SCALPEL SIDEKICK

Someone hands the surgeon the exact instrument they need at the exact second they need it, and most patients never even learn that person’s job title. 

As our friend Professor Ben Sawyer walks into this medical podcast, we sit down with Adam, a certified surgical first assistant.  Adam explains what the role really is, how the OR team works, and what it feels like to manage pressure when the patient on the table is counting on you to get it right.

We also get into the culture of the operating room, including the surprisingly intense topic of OR music. Why are certain songs basically banned from Dr Ben’s OR? Who controls the playlist? And what do studies say about music and surgical accuracy? 

From sterile fields and timeouts to positioning and closing, we keep it accessible for anyone curious about surgery, healthcare careers, and the behind-the-scenes systems that protect patients.

Then Professor Ben Sawyer, a history professor and comedian, takes us on a sharp turn into storytelling, including the unbelievable Confederate submarine tale and why history is not a list of dates. 

We connect that to teaching, stand-up craft, and the value of reading the US Constitution as a practical guide to power, accountability, and gratitude for what earlier generations paid for.

If you like medical comedy, operating room stories, robotic surgery, surgical team roles, and smart history that actually lands, you will feel right at home here. 

Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show, and then tell us: what is your all-time banned song for a high-stakes moment?

THANKS TO OUR GUESTS:

Adam: Surgical First Assistant

Podcast: Vassals of Kingsgrave

Dr Ben Sawyer: history professor, comedian, podcast and game show host

Podcast: The Road to Now

Game Show: Perfect Timing Game Show (live comedy)

IG: @SawyerComedy, @ptgameshow

X: @SawyerComedy

FB: PT Game Show

www.sawyercomedy.com

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!

Team Dr Ben

Transcript

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Welcome To Med In Comedy

Dr Ben 0:10

All right, knock knock howdy folks. Hello from the Nashville skyline and welcome to the Dr. Ben and Friends podcast. This is the podcast dedicated to putting the med in comedy. We're shining a big bright spotlight on the everyday heroes of healthcare and comedy. We're filming in Nashville where the music's hot and the chickens hotter. I'm your host, Dr. Ben, your friendly neighborhood, board-certified orthopedic surgeon by day and stand-up comedian by night. I'm Nashville's favorite bone doctor, turned joke doctor. Please welcome my guest, Adam, my first assistant in the operating room in the OR. He hands me instruments and surgery and still trusts me with sharp objects. Welcome, Adam. Thank you for having me. All right, and let's give it up for Dr. Ben Sawyer, history professor, comedian, podcaster, and the only other Ben allowed on the show. Welcome, Dr. Ben Sawyer, Professor Sawyer.

Professor Ben 1:12

It's great to be here. It's great to be here with another Dr. Ben. And uh as uh I've told you this story before. When I found out there was another Dr. Ben who was a comic, I weren't sure. I wasn't sure if that means we needed to battle to decide whether it'd be only one or if we'd be friends. And I'm very happy it was the second one. Very happy it's the second one.

Dr Ben 1:28

Yes, that's right, folks. The Dr. Ben and Friends podcast prescribes 100% comedy with zero copay. Today we're celebrating the real heroes and comics who dedicate themselves to keeping you safe and laughing. Thank you for joining us. All right, strap in Nashville. We got an OR first assist and an American Soviet history expert in the same room. This is either going to be brilliant or a medical emergency. Heads up, folks. The Dr. Ben and Friends Podcast is your weekly dose of laughs and stories. We celebrate healthcare heroes and pro comics. This is infotainment. Think popcorn, not prescriptions or medical advice. If you're feeling funky, see your medical professional. Your health, that's on you. We'll stick to the punchlines. All right, folks, you're in for a treat today. We have Professor Ben Sawyer, professor by day, comedian by night, and podcast rock star. He champions American history, 20th century Russian history, and history of economic systems. For our listeners, Professor Ben likes capitalism and communism topics and how the U.S. and Soviet Union saw each other during the Cold War. Welcome, Professor Ben. Thank you so much.

Professor Ben 2:47

I'm really glad you threw the word in topics there at the end because otherwise he likes capitalism and communism. Let's sort that out. I thought I might get on some sort of list. No, I'm very interested in them. Also, Ben, Dr. Ben, could I say something here? Please do. You when you introduced the show, you said that you have heroes and comics. I mean, what, just because I don't save people's lives? You're a hero too. Okay, thank you so much. Just wanted to qualify that for the people. Healthcare hero. I should have healthcare hero. Healthcare hero. You are a hero. They're to deal with all the people who have doing comedy for a long time and need some help.

Dr Ben 3:20

All right. Dr. Ben's gonna provide some uh expert assistance here as we have um a healthcare hero with us today. A first assistant in the operating room, Adam. All right, uh, Professor Ben, uh, do you have any uh nicknames that you've heard about first assistants or Adam here?

Professor Ben 3:38

Nicknames. Nicknames, such as uh like what you mean like the things you were saying about him before he got here? I didn't think you wanted me to say him in front of him.

Dr Ben 3:48

Well, some have called him the clamp camp, the blade buddy, suture sidekick, hemostat hero.

Professor Ben 3:55

So what you hand weapons, I mean, sorry, not weapons, but uh instruments. Instruments. There we go, instruments.

Adam 4:01

Instruments. Well, that th those are the scrub techs usually. I mean, sometimes I I do I do fill that role.

What A First Assistant Does

Dr Ben 4:05

Um so Adam, tell us what is a first assistant? What do you actually do? What does a first assistant?

Adam 4:10

Yeah, first assistant is something uh probably no one knows exists half the time, just like most healthcare jobs. Um I basically I help the team get ready for surgery. I support the surgical tech, the circulator, the nurse in the room. Um, I help with positioning the patient, make sure that they're in a safe and comfortable position for surgery. And then I'm the one that stands on the opposite side of the doctor and assists him while he's whatever he needs, basically. I have an extra pair of hands, whether that's holding retractors, um, helping stop bleeding, or uh, you know, closing you up at the end.

Professor Ben 4:38

Okay, for me, when you said helping stop bleeding, I imagine that there's a huge gash and Dr. Ben is trying to stop it with two hands, but his two hands aren't long enough. So he goes, Adam, give me a hand, and you put it on top, and you guys can count a 10. Is that what you do?

Adam 4:53

Sometimes. You know, I mean, like if there's a vessel bleeding or something, honestly, uh, you know, you know, digital uh you know, pressure. Pressure is kind of one of the most effective ways to stop the bleeding, but usually they're gonna need to tie that off or do something that's gonna require both of their hands, so it's kind of hard to do by themselves sometimes. It's incredible.

Professor Ben 5:10

I'm gonna this is gonna be my problem, is I'm gonna stop wanting to be funny and just listen to this. I mean, it's just fascinating to me. I mean, yeah.

Dr Ben and Adam 5:17

Sometimes we have to ligate or suture off a vessel, use electrocottery and bovey it, buzz it to keep it from bleeding. So unfortunately, I don't have four hands. So yeah, and sometimes I have to have three or four, but it doesn't always work out that way. So, Adam, tell us about the training and certification process as a certified first assistant. What is that training like?

Adam 5:38

Is that um so the my my role, there's a couple of different ways kind of to get there. The most common role the way the path I took, um, usually they become uh a surgical tech or a certified surgical tech at some point. Um I was a scrub tech for six, seven years about there. And uh then I went to assisting school, and so that's usually another year or sometimes two years, depending on the school you go to. Um you have to get clinical cases, hours, that sort of thing. Um so usually typically they don't want you to go to school for that until you've been working for you know two, three years and you're a

Training Path And OR Roles

Adam 6:10

really good surgical tech, ideally. Um, and then it takes a couple years just to become surgical tech. So it's about five, six years of training. So it's the kind of thing where you kind of have to prove yourself first. Uh yeah, ideally, yeah. So most of them start off as a scrub tech or technical. Typically, there are there are other we there are in FAs, um, nurses that are RNs that go through separate school FAs. Some of them scrubs as well, some of them weren't. Um, and then also in the O in the OR PAs and nurse practitioners sometimes fill the same role that we do in the room. They can do other things in the clinic, obviously, that I can't do.

Dr Ben 6:42

So, what is a scrub tech that you were described? How's that different from the first assist? What's a scrub tech in the OR?

