NASHVILLE TRAUMA TITAN

A broken bone sounds simple until you learn what trauma surgeons actually manage around it: crushed soft tissue, infection risk, evolving wounds, and a hospital full of moving pieces that have to click into place fast. 🔴 Dr Ben and Friends

We sit down in Nashville with Dr. Kate, an orthopedic trauma surgeon, and get the clearest explanation you will hear of what “bone doctor” work looks like when the injuries are high-energy and the call shift runs 7 a.m. to 7 a.m. 

We dig into the real workflow behind orthopedic trauma care: early morning scan review, building a detailed OR plan, and working alongside physician assistants, the general surgery trauma team, and specialists like plastics when an open fracture needs more than hardware. Dr. Kate breaks down the difference between routine fractures and open injuries, why irrigation and antibiotics matter, and how timing decisions have changed as the evidence has evolved. We also talk tech and the future, from implants and CT 3D reconstruction to what AI might eventually do and why robotics is not a go-to tool for most fracture patterns yet. 

Then we switch gears into the person behind the scrubs. Dr. Kate shares her path through competitive hockey and what it feels like to watch patients go from stretcher to wheelchair to walking back into clinic. With comedian and filmmaker Seth Kays, we connect the pressure of the operating room to the pressure of the stage, including what to do when a set bombs and why open mics are the only real stand-up rehearsal. 

Subscribe for more conversations where healthcare and comedy meet, share this with a friend who loves medicine or live performance, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

THANKS TO OUR GUESTS:

Dr Kate: orthopaedic trauma surgeon, hockey player

Seth Kays: filmmaker, writer, actor, comedian, podcast host

IG @sethkaysofficial @manmademediaco @moviewarspodcast

TT @moviewarspodcast X @MovieWarsPod FB TheMovieWarsPodcast YT @moviewarspodcast www.moviewarspodcast.com https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/movie-wars/id1560698102

Subscribe wherever you listen, share this with a friend and leave a review so more people can find honest conversations about healthcare and a little comedy along the way.

This episode was produced by Angie Debelak with post-production editing by Ben Hill Sound.

Thanks for listening to Dr Ben and Friends.  Laughter is the best medicine...unless you're treating bowel or bladder incontinence.  See you next time!

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Transcript

Welcome To Nashville Skyline

Dr Ben 0:05

Dr. Ben and Ben. Alright, knock knock howdy folks. Dr. Ben here. Hello from Nashville Skyline. Whoo! You're listening to the Dr. Ben and Friends podcast. The podcast dedicated to putting the med in comedy. See what I did there?

Seth Kays 0:23

There you go.

Dr Ben 0:24

We're shining a big bright spotlight on everyday heroes, heroes in healthcare and heroes in comedy. We're here in Nashville where the smiles are big and the hats are even bigger. We're glad you're here. Or lost on music road trying to find some boots. I'm your host, Dr. Ben, your friendly board-certified orthopedic surgeon and stand-up comedian. Voted Nashville's funniest comic, 2025. He was, and he is. Because apparently fixing knees and shoulders isn't enough. All right, today, co-hosting with me, we have the innovative Nashville in with jokes fresher than my sterile field, filmmaker, comedian, writer, Mr. Seth Kays. How's it going?

Seth Kays 1:06

Thanks for having me.

Dr Ben 1:07

Thanks for being here. And I'm excited you're in for a treat today, listener. We have a real life healthcare hero, Dr. Kate, a multi-talented orthopedic surgeon, a trauma orthopedic surgeon. She's tougher than any fracture I've ever seen.

Dr Kate 1:21

Thanks. Thanks for having me, Dr. Ben.

Dr Ben 1:23

All right, thanks for being here. Dr. Kate, we're gonna hear a lot more about what she does coming up. All right. Well, the Dr. Ben and Friends podcast prescribes 100% comedy with zero copay. So today we're celebrating healthcare heroes and comics who dedicate themselves to making the world healthier and funnier. All right, listener, whether you're scrubbing in or clocking out, thank you for joining us. Let's make some noise or at least some endorphins for the Dr. Ben and Friends podcast.

Sponsor: The Needles Group

Dr Ben 1:55

A special thanks to our sponsor, the Needles Group, in beautiful Marco Island, Florida. As a doctor, I know a great needle when I see one, and these realtors are the best in the business. Buying or selling, let the Needles Group inject some serious value into your property game, theneedlesgroup.com. All right.

What A Trauma Bone Doctor Does

Dr Ben 2:16

Well, we have a very talented uh comedian.

Dr Ben and Seth Kays 2:21

You're an actor, writer, filmmaker, musician, all right, musician, artist.

Dr Ben 2:26

Sounds like uh professional overachiever or professional burnout, either way. Listener, you may know him from uh his Movie Wars podcast with Kyle Castro. But uh we're lucky to have Mr. Seth Case here today. Happy to be here. I'm excited. Thank you for being here.

Seth Kays 2:46

Yeah.

Dr Ben 2:47

Uh Mr. Seth, uh Dr. Katherine here is an orthopedic surgery traumatologist. What what do you think that means? What what does she do?

Seth Kays and Dr Ben 2:56

I mean, so coming from my completely medically uneducated background, I think the most medical education I have is I have seen the entirety of Scrubs like two or three times. So have a little bit of that. That's really good. Uh I haven't seen the reboot yet. I am currently going through the pit. So that's where my most recent medical knowledge has come from. But I hear orthopedic, and and I know that has to do something with bones, but I always think it has something to do with like teeth. So I know like orthodontists. Yeah, exactly, which I know is totally wrong. But I'm assuming you're some sort of bone doctor, and and and it's the the bones have probably gone through some childhood trauma that you're trying to to therapeutically help them with. So that's that's where I'm coming from. I'm probably very wrong on this.

Dr Ben 3:39

All right. Uh Dr. Dr. Kate, what what do you actually do? What is an orthopedic surgery traumatologist? Do you work with teeth?

Dr Kate and Seth Kays 3:46

Yeah, no, uh, I no no teeth for me. I know there's bones above the the neck, but I think teeth are bones, technically. Yeah, they're bone adjacent, I would say. Uh we've got other very talented people who take care of those. Um, but yeah, I uh um introduce myself to most of my patients as a bone doctor.

Seth Kays 4:06

Okay.

Dr Kate 4:07

Um, just to make things pretty clear. Um, but uh essentially what I do is I fix broken bones. Uh so any broken bone that doesn't actually walk through the door usually rolls through the door.

Seth Kays 4:17

Fair.

Dr Kate 4:18

Uh we uh we take care of uh with some sort of therapy, uh usually uh metallic therapy.

Dr Ben 4:23

Oh, okay. I like that metallic therapy.

Seth Kays 4:26

So you're just blasting metallica in the operating room sometimes. Yeah.

Dr Kate 4:30

Not a huge metal. Not a huge metallic.

Dr Ben 4:36

Some surgeons, one of your uh uh partners at your hospital liked it completely quiet. So he complained about the anesthesia machine beeping. Yeah, whereas some want it to sound like you're at the System of a Down or Korn concert. Where are you? What kind of music do you like in the operating room?

Dr Kate and Seth Kays 4:54

Um I listen to all sorts of music, but um See everyone says that, but then you you hit him with some sort of metal, and you're like, you don't listen to German death jazz? Like, what are you doing?

Dr Kate 5:06

I mean, right now I'm on uh like a French EDM kick. Oh, there we go. Um, but Billy Strings just came to town, so we had a bluegrass stage, nice, uh Maricana. Um, I would say I don't listen to a lot of classical in the operating room. I don't listen to a lot of metal uh because it's just kind of the wrong feelings.

Dr Ben 5:25

You don't want like a nervous energy.

Dr Kate 5:27

Yeah. Um, but it's uh, you know, we we go on full iPod shuffle and there's just kind of a lot of different there. And sometimes, not often, I do let my first assist choose the music.

Dr Ben 5:39

Okay. Okay. Do you ever have to change it?

Dr Kate 5:42

Uh no, I I like just give myself into it. Um yeah.

Seth Kays and Dr Kate 5:46

All right. Do you feel like the music like changes the the outcome of the surgery? Like, like do you think it affects that at all? Or I I don't think it changes the outcome of the surgery, but I think um You'll think there's a little extra flavor, like if you're if you're if you're dealing with bluegrass, they come out with a little little jive in their step.

Dr Kate 6:04

Uh I you know what? I haven't asked that in my follow-up.

Dr Ben 6:07

We should do a study.

Dr Kate 6:08

I'll love to see, yeah.

Seth Kays 6:09

Yeah, add that to the follow-up interview.

