August 27, 2024 • 51 mins
The amazing and charming Dr. Cerf is back! He is one of the world’s top thoracic surgeons and his peers have voted him one of America’s Best Doctors. He is also here to deliver the exciting news that NYU ranked number one in U.S. News & World Report in lung cancer surgery and lung surgery. EnJOY this enlightening conversation between Dr. Cerf and Craig!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me,
buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.
(00:21):
I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but
you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They're available
at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour or
at your local outlet in your region. My name is
(00:45):
Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I
talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
My guest today has been here before, but he's so
expensive and funny and interesting, and I'll be honest, he's
a little weird, but that's kind of what you want
(01:07):
in someone who's as accomplished a surgeon as he is.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I know he's a surgeon.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
It's not any of this show business circus crap that
I usually get in here.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
He's a proper growing up doctor, doctor Robert J. S Folio.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So let me tell you this, yes, doctor, as a
doctor like sarcastically that I.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Shouldn't say that. You know why. You know, you didn't
deserve it.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
You are a doctor, and you're a very good doctor.
And that's and so I don't want to say doctor.
So let me let me try that again.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Let me tell you something, doctor, Yeah, that was a yeah,
all right.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
So the only rule I have for myself on this
podcast is I only talk to people I want to
talk to.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
That's the only rule. I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
See, and that's why you are my second repeat guest. Wow,
you're the only only the second person who ever did it?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
So now I have to ask who was the first?
Jesus very close, very close. Kathy Lee Geffert a very
good friend of Jesus, and she is, I mean, they
are best friend. You know. I listened to one of
your podcasts and it was her. Yeah, didn't do you know? Kathy?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
No, I feel I feel like you say that, like,
how would I meet you mean you're.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
A simple robotic lung surgeon. Why would I mean, come on?
Fuck you? Well that I hear a lot.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah. So the the idea that I would invite you
back is and I don't want you in any way
to think this is a way for me to get
free medical advice.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
But I'm happy to provide it because it's worth what
you pay for it. All right, So here you do
work on the esophius, right, I do. We've talked about
it that I think the last time you were here.
Because my father died of cancer. I remember. Obviously I'm paranoid,
but you have parrots. I do not have Barretts.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Because I got to nandoscope and they had to look
at what they called a molecular paneling and biopsy. Yeah, yeah,
that I got called Arnie Markowitz, did it?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
He's a sloon cattering beautiful. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So I don't want to I don't want to promote
the competition, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
No, So the competition is cancer and healthcare and equity
and diabetes. It's not slung kettering Columbia Cord. Now we
can say very noble man, but that is true. It
is true. And of course we can say that with
the NYU because we're the number one ranked lung cancer
program in the world and the number one hospital, number
two hospital in the United States and north of rank.
So of course we can take the higher road.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Wait, wait a minute, I got to ask then, in
the same way as Kathy Lee Gifford, who's.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
The number one hospital in the United States. Unfortunately, because
of a reputation factor as opposed to outcomes, the Mayo
Clinic is number one, number two. That's according to US
News and World Report, and also Mayo. They're named after
a condiment. It's not the it's not what you want
in a hospital. That's what we should be. That's what
we did wrong. You should be ketchup or some kind
(04:03):
of Berneese wow, that would have been that would have
played to the European client New York Bernese Hospital. That's it.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Then people really come to you. So let me ask
you this, right, So I got this. I got this
endoscope done. By the way, do you know that in
Britain on the National Health Service they give endoscopes without anesthesia.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
They do a lot of things in Britain in a
national healthcare system, like.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I was talking about Buddy and he gets an endoscope
he said, he said, I was the whole time I went,
you weren't asleep.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, it's crazy. Well, sometimes they do it because it's
a lot less expensive to do it in outpatient facilities,
which we do. But then to have an anesthesiologist there
as opposed to a nurse anesthesiologist to practice, you can
reduce your costs. And they give you a little bit
of twilight stuff like colonoscopy as opposed to being completely out. No,
I go for the phil probofall for the kolonoscopy too.
(04:55):
I remember that you enjoyed that.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, you know, it's not so much the caliscopy because
I have no memory.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
The fact you get one one a month has clued
me in that you would joy. Not so much the process.