Professor Ben and Adam 6:48

I was gonna ask that question, but I didn't want to sound so dumb after being so ignorantly excited about this. Yeah. So the scrub tech is um basically responsible for anything sterile in the room. Their main job is to establish and maintain the sterile field to prevent any sort of you know infections or anything, you know, from the surgery. So they make sure that we have all the instruments we need, um, whatever sort of you know specialty equipment that the surgeon's gonna need, because every surgery is different, every specialty is different, every patient's different. So they make sure that uh everything is ready and then they pass the instruments back and forth to myself and the surgeon, you know, as as we go. Um and sometimes they can come up and sometimes we need an extra hand, they help us as well. So how many people are in that room? Uh so the typical OR team, standard OR team, at least in this area, uh, you're gonna have someone to put them asleep, so an anesthesiologist or a CRNA. Uh you're gonna have the doctor, the surgeon, obviously. Um, you're gonna have a nurse, you have to have a nurse legally to circulate the case, and they're the one the non-sterile team member. Um, if we need anything during the case, they run and get that, or if you know something goes, you know, a different way, like hey, I need an extra instrument or I need you know a new piece of equipment or something. And they play DJ. Most importantly, they're in charge of the music. Usually uh very important role. The DJ is a very important role, the circulator. Okay. They play the music. Okay, keep going. Um, and then yes, of course, you have the scrub tech and then you have myself. So a standard OR team is you know, four or five people typically.

Dr Ben 8:07

So at the surgical field, sterile surgical

OR Team Size And Workflow

Dr Ben 8:10

field, there's us three people scrub technologists, first assistant, and the surgeon.

Professor Ben 8:14

So what's your playlist? You guys do you guys fight about that? I know this isn't my show, but I mean, look, I'm the one who knows nothing about what you're doing.

Adam 8:21

So some some surgeons are very specific very particular about what playlist they like. Some keep the room very quiet. Yeah, some some want it very quiet. Some want, you know, they come in, they want classic rock, or they want the hairbands. Or uh you work with people long enough, you kind of know what they like. Some of them they just don't care. They like having you know just some music in the you know in the background, right? Um, a lot of times it's like the the staff we just sort of, you know, what we're in the mood for, sort of thing. Um

Music Rules And Banned Songs

Dr Ben and Adam 8:45

I actually have a list of songs that are banned from my operating room for surgery. Well, there are some standard songs that we do not play in the Dust in the Wind, another one bites the dust, highway to hell, stairway to heaven, I just died in your arms tonight. I'm not kidding, that that's some come out of the way. We skip these if they come up.

Adam 9:01

They're uh they're they're not just uh we're not superstitious in surgery, but we're a little stitous. Little stitious. Yeah. So okay. So I actually have songs that are banned from Yeah. I I worked with a surgeon once. He uh didn't allow ACDC in his room because what one time the ACDC was playing and you know he'd had a rough case basically, and he blamed the ACDC. So no ACDC ever again. Wow. You know, you never know. Some doctors love country, some doctors, you know, it's just kind of whatever. Uh they've actually done studies on this. Um, music in the OR doesn't really matter what it is, but I thought I'm trying to remember if it was the University of Maryland or where they did the study. But um music actually makes the surgeons more accurate with their cuts, it improves their surgical times, um, outcomes. Like oddly enough, there's a separate part of our brain, right, that processes only music. So that might have something to do with it.

Professor Ben 9:45

But this is amazing because I'm a I'm a I was a carpenter for years, right? And I still build things. And when I've got to do like detailed stuff, I listen to Muddy Waters. Like I just go, I need to listen to Muddy Waters while I'm doing this woodwork in. I could see that. It's like very different, very different stakes, but I get it. Yeah, yeah, because sometimes it's Taylor Swift, you know.

Dr Ben 10:03

I don't know. One surgeon was this true story. One surgeon was actually blaring Viking death metal, like top 10 out of 10. It was like Echoes of Eternity, Blood the Strings of Destiny, Valhalla is calling me. And it was right next to the C section room. And it was making the expectant mothers nervous. I could see that. Yo, Ragnar, could you turn that down?

Dr Ben and Adam 10:23

It was making so you have to be a little sensitive to your neighbors. Yeah, yeah, obviously. And it it never gets like, you know, it's not like a club, you know what I mean? Um, and I sometimes like when the patients are going to sleep, I'll play classical music or relax because some people come in, they're very nervous. We do this every day, um, but the person on the table, it might be the worst day of their life. I don't know, right? But usually my I I love my job because typically someone comes in and something is broken or something's hurting them, and we fix it and they leave better than they came in. So it's um it's a high stress, high reward type of job. I mean, doing that multiple times a day, every day, you know, it's probably a pretty big dopamine hit, I would imagine.

Dr Ben 11:01

Yeah, I don't like it completely quiet, but I don't want like nervous energy of like the Viking death metal. Yeah, that's a little much. And then I had a Gen Zier circulating nurse, the DJ, and she asked what kind of music I wanted to listen to, and so I said classic rock. And so she's Gen Zier. She said, Oh, like Nickelback and Lincoln Park, Foo Fighters. Well, I do love them. I wasn't thinking more. Yeah. Um that's classic rock has changed over the years.

Professor Ben 11:28

My college are wearing Deftone shirts. Okay. And I was like, oh, they're back into my music. And it occurred to me that was like whenever we were in college and wore Led Zeppelin shirts.

Dr Ben 11:38

Right. Same thing, exactly. Well, Mr. Adam. Uh so what drew

Career Switch And OR Stress

Dr Ben and Adam 11:45

you to become a first assist? Like what uh uh like from like a scrub tech in the first place or from becoming a scrub tech or yeah, to become a scrub tech and then to go on to become a first assist.

Adam 11:56

When we moved down here, uh I had lived in Canada, my wife's from Canada, and uh, you know, it was the middle of the economic turndown, and I used to do um like business consulting, I used to do a lot of like supply chain management, cost analysis, that sort of stuff. And it was just hard to get work at the time, and I just wanted to do something different. I you know, I liked working with my hands, I liked working outside. I thought, you know, maybe I'd become a nurse or and I I didn't even know you know Scrub Tech existed. I didn't know what you did in the OR really. And it just sort of looking at courses at various, you know, schools and just came up and I said, That sounds interesting. And so I applied and interviewed. Um the programs are very competitive. So I think we had over a hundred applicants the year I was in there and they had like 18 people they chose for the program.

Professor Ben 12:40

Wow. So you can but you came, she said from cost analysis? How was that application? I mean, because if you got a hundred people, right? And surely you've got people that have it do you think because this is what I work with with my students a lot of times for like Fulbright applications and stuff, and I tell them it's really about telling a story where your story is when people look at your application, they shouldn't be like they're giving you something. They see you following a path, and instead of giving you something, they're merely getting out of the way and handing it to you as you go past. Right. Right. So was there a lot of narrative in that when you wrote your application or what?

Adam 13:16

A little bit. Um, I mean, because I've I've done a number of things in my life, and I um like I said, I'm not really medically related, but uh my family, we had a business for many, many years ago, and so we used to do a lot of stuff like in the anti-aging uh, you know, sector with uh, you know, I'd go to a lot of you know doctors' conferences and things. So I had some sort of you know knowledge of that. But um I think what honestly what really helped me was that like they're used to getting a lot of applicants that were like you know, fresh out of high school, you know, fresh out of college. And I was like late 20s at the time, and so you know, um you know, a little more put together. I was you know very excited about it. It was just something that you know, I don't know, it just immediately clicked with me. You know, so um but yeah, it's definitely definitely a big transition. What was that interview like? Do they have like fake bleeders and you have to stop the bleeding?

Dr Ben 14:03

What are you gonna do?

Adam 14:05

No, I mean I mean there's there's like tests you have to take, and it's more just kind of making sure that um you have the right feel for the personality of the type of person. Because look, it it takes a different person to work in healthcare and it takes an even different person to work in the OR. So um managing stress obviously is part of it. Um, we get some people, uh, students, you know, the first time they come in, the first time they see blood, they pass out. Right? So yeah, which you're not gonna know that until you you go to the OR. But I know my uh my instructor, she would always send us to view an OR case within the first few weeks of school so we kind of have an idea of if people were squeamish or you know whatnot.

Dr Ben 14:42

I feel like they almost need like a spotter for a first time of surgery, like just to make sure because we have had people pass pass out.

Adam and Dr Ben 14:48

Yeah, we tell people it's just um you know stand with your back to the wall so that if you fall, you won't fall forward and don't touch anything sterile. We don't like the bodies to hit the floor. That's uh not not not preferred.