Dr Kate 6:11

It changes how I feel. Sometimes I'm like, we we're in a 12-minute, you know, like African protest song. I was like, we can skip this one.

Dr Ben 6:21

I have a list of band songs from my operating room.

Dr Kate 6:24

Yeah.

Dr Ben 6:24

So I'm a little stitchious, but uh anything like Another One Bites the Dust or Stairway to Heaven, Highway to Hell.

Dr Kate 6:30

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr Ben 6:31

So I'm like, okay, skip.

Dr Kate 6:33

Yeah, I would say a majority of my songs don't have words to them, so I don't worry about it.

Seth Kays 6:38

Your vibes girl. Yeah, I'm a vibes girl.

Dr Kate 6:39

Yeah, even if they have words, I'm not listening to them.

Dr Ben 6:42

I feel it. Uh, Mr. Seth will have the opportunity to perform surgery later on our show. What type of music do you think you'd listen to if you were in the operating room as the surgeon?

Seth Kays 6:50

See, I am a metal guy. Like I I and I am truly one of those people, like outside of most modern country, I do kind of dabble in in all musical genres. The band I have been obsessed with the last couple years is a band called Sleep Token. And they have like metal's kind of the glue that holds everything together, but they hit everything from like folk to pop to blues and jazz and like all these other genres that they pull into each of the songs.

Dr Kate and Seth Kays 7:17

So they're serious musicians. Absolutely.

Seth Kays 7:19

All right, they're fully anonymous too. Like they all go by pseudonyms, they all wear masks, so it's like all about the music and not necessarily about the people doing the music.

Dr Kate 7:27

So I'll I'll give it a listen.

Seth Kays and Dr Ben 7:30

They're great. Give it a listen. Give it a listen, listener. All right.

A Day On 24-Hour Call

Dr Ben 7:34

Well, as if uh 13 years of training for Dr. Kate here, four years of undergrad, four years of medical school, five years of orthopedic surgery residency wasn't enough. She did extra training in trauma to become a traumatologist. So I I'd like the um Mr. Seth and myself and the listener to hear what's a typical day in the life of an orthopedic surgery traumatologist? Like when does your day start? What's the mix like of uh cases in the operating room, or are you going to the emergency room or seeing patients in clinic? What's the day in the life of an orthopedic traumatologist?

Dr Kate 8:08

Yeah, so I I think the only day that I have set in stone is Tuesdays. Okay. That's my clinic day. Okay. So I know generally what's going to happen on that day. I'm going to have clinic.

Dr Ben 8:20

That's it. Tell the listener what that means.

Dr Kate 8:22

Uh that means uh seeing uh all of my patients who I've operated on. Um, so I follow up with my patients usually until about six months, sometimes up to a year, sometimes longer. It just depends on the pathway uh that their post-operative course takes. Um, I've got great people who help me in clinic to help coordinate a lot of the care. Um, because uh, you know, it's not just about the injury and about what I did. It's about trying to help the patient kind of globally through their uh through their injury, because oftentimes it's not I'm not the only person who's operated on them. Um so just trying to make sure that they're getting the global care that they need. So it's it is physical therapists, yeah, and or or other surgeons from our hospital. Um, you know, sometimes they come in with a cervical collar on and they say, Oh, I thought you were the person or a treating my broken neck. Yeah, and I I say gracefully that I'm just not that talented. Um, but you know, connecting them with surgeons that uh they they just didn't have the uh the contact information, things like that. So it's a it's a group effort for sure.

Dr Ben 9:26

Then what about the other days besides Tuesday? What's that like? Yes, a little crazier?

Dr Kate 9:31

Uh yeah, a little bit more variable, I suppose. Variable, okay. Um so we I split call with uh two fantastic partners, and so we um just make our own call. It's not kind of it's not very set in stone. Um, but we're on for 24 hours at a time, 7 a.m. to 7 a.m. Um and uh we just essentially take care of anything that Nashville giveth on those 24 hours. Nashville giveth a lot, right? Yeah. It's not just Nashville, we have an incredible um kind of area that we take care of, whether that's southern Missouri, um, southern and western Kentucky. So I'm still getting my geography in this area, um, but huge catchment area. So um, you know, sometimes we are the hospital that the the patients need. Um and I wake up about 5 a.m. uh and look at what has come in uh over the past 24 hours, look at x-rays, CTs, um, look at their chart, see what other injuries they have, just kind of get an idea of uh what is going on with each patient. Um, and then uh I plan for their surgery. So I send um our OR staff a write-up of every single case that I'm gonna do with the bed, the positioning, the drapes, the uh where I want the C arm, uh uh the uh specific plates, nail sets, all the instrumentation or hardware that I need. And then uh have a section called other instruments, which is just other things that um I may think that I need during the case, um, just uh to have everything that I think I may need um for that case. Were these surgeries from the night before or day before or um I mean scheduled from I mean I schedule them at five o'clock in the morning. So uh um sometimes, you know, if I know that I've got a hip fracture or a femur fracture that came in, I'll I'll actually have those scheduled already. But I set my final line up about 5 30 in the morning.

Seth Kays 11:24

And I thought an 11 a.m. podcast was early.

Dr Kate 11:28

Yeah, I've already had a whole day before.

Dr Ben 11:30

That's why I went into sports medicine.

Dr Kate 11:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr Ben 11:33

Because you don't have to get up really early to fix those rotator cuffs.

Dr Kate 11:37

But yeah, and I I mean I think that's uh what one of the huge differences between your job and mine is that I have a few hours to prepare for surgery, which you can book yours out, you know, three, four weeks or exactly um, and you know, really have time. But that's one of the exciting things about the job that I have and um uh keeps it keeps it spicy, you know.

Dr Ben 11:58

So tell us about being on call for those 24 hours. What's that like or what are what's your role?

Dr Ben and Seth Kays 12:02

Are you meeting people out at the helicopter pad or are you in the hospital or do you get to be home during your while you're on call? Like both. Yeah.

Dr Kate 12:10

I mean, again, it kind of depends. Like if I'm on call on a Tuesday, I'll be in the hospital and clinic.

Seth Kays 12:15

Okay.

Dr Kate 12:15

Um, but uh usually for the daytime hours between 7 and about 5 p.m., we have um a group of fantastic physician assistants um who kind of take that primary call from the emergency department. Um and then at night, um, occasionally it's me, occasionally it's one of the physician assistants. Um, but we don't expect them to make any treatment decisions. Um they're just kind of there to um, you know, say, you know, kind of just understand what the injury is, what other injuries they just the what's happened to the patient. Um and then we're always, you know, my phone's always on loud when I'm on call. Um so if they have any questions, concerns, um, then uh they can uh ask us directly. Otherwise they touch base with us around 5:30 in the morning.

Dr Ben 13:01

Stabilize the patients.

Dr Kate 13:03

Yeah. Um well, you know, that the the general surgery trauma team is the kind of in-house team that's doing that. It's pretty rare um that we have to get called in in the middle of the night to take care of something. A lot of orthopedic injuries can get temporized with traction or a splint, and we can kind of take care of things uh in the daylight hours. Um, but certain things we do have to come in for, but it's uh I would say less than five times a year. Um, you know, and we also uh kind of over those 24 hours um uh touch base with our transfer center. Um, because as I talked about that big catchment area, um there's a lot of hospitals, you know, asking our advice um whether or not the patient needs to be transferred. So trying to um kind of take care of uh patients who are not in our our specific hospital.

Dr Ben 13:48

Yeah. Sounds busy.

Dr Kate 13:50

I'm that's why you always see me in the hospital every time you're there. I'm there too.

High-Energy Injuries And Joint Fractures

Dr Ben 13:56

Oh now, what sort of injuries are you seeing? I'm kind of comfortable taking care of like ground level falls and stuff, but you probably see like some high high velocity.

Seth Kays 14:06

Yeah, I'm usually dealing with mental trauma comedians.

Dr Ben and Dr Kate 14:09

Yeah, oh yeah. I don't know if Dr. Kate can help with that.

Dr Kate 14:13

Yeah, well, that's what I'm here for. It's actually uh, you know, they're the broken bones can sometimes be attached to some mental trauma as well. Right. We do play the role of psychiatrist here and there. Um, but yeah, we as uh orthopedic traumatologists at our hospital, we take care of uh uh fractures, dislocations, um, infections, um, you know, uh other than the spine and other than the wrist in the hand. Um, that is kind of our purview.

Seth Kays 14:42

Um so those are complicated enough that they require like their own specialty is on top of the specialty, right?

