The Surgeon General Wants To Connect With You | Dr. Vivek Murthy

[Music] knock knock knock knock [Music] hi hello welcome to knock knock high with the glocken fleckin I'm Dr Glock fleckin also known as wolf lry I am lady Glock fleckin also known as Christen flry still haven't officially changed my name yet I I go back and forth sometimes I say will flry and then also known as Glock I know I always have to stay on my toes pay attention what's more truthful oh gosh I don't know no I don't know I mean well it depends on who you're talking about also like to me y

ou're just always going to be will but that's true you know other people know you differently we have a very exciting show we do we do very exciting we have Dr VI Mory that's right the US Surgeon General Surgeon General uh and and he's not a surgeon but that that's that's it's not a literal thing it's just like he's like the most important he's like top doctor guy top doctor person absolutely and uh and he has been just talking about a lot of really important issues obviously but one of those th

ings that he's he's been talking about recently is the um loneliness yes epidemic of loneliness epidemic of loneliness he's been he did recently did a college tour talking to young people about the importance of connection uh and I really do think like you feel it you feel um just with with news stories things you see on social media it's just like like we're we're just not as connected the pandemic obviously plays a role in this but right um people seem out each other's throats a lot yeah just

this this greater sense of isolation I think might contribute to some of the division that we have in in the country because we're not connecting with each other we're just fighting each other so I like the message I think it's an important one so we talked to him a lot about that and it has a a huge effect on people's physical health mental health um you know has a lot of relevance for people in the healthcare field and we also kind of soft launched my uh my public service campaign yeah we're g

oing to have to talk more about that I don't know that I sign on to that hey we'll see we'll see what I run for I don't know Representatives uh president I mean being on social media is one thing but would you like to be first lady of Glock fing who said it was G to what what why wouldn't you be first man I I figured I'd be running for president presid well would you be you think you'd be a better president than me oh absolutely I would yes I think we need audience am also smart enough to know t

hat that would be a really miserable job I'm not sure I would want to do it well I well let's see let's everybody I want you to tell us who would be a better president as far as you can tell in these small you know morsels of conversation that you hear between us someone who sits in a room and puts on costumes and talks to them elves or someone who runs a business and our life you're already slandering me we haven't even not slandering true we haven't even gotten into a debate yet and you're alr

eady pulling out the big guns I'm just stating facts okay well anyway regardless of who would be a better president me uh let's uh one thing we have to address though before we get to the interview is we had some technical difficulties we sure did this made things quite interesting um so you guys this might come as a Sur RIS to you all but sometimes government Wi-Fi is not all it's cracked up to be so uh there were there were a few technical issues uh over there in Washington DC I suppose and so

we had to re-record the second a portion a portion like the last like 10 or 15 minutes of the interview which uh we're forever grateful for uh Dr mory's team for for for coming back on a different day and and recording this last little section really just unbelievable like how lucky are we that would that ex very nice and so we really appreciate that uh but so you'll notice especially if you're watching on YouTube yes in between the two recording sessions we um changed our entire office yes we

moved rooms I'm wearing different clothing we're wearing different clothing I think my hair is straight now and it was Curly and I don't know something everything's all different that's the reason that's the reason we tried to make it as seamless as possible but uh you know things happen in podcasting and we've learned now we always have backup recording going well we did have backups but there was even an issue with the backup I mean it got it was horribly unlucky but you know what we our produ

cers are topnotch and Dr Mory was very generous with his time and so everything came together and if you're listening on audio you won't even notice a thing but if you're watching on video you will see us you know time travel so enjoy so let's get to it here is Dr morthy today's episode is brought to you by the Nuance Dragon ambient experience or Dax for short this AI powered ambient technology helps Physicians be more efficient and reduced clinical documentation burden to learn more about how D

ax copila can help reduce burnout and restore the joy of practicing medicine stick around after the episode or visit nuance.com discover Dax that's nc.com slcover Dax [Music] Dr uh morthy thank you so much for joining us it's is it's really a pleasure to to get to speak with us uh oh get to speak with you it's a pleasure it is to speak with you too we are so happy to have you thank you and please call me vi by the way I'm inform okay um well first thing the first thing I wanted to ask you and th

is may seem like a silly question but um U do you like being Surgeon General is that okay for me to ask yeah do you enjoy this job I do enjoy it yeah I do it's not a job I ever thought I I would have to be honest with you but but I really do enjoy it and at least something happens at least once a day that makes me feel incredibly grateful to have the chance to serve in this post so yeah no I really do like it well that was I was gonna ask you because you know when we go into med school like I ha

d no idea what I wanted to do for my career you know I had no idea ology was even existed as a specialty when I started med school I can for that that's true I was I was there and I saw exactly ah okay so you knew each other when you you were going through med school well oh yeah we met in college that's right yeah oh okay she's she's stuck by uh through all of it through um through medical training among other things as well but um so was the I gota asked so was he humor there in college or did

it evolve thereafter yeah he did some actually all the way back to high school is when he started standup comedy but yeah I got to see some of his early standup shows while we were in college and it's much better now come along way no it was good then too but definitely a different flavor back then I love it this is great so when but when did you get set on the path to to this position I I'm curious like how how does that happen exactly well it didn't happen by Design you know I'll tell you tha

t when I was asked to Ser uh or asked if I was interested in this position it was at a time where I actually wasn't even thinking of working in government uh much less you know serving in this specific position um and I I was actually at the time I was practicing medicine I was teaching at students and residence and I was on the side working on a couple of other things on a technology venture to try to accelerate collaboration and research and I was doing some advocacy work to try to extend exte

nd sort of you know insurance coverage to more people you know those are the kind of things I was doing on the outside uh but what happened actually to me interestingly is I was coming off a Redeye flight one day from La back to Boston where I lived and I was about to go home to go to sleep but I realized I had left my dry cleaning at the dry cleaners for like a week I was like I should probably go make sure it's still there so I went and ran picked it all up my hands are full and right when I'm