Dr Ben 15:00

Right.

Professor Ben 15:02

Although it would be convenient if they break a bone, we just roll them up there as soon as you get the last guy. That's right.

Dr Ben 15:06

Oh, we got another one. Next. Yeah. Thank you, next. All right. So how do you handle the stress of uh the job? Do you any um use humor at all? Uh I yeah.

Adam, Dr Ben, Professor Ben 15:21

Uh yeah, if any anyone that knows me, I probably overuse humor. Um, I suppose. But I don't know. Uh I just, you know, I moved out when I was 16 years old. I've just kind of like my whole life has been stress in one way or another, I suppose. So survival. You know, years of traumatic childhood probably just you know prepared me for this career. Um, um it's just, you know, one of those things. Like uh it's you know, in an emergency, whether it's in the ER or in the OR or anywhere, you know, medicine or even, you know, if someone were to have an accident on the side of the road, like panicking's not gonna help. It's not gonna help that person. It's not gonna help you. I imagine you have to work with a lot of different personalities of surgeons and they're there's kind of like uh stereotype led times of kind of egomaniacs and uh there is, and I mean I've met my fair share, but to be honest, are any of them in the room? I've really don't name names, but if any of them are in the room, just uh I'll just wink twice.

Dr Ben 16:21

Present company excluded.

Adam 16:24

Uh but I will say I've been very lucky that I've worked with a lot of just really great surgeons that are like just genuinely good people, do good work, and are are really great to work with. So that's not that's not the case everywhere. I've been a lot of places. I've worked, you know, for almost every you know company in Nashville. So, you know, um, but there's there are stereotypes, you know, like the ortho bros are the meatheads, the uh the plastics guys, you know, they got the under armor shirt, and you know, uh you know, yeah, tell us about the stereotypes. Yeah, there's a little stereotypes like that. Um, and some of them kind of hold true, uh, sort of.

Speaker 7 16:56

Any other idiosyncrasies?

Adam, Dr Ben, Professor Ben 16:57

Urologists and yeah, urologists uh I mean, like I said, I've I've all the urologists I've worked with have been really great, but uh they uh they don't flinch at anything, man. Like they're well, because they're they're working in you know urine and such, right? So stream team with the pee palace, the stream team. Yeah, we used to have shirts that said stream team. So urology tech back in the day. But uh, you know, sometimes the camera doesn't work. They all okay, they take the camera off and they're just looking down the lens, you know. Whoa. Um yeah, that's old school urology. Yeah, like looking down the lens that's down the down the down the yeah, into the blind into the bladder. Okay. Through the urethra. That's how well that's how they used to do it before they had, you know, video equipment. So, you know. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. If something's not working, it's it's anything if in surgery, if something's not going the way we want it to, a piece of equipment's not working, we just find a way around it. We figure MacGyver out yeah, some sometimes, but for the most part, everything works great. But sterile duct tape. Every patient's anatomy is different. So, you know, if you you could do a thousand gallbladders, you could do, you know, you know a thousand knee replacements, and they're not all gonna be the same.

FAN JOKE SUBMISSION 18:02

Hey, Dr. Ben, I've got a joke. Why can't your nose be 12 inches long? Why can't it be? Because then it would be a foot.

Dr Ben 18:13

So how has technology

Robotic Surgery And Better Vision

Dr Ben 18:15

kind of changed surgery in your in your job? Uh well, I know with the robot that we have robot, the Da Vinci. And so the first assist.

Adam 18:24

We have a lot of robotics now. Uh that's that's been very popular the last you know five, ten years, I think. Um, of course, you know, if you go back to the 90s, you know, everything used to be done open as far as you know, like general cases, abdominal cases, and now a lot of it is done laparoscopic because it's minimally invasive, it's easier recovery, you know, less less trauma to the patient. But the uh the robotics has really grown. I mean, I was a robotic coordinator for a few years at one point. Um, there's a lot of robots around Nashville. And um, that's a little different because the the surgeon is operating like from a console. So like they get to see everything 3D inside the body. Whereas, like, you know, if you open somebody up and you're looking down into the body, um, sometimes you can't see quite as well. It's like you have a 3D, you know, 4K camera that's like an inch away, you can see everything. It's it's incredible.

Dr Ben and Professor Ben 19:13

Yeah, did you know that, Professor Ben? Like a lot of times for surgery, the surgeons over in the corner, not in sterile, just looking at a screen, operating joysticks. I knew something about this.

Professor Ben 19:24

Uh, I had a massive surgery like uh January before last to get rid of the last I had uh stage three colorectal cancer, and uh it was almost all gone. But because it was in my pelvis, they were like, and it was like not clear, they were like, look, you're young enough, we need to get it out. Turned into a 10-hour long surgery with robots. But I definitely asked my surgeon a lot about it, and she was just amazed. Like, which I asked her the big difference between doing it with the robotic surgery and doing it, you know, other ways. And she said for her, the big thing was that she can actually with the robots see the nerves, better visualization, right? And you know, there are all these like potential side effects that can happen if you're working in like the pelvic region, and uh she crushed it. Like I have like no figuratively, oh yeah, okay. She she she no, she she cut she got it out, and like you know, it's amazing to me that she did it, but explaining that, and then you know, when you go in for any surgery, right? You go, the side effects of it. It's like I haven't had any side effects from it at all. And it makes sense, it's just because she says I can visualize it. The big danger is if I cut a nerve in that area, right? That could be bad for you.

Dr Ben and Adam 20:27

Much better visualization and less invasive. There were procedures that we pretty much couldn't do 10, 20 years ago or that were very difficult. They were done open and the um the success rate was a lot lower. And now with robotics they're done routinely at a much higher success rate.

Dr Ben 20:43

Yeah. Yeah.

What Patients Experience Around Surgery

Dr Ben 20:45

Adam walk us and the listener through, like if a patient's coming in for a surgery, we'll say something more like a gallbladder. It's kind of coming into the operating room, and then what's what the process is? What the process is.

Adam 20:57

So I always try. Sometimes I'll go like get the patients and bring them up. That's not typically us, but I always try to give them a good idea of like what the process is gonna be like. Because I feel like a lot of times the surgeons say, well, you know, this procedure takes about an hour. And so sometimes the family thinks, like, all right, I'll see you back at an hour. Right. And it's like, well, we're gonna get you from your room, or if you know it's an outpatient surgery, you might be in like a pre-op bed. Um, and then you'll you'll come to like kind of a pre-surgery area. You you know, talk to the doctor, you talk to the anesthesia doctor, they do a little pre-op there. Um, so that can take you know 30, 40 minutes. Confirm what procedure you're having. That's right. We go over all the details, make sure that we're doing everything correctly, we have the right person, all that. Um, and then you know, once they're in the OR, they gotta go to sleep, do the procedure, wake up, and then there's an amount of recovery time after the surgery. So it's like an hour long surgery. You know, you might be gone for three or four hours, and that's kind of routine, depending on you know what you're getting done. So Yeah, the actual operative time isn't necessarily the operative time is not necessarily patient time.

Dr Ben 21:53

So we like to confirm the patient and the procedure and the correct operative site.

Adam 21:58

We always have, I'm sure. People know we we um just like anything else, we're we're you know very, very you know strict about all that. We have a timeout, you know, before anyone ever cuts on anyone to make sure that this is the right person, you know, whether we're working on the right, the left side, what we're doing, why we're doing it, if they have any allergies, just all that pretty standard stuff nowadays.

Professor Ben 22:16

I remember being on the other end of it, they asked me my name and birthday so many times. So many times. But I do want to give a shout out to Dr. Christine Bailey for uh saving my life. So wow. That's awesome. Hope she's listening. Yeah. If she's not, it's probably because she's saving somebody else's life. So roll on, Dr. Bailey.

Dr Ben and Professor Ben 22:35

Um so yeah, so you had major bowel surgery. Yeah. That was robots. With robots.

Professor Ben 22:41

Yeah, yeah. This is how I describe it. You were describing it for more eloquently. I just know robot arms went inside of me, removed the cancer, and I'm now a year and a half out and still totally clear.

Adam 22:50

Yeah, and I think it was in like the late 90s or early 2000s, I believe, where the the military was actually developing the surgery robots, with the idea being um they could have these robots and like a surgeon could be, you know, in Germany or something, and they could, you know, help, you know, at a forward operating base or something. But at the time, I don't believe the like the internet you know capability was quite there. So when it came to you know private use, it's like the doctors, you know, a few feet away, obviously.