Dr Kate 14:48

Yeah, the specific training. Yeah um uh you know, the some traumatologists do uh wrist surgeries, but we just happen to have a really great hand and upper extremity team that take care of that for us. Nice. Um but I would say a traumatologist specializes um in periarticular injuries. Uh, what I mean by that is joint injuries.

Dr Ben 15:07

Oh, periarticular periarticular. Uh vocabulary word of the day.

Dr Kate 15:11

You know, and we do take care of things like joint ground level falls, but we also specialize in high energy trauma.

Seth Kays 15:17

Okay.

Dr Kate 15:17

Um, open injuries, meaning the bone has come out of the skin. Um, and then pelvis and acetabulum is again a traumatology.

Dr Ben 15:26

What's the acetabulum?

Dr Kate 15:27

Acetabulum is the cup of your hip joint.

Dr Ben 15:29

Oh, oh, okay. Yes. We should ask.

Dr Ben, Seth Kays, Dr Kate 15:32

Yeah, that'd be like did you know that word? Acetabulum. I had no clue what that word meant. And on it, I'll be, I'll be real with you. The I'm not real queasy when it comes to like the the medical TV show stuff, but the one thing that always gets me is when there's a bone protruding from skin. Yes. It's just there was one episode of the pit recently where like someone had a dislocated shoulder and the bone was coming out of their armpit. And that just I was like, nope, can't do that one. Yeah. I again, I don't, I'm not queasy, but I had to cover my eyes. I was like, this is so much.

Dr Kate 16:03

Yeah, I I don't mind that stuff, which is probably good.

Seth Kays 16:06

I mean, I was about to say if you're dealing with that on a daily basis, I hope you're not queasy about it.

Dr Ben, Seth Kays, Dr Kate 16:11

There's other things, you know, that other surgeons take care of that they're like, oh, no problem. Oh, that thing, that eye's just hanging out of the face. And I'm like, that I have to that I have to cover my eyes. I can't. I'm like, I have to go do surgery. I'm gonna walk out of the room. So we have our our things that we can handle and things that we can't.

Seth Kays 16:29

So and you called me a comedy hero. You guys are the real heroes, okay? You deal with the stuff that so many people couldn't even look at.

Dr Ben 16:35

Yeah, some of the docs have to move the eyeball all the way to fix the orbit of the eye.

Seth Kays and Dr Kate 16:39

Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, I'm good. I'm good on that too.

Dr Kate 16:42

Yeah.

Open Fractures And Infection Risk

Dr Ben 16:43

What's now, Dr. Kate, what's what is an open fracture? How is that different from as far as like treating it or potential complications from an open fracture?

Dr Kate 16:52

Yeah. Um, so it, you know, we really, even if it's not open, you know, I think about a broken bone. It's a it's a soft tissue injury that happens to have a broken bone inside of it. Um and this soft tissue injury happened to have the broken bone come out of it. Um and uh, you know, it's the traumatized skin, um, you know, I guess it can go one of two ways. You either get the skin closed and it heals, which is fantastic, yay. Um, or the skin does not heal. Um, I think um I have a conversation with my patients that it that you know the injury may look one way on on day one, but then you take a look two or three days later and it looks completely different because there's an evolution of that soft tissue injury. Um and sometimes it it requires us to uh contact our plastic and reconstructive team um uh for management of uh uh soft tissue transfer uh versus skin graft. Um so it just kind of uh can elongate and complicate the course of uh injury and yeah. Yeah.

Dr Ben 17:56

So an infection now is that comes into play.

Dr Kate 18:00

Yep. And I, you know, when I'm talking to my patients, you know, I I say stabilization is part of the procedure, but the main reason we're doing this today uh in an urgent fashion is that we need to clean and wash, uh uh wash the bone and uh trying to minimize that risk of infection. Um but that really starts with our emergency department providers and then uh kind of cleaning out the cleaning out the the wound uh as best they can in the in the emergency debate and getting them on antibiotics immediately.

Dr Ben 18:27

And now they're kind of saying as long as you do it kind of within the first 24 hours, I think, depending on unless it's grossly contaminated. But it used to be like you know, a little poke hole and like, oh, we gotta go to the emergency room right or the operating room right now. But right.

Dr Kate 18:39

Yeah, that used to be a middle of the night thing and it that's just not the case anymore. But to your point, grossly contaminated, that's yeah, a little different.

Dr Ben 18:47

If it's in like a on a farm in a barnyard or something, might be a little different.

Seth Kays 18:51

But if it deals with tetanus, then yeah. That's right.

Dr Kate 18:54

Yeah. It's kind of like the golden rule too. You know, if my leg was grossly contaminated, I would want someone coming in it in the middle of the night. So it'd be nice. Yeah.

Seth Kays 19:04

Yeah.

Dr Kate 19:04

Yep.

Dr Ben 19:05

All right. And how do you coordinate the care with all those other specialists and such? Like if a um trauma patient comes rolling into the ER and there might be need a vascular surgeon or a trauma surgeon or plastic surgeon, or who kind of coordinates all that, or how do you do that?

Dr Kate 19:22

Yeah, so the uh general surgery team is uh, like I said, they're the in the in-house team, so they're really quarterbacking the care of the the patient from the moment they hit the emergency room to discharge. Um, and so you know, they kind of start with a workup and they under, you know, they have a great understanding of what is immediately threatening to the patient and what can wait. Um, and like I said, a lot of the bone stuff can wait. Um and I I think what's really nice about working at a smaller hospital versus some of the larger academic facilities that we trained at is I know everybody, I have their cell phone number. Uh we sit in the surgeon's lounge together. Um, so you know, you have a uh a relationship with everybody. Um, and you know, I can just text anybody or call anybody and say, hey, you know, I know they have this orthopedic injury, but are they safe to go to the OR from your standpoint? Um and uh again, we have a great uh group of mid-level providers, both on the general surgery and the um uh orthopedic side that uh help manage and and have a lot of those conversations while we're doing our work.

Dr Ben 20:25

What's a mid-level provider?

Dr Kate 20:26

Uh so those are our physician assistants, uh nurse practitioners, um, the kind of the, I guess they call them physician extenders uh uh who are not directly in the operating room and can manage a lot of the care while we're working.

Dr Ben 20:40

Awesome. Very integral into their patient care. All right. Well, thank you both for that. Let's uh get to uh we gotta pay some bills

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Dr Ben 20:56

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Seth Kays 21:40

You know, I've been to enough chiropractors, I feel like that actually would work.

Dr Kate 21:44

I know, I was like thinking to myself, I was like, it's not as crazy as like hanging upside down. Right? Like equitable.

Seth Kays 21:52

I'll try everything once.

The Most Rewarding Parts Of Trauma

Dr Ben, Seth Kays, Dr Kate 22:02

So like what's kind of the more rewarding parts of your job or what uh do you have any specific examples or what uh from kind of day to day that uh yeah, I mean I think um, you know, the day in, day out uh rewarding thing is uh working with the the teams that I have in the operating room. Um, you know, we have we work with a lot of first assistants and that just teamwork, that team mentality. Um, you know, after I, you know, I'm sure we'll get into this, but after I stopped playing ice hockey. Um, that was something, you know, I I missed, I missed that team mentality. Um and I think orthopedic trauma uh from, you know, like we just talked about working with other uh groups and physicians in the hospital uh to working with our teams in the operating room. Um it's just um, you know, it's a wonderful thing to have a really good time at your job while taking care of really sick people. Um and I think uh, you know, when I know that I have a great team in the operating room, I know it's gonna be a great day. And I, you know, there's no place I would rather be than uh with that team. Um and from a patient standpoint, you know, we take care of patients who are incredibly hurt, um, multi-system trauma, head injuries, chest injuries, um, you know, abdominal injuries. And sometimes, you know, their entire time in the hospital, I actually never see them awake. Um and, you know, having some of these patients walk into my clinic. Um, you know, sometimes the first time they're there, they're on a stretcher, the next time they're in a wheelchair, the next time they're walking, you know, all of these things, just seeing them uh evolve through their care um and get better, those are really amazing um moments. And the best day is really when you discharge from through your care and you say, Call me if you need me. Um, you know, so it's um, you know, at its core, we're just helping people try and get back to the lives that they they want to lead.

Seth Kays 23:54

You're like Kim Possible over there. Call me BP if you need me.

Dr Kate 23:59

I actually had a a a co-resident who had that was their pager.

Seth Kays 24:03

Oh, nice.

Dr Ben 24:05

I love that. I love it.

Dr Kate 24:08

Very empowering.

Dr Ben 24:10

Uh let's see.

Scooters Motorcycles And Risk Reality

Dr Ben 24:11

Motorized scooters are very popular here in Nashville. Oh my god. Do you see any of those injuries?