like walking in my car with my hands full my phone rings and it's a 202 area code number and I didn't recognize a specific number but I knew it was Washington DC but I just kept walking I was like I can't I can't take this right now kept ringing and finally I just picked up the phone uh and that ended up being a call from the White House asking me if I'd be interested in serving as Surgeon General so I'll tell you that despite not um being interested in a role in government and the truth is I h

ad actually been approached about six months before that about uh you know about whether I had an interest in serving in the administration and I had actually declined at that time saying you know I can refer other people in there are people I think are much more talented than I who could like serve in policy positions Etc but I didn't think that there was really a place for me but there's something very unusual about this role in government which is that it's one of the few roles in the adminis

tration which is truly independent which means that your job is is driven and shaped not by uh sort of politics or party but by science and the public interest that's supposed to be what shapes what you do what you say what you prioritize and you also as Surgeon General you do establish your own agenda based on what is in the interests of the of the public and that's why I've been blessed to be able to choose issues like mental health that I think are really important that need to be focused on

and so I've really appreciated the opportunity to be science-driven to be independent uh at a time where gosh we've got so many Health crisis going on in this country yeah I guess I didn't realize that I I assumed that the the the issues the topics that you you talk about and that our focus of your job it was part of the administ I I didn't know that it was kind of as independent as it is so that's so how did you so when you started the job how did you decide what topics you wanted to to really

focus in on obviously you know things going on in the world right but did were there things that are very you know I guess um very special to you were surge in general we'd all be talking about nothing but eyeballs that's right yeah I'd be I'd be on a rant against Visine I'd be out Vine uh which I you probably don't even have that like ability to Outlaw things but you know you know what I'm saying you'd be trying but but that wouldn't stop you will I understand it would absolutely not that's rig

ht well and you know I'll tell you that I had a list of things that I wanted to work on that I talked about during my my Senate confirmation hearing the first time you know I did this job and you know while I had that list going in it was driven in part by what I was seeing as a doctor but also based on my read of Public Health Data trying to understand what's causing the greatest amount of death disease and disability like in our country and and how can I help you know to address those or contr

ibute to that but then when I became Surgeon General I decided um and I had a long time to think about what I wanted to do because my confirmation process the first time took a very long time uh but when I began the job finally I realized that you know what I really want to do as as I just want to go and listen to people and travel around the country and ask people like what are they going through what do they think is important how could I be helpful and that ended up being a really pivotal exp

erience for me that listening to her because I heard about some things that you might expect uh like I heard a lot about the opioid epidemic and the addiction crisis more broadly but the volume is even higher than what I may have imagined but I also heard about things like like ecigarettes for example from Educators and parents who and back in 2015 we really concerned that more and more kids were vaping but there were no policies around it in schools and in communities because people didn't know

how to think about it but then I heard about issues I didn't expect to hear about at all which are issues like loneliness and isolation and this wasn't just coming from older adults who maybe worked at the you know later years of their life and who had lost a lot of family members and were living alone I was hearing about loneliness from college students who were on campuses surrounded by thousands of other students yet they felt like nobody really knew them for who they were and they felt prof

oundly alone so those conversations really helped shape what my agenda was so in my first term for example uh back in 20 you know 14 15 16 and early 17 I ended up focusing on ecigarettes on the opiate epidemic on broader issues related to emotional health and well-being and my time this my second you know term as Surgeon General I came in during the covid pandemic so I certainly focused a lot on Co in the beginning but from the be even before I started I was particularly concerned about the sile

nt toll it was taking on our mental health and about how that had mental health had been a long struggle in our country for years with Rising rates of depression anxiety and suicide Co was making it worse but it wasn't certainly the instigator of it and so I knew that I wanted to dig into that issue and into trying to help address some of the root causes of what was driving the Mental Health crisis yeah that's something that's very I was going to say near and dear but that's the wrong terminolog

y it's something we are we are deeply familiar with um because we've had a lot of um kind of in in a different way but we've had a lot of major health crises as young adults um you know Will's had cancer twice and and a sudden cardiac arrest and and I did CPR on him and all of that had a lot of really profound impacts on us obviously but it's a very especially as young adults when you go into the hospital and you see all the brochures and you know it's people three times your age and it's issues

it's talking about issues that older people have but not younger people it's leaving out issues that younger adults might have like what do we tell our children for example like it's all a very isolating and lonely experience you know on top of all of the other things about our society that are creating a lot of loneliness so this is definitely something that I'm really interested I'm so glad you're doing um because I feel like you know physical health and mental health at least within the Heal

thcare System they're often looked at separately or at least historically they have been uh but that distinction between them is really pretty arbitrary um I studied psychophysiology uh as an undergraduate and a graduate student and so this is something that is like I love it you're speaking my language and and I've been on a soapbox about it forever but can you talk a bit about because our audience is is largely healthcare workers so can you talk a bit about you know what is medically relevant

about social disconnection or loneliness and and do we know any biological mechanisms that are kind of underpinning all of this or is it is it just correlation causation what are we talking about here and how is it relevant for a medical audience yeah it's it's a really important question and look I think for most people out there most of our colleagues and the health field they probably never really learned about loneliness or isolation in their training I certainly didn't in medical school and

or in residency but I'll tell you that even going back to my third year of medical school I can remember seeing patients and realizing that they were really lonely because they would literally tell me how lonely they were and I remember just not knowing what to do about that and you know I could show up as a as a human being and try to be kind and try to be empathic and listen as best I could but in back of my head I was thinking is there something else I should be doing here is there like how

concerned should I be like is this a medical problem is this like should I call social work I just I didn't know what to do as a medical student and as a resident and you know even though I was seeing it really commonly it was only when I started doing a listening to our Surgeon General that I realized wait hold on this is not just something that I'm seeing in my clinical experience it's not just something that I've experienced in my own life which I have many times as a child and later as an ad