Professor Ben 23:13

I just imagine the military developing them and dropping surgery robots on another country, and they're like, oh no, they're like our all our appendixes have been taken out. It's routine surgery, but it really slowed us down when they invaded with men.

Adam and Dr Ben 23:25

But you know, in the future, maybe you'll just go in like a uh you know, like a drone bay or something, you know, and just do surgery halfway across the world or something. It could happen. Yeah. I think they've done remote surgeries. The military does, I know that. Um other countries they have, yeah.

Professor Ben 23:38

I mean, it would make sense, but also when you say it drone surgery, I just imagine you just like, well, you're like, I've been having my tonsils out, and then you hear the buzz and you go, all right, time to lay down and take these pills, and you wake up and the drone flies away and you get ice cream, you know.

Adam 23:52

Well, one of the amazing things is like, so the the robot that you probably had your surgery on, um, it'll have you know, you three instruments, up to three instruments that the doctor can control. Well, they can only control two at once. So like they might have one holding something and they're controlling the second one. So sometimes they can have a second surgeon helping with that third instrument. Um, and there have been cases where like they've done it remote. You know, someone can like, and I believe that's sort of where it's going. It's like maybe if a if a doctor's like, hey, I could use a second opinion or something, you know, they could like pop in and say, Oh yeah, that looks like this or that, you know. Um it's just it's incredible the way medicine's going. It is incredible.

Dr Ben 24:25

And now what's your role in that robotic surgery if they're uh so as a first assistant?

Adam 24:30

Yeah, for like a a general robot or something like that, um uh mostly the same. Once we're we're getting started, we put all of our laparoscopic ports in, the small port holes that the instruments go through into the body. Um, and then once the doctor leaves and goes to the console to do the surgery, I'm sort of there to make sure everything goes smoothly from that point. So if there's any sort of issues with the robot itself, if we need to give him different instruments and different arms, or you know, make sure that everything's just kind of keep a copacetic sort of thing.

Dr Ben 25:01

And after the case, you'd say domo eregatal.

Professor Ben and Adam 25:04

Uh I have said that uh time or two. You high-five the robot arm when it comes out. It's like great job. I don't know, that could lead to you getting hurt. I'm not sure. I don't know. They look quite strong.

Professor Ben 25:15

We usually imagine the bits you put on the end of it like different, like ends of an auger or something like that.

Adam 25:21

They're all different uh surgical instruments of different shapes, you know. But yeah, kind of, you know.

Dr Ben 25:26

Yeah, what are those instruments?

Adam 25:28

Uh so there's usually you have graspers, you have scissors, uh, you have uh cautery for hemostasis controlling the blood. Um we have you know clips for ligating, you know, blood vessels. We have staple, you know.

Dr Ben 25:43

So you would have to change those out, probably, right? Iron comes out, you change it, and that goes back in.

Adam 25:47

Yeah. So if you're doing like something uh you know thoracic, for instance, they might take like a wedge of your lungs. That's gonna take that might take 10, 15 staple loads going up the lung. And so that's each time you're swapping that out.

Dr Ben 25:58

Oh.

Professor Ben and Dr Ben 25:58

Is there a bottle opener too? Like when you're done, you're just like, we needed we need some wine coming back. That's back at home. Corkscrew. Yeah. The robotic corkscrew. Toothpick. It's just it's just a Swiss army knife from like 1987 on the end of the day.

Adam 26:12

Well, one of the ways they they train the doctors actually when they're learning to on these uh the general surgery robots is like they have like a fake abdomen basically, and they'll put like fruit or or you know, they might put like a grape in there and they have them like try to peel the grape, you know.

Dr Ben 26:25

It's amazing how precise those can be, and they can do that.

Professor Ben and Dr Ben 26:28

Yeah, yeah. I'm supposed to be funny, but I'm just flabbergasted. No, please be funny.

Dr Ben 26:34

Do you think they'll take

AI, Robots, And Why Humans Matter

Adam 26:35

our jobs someday? Um This is a a real question with AI and robotics that's coming out lately. And uh I I mean, I hope not. I think that it's we're a ways away from them actually being capable to do that, despite what some people in the tech industry are saying. But also, I mean, when you show up to the hospital, do you want a robot nurse come in bedside? Like there, you know what I'm saying? Do you want a robot doctor to talk to? Like you want to know that there are people if there's robotics that obviously can help us do our job better, great. But you know, you want an actual human touch, I would think. I mean, I remember during COVID when they brought out uh I had to go to the ER for something and they brought out an iPad like on a wheel. Yeah, I like to you know to do all the registration, talk to the nurse and stuff, and I'm like, where are you? Like, and there's just no one in the room with me. Um it's it's weird. I don't know.

Adam, Dr Ben, Professor Ben 27:23

I prefer self-checkout at the store, as opposed to making small talk with them. Yeah. I mean, I both prefer time and don't prefer the grapes I've got here.

Adam 27:37

Oh less time. Self-checkouts always judging me.

Dr Ben 27:41

I know. Last time she said strip down facing me before I realized she was talking about the credit card, it was too late.

Professor Ben and Adam 27:47

So I I get, I will say, a surprisingly large percentage of times I had that goes wait for help. And I was like, I didn't ask for any help. And then they have to review a video of what I was doing. Apparently, I move unnatural to the robot. Yeah, it's because like the AI thinks you're stealing something.

Adam 28:03

And there's been cases. Yeah, grocery store.

Professor Ben 28:06

I have to come back over and just be like randomly, like at the end, it's just like wait for help. And I'm like, huh? And then somebody has to, and they show the video of me, I guess not moving as they would think I should move. They think it's unorthodox.

Dr Ben 28:19

I think some stores are getting away from it again because people were for theft.

Adam 28:24

Well, the theft is up, and now that the stores have actually some of them have been like sending you a thing three months later in the mail and say, hey, you stole from us, you know, come to court. And you're like, No, I didn't. And maybe you accidentally forgot to swipe something, or maybe the AI just got it wrong. But it's a great way to build customer base, great way to build. Yeah, I'm kind of like like self-checkout to see me is like starting to seem a little scary with all the AI and stuff. I'd rather just talk to a person now.

Professor Ben 28:47

That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Even though it works, it's working. Yeah, the work that you guys do, right? I mean, when I went into this surgery, like when I came in with cancer, I will tell you that a large, a large portion of what made me feel good about what was going through was knowing the people that I was working with were professionals, they were invested in it, they cared, and this was their life's work. And I knew going in, you know, there's a potential like a small percentage you could die on the operating table. Okay, that's a statistical, you know, possibility, right? Like it's small. But I also knew that that the person that was doing the surgery cared. And I knew going into that, I told my wife, I said, whatever happens, we know we got the best person who cares about us. And I don't know how you go home if something terrible happens and you go, duh, the programming was bad versus we know this person was doing everything they could. How do you I just sleep better knowing the person cared enough when they were doing the surgery? You know what I'm saying?

Adam 29:41

Because at the end of the day, our directive, our job is taking care of that patient. Like I'm here to support the team, I'm here to support the surgeon, all that. But the number one priority is making sure that the patient comes out of that surgery safe and we've done everything proper.

Dr Ben 29:54

So and the robot doesn't care? Is that what you're saying?

Adam 29:57

Who knows what their directive is?

Professor Ben 29:59

Yeah, I don't know. I've chatted a little bit with Claude. It's very peculiar, it's very standoffish whenever you try asking it questions about what it wants, you know.

FANS SAY HELLO 30:07

You're listening to the Dr. Ben and Friends podcast.

Dr Ben 30:13

All right, thanks, team. Now it's time for common sense healthcare ads. This episode of the Dr. Ben and Friends podcast is brought to you by Giggle Gauze. Pain got you down? Meet Giggle Gauze, the bandage that tells jokes every time you change it. Because healing should come with laughs, may cause spontaneous giggles and random snorts. Side effects include better mood and weird looks from your nurse. Use code Dr. Ben for 23% off at checkout of Giggle Gauze.

A Healthcare Hero Moment In Transplants

Dr Ben 30:52

Uh Mr. Adam, can you do you remember a moment or can you walk us through when uh there was something specific in surgery where you kind of had to step in and be that healthcare hero? Maybe there was bleeding, you had to put an extra set of hands, or maybe Dr.

Professor Ben 31:06

Ben stopped to write some jokes down mid-surgery because he thought of something funny.