I've got to be careful with that's medicine. Well you
know my history, you know with drugs. So I remember
like that prop See this is a thing. Did I
talk to you about this? What I got dental surgery done? No,
I don't know about the dental.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So I get a couple of years ago, I got
dental surgery done, and they give me a pain because
it's pretty painful thing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Right. It was like some bone marrow thing or something.
Bone it was. It wasn't a root canal. No, they
an extraction and then they put in an implant. Yeah,
I have an implant screwed into the bone. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
But they had to put bone marrow transplant in before
bone grafting. Yeah, an bone graft. So they do all
of that. It's all very painful. And the dog, she says,
here's some painkillers. And I said, well, I gotta be careful.
We went out, these would be all right, I take
one of these days. I don't even I don't even
put myself in charge of them. I give them to
my wife.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
That's fantastically responsible. Well, with my history, you gotta be careful,
and I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
So I give them to my wife, and I say,
all right, you'll none of these, and if it gets
too bad.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I'll take one. Right, so it gets really bad, which night,
first night? Second night? I think it was the second night,
you're not sure. It means they were working very well, but.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, so I take this one. It's called percisset.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, percocets. Jesus's that's the real deal.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I have never had a better drug in my fucking life. Really,
and I've taken one purpose of one of them. Man,
I just like the the I've taken everything everything, heroine, cocaine,
speed and all of I've had all all the drugs
I've had, But legal drugs.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Gosh, unbelieve it's interesting. So here's the funny thing. I
have never even had marijuana. I have tried nothing. Hate marijuana.
I hate the smell of it. I saw in New York.
It's says like you're in marijuana everywhere. It's unbelievable. I
come out of my apartment building at six thirty in
the morning, he goes see my patients, and the waft
of it sounds like a skunk. Literally sounds like a skunk.
(07:02):
That's what they call it. They call it skunk. It's
horrible people can do this. I just don't get it.
So I am so anti drug and alcohol just because
the way I was raising them, because being a doctor,
and see the message. You see what it does, See
what it does.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
We also I think it's uh, it's persecution against my people,
the Scots and the Irish because because.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Italians will be careful, there's a lot of wine going on.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
But here's the thing the Scot's in the Irish like
if you're a good old gooda Scots and Irish, you
know y gooda a good old Scots and I I
was going to say drunk, and then I changed my mind,
so it sided to goda.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I just made up a word. Go does the hell
of a word a go to you? We'll just make it.
We'll just make it. It's a new word. We developed
it right here Urban Dictionary. Right.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
So if you're a goda, which means good old drunk
from Scotland or Island, right, you have to hide your
shame by by putting it in a brown paper or
flask flasks or a brown paper bag in the streets,
so people think you're having a soda and everybody knows
you're not having soa direct but you have to hide it.
But if you're you know, one of those continental types
(08:05):
it likes to smoke marijuana cigarettes.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
You can just walk down the streets smoke at them.
It's crazy. Yeah, I like the days when at least
they had to hide it. Now my apartment building, I
have a nice apartment building two blocks from work, so
I can be in the o R if there's a
problem close to the patients, or there's an administrative problem.
I'm in in two minutes. There's people on my floor
that's smoking. Not supposed to smoke in the building.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, but it gets in people's clothes and in their
hair and stuff, and they can't smell anymore.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
It's like cat people.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
It is great analogy. It's like cat people. The cat people,
they can't smell like these smell a cat, but these smell.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
A cat, and they always smell like cats.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah, and their houses smell like cats. Terrible when you
go to their houses and I go to their houses
and love.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I don't know. So what's the affinity between you and
the cat people. It's just there might be a there
might be an important thread there emotionally for you.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Well, I think I've probably run in a tox of
plasmosis from an old girlfriend.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Maybe very good, you know, cox of plasma because I'm
because I know what cats can do.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
My brother in law was bitten by a cat right
what year was, I don't know, like four or five
years ago recently. Yeah, So he's bitten by a cat
and he goes to our doctor in California. It's bad
because my wife is with him at the time she
was about that, we were in Scotland. She was going
to come over at Scotland. She said, I gotta stay
I mean, he was bitten by a cat. You gotta
(09:23):
stay by.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
You gotta kitting's got in the airplane and go. Well
apparently he gives yes, he got Oh you are filming. Yeah,
the lion's got a red streaky infection going up the tendon.
That can actually be very serious. That can be very serious.
That they were saying, maybe we have to amputate the arm.