ult the challenge of loneliness I realized it was everywhere so I started to dig into the science around it I think 50 years ago we thought about how is all physical a couple decades ago there's more recognition that there's a second dimension of Health which is mental health and now I think what we have got to recognizes that there's also a third dimension which is social health and our social health has a profound impact on our mental and physical health and so it's a critical component we've

got to pay attention to so you mentioned the knowing that you know this problem has existed for quite a while but the the pandemic kind of put a spotlight on it in a lot of ways accelerated it acceler so many issues yeah and so how did you go about know wanting to tackle this problem how do you navigate this the big elephant in the room of of the pandemic and and fear and anxiety and that comes with that to to develop a strategy to attack this problem and try to yeah it feels like such a huge is

sue um you know it feels like it can get discouraging to think about how many things need to change you know we have a a society that's built around really incentivizing work over people sometimes and a healthcare system that you know is primarily focused on disease not necessarily the people with the disease it just feels like such a her Herculean task to try to overhaul all of this so what are some some manageable things that people can do to not be discouraged and to actually take action towa

rds towards making some progress on these fronts especially Healthcare workers well you're right that addressing loneliness and isolation is a big challenge because there are a lot of societal underpinnings to the current crisis but the good news in my mind is that there are actually steps we can take in our day-to-day life that can help us start feeling more connected today and we can build on those to then create greater Connection in our workplace in our schools in our neighborhoods and commu

nities but in our own lives for example just simply taking 10 to 15 minutes a day to reach out to and connect with somebody you care about can make a profound difference in how connected you feel over time second making sure that when you're connecting with them that you're actually giving them your full attention you're putting devices away and just focusing on them that really did you hear that that's right this is a common struggle talking directly to me I'm sweating over here did I'm GNA say

the Surgeon General told you to put your phone away next time I need to talk to you well look it's something Christ I've got to remind myself of too because from time to time I've catched myself you know talking you know to a friend but then somehow like my hand has reached into my pocket and I'm scrolling through like my inbox or looking at scores on ESPN or something and you know these are the things that we we do but they really diminish the quality of our interaction with one another and so

just even being giving people the benefit of your full attention can really deepen uh that the experience of connection and the third thing that I'd recommend this is a very small simple thing is actually pick up the phone when your friends call right now this seems like so basic but a lot of times like if we're busy right or if we're right you not in the right space or whatever we might just I'll just call back later we silence the phone and then like we maybe put them on the list to call back

when we have an hour of free time right which sometimes takes weeks or months or never happens um I've certainly done that but I've since realized in recent years that even if I just pick up the phone to say hey it's great to hear from you Kristen can I can I call you back I'm about to step into this podcast interview um and then I hang up and it takes all of 10 seconds hearing your voice and you're hearing my voice it really does make a difference like we are so hardwired for connection we're

such magnets for it that even a little bit of high quality connection can make a big difference in how we feel and lastly I'll just tell you this look i' I've just finishing a this college campus tour that I've been doing called our we are made to connect tour where we've been visiting college campuses around the country to to engage directly with young people on these issues of isolation and loneliness and we actually introduced them to some of these simple techniques but there's we we we launc

hed in the fall on these campuses something we called our five for five challenge which is where we asked college students to take five acts of connection one per day over five days and they could be really simple expressing gratitude to someone extending support to someone or asking for help and we actually usually do the first day you know challenge actually right there in the room with them it just takes 60 seconds we ask everyone to think of someone that they're grateful for and what's inter

esting is I usually will ask people raise your hand if you have someone in mind every hand grows up because everyone regardless of how lonely or connected you feel there's somebody in your life at some point who's done something for you that you feel grateful for and then we actually ask them in that moment to actually pull out their phone and to compose an email or a text to that person and then to send it and then we ask them finally to turn the flashlight on their phone after they've s hit se

nd and then to hold it up and you see all of these rays of light go up like in the room and you start to realize that in 60 seconds we can actually do a lot to actually help extend connection uh to other people and they feel good and we feel good this this is how we start the process of building connection and we can then extend it to our workplaces you know I think about the my residency training for example like I I I trained in Internal Medicine it wasn't an easy program you know I would say

we worked long hours pretty hard you know um just like most residency programs but I'll tell you this every day when I came to work I felt like I was coming to work with friends and that's because of the very intentional effort that was made to create the kind of culture where we got to know each other we supported one another we looked out for one another um that really does make a difference you know our relationships are natural buffer for stress and at a time where people are dealing with so

much stress in their lives from work from trauma from other sources we need those relationships more than ever and we can start building them with these small simple steps I'm glad you mentioned residency because um It's seems like we're in a time period where it's it's very hard for healthare workers to get that connection uh with each other the time constraints that people are under uh with staff shortages yeah staff shortages but but also uh just the Health Care system that we're operating u

nder and the the the documentation requirements and and prior authorizations and and so how how do what would you tell you know Physicians nurses who have these constraints like how in in healthc care in 2023 how do you navigate that you how do you how do you still maintain that connection with people in the face of of so many barriers well it's really important and I will say when I went through training which was now you know around about 20 years ago I would say that the the number of barrier

s to connecting with one another was less and so I really feel for folks who are going through training right now because I do think that the number of things you have to do outside of direct patient care have multiplied the number of Prior authorizations you have to navigate which frustrates me and I know many others to no end uh just the amount of non-patient care related work and and there often I don't think is enough of a priority placed on protecting time for trainees to actually engage wi

th one another and get to know each other that is really really vital but a couple things I'd say to that one is like to leaders of programs Residency program leaders uh and hospital system leaders it's really important that trainees not only hear directly from you about the importance of creating space to build social connection but that you follow that up with actual space and time in the schedule for people to know one another one of the things that my program used to do is on a regular basis