Professor Ben and Dr Ben 31:09

Which it's about every other week. They have sterile marking pens. That I could take some notes. There's a sterile marking pen.

Adam 31:15

Yeah, yeah, I got this. You write that one down, sir.

Dr Ben 31:18

I had a I had an idea.

Adam 31:19

We have nothing like that. Um, one of my favorite cases that I uh used to do, that we don't do them where I'm at currently, but uh I used to really love doing kidney transplants. Oh, tell us about that. So kidney transplants, uh sometimes you know, we'd have uh a donor in one room, we'd take the kidney out, and there'd be a donor in another room, or we'd have a kidney from um, you know, on ice, basically from a donor somewhere else, and you have a certain amount of time to get that in. Uh, there's a lot of work, you know, you got the patient open, you got to clear the area, get all the vessels ready for preparation. But the most satisfying part of that surgery is once the kidney goes in and you can see it, it's been sitting in ice and it's kind of cold and it's purple, and then you see it kind of come to life and it starts to redden up and the vessels start working. And you're gonna how cool would that be? It's yeah, it's a great feeling. So, I mean that was we used to do those all the time. Um that's amazing they can do that. Yeah.

Dr Ben 32:12

You have to hook up the blood flow, the arteries back to the and I know.

Adam 32:17

I mean, like I've never done cardiac, but I know a lot of that's the same thing. They take plant. Yeah, they put people on the machine, they you know, they take the hearts out, and then once it starts pumping, I've heard the same thing from uh, you know, people that work in cardiac, it's just like I mean it's it's like a miracle, right? Um and it's not something you get to see every day.

Professor Ben 32:32

No, thank goodness, honestly. If I was going through kidneys every day, you know what I'm saying? I'd be like, I think you're doing something wrong. How long does it take to hook it up?

Adam 32:42

Uh those pers those surgeries are it's usually depending on the the patient and the doctor, it's several hours to kind of get to that point. They're long surgeries.

Professor Ben 32:52

Well, I changed my hot water heater at my house.

Adam, Dr Ben, Professor Ben 32:54

So you could probably very much the same thing, right? You just cut this one over here. Yeah, I mean the tubes, yeah. The I mean it's just like an anatomy textbook. They're color-coded. It's pretty easy. I think it's probably a YouTube DIY. Yeah.

Professor Ben and Adam 33:06

We mixed up the hot water and the cold water. Now his blood's running backwards. If you get in any trouble, you can just put the YouTube video on the wall and it'll be fine. Yeah. The idea that we get in here is like, let's find out behind the surgery. Well, we wheel him in, we read the paper, and then we immediately go to YouTube and type.

Adam and Dr Ben 33:22

And a circulating nurse, can you go back 10 seconds? That's right. Yes, I need you, yeah. I need you to go back back 10 seconds. 10 more. Oh, okay.

Adam 33:30

Yeah, that was good. Pause it there.

Professor Ben 33:31

Like, uh, not ads again. Can we could could we please this hospital pay for the press subscription?

Adam 33:36

Yeah, you would think we'd have the ad free YouTube here. We gotta save money in healthcare.

Dr Ben 33:43

Can we skip ad? We got a sleeping patient here. Skip ad.

Professor Ben and Dr Ben 33:49

Well, how was the bill for anesthesia like quadruple what it normally is? Ads. Ads. It's like we just getting greedy on YouTube. Yeah, $12 a month is a lot.

Adam, Dr Ben, Professor Ben 33:58

So but if it goes well, we could give a like and subscribe. That's right. You gotta comment, like, and subscribe, and make sure to hit the bell. And everybody has to re-sterilize because everybody smashed that like button.

Adam 34:08

That's right.

Adam and Dr Ben 34:10

Oh. Um, yeah, I didn't used to believe in uh organ transplants, but uh I've since had a change of heart. What? Change of heart, yes. That's bad. All right. Moving right

Nashville Injuries From Scooters And Ice

Dr Ben 34:25

along here.

producer 34:26

Could you talk about any surgeries that maybe you've done that are common to Nashville injuries?

Adam, Dr Ben, Professor Ben 34:32

Scooter, electric scooter. I was gonna say lime scooter.

Adam and Professor Ben 34:34

Yeah, scooter. We a lot of scooter injuries. We used to have a lot of those. Um, and there used to be like 20 different companies down here competing for the scooter space. It seems to have calmed down a little bit, thankfully. But uh, we used to get a lot of people with ankles and stuff on the scooters, obviously. And then, you know, it's like anything else. Anytime there's a snowstorm or ice storm around here, people aren't used to it, especially the ice. And but everybody wants to go out. So, you know, grandma breaks the hip, you know, the cousin, you know, breaks his ankle, like, you know, and it's you know, weeks of like, well, the ice was here, and you're like, Yep, it's the same story every time. Um have you ever seen anybody who fell off one of those party buses? Um possibly, possibly. I can neither confirm nor deny that waiting to happen.

Dr Ben 35:21

What could go wrong?

Professor Ben and Dr Ben 35:22

What could what could go wrong when drunk people are hanging themselves over the edge of a bar? Right, no seatbelt.

Adam 35:29

Yeah, I think I think the uh the injury rates there are probably higher than you would expect, you know, walking on Broadway.

Dr Ben 35:36

Are they actually propelling themselves with the pedals?

Adam 35:39

Oh, the pedal ones, you know, I I've always wondered that.

Adam and Dr Ben 35:41

Okay, because they're pedaling. Are they actually I'm sure there's a motor? Okay.

Adam 35:47

So if everyone stops pedaling, they're still gonna kill. Well, because you got a bunch of drunk people, fitness may not be their uh their forte, and uh if they all just decide to stop pedaling, that probably wouldn't work out so well.

Professor Ben and Adam 35:56

Unless you have like one dude at the top with just huge, just huge quads. He's just pulling. He's got a protein drink. I got this, man. You got this for about a mile then.

Dr Ben 36:05

Lance Armstrong's always like, how come you always invite me to your bachelor party?

Adam 36:09

I guess, I guess if you're gonna do the pedal, the pedal bike, you gotta bring like one designated driver, he's the designated peddler. Lance. Yeah.

Professor Ben 36:17

Lance Armstrong's constantly getting invited to bachelor parties in Nashville, and he's like, I wonder why. Every time he comes, it's the same reason. Passing everybody.

Adam 36:26

He's like, can we just go on one of the one of the ones with the hot tub next time?

Adam and Dr Ben 36:32

Lance is requesting them. Can we get the one pulled by the John Deere tractor next time? That's right. I saw that one the other day. That's funny. All right. All right, folks. Now it's time for healthcare, a product we wish existed.

Professor Ben 36:57

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Dr Ben 37:22

Adam, thank you for uh the insight into the surgical first assistant. Now you have a history professor and a couple comedians here.

History Comedy And The Confederate Submarine

Dr Ben 37:30

You kind of know what I do at work. Uh, do you have any questions for uh a history professor or the comedians? Any questions about uh comedy? Do you enjoy comedy?

Adam 37:39

Uh yeah, of course. I I enjoy comedy. Um so do you do historical comedy?

Professor Ben and Adam 37:45

Well, history tends to write its own comedy. I mean. That's true. There's just too many ridiculous things from history. Uh Confederate submarine being one of them. Put those two words together and you can figure out how that ends. Um I think, yeah, there's probably something illegal involved, probably. Well, the whole Confederacy, that would be it. But uh aside from that, yeah, no, it wasn't illegal, it just uh was a death trap.

Dr Ben 38:12

Yeah. Tell us about the Confederate submarine.

