonna be impacting us?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have general concerns about AI in general, meaning as a society. In terms of medicine, I'm a lot more optimistic because, yeah, because If you really think about it, like when I was an intern or as I'm not to give away my age here you know I had the Washington manual in my coat pocket and me too.
Speaker 1:You know, I had to so, you know, Would I have been better off if the Washington manual and a hundred other manuals were somehow Served up to me based on the question I asked? Of course I would. And if that's what? If that that part of AI Intuitively appeals to me, right? So if I can say, hey, give me the top 10 symptoms of Harry Salukimia. And somehow it magically appears and you know, and gives you, is able to collate and serve up data in ways that we can easily get to Right, how can that? That can only help patient care. So I'm optimistic in that sense, just like I'm sure medical students would laugh at anyone walking around with a Washington manual today. You know, I'm hoping one day people can't imagine Getting some data from AI that doesn't help them as they're seeing patients and thinking about patients.
Speaker 3:So I don't know if that answers your question, but I'm optimistic in that sense of Collating and serving up data any more, in the sense that when I went to this innovation kind of seminar in healthcare and I was there to bet these different technologies and this was something called the ARC Symposium in Tel Aviv and Israel and you had like venture capitalists there and you know there's financial people there as well I mean, there's a big sense of that. Well, you know the next best thing, whether it's AI enabled ultrasounds that do echoes or bedside echoes, you know where, in areas where you don't mind having cardiologists available or radiologists, you know two in the morning. So I think there's just. If you're talking about innovation and then you're talking about entrepreneurship, it seems to me who is not the expert you are, that there is a and I'm seeing, like I probably look at the stuff or read as much as I can. So now my social media feeds are being filled with AIs for dummies type of things.
Speaker 3:Mit has AI in healthcare for physicians and always in the courses. So I guess the idea is like you know, is this something that a physician who has an eye on other things that could help patients on a larger basis, population basis, be looking into? Because I feel that this is a very, very large area where you're going to have some, a lot of people trying to buy for certain spots to have commercial and you know, and success.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I saw an article about even like review and having AI review cascans that even radiologists might miss certain areas, especially if you're going through 100 cascans a day. So these are all the parts that I don't think can replace medical decision making. But in terms of pointing out or serving up information in a more organized way so we can make better decisions can only help. And, like you said, in remote areas where you don't have a radiologist or what have you in an emergency or what have you, either way, the more we can collate data and serve it up, whether it's on a CAT scan or whether it's on a disease process or pharmacy related issues, it can only be a win. I mean, what I've seen is very exciting and I think the more that comes that can help the physician or healthcare provider at the bedside or near the bedside is going to be a win for the patients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm waiting for the new AI co-hosts for a podcast.
Speaker 3:Amazing, I can tailor it to who and what I wanted to look like and speak, then you will, then I can, you will need my me to carry this podcast and I can go to.
Speaker 1:ER. I can feel the tension.
Speaker 3:Oh no, I know, I'm joking.
Speaker 1:I actually can feel the friendship.
Speaker 3:You should be able to. We're like two coins, just you know flip sides of the same coin. Yeah, tell us a little bit as we're wrapping up, tell us a little bit about some of your social media handles. I know you're on the media lab, but just kind of what's next for you, where people can find you, all those different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so of course, my podcast, baktari MD is on YouTube as well as all the standard places. Baktarimdcom is our website, where I have all my interviews and all our products are on Baktari MD. Of course, e-national testing, us Drug Test Center's E7 Health, as well as people can reach out to me on LinkedIn. So just Baktari MD on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3:I find you on there, great.
Speaker 1:So that can be of any help to anyone or provide any guidance or information. That's part of our mission. Part of our mission at least also with the podcast is to help other physicians or healthcare providers who are navigating a potential transition or addition to what they're doing, or more unhappy to help.
Speaker 3:Well, I tell you, I mean that idea of physicians transitioning out of clinical medicine maybe not 100%, but it's. You know, sometimes I feel like it's almost like you're going from the military to a civil service, it's a military to a civilian right, and it's a scary idea that you're no longer going to be at that pinnacle or release in general, where you're going to be getting out of your comfort zone. And I think having more people like you that have already made that journey that can provide insight and guidance and counseling is extremely important, because I think, if these are my thoughts, you don't have physicians that are being at the table of these various healthcare entities. Than who else are you going to have? People will complain that, well, administration, you have non-physicians making decisions. But you know myself, clinton, we do a lot of committees, like you have, and a lot of possible administrative work, and then a lot of people say why do you guys bother? It's just a waste of time.
Speaker 3:But you know if it's not us doing it, then who else? You know? You need physicians to step up and, kind of you know, take that conversation and provide all our insight medically, clinically and otherwise.
Speaker 1:I commend both of you for doing that. I think, to add to what you're saying, one of the difficulties for a lot of my colleagues and friends that I talked to was being a physician is part of their identity.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I think who they are as a human being often and I think the concept of even walking away slightly from patient care and I did a video on this, leaving clinical medicine on my podcast last year is this losing their potential identity.
Speaker 1:Because, oh, if I'm not seeing patients, you know what will that mean to myself, image of who I am as a person, and I think that takes a little bit of work.
Speaker 1:The interesting thing is, at least when I did it, although it was gradual, I think that there's a level of just being comfortable in yourself, that saying you know, just because, just because you know you like pizza, you're not going to have it every day and there's nothing wrong with having a chapter two to your life or chapter three. No one said there's got to be one chapter, nobody. That wasn't a rule that anyone gave us. That okay, you can be a doctor, that's it. And why not have chapter two? Why not have chapter three for those who want it? And the flip side is I know people who they love seeing patients, which we all do, but that gives them so much joy that anything that distracts from that is not acceptable and I think that's amazing and I think that's wonderful too. So but for those that want to do help patients in a different way, there should be other options.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like that. You know, like you said, a lot of people that maybe don't realize that they can have a chapter two. On a side note, I know Clinton still is hoping for a chapter two MBA career in some shape or form, but you know, you provided so much insight today.
Speaker 3:We really appreciate it. I hope that all our listeners will check all your social media handles out, your podcast, your website, so we will certainly have all information. You know, when this episode comes out, and myself, my, my psychic, or you might or might your psychic, or fine, I'm, as Dr Cole Clinton, coleman, psychic. We thank you very much for coming on our humble podcast, for educating us, educating our, our listeners and really, you know, being a model for a lot of physicians who have these ideas and thought processes of leaving clinical medicine some shape. We are formed. We really appreciate all the hard work you're doing, so thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you. I have to tell you what a big honor is to be on your show. Thank you so much. Oh, stop it.
Speaker 3:And for our listeners out there, you know, please continue to like, listen, rate and subscribe, and till next time I'm Dr Suggard, dr Coleman, be well.