they would they would actually allow or facilitate a small group of us to come together to actually talk through some of the challenges that we were encountering in the clinical setting and to whether it was you know a patient who had coded uh and we had lost and we were still struggling with how to process that or patient that we had had a difficult encounter with we were trying to figure out how to make sense of that um and so that those circles were ones where we not only processed but we ac

tually bonded with one another uh and that was really vital so but that only happened because their program made it a priority and carved out time and space right now there's a setting where somebody could look at that and say Hey you could have been taking care of patients during that one hour that you're getting together you could have been attending a grand rounds lecture like why the could have been other educational value here but that's where I think we have chronically underestimated how

powerful and important those bonds are that we build one another it's it's not a nice to have it's really a necessary to have and finally just for individuals who are going through this who may not have a program yet that has this kind of time and space I would just remind you that if you are feeling kind of lonely and disconnected from folks in your training program it is highly unlikely you were the only one who is going through this I know it seems that to all the rest of the you know the wor

ld like everyone's doing fine they're posting happy pictures on social media they're talking about like the great events and parties they went to and how great life is but we have now we now have got good data that tells us that behind the scenes under the surface people really are struggling in fact often the majority of people with some sense of loneliness and isolation if you can even start to reach out and talk about this with even one uh you know residency classmate um you can help open up

a conversation that could be powerful for both of you and arguably a conversation that could happen amongst more of your classmates and that itself could help build a kind of community that we so desperately need especially when we're going through stressful experiences like training it's kind of a catch 22 I mean when I when we were when when he was in training and I was there too um you know it's you have to kind of um it's it's sort of counter intruded because in order to create Community esp

ecially with medical training where you move around so much and all of your Social connections are upended and you have to make new ones you know it it feels like you're just alone and it's counterintuitive that you should reach out to other people if you want a community it actually works best to try to create it right and then it's it's reciprocal so you you feel like you're waiting for people to reach out to you but actually if you reach out to others then very often they will reciprocate and

and now you have something that's starting to build that is so well put uh Kristen you're exactly right because and this is actually somewhat counterintuitive thing about social connection is that it's when we we may feel lonely and isolated ourselves but when we actually look to help others and serve others it actually helps us address our own loneliness because we Forge a bond with them but we also RIS remind ourselves that we have something of value to bring to the rest of the world I I reme

mber coming in uh to to pre-round one day during internship and I had like I had some sort of like sinusitis or upper respiratory infection something was like Brewing but you know I didn't have a fever and I wore a mask hoping that I wouldn't infect anyone else and I just came in because in those days like everyone there were wasn't always a whole lot of backup you had to come to work and I remember when I was pre-rounding one of my co- interns saw me like kind of you know limping along having a

bit of a hard time and I remember he pulled me aside for a moment just to say hey man are you okay like do you need anything can I get you something from the cafeteria do you do you want me to pre-round on this patient for you do you want me to pull the vital signs for you so at least that'll make your note easier like he was just ask me like how could he help me he probably spent in total about two minutes with me two to three minutes before I thanked him and said don't worry man I got it I'll

be okay I'll reach out to you if I need any help though but 20 years later I still remember that two to three minutes right I felt so much closer to him his name is chatty in Dumay he's a cardiologist at John's Hopkins now um but but what a a powerful two minutes and that is like one of the blessings that I try to remember is that it's not about quantity of time that we spend with people it's about right the quality of time and our interactions uh when I was in medical school I remember a class

mate of mine her father got sick and he needed surgery and we were all you know the four of us I remember in our clinical group we were all you know concerned about her and we were also curious about what her dad's experience was like and so we asked I remember after he got through the surgery and everything we asked her hey who was his favorite doctor in the hospital all trying to we had heard all the stereotypes you know different doctors and we want to know which one like who did he bond with

and to our surprise he said um she said she said the surgeon was his favorite out of everyone who came to see him like the internist the cardiologist everyone and we're like wow we heard we had heard that surgeons don't have a lot of time for patients that they primarily want to be in the operating room um that was a stereotype just to be clear and she said oh no no he only saw my dad for 5 minutes and it was at like 4:30 in the morning morning like when he was blured so we were like what gives

then like how how did he Bond and she said it's what he did in those five minutes that really mattered he didn't stand at the doorway he came in he sat on the bed next to my father he held his hand he looked into his eyes he actually listened to what my father said and responded to my father's questions as opposed to driving his own agenda and at the end of that my father felt like that 5 minutes was 30 minutes and it was what he looked forward to most every day and that has stuck with me all t

hese years later as just a reminder that those few minutes that we have that we we choose to look out for someone ask someone how they're doing Express solidarity and support with someone that can go a long way toward helping them not feel alone and helping us feel the same I I relate so much to several of your stories there um when I was in residency I was a chief or no I was a yeah was my final year of residency I was diagnosed with testicular cancer this is my second time with it and I you kn

ow I had that typical like physician mindset I can't take a day off from work was lunch time I was like let's come on just have someone cover for you we need to go I'm not going to put that on somebody else that was my my thinking right and so I I walk out of radiology having just received this diagnosis like literally minutes before and I I have like the on call pager and oh my God the pager goes off and like I like like you know a minute ago I was told I I was having I had to have surgery and

all this other stuff and um and it was a a terrible trauma case in the emergency department and I I just I kind of broke down I just started crying I was like I can't I can't handle this and fortunately one of the fellows in the Opthalmology Department was was with me and he uh he a walking by at that time and he saw me knew something was wrong and he just offered to take the pager from me he said like go home and and I still think about that and I will for a long time I still tell people about

that story and it's it's you're so right it doesn't take much time at all and and it it can be a life-changing moment for people and it also does start at the top right the the program directors people who are in leadership positions like they have to set that example because that's how that's how trainees that's how Med students they come up they see those examples and and they're going to take away a lot from that I had a program director who with when I had that cancer diagnosis he like offer