Professor Ben 38:14

Oh, this guy named Hunley. This is like in the Civil War, he's this Confederate engineer, like, and he invents this death tube, and it's a basically a crankshaft. So it's running the middle of the steel tube. You get six guys cramped up in this thing, five or six. It's it's the exact designs have kind of been lost, right? But they're they they end up pulling it back up later on, um foreshadowing. So anyway, these guys crank it. One guy can see and turns turns the the the uh the fin, right? But the way that the way it's supposed to work is you put these people in this thing, you seal them in, right? And uh and so they're sealed inside, and there's a pump, right? And they get in it, it's buoyant, and then the pump pumps air out and pumps water in. So it's never gonna go like super deep, but nobody's really looking for a submarine at this point, right? So it just kind of sits low and nobody can hit it. So they send it out to test it, like on a riverway right by the ocean, right? And Guy Hunley's watching this crew go down and uh it just keeps going down, and it's down there for a while. And then people are like, This is pretty good. He's like, nah, they're probably dead. And they pull it back up, it just sunk. Um and so they pull it back up, and uh not everyone dies, right? I think two people live, but they're not getting back in. So the guy Hunley who invented it just goes around being like, Come on, man. Like those guys didn't know how to use it right. Oh it's totally safe, it's just they didn't use it right. Of course. So uh Hunley, they're like, We're not getting in there. So Hunley goes, Look, if it wasn't safe, would I get in it? So him and a crew get in it, and they go down, and this time they all die. And so at this point, at this point, even Hunley has died in the Hunley. And uh it's the third time they send it out. And I don't know who the last crew was, but I I mean if I was the guy, they go, guess what? You're the top in the in the experimental navy for the Confederacy, I'd be like, wasn't there like 14 people ahead of me? What happened to them? Like, don't worry about it, be a hero. Yeah, but you could be the submarine commander. It's the third time they actually get it out there and it sinks the ship. And yeah, so so if you this was February 18th, 1864. It sinks another ship, right? And it becomes the first submarine ever to sink another ship, unless you count the two times before that that it sunk itself. And uh so the third time, it when it sinks a ship, right? It just immediately sinks to the bottom, everyone dies in it.

Dr Ben 40:45

Wow.

Professor Ben 40:45

So even when it succeeded, one shot you know what happened. Like I remember, I've told you about this thing, right? I told you how it worked, but I didn't tell you how it blows things up. Okay. So there's this long death tube, right? Well, the weapon is the front of that death tube is a long pole. And at the end of that pole is a bomb with a barb on it. So they go out there and the guy's cranking, right? And then the guy goes, I see it crank fast, and it and they jam it into the side, right? And then he's like, It's in there, go backwards. And so they go backwards on the crankshaft, right? Turn the propeller, and when it goes, it pulls a string that blows up the bomb. It's straight up out of out of like he they gotta have gotten this from acme uh from Looney Tunes. Uh so when it went back, it it it sunk, right? Nobody knew what happened to it. So then they find where it is, like this is I think it's like the it's a hundred years later when they discover where it is. Then they come up with this process for bringing it back up, and they bring it up intact. And one of the mysteries was always uh when they bring it up, the bodies were still in there. And they were all sitting in their position. No panic, no signs of panic, no signs of what would happen, you know, if you're in there. And of course, right? So it's like, why would they still be sitting in position? If you're in a sinking submarine, you try to get up even if you can't, right? Well, it turns out that they didn't do any research and didn't know anything about what happens when something explodes underwater if you are not that far away inside of a metal cylinder and when it blew up, it the the blast wave just basically bounced back and forth in there and liquefied these people's insides. Really? Yeah, so look, history can be really useful. You can go see the uh the remains of this at the uh at the museum in Charleston, South Carolina. Uh, but no matter what they tell you, don't get in it. Okay, cool. That's I mean, you know, that's that's you're saying that for the people, but you gotta be like, ah, that's pretty you think you need to invent the torpedo first. Well, I think they were the first torpedo. I think that's what they were.

Dr Ben and Professor Ben 42:48

Wouldn't they have tried like unmanned test missions? Apparently not. Although to meet.

Professor Ben 42:55

No, but at the end, they were unmanned. At the end. Yeah, the mission the mission.

Dr Ben 43:01

All right. Good question.

Dr Ben and Adam 43:03

Any other any questions about uh comedy or so uh what what you said it was uh Russian history? Soviet, yeah, really. So have you have you ever played Twilight Struggle?

Professor Ben and Adam 43:13

I have that board game. I've never played it. It was a gift from a friend, and uh yeah, it seems very complicated. And I have an 11-year-old. Um, and and before this, he's only been younger than that. So one day we will get it out, but I don't think anytime soon. Is it good? It it is, it's yeah, yeah, not quite ready for an 11-year-old, but not quite. Yeah, no, but but you know, the gaming, I don't know. I I like games, so one day he will he'll be forced to sit through it. Like, you know, like when I was a child and was forced to sit through the Cold War.

Dr Ben 43:42

All right. Speaking of games and shows, game shows, don't you have a game show also? I do.

Professor Ben 43:48

I have a comedy game show called Perfect Timing. Oh, what is that? It's uh it's every month at or not, but not every month now, but it's it's regularly regular show at Zanie's The Lab at Zanie's Nashville. And um, yeah, it's We've changed the format a little bit, but it's three comics go up against each other in a game show. And it's like trivia rounds. It's it can be a variety of things, but it kind of mixes classic game show rounds with uh performance rounds. So we have stand-up, they are you know, the three comics do stand up, right? We do a roast battle to kind of wrap it up. So, and then it's whatever I come up with. Most recently, one of my favorite rounds has been digging deep into people's social media profiles from like 10 years ago and then asking them questions about what they posted on Facebook, like in 2016 or 2018.

Dr Ben and Adam 44:30

I love it. But you can find some doozys. Well, yeah, because I'm not online.

Professor Ben 44:35

Yeah, a lot of comics probably aren't right now. Um, but uh, you know, it's like a lot of these comics are like in their like mid to late 20s. And so you're going back and digging something they posted up when they had no idea that the future was real. So they just go, I'll post anything. I've got no awareness or foresight, you know. So that's been really fun. Wow. Figuring out really ridiculous things they posted.

Dr Ben 44:58

And it's called Perfect Timing.

Professor Ben 44:59

Perfect Timing. That's right. It's at the lab at Zanies Nashville. It's a regular show there, and I love that venue. Love Zanies, love the people over there.

Dr Ben 45:06

Yes.

Professor Ben 45:07

Um, happy to be working with them. And if you guys want to come out, it's a good time. And I, you know, what even one time uh we had uh Dr. Ben warm up the show for us. Wow. We have so many cameos like that. I don't want to promise that or anything.

Dr Ben 45:20

Come on, check it out. You never know who you're gonna see. Dr. Ben, how did you get into comedy, Professor Ben?

Professor Ben 45:27

Oh, well, it's uh I'll make the story as pop short as possible. But I was living in Russia, I lived in Moscow for about two years between 2010 and 2012.

Dr Ben 45:35

Where a lot of great comedians get their start.

Professor Ben 45:36

Exactly. Yes, me and Yakov Smirnov. Um I love Yakov Smirnoff. That wasn't even uh that wasn't even meant to be disrespectful. That guy's still hilarious. Um, but uh yeah, so I was living there and uh I was on a Fulbright grant hanging out with a bunch of embassy people and other PhD students uh at the time. And most of them don't really talk like me. Uh I, you know, I'm from the country. Nobody in my family went to college. I've got a very generally an unusual background for people that are at a table like that. But I started telling stories, you know, and it's like something where I'm from. We sit around a fire and tell stories, and people seem to really enjoy them. So I was like, I want to write a sitcom. Because I love sitcoms as much, yeah. I love sitcoms. So I'm in Moscow, I don't know how to write a sitcom. And uh I just started reading books about how to do it, and they got different philosophies. But the one thing they said was all of them said, go do stand-up for a year. Like just do mics or whatever, because you you learn immediate feedback, you learn punch, you kind of learn the kind of art of writing. And so that was 2012 when I read that, when I moved to Big Bear Lake in California. I went down to LA all the time, so I just started doing stand-up in LA. And uh yeah, I've, you know, I finished the script, but I haven't I've just been doing stand-up because I love it. It's such a fight, and it's so it's so good for speaking, like learning how to speak to people. I'm a professor. I teach US history one and US history two at Middle Tennessee State University. Those are the only classes I teach, and it you're not supposed to like it, but I love it.

Dr Ben 47:04

Wow.

Professor Ben 47:04

Uh, but because you've got to fight. You like I don't have a I have to get their attention, can't you? Yeah, I have 150 students a semester, not a single history major, right? Right. Aviation students, you know, uh students in concrete management, right? Students that are doing psychology, sociology, business they're there because they have to be, not because they want to be. That's the idea. And so what I love about it is in a way, that's about as close as you can get in a university environment to a comedy club because you walk in front of them, right? The difference is that a comedy club, they paid way less and they want to be there. But uh the point is that they you walk up there and they're like, okay, what can you do? Right. Right? What can you do? Nobody goes, oh, Ben Sawyer, we heard that guy on Fallon, right? I I've got to walk in front of a comedy club audience and I've got to prove that that they they made the right choice to come see me. And same thing, I've I've got to not just prove me, but I've got to prove that history matters to a bunch of people whose average age is about 19 years old. They became aware they existed, you know, in the last five years. And since then, they've mostly been trying to like, you know, like eat pizza. Right? So why would they care what happens 200 years ago? So I've got to I've got to try to make that case to them.