Dr Kate 24:15

Oh my, oh yeah.

Seth Kays 24:16

Okay.

Dr Kate 24:16

I I I bet uh a different hospital in town sees those because it's right downtown. Yeah. Um, but I will say, you know, I live downtown and I just the other day we were walking to the Ryman for a comedy show, and it's pouring rain, and some guy just at a hugely busy intersection just like zooms, takes a left-hand turn with oncoming traffic in the rain, and I'm like, oh, you're gonna be a patient. Yeah, so those things stress me out. Um I know they're fun. I get it. I've done it before, but uh the further I get into this job, uh dude.

Dr Ben 24:50

You see the aftermath.

Dr Ben and Dr Kate 24:51

Yeah, the bikes, the bikes I feel like are are a little safer, maybe. The e-bikes are the yeah, well, no, not the e-bikes. No, the line bikes. I feel like those have like a a mile per hour you can't go over, but those e-bikes are.

Seth Kays and Dr Kate 25:06

There's that, but the line ones do also have a little bit of a motor, so it's a little easier to, but I don't think it ever gets above like 15 miles an hour. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr Kate 25:14

But those e-bikes, it's like a motorcycle industry.

Seth Kays 25:17

Oh, yeah, some of those can get up to like 30, 40 miles an hour. It's crazy.

Dr Kate 25:20

Are we riding around without people just don't realize we're just little bags of water? We don't stand a chance.

Dr Ben 25:27

What about uh motorcycles?

Dr Kate 25:29

Oh gosh, don't get me started.

Dr Ben 25:30

You probably see some motorcycle injuries daily when it's yeah.

Dr Kate 25:34

I mean, when the weather starts to get nice, and that's you know, the the weather in Nashville, it stays motorcycle weather like nine months out of the year. Um, so uh, you know, and I I used to ride motorcycle. I used to have my own motorcycle license, and I uh wrote a street legal dirt like to work.

Seth Kays 25:53

And I was a little bit of a bad girl myself. Then what happened?

Dr Kate 25:58

Then I became an orthopedic traumatologist. And uh you know, so some of the uh the worst injuries that I extremity injuries, head injuries come from motorcycles. Um and those patients, you know, they always ask me, hey doc, when can I get back on my motorcycle? Wow. And I, you know, it so it's a way of life, and I have to support them in their decision. Um, but uh yeah, it's um uh uh it can be a way to get hurt. And it's also not often the motorcycle rider, it's just there's a lot of uh drivers out there that aren't used to kind of looking for motorcycles and things like that.

Seth Kays 26:35

So are there any other activities that have been completely ruined for you being in this field?

Dr Ben 26:40

Skiing for me, but downhill skiing.

Dr Kate 26:43

Yeah, I guess I wasn't a big downhill skier. Anyways, yeah, but that that's bad. Yeah, yeah, that can be bad.

Dr Ben 26:49

Um you have a partner with a bad knee injury from skiing skiing.

Dr Kate 26:52

Yes, yes, yes. I think that was one of the questions that they asked me, like between fellowship and when I started, they asked me if I was going on any ski trips. Uh I said no, um, which I wasn't, but I I didn't tell them that I was going to hike Mount Katahdin in Maine. Wow, which in its own way is a very dangerous activity. Um, you can Google the knife's edge, uh, which is an amazing trail. Yeah.

Seth Kays 27:14

And you like that one?

Dr Kate 27:15

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Didn't get hurt. It was everything was nice. Um, but no, I think, you know, I guess if if if I really like thought about it, like driving a car, I should be afraid to do that.

Dr Ben 27:29

Right. A very dangerous activity.

Seth Kays 27:31

I still have a 4,000-pound piece of machinery that goes 80 miles an hour. Like a big deal.

Dr Kate 27:36

You'd think I would drive like 15 under the speed limit, but I I just I I'm gonna be honest, I drive a little too a little too fast.

Dr Ben and Dr Kate 27:44

Yeah, yeah. Have you have you ever had to uh tell law enforcement that you're a doctor and you're on your I haven't.

Dr Kate 27:53

I I I have had my white coat in the passenger seat.

Seth Kays 27:58

Okay, and she speeds for the game, okay? She doesn't speed because she needs to, she speeds because she wants me to get it.

Dr Kate 28:04

Yeah, and he was like, Oh, I hate giving doctors tickets. And he handed me like a $200 ticket.

Dr Ben 28:09

But did it anyway?

Dr Kate 28:10

Yeah, I was like, wait until I see you in the ER, man. I really don't want to do this, but I really hate doing this. And don't do it, man.

Dr Ben 28:19

But like my parent punishing me, you know. I really don't want to do this, but I need to learn a lesson.

Dr Kate 28:25

I've never been pulled over actively trying to get to the hospital. Um, so I haven't tried to use that excuse yet, but I'll let you know when I do.

Dr Ben 28:33

Dr.

Why She Chose Ortho And Trauma

Dr Ben 28:34

Kate, so why what drew you to orthopedics? Why orthopedics and why trauma, traumatology? What drew you to those?

Dr Kate 28:40

Uh orthopedics, it just made a lot of sense to me. Um, I loved anatomy. I took this awesome evolutionary uh anatomy class. Um it was about primates, um, but it's still just the you know, the bony structure, um, the interplay with muscles, and what's that, what, what does that have on function? Um, you know, I think being an athlete too, you know, you're trying to hone your specific um muscles to do your job, um, uh whether that's a football player, hockey player, softball, whatever it may be. Um, and I also really um like 3D spatial things really like click for me. So everybody's like, oh god, organic chemistry. That's like the hardest course out there. I loved it. I thought it was rather simple. Not simple, but like, you know, you're you're I was about to say, we get it, you're smart, okay.

Seth Kays and Dr Kate 29:31

Yeah, yeah, but I mean it's just like uh I failed two out of my three levels of physics in college, okay?

Dr Kate 29:37

It's a specific smart though, right? It's like I'm a very like knife's edge smart. Um, you know, like my twin brother is like globally genius, like very smart in like a lot of different things. So I I stay in my lane. Um but uh so kind of putting those two things together, um, you know, orthopedics just made sense. And um, you know, going into residency, I was I was like, I don't really know what I want to do. Um and uh, you know, I you know, a lot I think a lot of early residents get drawn to trauma because they like let you do things. It's it's very you can't mess things up too much. It's already messed up. Yeah, it's already messed up. Like you, yeah, go try and put a splint on it. You're not gonna mess it up too much.

Seth Kays 30:18

Um like worst comes to worse, you pull it off, but you know.

Dr Kate 30:21

Yeah, we'll put it back on. Um, so uh, and even in the operating room, they're like, You want to put this screw in?

Dr Ben, Seth Kays, Dr Kate 30:27

And you're like, yes, yes, yes, yes, I do. Yeah, it's like a screw that doesn't work. That's a big deal. Like as a med student, yeah, you brag about it.

Dr Ben 30:34

Yeah, yeah. Dr. Kate, let me put a screw in.

Dr Kate 30:37

Right, right, right. Um, and so yeah, you're just like, wow, this is awesome. Um, and so I had to contend with like, do I like trauma because uh, you know, they let me do things, or do I like trauma because I like trauma? And I I think ultimately, um, you know, not to sound like too much of a hippie here, but it's like an energy thing. Like, what can you dedicate yourself to for 12, 14 hours a day and not be exhausted at the end of the day? And trauma was it for me. I loved um the surgeries, yeah, sure. But you know, that half of it is talking to patients. Um, I just felt like you could have pretty realistic conversations with your patients um about their injury, about their expectations of recovery. Um, and uh, you know, in a way, I guess it's paternalist more paternalistic than a lot of other parts of medicine because you're you're like, hi, my name's Dr. Kate, your femur's broken, we're gonna fix it. And people are like, okay. You know, they're not gonna be like, well, you know, like what are my other options? Yeah. I saw this like ad on TV, you know, like they're not gonna, you know, uh argue with it a whole lot.

Seth Kays 31:47

So this can't be solved with Ozempic.

Dr Kate 31:49

Yeah, exactly. Um, so I I appreciated the patient interactions um to have kind of those realistic conversations.

Dr Ben 31:58

How does the human anatomy compare to the primate anatomy? Like which primate would we most closely resemble, do you think? Is it very similar?

Dr Kate 32:07

Well, I you know, I I every time I think about this, it's really about the the crest on their skulls. Okay. Um, about their mastication muscles, like why a gorilla can, you know, bite through whatever they bite through. I don't really know what they bite through. So hard things. Hard things. Um, but it, you know, it's that uh the the origin and the insertion of those those muscles that uh allow them to do that. Um so I feel like we're a lesser monkey than a gorilla.