ed to to babysit our kids for us he told him to go watch Mary Poppins with our four-year-old because we needed a little bit of magic right then I mean it was the kindest thing he set an example and and and that is that is what we need uh to to to just keep this idea keep this uh this campaign going forward to try to to you know improve um this loneliness issue those are beautiful stories by the way I mean just I had chills when you talked about the yeah your your colleague asked saying I'll hold

a pager and your program director babysitting I mean you know I'll tell you the one of the things that I am struck by is how powerful these moments of kindness are yet how little we seem to Value kindness as a source of strength right like even I think about the terminology and training that we often use like I don't know if you guys use the term strong work which people would say all the time like oh yeah right yeah strong work work of course so I think about about what we used to apply that t

o right like when somebody like clinched a diagnosis and morning a report we'd say strong work when somebody ran a good code we say strong work when somebody remembered uh like the you know the the article like in the literature uh that supported a particular you know therapeutic decision we'd say strong work right but we didn't often enough like recognize like the person who went in to the very difficult complicated family situation and sat there and patiently listened to a patient and their fa

mily who were frustrated and and got everyone to a point uh where they were at peace you know and willing to move forward together and feel like they were on a team again like these like these moments which we often dub as soft skills you know of talking to a being being kind being empathic being understanding there's nothing soft about those skills right they are incredibly valuable they're Central uh to our effectiveness I think as clinicians but also to our Effectiveness as colleagues and so

I I would love to see a culture where we redefine strength uh not not solely as you know how many papers I can publish and remember and how much information I can cram into my head but also is my ability to reach down into my heart and bring forward the kind of kindness and empathy that we need to truly heal yeah I always say in in my work keynote speaking and writing I always always say you know remember it's what I told him as a med student uh and since then you know remember that before you a

re a physician or a nurse or a you know nurse practitioner whatever you are before you are that before you are the Surgeon General you are a human yes if you just think about it that way of not how would I interact with this person you know professional to patient but how would how would I interact with this person just human to human and typically you know that's all it takes and it's it's usually like we've been saying a very short easy thing to do just asking how are you while making eye cont

act for example um and I think that that I know at least in my experience that goes a long way yeah let's let's take a short break and we'll be right back with Dr [Music] morthy hey everybody exciting announcement do you want to tell them or should I oh you can I'm so excited due to popular demand we're adding more live shows in California Sunday March 10th we'll be at the San Jose Improv and on Sunday March 24th we're returning to the Irvine Improv to share our amazing story called wife and dea

th yeah we'll talk about that time you died and came back to life it'll be a tragic comic multimedia Memoir stage show Extravaganza you got to check it out to buy tickets click the link in the description below or you can go to Glock and fan.com slive we'll see you there Christ are you familiar with AI yes I have not been living under a rock there are AI tools for everything now right well guess what we have Precision this is the first ever EHR integrated infectious disease AI platform this is s

uper cool for uh any specific patient it automatically Highlights better antibiotic regimens it empowers clinicians to save more lives while reducing burnout just makes their life easier that's pretty cool yeah and also antibiotic stewardship yeah really cool things to see a of this go to precision.com slkk that's Precision spelled with an X instead of an e so P RX C n.com [Music] KK so we've talked a lot about uh the importance of human to human connection Dr morthy and and obviously that's so

important for for healthcare workers to feel connected with each other but also with patients but I know a lot of people feel like it's just becoming increasingly more difficult to achieve that uh in the in you know in the line of work as in healthc care and so what do you think that we can do from a policy standpoint to to help make it easier for healthcare workers to have connection and maintain connection with patients you know we've talked about like prior roths and and and some of the the s

tressors that we have but but where do we go from here well I think this is an important question because the connection that clinicians have with their patients and with each other is a huge part of what fuels Us in in the work that we do and cutting off that fuel is a is a recipe for Burnout and I do think that that is what we are seeing I think there are a number of things that we have to do from a policy perspective to more broadly support clinician well-being and some of this will feed into

human connection as well I think number one like we have to start rigorously transparently and consistently measuring the well-being of clinicians and in our health systems you remember that old scene that many of us were taught in medical school if you don't measure it it doesn't matter and you can't manage what you don't measure that is true here as well you know if we truly believe this is important the well-being of clinicians we've got to measure we got to be transparent about it the secon

d thing we've got to do is recognize that safety is a really important and critical part of any work environment and right now a lot of clinicians don't actually feel safe in their work environment 80% of clinicians during the height of covid actually said that they had been verbally or physically abused uh at work that is an extraordinary number we've got to have better Provisions in our workplaces uh to not tolerate that kind of violance or zero tolerance policy in general that helps protect c

linicians from from harm another thing that we've got to do though is we've got to recognize that a lot of the stressors that clinicians are are experiencing they can hit us all in different ways some can uh result in in Burnout some can some forms of of stress and I would say even trauma can result in in PTSD we have an a range of impacts on clinicians that we've got to account for and also make Mental Health Care available uh to clinicians like clinicians are are yes they may be busy yes they

may be caring for other people it doesn't mean they don't need care themselves and right now what many clinicians you know tell us around the country is that a lot of times that care isn't even available and even when it is in theory available practically speaking their cultural norms are against seeking that care right and and the three of us may remember like early days of work hours restrictions when in theory the work hour restrictions were on the books in practice the culture was not set up

for people to actually follow those restrictions and in fact there's a lot of pressure not to to work long hours but just to put down uh 80 hours on your weekly log yeah that that pressure is still there I feel like that's that's still uh you know it's hard it feels hard to to change the priorities of our health care System sometimes you know like we still have have a big focus on on billing Above All Else above above working those those long long hours well and now we have private Equity comin