Teaching History Like A Comedy Set

Professor Ben 48:10

And as it turns out, it's really useful to study history for a lot of things right now. I mean, even if you don't, you know, if they think they think it's a class, they think it's a series of dates. And that's because our education system is failing people. Uh that you pass an AP test by memorizing a bunch of dates. But what are the dates, like what do they dates do? I mean, you know, like like there's different calendars, right? Like there's multiple calendars one could use. So like why why would memorizing like this series of you know, a month, a day, and a year matter? It doesn't. If I gave you a list, if have you guys watched the Avengers movies, should be called Will It Ever End Game. It was way too long. But if you watch that, and I at the end I asked you about Iron Man, I asked you about uh Hulk, I ask you about these people, right? Spent about two and a half hours watching that movie, and you could tell me about the you could tell me about their character, right? But if instead of that, I just handed you a sheet of every character in there and made you memorize every single one of their characteristics, where they were from, their backstory, what their conflict was. Could you do that after just sitting there and staring at this paper? And if you could, would you have you wouldn't. So history's a story, and it turns out, you know, there are lots of good things we could use, like reading the Constitution, which is very valuable. It will blow your mind if you read that. Anybody listening right now, just go sit down and read the Constitution. It's not very long, and then look around at the world and ask yourself has anybody read it lately? And if they have, was it to uh was it to do the opposite? You know, there's reasons why the president's checked, powers are checked. It comes out of a generational experience of people who were abused by someone with too much power. And they tried to pass on this wisdom to next generations because they're trying to do what we're all trying to do, right? Raise our children. What's the first thing we want to do? Make them not have to go through all the hard stuff that we went through, right? When you understand that the Constitution is not written by like gods or like bigger than us, it's written by people who had a hard time of it with a king that had too much power and disrespected them, and they tried to pass us something that could balance it out to make sure that it didn't happen again. Then suddenly it's not just like, oh, the constitution is like, do we have to memorize it? No, you go, all right, this is a love letter from people who left this behind to save us from problems. And once you realize that, it's so much more meaningful than just like the system of government. The Ten Amendments, right? You could I can walk you through the Ten Amendments and at every point tell you everything in there, how that happened to the people who pitch those out, right? Who put those out there. Um yeah, and so it's this document. And when you know it, you're grateful. You're so grateful because what happens when power gets too concentrated? I mean, and what does power do to people? Right? Story of King Solomon from the Bible. Corrupts them. Yeah. Story of Lord of the Rings, you can find it everywhere. We know this. And so when you realize that that the idea is to check power, it just means it's something different, right? And I feel like there's a sense of gratitude to that past generation for trying to do it for us, and then you feel like you should do it. We don't have to get on a bus and ride through the south to just to end segregation. Diane Nash, right down here in Nashville, 1961, had a phone call with John Siegenthaler, who was one of the attorney general's uh assistants at the time. They had gone through the South to challenge segregation, and the white supremacists had rounded him up, driven to the state line of Tennessee and dropped him off. Basically, you come back, you'll die. They just came back to Nashville, got more people, and we're ready to go. Siegenthaler calls her and says, Uh, you can't go down there, they'll kill you. And she says, We're going. He says, You can't go down there, you don't understand. And he's an he's a man talking to a college student at Fiscal University. And he says, You don't understand, they'll kill you. And she says, I know. We all made our last Willing Testament last night. We're going back. We can't let violence be nonviolence. And we don't have to do that because they did. Yeah. So a lot of gratitude to be had, and a lot of knowledge to be gained, and a lot of wisdom that you know from other people's suffering that if we inherited it, we didn't earn it, we could be good stewards to it.

FAN JOKE SUBMISSION 52:15

Hi, I'm Logan from Biloxi, Mississippi. What is the difference between a man and a dog? A man wears trousers but a dog pants.

Dr Ben 52:25

No, just switching gears a little. Were you more nervous to lecture for the first time

Stand-Up Craft, Accents, And Confidence

Dr Ben 52:30

or do the stand-up for the first time? Do you remember both?

Professor Ben 52:32

I think I am uh unfortunately and naively blindly confident when it comes to anything like that. Okay. Which just makes you worse at it when you first start. So uh yeah, I don't know. I think lecturing was something that I eased into. I wanted to be a high school teacher. That was my original goal, and I failed at that. So uh I went on to be a college professor. So I always wanted to teach. Uh I just, you know, university just I just decided to get my master's to go back to teaching high school. And then uh a professor of mine told me that uh, look, you've got a gift for this. If you want to have more livelihood, you know, but a better livelihood, you know, like in terms of your financial possibilities. Keep in mind this was like 25 years ago. Uh this part didn't pan out. But he was like, go on, and you've got the talent for it. So I think I always wanted to do it. I coached soccer when I was in high school, I coached the middle school team. Um, I love working with young people. And so for me, the comedy, I was overconfident because I thought I was good because people laughed at me as a professor. When you think about it, you go, wait a second, those people are locked in the room with you, and they're and they're and they're like, they're not comparing you, like they weren't comparing me to Bill Burr, they were comparing me to like three other people that had given up on life in 1973, you know? So you were hilarious. Yeah, no, it's it's a relative thing. And so it turns out you have to learn how to be really funny. And maybe if you got into the habit of being professor funny, you're gonna need to work yourself out of it if you ever want to be really funny.

Dr Ben 54:03

And you mentioned uh telling stories in Russia. Is that kind of your comedy style for stand-up?

Professor Ben 54:08

Are you a storyteller or I'm not as much as I probably should be. I think for comedy for me, it's like I like things that writing things that make me laugh, and a lot of times they're just dumb. So, like, I've got the history storyteller in me that doesn't like a stand-up comedy stage is always hard because people want like, you know, you need to be out there, they need to be laughing, laughing, laughing, right?

Dr Ben and Professor Ben 54:29

Eight laughs a minute, or I could do storytelling.

Professor Ben 54:31

I, you know, the longest I've said I've done before is like 30 minutes, right? So I've never I've never been at a point where I'm doing an hour or even 30 minutes regularly, right? You need that space to do a story. If you're doing 10, 12, 15, 20, right, you're up there and they're just like, make me laugh, monkey, make me laugh. Right. And so you know you just gotta hit, hit, hit. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just hard because you got to deal with things like uh when I tell jokes about being a historian, a history professor, right? But this is the thing you understand, right? When you walk up there and you start saying that stuff, I think you probably don't because people, you're immediately useful to people, right? I don't know about that. With me, I think it's like you gotta overcome the fact that you go, I'm a history professor, and people go, Oh, brother, this guy thinks you know more than me, right? And I don't never fix anybody's bones before. So there's like no one in the crowd's grateful to me. Like, so they're just like, oh, this guy think you know, so you gotta figure out a way to work around that, right? I mean, so I like wrote a joke I still tell, which is um, I've got a southern act, you know, I'm a I'm a history professor, you know, but I've got a southern accent. And when I go out west to California, people hear my accent and wonder if I'm smart enough to be a history professor. And I don't get mad, I'm just amazed that people still think you've got to be smart to be a professor. And that was a way I kind of eased with it. It's a misdirect, obviously. Um, but overall, I think it's like the storytelling stuff works for me better in different formats, and I probably need to produce one for myself instead of just going on other people's shows and telling long stories. Uh but yeah, my podcast, The Road to Now, which I do with Bob Crawford from the Avett Brothers, uh, we just talk to other people who are smarter than us, which is why I immediately fell into asking you guys questions in the first segment of the show. Because I was like smart people, talk to them.

Dr Ben 56:07

Right. I love it. And the the sitcom, how'd the sitcom come along?

Professor Ben 56:11

It's finished. I think it's legitimately funny. Um, I'm not sure though, because I do like six or seven things that are running, and it's very hard for me to want to drop into asking people favors to get a sitcom read that statistically can't actually be as good as I think it is. Because I'm it's the first one I wrote. So I I've I wrote it. I loved it when I wrote it. Uh when I went back to it a couple years ago, I could imagine the people talking, I was writing it, it was flowing out of my head. The characters were talking in my head, and I was just writing it down and I was cracking up as I was listening to them talk. So I love the process, but I don't know. I I don't think you should I don't think you'd be tuning into NBC to see it anytime soon. But I do deeply love it. Maybe like UPN. Maybe like a maybe like a YouTube channel that's subsidized by some charity that helps out professors who can't quite wrap their heads around how bad they are at it.