Dr Ben 32:36

Okay.

Dr Kate 32:37

Um, I guess I don't know my monkeys well enough to really.

Seth Kays and Dr Kate 32:41

I was hearing that we're like closest in most things to the bonobo chimps. Yeah, I was gonna say a chimpanzee of sort.

Dr Kate 32:47

Yeah, just evolutionarily. Yeah. Yeah. But physically, I don't know where we fit it. Anatomically, I'm not sure.

Seth Kays 32:56

She's not that kind of scientist.

Dr Ben 32:59

Um and then you like the 3D spatial arrangement.

Implants CT Scans AI And Triage

Dr Ben 33:02

I'm curious as to like what role technology plays in both your practice now and where do you think it's headed, or is it gonna take over our jobs or like AI and robots?

Dr Ben, Seth Kays, Dr Kate 33:12

I mean, it might take over your job. It might have comedy as a backup. Yeah, it's smart. I don't have a backup. So um no, I think.

Dr Ben 33:24

How do you use technology in your job?

Dr Kate 33:25

Yeah, I think um, you know, the technology really comes from our implants, um, and there's kind of new variations on um, you know, some of the big strides that came forth in the 70s and beyond.

Dr Ben 33:37

Um nails and plates.

Dr Kate 33:39

Nails, plates, you know. I think, you know, in the in the you know, in the 90s, like percutaneous pelvic fixation, like what's that how has that changed our practice? It's immense for you know taking care of patients with, you know, kind of bigger pelvic ring injuries and things like that. Um just through the skin percutaneous, not decisions, yeah, small incisions, not a big open, big whack, as you might say. Um so uh, you know, I think uh, you know, we're always kind of standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before us, um, you know, the allowing us to do the things that we can do through more, I'm not gonna say minimally invasive, like minimally invasive sounds like you're making just like a little thing here and there, but like that's not less invasive. Less invasive. Um MIS does not it's not an orthopedic trauma turbine. Right. Um so you know, I think a lot of technology comes from our implants. Um and uh, you know, we robots are not a thing that we really use. Yeah. Um so nobody is in the emergency bay being like, hey doc, you're gonna use a robot.

Dr Ben 34:45

Robotics, right. Whereas general surgery and other areas of orthopedic surgery.

Dr Kate 34:49

Yeah, yeah. And and I, you know, I think um, you know, we I I got to use some of the robots for hips and knees in uh in residency, and they're it's amazing technology. Um, it's just not really uh helpful in the variety of fractures that we take care of. Um uh so I think you know the uh a lot of the technology, maybe you know, in imaging, you know, our CTs, there's a lot of software out there that can show you 3D reconstructions of a lot of the injuries you're taking care of. Um so it just it helps you uh visualize, you know, exactly what approach you want to do, where you want to maybe put a plate. There's even some software out there that you can actually put plates and screws um, you know, kind of into in on top of these 3D images to kind of again have a better idea of your plan. I don't uh use that that much, but you you can't, you know.

Dr Ben 35:43

But yeah, that 3D reconstruction of a CAT scan is amazing. They can take any body part and 3D image it. Oh wow.

Dr Kate 35:50

Yeah. So for acetabulum or the hip socket. Oh right, okay. So that it's really helpful for that for elbow fracture dislocations. I think it could be helpful. Yeah. Um, you know, proximal femur fractures. Yeah, I think yeah. I I would say my generation versus um uh some of my senior partners, they don't get CTs as much as I do. I just I like to be in the know. Um, I think it just helps me plan. So I'm an over-CT er perhaps.

Dr Ben 36:20

So in the future they'll be in the future, there'll be orthopedic traumatologists, humans, and then a bunch of robots doing all the other surgeries.

Dr Kate 36:28

Yeah, I mean, like deep down if I think about it, like what AI can do, like maybe you feed a tibial plateau fracture into you know a robot and it can do it better than I can. Maybe. Maybe that's where we're headed, but we're not there yet. Yeah, starting my career safe right now.

Seth Kays and Dr Kate 36:46

What a crazy world that would be. Going to the doctor and you feel like you're on the phone with Comcast and you're just like, Can I please talk to a real person? Yeah. Operator. You just say something like totally gibberish so that the robot's like, let me connect you with uh with an actual human.

Dr Ben 37:07

But they they maybe they'll triage and say whether it needs to be transferred or not.

Seth Kays and Dr Kate 37:12

Right, right, right. Yeah. Okay, so what is triage? I've heard this term a lot on the pit, and I don't know at all what it is. What's triage?

Dr Kate 37:20

Well, I'd say like what is most pressing.

Seth Kays 37:23

Okay.

Dr Kate 37:24

Right? So like if you come in with like a nosebleed that started one minute ago and you've been able to stop it, like you're low on the triage board.

Seth Kays 37:33

Okay.

Dr Kate 37:33

All right. You come out, you know, after getting shot in the stomach, yeah, like yeah, you're higher on the triage triage board.

Seth Kays 37:40

So it's just kind of a hierarchy of care.

Dr Kate 37:42

Yeah, it's like who needs to be seen like much faster than other people. Okay. Essentially, yeah.

Seth Kays 37:48

Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah.

Dr Ben 37:50

Kind of seeing what's emergency, what's not, what can we, what can we do?

Dr Kate 37:54

Which like going back to the pit, if you see all those people in the waiting room who are like, I've been here for hours, right? They're low on the triage board. Right. Versus people coming in from the EMT, you know, oh, yeah, you know, fell or water park injury. It's the most recent episode. I don't know if you've seen it. I have actually. Okay. Yes, no. I'm caught up. All right. So yeah.

Seth Kays 38:13

My mom renewed the HBO Max subscription, so I was like, let's go. Yeah.

Dr Ben and Dr Kate 38:16

I like it. I like it. Yeah, that's a very popular show.

Fake Ad- Common Sense Healthcare

Seth Kays 38:25

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Dr Ben 39:06

Burp Be Gone. Make sure it says burp be gone, all others are him pastas.

Seth Kays 39:11

Oh, oh, I like that.

Dr Ben 39:18

To kind of switch gears here a little bit, did you have any more orthopedic questions or trauma?

Seth Kays 39:23

This has been fascinating, though. Okay.

From Orthopedics To Olympic Hockey

Dr Ben 39:25

Learned a lot. Dr. Kate here, we're gonna learn something new about too. She played both collegiate and professional hockey.

Seth Kays and Dr Ben 39:32

All right. So to switch kind of gears here.

Dr Ben 39:35

I want to hear from New Hampshire.

Dr Kate 39:37

Yep. Yeah.

Dr Ben 39:37

So how old were you when you started playing hockey?

Dr Kate 39:40

Um, I was nine. Um, so we had just moved to New Hampshire from uh kind of like uh upstate New York. Um, and my mom was like, What do people do around here?

Dr Ben 39:54

We gotta get all somewhere.

Dr Kate 40:01

Yeah, what do people do up here? Um, and the answer was ice hockey. Um so my brother started, my older brother uh started the first year, and then my twin brother and I started the year after that.

Seth Kays 40:12

So I was not, yeah.

Dr Ben 40:15

Okay, yeah.

Seth Kays 40:16

Awesome.

Dr Kate 40:17

I was the only one that made it out of high school, continuing to play ice hockey.

Seth Kays 40:20

Okay.

Dr Ben 40:22

And was there like uh was it girls' hockey or you played with boys or how yeah it was only boys at that point?

Dr Kate 40:29

Um, I started playing girls' hockey um probably in high school. Um, I think, you know, when I when you're younger, like the girls tend to be bigger. Like we we have our girl spurt a little bit earlier.

Dr Ben 40:40

Right.

Dr Kate 40:41

Um, but then you get into high school and you may be playing with guys who are four years older than you and who are six, two and a hundred and eighty pounds. More than you, uh if not more. Um and it's you know, it's a hitting league at that point. Um, and so uh kind of around that time I transitioned to um uh playing uh girls' hockey uh before a club team, and then my uh high school team was uh uh girls only as well.

Seth Kays and Dr Ben 41:06

Which women's hockey's kind of kind of making a comeback right now, especially with the Olympics in the US.

Dr Kate 41:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr Kate and Seth Kays 41:12

Wait, US beat Canada in women's hockey. Darn skippy they did. Yes, yeah, 2-1 over hybrids.

Dr Ben 41:18

Fantastic. Walk us through that game. That was a nail biter.