g along too and a lot of consolidation and and that contributes I think to being making it more difficult for for any sort of priority from The Physician standpoint you know so to your point it does seem like it it's not just going to happen by itself right it it we have to it has to be a focused like assertive effort to to make these changes happen it has to be a focused effort from leadership in healthcare institutions in policymaking bodies which is why I think the presence of clinicians in t

hose bodies is so vital and can't be replaced it's also going to take a lot of advocacy from a Grassroots perspective to ensure that Healthcare systems and and policy makers know that they have to respond to these extraordinarily important needs I mean you were think saying Christen about private Equity this is like the thing about Healthcare that I think is obvious I think to many people listening to this podcast but doesn't seem reflected in how we manage Healthcare is that the value that clin

icians deliver is about so much more than dollars and cents I'm not saying that dollars and cents don't matter we need to be able to have their resources to pay for gloves and gowns and procedures and equipment I get that U but if that's only where we see the value then we are missing just the human component of care like how do you put a price tag on helping a patient feel more at peace with their diagnosis with their relief of family member feels when they know they have uh a partner like in t

heir care when they know that they're not alone these are powerful elements of healing that aren't captured in a spreadsheet uh that someone may be doing if they're just trying to assess you know expense and revenue for an organization and so I think Le having clinicians in leadership is so important to keep some of those priorities clear and straight but last two things I'll mention to you which I think are are really important is I do think it's essential that we change the quality of work tha

t clinicians are experiencing uh you know there there's no clinician I've encountered who said you know I really dreamed of going to medicine as a child so that I could chart that's really what it's about for me like nobody says that right like we do these things because um you know we have to and we we need to you know we obiously need to keep good medical records we want that to be available to people afterward um but the sheer imbalance in the system right now has gotten extreme you know when

I issued a sergeon general's advisory on health the worker burnout in 2022 one of the thing that points I noted was that was a study actually that showed for every two hours that clinicians were spending with uh with administrative work they were only spending one hour with direct patient care that's not the right ratio here right and it leads clinicians to miss the you know the quality of work the patient care brings the Fulfillment and sustenance and connection with patients that it brings bu

t patients are also wondering why can't I spend more time with my clinician and they're not always clear like where the attention is being diverted so the quality of work matters and that means addressing prior authorizations which just suck so much of the time and soul out of the practice of medicine and a lot of times that they're put in place uh to restrict certain procedures or medications and I get that you want to you want to make sure that things are being prescribed or utilized for the r

ight reason that makes sense but I think we've gone well beyond that to place where it is now become obstructive and in damaging uh to care which is one of the reasons it was one of the uh most important changes that we called for in our advisory and we're happy now to be working with uh CMS center for Medicare Medicaid services which is also now trying to uh to push further along in advancing this effort to reduce prior authorizations and we need the private sector private payers to follow suit

but finally I think the issue of how we build connection it's influenced by all these by the way if you don't have the energy to to spend uh you know time and build connection with patients because your time and energy being sucked by administrative tasks that are duplicative that are not contributing to Patient Care that impacts your ability to connect with patients but I think we can proactively do things that like whether it's helping to build and support uh peer support groups like within t

he clinical system whether it's creating opportunities for clinicians especially leadership levels to talk openly about some of the challenges that they have had and are currently having and to actually and support one another in that process of overcoming those challenges we need to build more Fellowship more community and that that's got to come from the top as well you know that can be something we all do as clinicians ourselves reaching out more being uh you know to others supporting other c

linicians who may be having a hard time and just Fally recognizing that we're not the only ones who are struggling a lot of clinicians are but leadership and Healthcare institutions have to also support this have to make it a priority um and if they do then I do think that we can build a strong Vibrant Community of clinicians who can do better and more fulfilling and effective work and who can build the kind of connections with each other and with patients that all of us truly want I think we al

so have some models within the government that maybe we can look to for you know Lessons Learned whether it was here's some some great things to do or here's you know the way not to do it but the the issue of physician mental health after the pandemic during and after it reminds me so much of PTSD in you know combat you know in soldiers and things like that and and they would come back you know decades ago and and we didn't even have the word for that for what that was um certainly no support bu

t and there's definitely still a ways to go on that front but we also have come a long way in understanding that condition and understanding that those people need support and it's it's very similar in my mind for physicians in the pandemic the things that everyone saw and had to do and the ways that they were affected and their families were affected and the amount of loss and tragedy and grief and all of these things um you know I think that that it has some commonalities with that that we cou

ld look to to to maybe look for some solutions as well I I think you're right CHR I think there's a lot we can learn uh from how we manage the trauma and the pain that soldiers go through there's actually a lot of overlap I think between the experience of of soldiers and clinicians in the the following way you know I think both individuals who often approach their job with sense of mission who often have to endure very difficult circumstances especially if you're going into you know the theater

of war um and who have to witness human suffering uh at levels that are unusual and have to also experience pain themselves uh in the course of that work all of that and finally when you experience all of that and don't always feel like people around you understand what you're going through and you can't talk openly about it uh that is really a setup for suffering and I think that suffering we are seeing not only among so many of our soldiers who are struggling with PTSD but among many of our cl

inicians as well and to your point Kristen if we were going to take a page out of a book and try to understand what has worked what has been working in terms of caring for soldiers with PTSD you know I think one of the things we've had to do is to help is to to try to address number one the stigma around mental health which prevents people from talking openly about it and I think that stigma exists in medicine too you know among like we don't talk as openly among our colleagues about our own str

uggles whether it's not with mental health specifically or more broadly our struggles with burnout and with coping uh with what we're going through but I think the other thing that was really important was to make sure that we get treatment and support available to people as quickly and as easily as possible which means that you shouldn't have to make 15 calls and wait three months to get an appointment to see somebody who can help you with your mental health uh there should be a no wrongo polic