Dr Ben 57:02

So well, if you need a couple actors, got some characters here. Mr. Adam, have you ever thought of doing stand-up comedy? You're a funny witty guy.

Adam 57:11

Yeah, like he said, I mean, like translating that, I don't know. Um it's like I, you know, I'm a funny guy, but it's like, you know, I at work or you know, church or anywhere else, it's like these are people I know and I have a lot of material to work with, right? So, like in your class, probably you get to know some of the students, and that helps a little bit. But uh, when you're on stage, it's like you just have to be funny. Um I'm I'm maybe I could do it. I don't know. I've never really thought about it, honestly. Um we'll have you out to open it. I'm actually kind of a shy guy. So don't do it.

Professor Ben 57:40

Don't do it. Craig Ferguson said it best. I think it's it's it's true of he said it of stand-up comedy, it's true of that. It's also true of getting a PhD in history. The only reason to do it is because you can't not not do it. Like you can't.

Professor Ben and Adam 57:50

You're driven to do it, you have to do it.

Speaker 5 57:52

That's the only reason.

Professor Ben and Adam 57:52

Because I feel like 30 minutes uh on stage at a uh at a comedy venue is an eternity. It would feel like depends on how it's going. Yeah. Well, you probably just gotta go up there and bomb a little bit anyway, right? Like that just gets it out of your system.

Dr Ben and Adam 58:06

Start with like an open mic. Yeah. Do like a four-minute set and work your way up, like building the muscles kind of right.

Professor Ben 58:12

Doing open mics where when people in the audience laugh, it's mostly comics. So uh when they laugh, it might be because that was the worst joke of all time. You're not quite sure because they laugh when you fail to.

Adam and Dr Ben 58:25

Right. It's hard to tell. See, I always I always thought like voice acting would be more fun because it's like you get to you get to do stuff and you you know you get a chance to screw it up and edit it. And I do a lot of voices and impressions. Uh I do impressions of just about everybody. But there's also a big translation of doing that.

Professor Ben 58:40

Do an impression, do an impression for it.

Adam, Dr Ben, Professor Ben 58:42

Do an impression. Oh, see, I don't do it on command. Oh, okay. I'm like uh I'm like uh Spider-Man. You know, I can't do it on command. Okay. Um fine. Do you do any impressions in stand up?

Professor Ben 58:52

Do I do any impressions? I don't really do any impressions in stand up. Okay. I don't think I do a little accent of this Russian professor that I had.

Dr Ben 59:00

Oh, okay.

Professor Ben 59:01

He's from Caucasus Mountains, and he always talked about how love was amazing. But if the damn Cossacks came for him, he would defend his family. He would get automatic gun machine and fight to keep his family safe. He would then uh imaginarily mow down the entire class with an automatic gun machine and then snap back out of it and be like, so love is beautiful, it is springtime. It's the accents are easy because you just do stereotype, it's great. Knowing accent is actually very useful. If you can do accent, you can learn language better because you can understand what noises the other person makes in native language. Ah, and and the cadence, right? The way it goes up and down. I like it.

producer and Professor Ben 59:39

You should say something in Korean. Do it. Do it. Like if you say Nazdarovya in Russian, which is Nazdarovya not which is grammatically not correct. It not bad. Nazdarovya, what do you say in Korean?

Dr Ben 59:51

Uh it depends. What does Nazdarovya mean?

producer 59:54

It's like when you cheers. oh cheers. Kul-un.

Dr Ben 59:58

Okay. So I ask the Russian expert, what how do you say like a cheers to lift your glasses?

Professor Ben, Dr Ben, producer 1:00:06

Nazdarovya. And then in Korean, it's more like jjan! Jjan! to close friends, but Geonbae! in Korean.

Professor Ben 1:00:16

Oh jjan! Jjan! Okay. There we go. That's good. You said jjan to me. Every other Korean's ever said geonbae , which lets me know where we stand.

producer 1:00:25

Jjan is uh specifically for friends. You wouldn't say that in front of your co-workers? Geonbae Geonbae. if it was your friends.

Speaker 5 1:00:33

Is there is there like a respectful, like the respectful version of language? Like in Russian, you uh there is like more formal and then voy, and like the vui form is for uh someone that you like is a professional person or someone older than you, right? Like if like ZDRAHSTvweetyeh, which means like greetings, right? If if it's someone formal, you ZDRASTvuyte. But if it's if it is uh friend, you ZDRASTvuy.

Dr Ben and Adam 1:00:58

Yeah, more casual. Sounds more casual. I don't know what you're like for an elder.

Adam, Dr Ben, Professor Ben 1:01:03

There is for Korean also. Banmal and jondaemal. And a lot of languages have that. Um English, not as much. A little bit, but we just say ma'am and sir where I'm from. That's right. That's how you let them know. Yeah, when you were in California, was it rodeo drive? Rodeo drive. Rodeo. You just gotta get down on the uh, you gotta take the five down to the ten. The yeah, in California, they always say the before the highway. Yeah, I still do that sometimes uh for any big like interstates or freeways, as we call them.

Professor Ben 1:01:33

They're also freaked out by exit numbers. My wife is still my like because they don't they never had numbers, right? Like, you know how everywhere else in America works, it's perfectly reasonable.

Adam 1:01:42

You have mile markers, but you need you know the street.

Professor Ben 1:01:44

Yeah, yeah. Then you get off on the five, and I'm like, what's the exit? It's the five, and I'm like, exit five. She's like, no, we don't do that. My wife's gonna be a few. No, you go to Rosecrans.

Dr Ben 1:01:52

The five.

Professor Ben 1:01:52

We don't do it.

Dr Ben, Adam, and Professor Ben 1:01:53

The five. All right.

Subscribe, Share, And Where To Find Us

Dr Ben 1:01:55

All right, folks. Thanks for hanging with Dr. Ben and friends from the heart of Music City, where the laughs are loud, the history's deep, and the music still jamming. We love celebrating healthcare heroes and comic pros with you. 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 Dr. Ben's team and hit that subscribe button. All right. Does it make a fart noise? Let us know. Your word of mouth is our best support. There's only one way to find out. That's right. Let us know because it needs to come in and see Dr. Ben about that. And take the fertilizer test. All right. Your word of mouth is our best support. Tell a friend, tell your healthcare hero, your comic, if you know one. We'd love to hear from you and your friends. Drop your favorite joke, dad joke, and we will uh potentially air it online. We can't wait to feature you in our next episode. I want to thank our stellar guest today. Thank you, Professor Ben Sawyer. Hilarious history buff and comedy machine. Where can our listeners find you, Dr. Ben?

Professor Ben 1:03:05

Well, thank you for having me, Dr. Ben, real Dr. Ben, we'll call you that. Um, well, if you want to see my comedy, you can go to my comedy website, sawyercomedy.com, where I list my show dates. Again, I got uh Perfect Timing at The Lab at Zanie's one of my favorite things I do right here in Nashville. And if you're interested in the history side, uh, my podcast is called The Road to Now. Uh, co-hosted with Bob Crawford of the band, the Avett Brothers. We're about to celebrate our 10-year anniversary, or may have by the time this airs, actually. Um, and so check us out. We're on Sirius XM weekends on channel 124 POTUS, the nonpartisan talk channel, which I'm very proud of. And uh yeah, so that's where you can find me.

Dr Ben 1:03:40

Love it. Thanks for being here. And Adam, our certified surgical first assistant and healthcare hero. Thanks for being here. Anything for the listeners to scrub up, uh, you have a podcast also, or where can we uh yeah, I have a couple podcasts I do.

Adam 1:03:54

Um, I guess I can look the main one I do uh with some a bunch of friends ours. It's a community-run podcast. Uh, it's called Vassals of Kingsgrave. It's sort of an offshoot. We used to do like um Game of Thrones, you know, reviews, and we sort of just do everything kind of pop culture now. Love it. So book reviews, movies, that sort of stuff.

Dr Ben 1:04:10

All right. Well, I'm grateful for you both. Real heroes don't just wear white coats. They guest on comedy podcasts, your official mental health MVPs. All right, folks, see you next week when I, Dr. Ben and my friends, help you put more med in your comedy. Take care, y'all.

unknown 1:04:38

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