Dr Kate 41:22

Uh yeah, I mean the uh the tournament up to that point, the United States had been steamrolling everybody, like 4-0, 6-0. Um, you know, and so they were just and they had beaten Canada five to nothing in the preliminary rounds, which I don't think Canada had ever been shut out in the Olympics ever at that point. So that the United States team was just um playing fantastic hockey, and you know, the gold medal game, you know, it's a single game. And um Canada scored early and uh you know it's and the then they were playing fantastic defense, their goalie was playing well, um, and they were the United States was just getting shut down, but then with I think one minute to play in the third period, and uh Hillary Knight scored this unbelievably beautiful tip-in goal.

Dr Ben 42:12

Great individual effort.

Dr Ben and Dr Kate 42:13

Oh beautiful. Um, and you know that that takes serious skill. I mean, and that's how crazy were you going watching that?

Dr Ben 42:20

Were you?

Dr Kate 42:21

Oh, pretty crazy. Yeah, yeah. Um, I think Wow, that was I can't remember. I think I was supposed to be in the OR that day, but I didn't have a ton of stuff, so I got home.

Dr Ben 42:30

Go ahead and just start it without me. I'm watching it.

Dr Kate 42:32

Yeah, I know. I was like, I probably would have had it on the OR maybe. But uh yeah, I was able to be home for it. Um, and then yeah, I mean the overtime was just wow uh in again an unbelievably talented, skilled effort for to put that that winning goal in. That was unbelievable. I love it. Yeah. I mean it's it a wonderful rivalry between the Canada and United States. I feel like in the women's side, almost more like the the the men's side, yes, the 2010 US Canada game was unbelievable. These are you know, they're all NHL players.

Dr Ben 43:07

Right, yeah.

Dr Kate 43:08

Um, and you know, they have another job, if you will. Um, but I think you know, the the US Canada for the women's side is the pinnacle of the game, and um those those games are just must be a bit incredible to be a part of.

Dr Ben 43:21

So and now Hillary Knight, she's we don't you know I'm not gonna put you on the spot for your age, but she's in her mid-30s.

Dr Kate 43:28

Yeah.

Dr Ben 43:28

So does that make you want to lace up your skates or anything again?

Dr Kate 43:31

Not at all.

Seth Kays 43:32

Okay.

Dr Kate 43:33

Not at all. She says, Yeah, I uh let's see, I I stopped playing professional when I was in medical school. Um I played a c a couple games uh here and there. I was like considered a practice player. Um at that point, it was let's see. I went through a couple iterations of professional leagues. So the original league I played in was the Canadian Women's Hockey League.

Dr Ben 43:56

Okay.

Dr Kate 43:56

All right, and so that was you did not get paid. Yeah. So I had a job as well. Uh so you're no, you're I was a medical assistant in an orthopedic clinic.

Dr Ben 44:06

Not a true professional.

Dr Kate 44:07

Yeah. I mean, they paid for our like helmets and pants and jerseys, I guess. And maybe the bus that would transfer you from Boston to Toronto and Montreal. Yeah. Could everyone I mean, thankfully they flew us to Calgary, which was nice. Um uh and then um I guess it was maybe the NWHL uh was uh I played for the Connecticut whale as the again, the practice player. Okay.

Seth Kays 44:35

Like the whale singular?

Dr Kate 44:36

Yes, just a single whale. Interesting.

Dr Ben and Dr Kate 44:38

Yeah, not like the whalers. Yeah, not the whale.

Dr Kate 44:41

It was, you know, paying homage to the Connecticut, you know. Okay. Um it was the same c colors, but yes, the Connecticut whale. Um and I was really I I was just helping out, you know, when they needed an extra player. I was like, okay, I haven't skated in two weeks, but like I can huff and puff all the way up and down this ice. Um, and then I uh moved to the pinnacle of my career, which was um uh men's league in St. Louis. Uh and uh that I played through fellowship with that. Um, but since I moved to Nashville, I have not yet had a chance.

Seth Kays 45:14

Okay. Now, was this like a she's the man situation or did they know you were a woman?

Dr Kate 45:18

Oh, they knew I was a woman. Yeah, and they probably didn't expect me to like hit them as much as I did. There was a woman that was a it was it's non-hitting, but even though we're just a little physical here and there. So yeah.

Dr Ben 45:29

There was a woman that played in the NHL exhibition game as the goalkeeper. Yes, ream. But uh so that was now women's hockey that became an Olympic sport in ninety eight. Yes, and the US have medaled in every Olympic since that's awesome.

Dr Kate 45:45

Right, yeah.

Dr Ben 45:45

This is our third gold.

Dr Kate 45:47

But uh you know, I was 1998. When it was nine years old, you know, right when I started playing hockey. I mean, I rem I remember sitting, you know, uh watching Naganova. Yeah, just like we had like a main TV room in our old farmhouse in New Hampshire, and you know, the the main area with like the big, big wood burning stove. Um, and then there was like another room with a smaller wood burning stove and like a little tiny TV. And I remember my brother's like, we're not watching hockey. I was like, I'm watching hockey. I just sat there watching them play. It's just unbelievable. Hell yeah. Wow.

Speaker 46:25

Yeah, 2002. I mean, yeah, 2002.

Speaker 1 46:27

From then on.

Dr Kate 46:28

Yeah. Um, I think 98 and 2002, those are like the two memorable, like I was a kid watching, like, wow.

Dr Ben 46:35

That inspire you to want to pursue that?

Dr Kate 46:38

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

Dr Ben 46:39

Um, and uh I can watch curling, but that doesn't make me want to become a professional curler.

Dr Kate 46:46

Yeah. I mean, I think that I don't know, dude. They don't they don't have beers when they're doing professional curling. So I think like no one wants to be a professional curler because you want to have that ability to have a beer while you're doing that. Yeah.

Dr Ben 46:59

Um I think we have curling here in Nashville. I heard so.

Seth Kays 47:02

We do have a uh a bar that is actually a curling club. Whoa. Yeah, over in the nations or like Sylvan Park, I think. I heard that. Yeah. Apparently it's really nice.

Dr Kate 47:12

I mean I got my phone googling. I bet it's packed around, you know, like just post-winter Olympics. I bet you cannot get a slot.

Dr Ben 47:23

Like if I watched the biathlon, I probably wouldn't be inspired to do cross-country skiing and shooting.

Dr Kate 47:29

I will tell you that that is my favorite sport to watch in the winter Olympics. Yeah, because it is so I mean it's amazing. It's so grueling. It's like watching rowing in the summer Olympics, which is also crazy.

Dr Ben 47:38

I can't believe how steady they are to shoot after maybe like yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr Kate 47:42

The I mean, just yeah, it's like overly caffeinated, but you know, I even you know, I I had a short stint with the uh national team, and soon after I was cut from the team, I went home, you know, to lick my wounds. And um uh we have a great cross-crunchy skiing course, you know, in my hometown. And my mom was like, you know, like let's go cross-country skiing. And that woman does that all the time, and I'm like, sure, state skiing. Look at this. I'm like, you know, j I'm in like an Olympic shape, you know. But I could not catch her. I mean, it was just yeah, it's an unbelievably difficult sport, and it's a totally different skill set too. Yeah, oh they're going uphill.

Seth Kays 48:26

Yeah, no, thank you.

Dr Kate 48:28

No, no, I enjoy watching it.

Seth Kays 48:30

Yeah, I do not enjoy it. I enjoy watching other people do very difficult things. Yeah, like I love watching that show alone, and I'll be like cuddled up at home, like on the couch eating popcorn. I'm just like, man, that's crazy, bro. Yeah, to kill an elk, that's nuts. Yeah, yeah, I could do that better.

Dr Ben 48:50

I love it.

Winter Sports Wipeouts And Weird Scandals

Dr Ben 48:51

Any uh winter sports that you think you'd be drawn to? I mean watching the Olympics.

Seth Kays 48:56

I mean, I do thoroughly enjoy watching curling, but yeah, I've never like had the inkling to just go and do anything curling-wise. Uh, I I do I do love like all of the bobsled variations, like those fascinate me so much, especially just like because you've got the the skeleton, which is just the one person, you've got the luge, which is the two people, the full bobsled, which is four people. Like, I don't know, it's just so fascinating. All they're using is gravity.

Dr Ben 49:21

Crazy. And you have the need for speed.

Seth Kays 49:23

Yeah, cool running. I'd be like, Where are the brakes?

Dr Ben 49:26

I'm going too fast.