y here and many of the feed a lot of the feedback we were getting from nurses and doctors you know from around the country was that you know sure I'd be happy to go see a clinician but like when am I supposed to do that I'm working 16 hours a day uh when am I supposed to take care of my mental health some of them said if you had a place where I could go in the hospital a private room where I could have a tele medicine appointment and talk to a counselor you know like right after my shift right b

efore my shift or on my break I would do that they said that's not the problem the problem is the logistics so I think you're right that there are lessons that we can learn from other sectors and this I think should be moment as a country to recognize that our clinicians the people we have tasked with helping to heal those who are struggling that they too need healing they too need support they're human uh as well and so we owe it to them I think to provide that immediate support but also to Bui

ld a Better Health Care system that can let them do what they came here to do which is to spend time with patients to take care of them and ultimately to build a kind of therapeutic relationships that I dreamed of when I was a young child thinking about going into medicine ah I love that yep that's man all right well again we want to thank you so much we'll we'll we'll wrap things up here but um uh before we go I do want to mention again the five for five connection Challenge and uh and mention

just I where can people find information about this and and bring it into their own lives oh well thanks for mentioning this I've been so excited about this challenge uh people can find more information about it at surgeongeneral.gov Challenge and I'll tell you what it is the five for five challenge is where I have been challenging college students and now the whole country to take one active connection each day for the next five days and that could be asking someone for help it could be express

ing gratitude it could be extending support to someone who's in need uh but these simple actions you could take you 30 seconds or a minute each day but if you do them cons you know consistently over the course of five days they will leave you feeling better um and I'll tell you that one of the things that we do when we're on college campus is is I often ask the students to take on the challenge but just start it right there in the room while we're together uh and they can do that and in fact for

folks who are listening right now you can do that right now as well and by thinking about somebody in your life that you're grateful for it could be anybody uh it could be a friend who helped you out last week could be a family member who showed up for you at a time when you had lost faith in yourself and we just really doubting whether you had What it Took uh it could be somebody who helped you at a time where you you fell short and you failed uh and they helped you to see that you know what t

hey still believed in you that you still had what it took to move forward and that that failure didn't Define you whoever that person is just think about that person for a moment just think about how you felt when they showed up for you think about how they lifted you up and how they believed in you and then just take out your phone and we're going to you know this is a way to use technology for good and just compose a text message or an email to that person and just write send them a very quick

note could be a single line could just say hey I'm thinking about about you and was remembering how you showed up for me that time when I was really having a tough time uh thank you for being in my life could be literally that simple and then just click s very this is what we do we are very grateful that you have spent some time with us today absolutely I appreciate again with our technical difficulties so thank you for for putting up with that and and and I I will say if I if I spend any more

time talking to you I might just have to run for office oh boy gosh I'm warning you now Kristen and he's he's I'm feeling I'm feeling pretty patriotic right now I don't know oh my gosh if Christ gives you the green light if Christ say you might have to give me your wife's phone number and uh have to have a chat about that just thr it out there I think we could use more people like both of you in government and in office so if you're so inclined I think it would be I'll just I'll I'll I'll be the

I'll support you I don't we get I mean that's the real secret behind all of this he's just the pretty face I'm really the brains behind the operation that's right all right well thank you again so much Dr morthy is a pleasure to talk with you oh so good to talk to you both as well I'm so glad we did [Music] this hey Kristen what's up name something that's like crusty and Flaky a delicious croissant I appreciate your optimism yeah yeah you know what I was thinking what Demodex blaris that is not

as delicious do you know what these little guys are what these are Demodex mites yeah that's not they're cute though aren't they those ones are cute if you have red itchy irritated eyelids you might be surprised to find out that it's a disease called Demodex blefaritis caused by these little guys deodex mites do you ever see those in your clinic yeah occasionally it's not it's not uncom common are they that cute when you see them under the microscope not quite all right but you can make an appo

intment with your eye doctor and get an eyelid exam where they can help you know for sure if what you're suffering from is Demodex blefaritis to find out more go to eyelid check.com again that's e.com to get more information about Demodex blefaritis and these little guys Demodex [Music] mites okay let's take a look at a story that was sent in by a listener all right all right we got uh one that's I'm I know I'm going to love it I haven't read it yet uh but I I've read I've seen the first line of

it ready okay you you'll understand pretty soon why I like it so much so this is from uh uh Lori a fan Lori okay says hi doc three years ago my retina detached oh there it is there it is I had the floaters the flashes of light and then the dreaded black curtain started that's that's definitely that's retinal detachment all over it I immediately see my opthalmologist he says you have a giant tear in your retina macula is on so what that means is that's the macula is the center of your retina oka

y if the macula is off like it's detached even worse it it actually means you can wait a little longer to reattach it oh if the macula is on well because if the macula is on that means it's detaching and you don't want it to spread to the macula so you got to go quickly to try to prevent the macula from detaching so anyway just think macula on is like more of an emergency for something that's already an emergency okay all right and so that's what this person has yes so they said uh the doctor sa

id uh giant tear immacula on you need to have surgery today today I need to send you to the only Surgical Group in Santa Barbara that works on retinas they will be doing the surgery I head over there and get the test and a prescription for some pre- and postsurgical meds and am told to go to the hospital's eye surgery building at 5:00 in the afternoon now that's that's odd right five o'clock surgery for an aist it's an emergency you got to do it all right fast forward several days later my insur

ance says we can't cover this claim because you didn't get a prior authorization and further the surgical group that you should have gone to are in Los Angeles yes they expected me to drive to La as I am actively going blind this all happened on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend so you can imagine the traffic yes how ridiculous is this very ridiculous so ridiculous and it it's not I've heard stories just like that even like there no common sense built into this like I heard a story of a of

a firsthand from of somebody in Colorado uh who they had to send a pediatric patient for a transplant to California even though there was a team in Colorado that does it but because of insurance and who they they contract with had to be sent that is so across the country stupid and how is that good for patient care you know making this transplant weight Laur you're getting us riled up here always supposed to be comedy podcast thank you for that story and it's horrible we hate it uh but but thank