Seth Kays 49:27

It uh it takes me back to uh when I was oh, probably four or five. My family went to Gatlinburg on vacation, and my dad decided to take me down those alpine slides, and he really wanted to beat my mom on the way down, so he used the brake very sparingly. And we definitely flew off the track at one point. Uh I vividly, like I said, probably I could have. Yeah, I vividly remember, yeah, we got thrown off the track. I was covered in cuts and bruises and stuff, and we finally got all the way to the bottom and had to go like to the little medic stand that they had right at the end of it, which clearly they knew this was a thing that people are gonna do. So needless to say, my mom won. Or were you like oh exhilarated, like, wow, that was cool. I mean, on the way down to going off, it was fun, and then yeah, I just remembered like being in pain.

Dr Ben 50:19

Your life flashed before your eyes.

Seth Kays 50:21

Yeah, my my short little four-year life. Yeah, it's not the first time my dad has injured me on some sort of sledding uh incident. There was one time we we got a really big because I grew up in Atlanta, and uh, same as here, we don't really get a ton of snow down there, but one year we just got a ton of snow, so we didn't have any sleds. So my dad was like, let's get some contractor trash bags and let's just take them down the hill outside of our house. And uh, same thing, hit a nice little bump, and we flew, and my dad landed on top of me, and I was probably three, and I pull my face up out of the ground, and I've just got like grass hanging out of my nose. Like, yeah, yeah, there was a there was a lot of those when I was a kid just getting thrown off of things because of my dad.

Dr Ben 51:03

That's why he loves the bobsled and luge.

Seth Kays 51:06

So I like to watch. I like to watch the sports and be like, I'm not gonna get hurt doing this.

Dr Ben 51:11

So yeah. Did you guys hear about the uh ski jump uh scandal? Oh yeah, particularly the Norwegians. Oh, they were kind of enhancing certain areas in their nether regions, and it actually makes you fly further. Yeah, believe it or not.

Seth Kays 51:24

What were they enhancing?

Dr Ben 51:26

Well, both areas on themselves as well as on their suits. Oh, okay. They did a study actually, even enhancing the suit, one centimeter more material helped you fly four meters farther. Wow.

Dr Ben and Seth Kays 51:37

So they were kind of a little scandal of uh of uh people enhancing the definition of scandal is hilarious depending on who who is involved. That is nothing I would have even considered to be scandalous, but that's amazing.

Dr Ben 51:52

So well, good. All

When Comedy Bombs And How Pros Pivot

Dr Ben 51:55

right. Well, thank you, Dr. Kate and uh Mr. Seth. Uh Dr. Kate, yes, kind of to a little role reversal. Do you have any questions uh that you would like to ask comedians? You you you mentioned you were going to a comedy show. Anything about comedy that interests you or yeah, who are your some of your favorite comedians?

Dr Kate and Seth Kays 52:12

Well, we just saw Bridget Everett. Okay. Um uh who's just uh I guess I'm just gonna say hoot. She's a hoot. I'm trying to keep it. Is she is she the redhead? No, she's blonde. Okay, she's a bigger lady, she's uh burlesque. She sings mostly. Because there's so she has a band on stage. Okay.

Seth Kays 52:32

There's another girl kind of in that that vibe, but she doesn't do the burlesque thing, but she kind of has the old school like 1960s. I'm a I'm a comedian lady. She's utterly, I can't remember her name, but she's utterly hilarious.

Dr Kate 52:45

Yeah, so Bridget Everett just had a HBO show, uh Somebody Somewhere. Okay. I don't know if you ever saw that. It's very good. Um it's it's uh it's not like a comedy show. Okay. Um let me just preface that before you get going. Um uh, but um, yeah, I mean, I I we don't go to comedy. I mean, this is such a music city, right? Yeah, um, but we've gone to Zanie's a couple times. We want to see you, Dr. Ben. Oh, obviously. Dr.

Dr Ben 53:09

Ben is at Zanie's.

Dr Kate 53:10

Um plug. Um, you know, the Ryman. Um, but uh yeah, we went to uh the um the lab at Zanie's for a psychedelic comedy show, which I was just like curious about it. Um but uh yeah, we um, you know, probably once every two months try and get to comedy. Um I think it's actually a pretty like good showing here in Nashville, I have to say.

Seth Kays 53:38

No, we get quite a few amazing people coming through here all the time.

Dr Kate 53:40

Yeah. So I never went to comedy in St. Louis. Okay. Um I just don't know if I wasn't looking for it, or they just do a much better job of advertising here because isn't there a whole comedy festival coming to the Ryman?

Seth Kays 53:52

Yep. I mean, it's the Ryman Bridgestone, uh Nashville comedy festival of the city. Yeah.

Dr Kate 53:56

Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I look on stage and I say, wow, that's something I could never do. Never do that. Um, you know, like I I'm sure people would say that about my job, but like I'm like in my own world, like I'm in a little hole in the ground in the hospital, like there's some music playing, physics are getting fixed. It's a very zen world. Um, but being up in front of people, no, thank you. Oh my God. Yeah. No, I just would my voice would start shaking and I'd probably start crying. Um, so I'm impressed that you do both. I mean, you have like your Zen world, you know, on stage and in the operating room. I uh to me, it's a very different reality.

Seth Kays 54:34

Oh, absolutely.

Dr Kate 54:34

Yeah.

Dr Ben 54:35

I've been asked before what was scarier performing my first surgery or performing my first stand-up routine, and it's definitely a stand-up comedy. Yeah, it was terrifying.

Dr Kate 54:43

Yeah, I mean, no one's clapping in the operating room.

Seth Kays 54:45

Right.

Dr Kate 54:46

You know, like the worst thing that's ever been said is wow, I've never seen that before. You know, like you know, we have implant reps in the in the in, you know, they've been around the clock. They've seen a lot. If you hear that, yeah, you're like, oh god, like what did I just do?

Dr Ben 55:02

Right have attendings and trainings say I've seen it done better, but never slower.

Dr Kate 55:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of uh uh hard.

Dr Ben 55:10

We're gonna replace the clock with a calendar.

Dr Kate 55:13

Yeah, but you know, it's it's uh you're not um you're not responsible for like an audience, right? Which I think is very different.

Dr Ben 55:20

Sometimes there's heckling from anesthesia.

Dr Kate 55:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we can give it back.

Dr Ben 55:24

I mean back and forth.

Dr Kate 55:27

Um, but yeah, so I uh yeah, it gives me just like a uh like heart palpitations even thinking about being on stage.

Seth Kays 55:34

See, I'm always fascinated to hear that because I I basically was born on stage. Like I have never felt more comfortable than when I really either acting or doing stand-up or playing music, like whatever it is. I just I mean, I've been acting since I was six years old. I I have been wanting to do stand-up since I was three, and like vividly remember memorizing like old school like Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby routines, and like standing on a chair in the kitchen, like reciting them for my mom while she's making lunch or something. Like wow. So it's yeah, it's always felt so natural for me. I'm always nervous, like right up until the moment I walk on stage, and then it's like, yeah, this is where it's supposed to be.

Dr Ben 56:14

Yeah, Steve Martin's book is called Born Standing Up. I think that applies to you.

Seth Kays 56:17

You were Yeah, absolutely. Love, love Steve Martin. He he his stand-up is some of the best still to this day. Yeah, like it's my favorite of his was just seeing him on the Muppet show. I don't know if you ever saw that episode, but it's the episode itself is funny because the framework of that one was they scheduled the show for the wrong day and it was actually audition day. So they send the audience home. So there's no laugh track for the whole episode, but Steve Martin still comes out and does a bunch of his routines because, like, hey, I'm here, like might as well. Right. And all you hear is the laughter of the actual crew from the show because Steve Martin is just so funny. Oh, he is.

Dr Kate 56:55

Oh, I guess I do have a question for you.

Open Mics The Only Real Rehearsal

Dr Kate 56:58

Yeah. All right. So in the operating room, like things aren't going well, right? You gotta switch gears, you gotta do something else. Like, if you're not getting the reaction that you're maybe expecting from the crowd, like do you do you have like a backup, like this joke always hits? Or like, how do you, you know, because uh a lot of you guys are storytellers, right? So, like, you know, sometimes I I think some of the best comedy shows out there, it's like a long flowing story that somehow circles back to itself.

Seth Kays 57:25

Absolutely.

Dr Kate 57:26

Um, so like if you're in the middle of the story and it's just not going well, like how do you switch gears if that's even possible? Or do you just like let it ride?

Seth Kays 57:34

It it really depends on what I've been hired to do, where I am in the show, and and how I feel like it's gonna affect the rest of the show. But the other part of it is uh you kind of have to gauge whether or not the show will actually be able to be salvaged.

Dr Kate 57:49

Okay.

Seth Kays 57:49

And I have two, I have two directions that I go, whether or not I think the show can be salvaged or not. And one of them, yes, I do have a few jokes that I'm like, these always hit. I can I can do these real quick and then get into a story, and then things will usually ride out from there. But there have definitely been shows that I have gone to where I could tell before I even get on stage like this is not ever going to go well at all.

Dr Kate 58:13

Just like no smiles in the crowd whatsoever.

Seth Kays 58:16

No smiles, no one cares. There's a football game on, so everyone's watching that. So I actually have I have a story that actually relates to uh medical issues that I I tell. Uh I tell this story, and I don't use her real name because she's requested I not, but my friend Natalie is what I call her. Uh, she was a nurse's assistant. She's actually a full-fledged, like she's she's doing her residency up in Louisville right now, but she was a medical assistant at one of the hospitals here in town, and she told me about uh this story about a guy who came in and his bowels were so impacted he hadn't gone to the bathroom in two weeks. Oh and I won't I won't tell the story on here because it is it's very traumatizing for people who have not ever been involved in this side of medicine before, but ultimately he died, and and and something else very traumatic happened that that affected her and the family and everything. So when I know when I know there is no hope to save a show, I tell this story and then I go off stage and I'm like, I am done.

Dr Kate 59:18

Okay, yeah. So you can just call it. You can just be like, I'm just calling.

Seth Kays 59:22

This is my I can close this out and say I did my job, but there's there's no way I'm gonna try to waste my good jokes on these people. So let's let's give them a little trauma to to make sure they laugh next time. There you go.

Dr Kate 59:33

All right.

Seth Kays 59:34

Very fun.

Dr Kate 59:35

Now I know. Yeah. So if I'm watching a football game and I hear, you know, out of the, you know, out of the stage to my right, something about a bowel disimpaction being needed. I'm gonna know it's you. Yeah, exactly.

Dr Ben 59:50

That's right. And I think for me, it's kind of we're kind of like scientists and it's always an experiment up there. And so just because uh experiment doesn't turn out the way you want doesn't mean it isn't gonna work or doesn't work. Or so it's like, well, let me try it a different way, or was it uh, you know, let me mix it up a little. Yeah. So you're kind of like seeing what works, what doesn't, experimenting up there. And so you kind of take it from that, like, well, you know, that bombed, I'm never gonna do that again, throw it away, or you're kind of saying, Well, how can I tweak that? Or Yeah.

Seth Kays 1:00:23

The only truly bad shows are the ones that you just can't learn anything from. Like, I don't consider it a bomb, even if I do truly bomb, I don't consider it a bomb if I get something out of it. If I realize I'm like, okay, I need to never say this this way again, I've learned something and it was a successful show. Whether or not people enjoyed themselves, I still got something out of it, so I can fix things for the future. Yeah.

Dr Kate 1:00:46

How how often are you doing shows? Because I think like I do hundreds of cases per year, right? So, like, you know, and and you know, in a perfect world, I'd I'd be able to reflect on each one of those. But like I don't have time sometimes. But like, how how much time do you have between shows to be like, okay, I'm gonna sit here with my cup of coffee in the nice shining sun?

Seth Kays 1:01:09

It really just depends on how hard I'm hustling. At the moment, I have other other artistic endeavors I'm pursuing. So stand up, I still do it, I still go out to open mics and still try to book shows here and there. So I've I've got some some stuff popping up here and there, but when I'm like actively hustling, I mean I I could have three shows a week on top of open mics, which are uh open mics are our version of rehearsals. Like the only way stand-up is weird in that you can write all you want, but you will never know if a joke is actually funny until you say it on stage in front of people. So it's very different from music where you can write the greatest sh song that's ever been written, and no one's gonna hear it until the day you put it out, and it's still the greatest song that's ever been written. With a stand-up joke, you have to perform it a number of times in front of people, and so the lowest stakes way to do that is just go to an open mic where everyone already expects you to be bad, so you can kind of just say whatever you need to say to get the joke out and learn how you're gonna need to phrase it so that it works every time after that. Yeah.

Dr Ben 1:02:15

And I'm encouraged to hear stories from uh the all-time greats that uh should be on Mount Rushmore of comedy, tell their stories of performing in front of silent rooms, bombing. It's like they've all done it.

Seth Kays 1:02:27

So I mean, the first open mic that Zanie's held when the lab opened, Nate Bargatze came in and did the first set, and he bombed the whole thing. And he finished his set by looking at everyone and going, good to know 22 years later, open mics still suck. They're still the absolute worst. But like he popped into the East Room at one point because he had 20 minutes, he just wanted to run, and it was so educational to watch legitimately the number one comedian in the world right now going through the exact same process that I go through when I'm at an open mic. You could you could see when a joke didn't land, because a lot of us will have like our phone up there or a notebook up there to be able to just refer back and be like, okay, that worked, that didn't work. He was doing all of that in his head, and I could tell anytime a joke didn't work, he would just move his head very slightly in the same direction every time, and I could tell that was him crossing that joke off and being like, Nope, not gonna work, can't do it again. Wow, yeah.

Dr Ben 1:03:23

Some people like you say, I could never do that. And then I sometimes you hear people like they see other people doing it, and it looks easy to them, like I could do that, I'm funny. So I encourage those people to try and open mic. You probably hear those, like oh, so many times. I've had so many people tell me I could do that because they make it look easy.

Seth Kays 1:03:39

Oh, yeah. Well, especially on Broadway, like uh all the musicians down there think they're comedians, no matter how many times their stupid joke bombs on stage. They're back the next week doing the exact same stuff, bombing even worse, and they all look at me and they're like, Oh, yeah, I could I could do that. And I'm like, Okay, cool, there's an open mic tonight. Come with me. And they're like, Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I I'm busy tonight. I'm like, okay, well, there's an open mic every single night. Just tell me which one you want to go to, and we'll test your theory.

Dr Kate 1:04:06

I'm here to say I respect your craft. Okay, and I do not think it's easy.

Seth Kays 1:04:10

The respect is mutual.

Dr Ben 1:04:11

We won't see Dr. Kate at an open mic.

Dr Kate 1:04:13

You will not. I mean, maybe the audience, but not on stage. All

Final Takeaways And How To Connect

Dr Ben 1:04:25

right, folks, that's a wrap. Dr. Ben here. Keep those vital signs stable and those jokes sharp. With Dr. Ben and friends from the heart of Nashville, we're celebrating healthcare heroes like Dr. Kate and comic pros like Mr. Seth. Remember, we can be serious in surgery, but some of us are seriously funny. All right, if you love today's episode celebrating comics and healthcare heroes, join the team, Team Dr. Ben, and hit that subscribe button. You can find us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, Amazon, anywhere you get your fine podcast. And your word of mouth is our best support. Tell a friend, your doctor, your nurse. All right. We want to hear from you, listener. So send us your favorite dad joke or comment. We can't wait to feature you in our next episode. All right, Mr. Seth, you're very impressive. I can't believe you do all the things you do. There's not enough hours in the day for all the plates you keep spinning. Where can uh our listener follow or follow you or find you?

Seth Kays 1:05:25

Yeah, so on uh Facebook, it's Seth Kays Comedy. That's K-A-Y-S. That's the first word I ever learned how to spell. Because growing up, whenever my mom was on the phone, it was always K's K-A-Y-S. So Seth Kays Comedy on uh Facebook, Seth K's Official on Instagram, and follow the Movie Wars podcast. Uh we're trying to get our YouTube numbers up, y'all. So let's follow it on YouTube, follow us on Instagram. Uh we got some we got some great stuff coming out over the next few months, so I'm very excited.

Dr Ben 1:05:55

All right, love it. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Seth. And Dr. Kate, I don't think you want people finding you if they do, they're having a bad day.

Dr Kate 1:06:02

Yes.

Dr Ben 1:06:03

Any tips you can give?

Dr Kate 1:06:04

I'm very sorry if we meet. Uh, but uh, you know, if you're in good hands.

Seth Kays 1:06:09

At least if you see her, you know it's actually gonna probably turn out okay.

Dr Ben 1:06:13

But what tips could you give the listeners so they don't see you?

Dr Kate 1:06:16

Anything you want to you know, I would I just life happens. So it's uh I think a lot of people are like, I shouldn't have done that or should have done that. But you know what? Live your life. If you see me, you see me. Uh hopefully it's out in the wild and uh not in the hospital. But um, you know, uh if uh if you break a bone here in Nashville, uh you're gonna get very good care.

Dr Ben 1:06:36

That's right. Well, thank you both . Thank you, listener, for joining us. All right, stay healthy, y'all.

Speaker 3 1:06:48

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