you for sending it and you can send us your stories nn highum content.com um thank you all for joining us what a fantastic episode fantastic guest Dr Vivic morthy that's right and you know who knew back in sixth grade when you were cutting up in your mom's class and she wrote you up and you had to get your disciplinary report signed by your dad who would have known that one day the US Surgeon General would say keep up the Laughing keep doing what you're doing so you could say take that Mom I I

mean yeah it's uh it really was it's cool I mean because we collaborated once before on video and about burnout and that was a lot of fun and it was a challenge because we're trying to you know edit together video and we're in two different places but right um so it that was a lot of fun and so to hear that he wanted to you know come on our podcast like I was like yes let's do it yeah it was very cool very honored to have him as a guest and important work he's doing yeah absolutely so um I still

think I could be a Surgeon General one day I don't want to do that I could be the first opthalmologist general comedian opthalmologist General the opthalmologist Surgeon General there you go no oh I don't know why that just did a thumbs up cuz I feel like a big thumbs down on that idea will give us you're not a fan no we're looking at our screen here and it's doing funny things anyway um let us know we want to know what you thought about this episode do you do you did you enjoy hearing about um

about mental health issues I think that's a really important uh thing that maybe we don't touch on as much as we should yeah I think there should be more on that in medical training and education for sure I mean look the brain's a part of your body it's all your body doing things in your body it's all Healthcare I didn't get a we didn't get to a game we didn't do a game with Dr Mory but maybe next time we wanted there was too much good stuff happening we wanted to hear about it that's right oh

he's like so I'm sure he's so busy too yeah like what am I doing the rest of the day yeah seriously you're going to scratch your dog's stomach for a while maybe have a nap on the couch like maybe dress up in a costume later oh I will we do have to we have to take some pictures for a live show by the way so anyway uh lots of ways to can hit us up you can reach out to us by email knock knock high-content do.com we're on all the social media platforms fors hang out with us on our human content podc

ast family on Instagram and Tik Tok at human content pods thank you to all the listeners leaving wonderful feedback and reviews don't you love those reviews I it's great you read it's nice to hear what people think I always want to know what people think oh yeah if you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube and give you a shout out like today we have Francis Bowman on YouTube said this was the episode I needed this morning love Dr jmaxx initiatives around music and M

edicine M yes a good one talk about high energy oh yeah that guy God I wish I had that kind of energy uh and keep sending us things you guys keep sending us your stories and your jokes and your guest ideas we love seeing those things and you can uh uh do a little um uh comment on uh on YouTube or on Tik Tok I mean I'm I see those yeah and so if you have guest ideasy podcast anywhere really that you find us full video episodes are up every week on my YouTu YouTube channel at D Glock and fleen we

have a patreon lots of cool perks bonus epodes reacted medical shows and movies and hang out with other members of the knai community we are a growing Community uh top 10 fastest growing communities in in the United States now I feel like that's uh perhaps the Liberty you've taken we're we're getting a we're uh applying for a Township uhhuh uh-huh yep uh we zoning laws you know we got to deal with those where it's we're a very quickly growing Community yeah huge we've got some some Urban growth

some urban planning going on development issues absolutely it's it's kind of a a logistical nightmare but we're we're we're getting there we're dealing with please join us so early ad free episode access interactive Q&A live stream events much more patreon.com Glock andle or go to glock.com speaking of patreon community Parks new members shout out to Shelly s and c k oh well that's interesting typo maybe not it makes me think it's like Christine but they shortened it oh see yeah Christine K mayb

e C no C CT i n e k a y whoever you are please tell us how to pronounce your name to have you thank you uh shout out to all the Jonathans as always Patrick Lu C Sharon s Omar Edward K Steven G Jonathan F maryn W Mr Grandaddy Caitlyn C Brian L Leah d k l Rachel L Keith G JJ h Eric n Mary h suanna f muhammd k AA Parker medical mag bubbly salt and pink Macho a virtual head nod to you all patreon roulette random shout out to someone on the emergency medicine tier we have Ryan thank you Ryan for bein

g a patron and thank you all for listening we're your host will and Christen flry also known as the Glam [ __ ] a special thanks to Our Guest today US Surgeon General Dr Viv morthy our executive producers are will flry Christen flry Aaron Corney Rob Goldman and Shanty Brooke editor and engineer Jason porzo or music is by om Vin to learn about our knock knock High program disclaiming ethics policy submission verification licensing terms and Hipp release terms go to gle.com or reach out to us at h

uman- content.com with any questions concerns or fun medical puns anything else knock knock high is a human content [Music] Productions [Music] knock knock [Music] goodbye hey Kristen what you know what people ask me about how tall you are uh no sometimes but no they ask me about Jonathan yes I have heard people ask everybody wants a Jonathan like is Jonathan real can I have your Jonathan I'm like no you can't have my Jonathan but you know what they can have what's that dax's co-pilot ah yes and

that is basically a Jonathan it it is like a having a little Jonathan there it's it's a an AI powerered ambient technology it sits in the room with you and it helps uh create that clinical documentation right while also allowing you to create a patient physician relationship that we all got into medicine to to have we all want that that's right nobody got in to start writing notes that's right and it is right now everyone feels overwhelmed and burdened by all this clinical documentation uh to w

here work life Balan it just seems unattainable right so to learn more about the Nuance Dragon ambient experience or Dax co-pilot visit nuance.com discover Dax that's Nan c.com discoverx thanks for watching the episode you can find more on that playlist over there if you prefer to listen or you just had your eyes dilated you can binge full episodes wherever you get your podcast or join the party over on patreon where you get Early Access episodes hang out with us get lots of exclusive bonus cont

ent hope you subscribe leave a comment below let us know what you think