Maybe that's drastic ivy antibiotics train. Yeah, and they opened
(09:47):
the bite and drain it right.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
They did all that and it was fine. But I
mean they said, I if you had left it longer
from a cat. So here's my next question. Was the
cat alive the next day. The cat's doing my my
wife's family of cat people. They like cats. They may
like him more than they like her brother.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Well that's now, that was the next question, because there
was the brother there two days later. Because when you
got to choose between the cat and the brother in
law versus brother.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Well, he doesn't he I don't think he even puts
it together like he would have a cat to this day,
not that one. No, maybe not that one. But but
that's the thing. People like, we have a cat. I
am a cat in my house, but I know now
that that cat is a potential deadly killer.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
You could also lose in a hand right or another
appendage of your body.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I would never let a cat bite my peepe you
just oh listen, by the way, I want to talk
to you about plastic surgery.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Here's the thing that's funny. How he went right from
his penis the plastic service.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Well, this is the sam there is a thread the
definitely definitely well, I was thinking, I'm going to get place.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
It's about my time. Sixty two now, yeah, and I
am also you're sixty two or a twenty fourth nineteen nine,
nineteen sixty two, May seventeen. I remember that, remember right,
older than me, so I know a little more about it.
As the camera shows, you look just a little bit over. Well,
that's what I'm saying. But it was great in our
own mind. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Sixty two, I think, okay, it's time for some plastic surgery.
I thought I'll start with my testicles. Wait what, well,
I'll get my testicles improved in some.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Way, I don't can. I think they're very plump? Well
you think no, no symmetric.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Look, I think by the way, I think actually even
calling them testicles is medically an actorate agree?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
What do you want to call them? Testical and friend?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I heard that just because because let's be honest, it's it's.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Not it's not equal partnership.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
It's not it's not law and hardy, it's you know,
it's testical and friend, it's you know, well so, so
I think what I'd like to do is have it
put into I'll have the other one built up, and
then the whole surrounding package smoothed out.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
They don't smooth. You don't want that smooth out. That's
got a certain ruga around it, so you have a
certain skin around it so if you get cold, it
can retract and help you stay warm. That's why this
has teleologically been selected for over eons of evolution to
work as well as they work. What do they know
(12:17):
about it so much? But here's the thing with the population.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
But what if I get my testicles, like, maybe get
some kind of coating put on them so they.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Don't get cold. So we're gonna you want fur coats
I want to look. I have a kind of threadbare
fur coat there already. But what I'm saying is silic,
some kind of silicon thing.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Maybe it's best. It's super effective chemical. Yeah, I forget
these links.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
It's a bit cancery, but it's a little Yeah. But
what I thought i'd do is if I have a
procedure done on my testicles. First, this is my insurance policy.
If they bought it, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
It's true because their testicles they look butched already. Nobody
and nobody sees them. Well, nobody cares, not that you're
showing testicular cleavage. I mean, it's not a common thing. Well,
you know, he could be. But if that was at
the Olympics. You saw that thing at the Olympics by
the guy with the swimming the French guy. No, the
opening ceremony of the Olympics, they had, Uh, that was outrageous.
(13:19):
It was outraged, mocking. Don't ask Kathy Lee about they
were mocking the last supper. Yeah, there was a guy
there with half a pair of pants showing the lower
hemi aspect of one of his testicles. That's outrageous. It's incredible.
We running here like under underball. Showing under ball, you
could say underball, I'm a physicians, I'm using some other
(13:39):
terms saying the same.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
I'm just I'm just speaking to the populace people who
want to understand what's going on medical, you know, like
the lower pole of the right descended testicle, but you
couldn't say it the underball, all right, so underball.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
So the guy who showed under ball, I saw a
picture of it. One of the patients was showing it
to me. They couldn't believe it. That's outrageous.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
So look, I figured though, that if I get the
plastic surgery done, you know, and they butcher, it doesn't matter,
because testicles look like they're botched.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
They do. They're one of the most ugliest.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
They are the deep sea creature of your pants. There's
no doubt about it. They they are, they're they're they're terrible.
They're not attractive. And anyway, as as a world renowned
surgeon and doctor, right, well, no team, our team is
world Your team is the number one lung cancer surgical
program again according to the US News and World.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Right right this year this year. Now, first of all,
we're tied tied for the Mayo clinic, the Mayo Clinic
also good. They're they're pretty good, all right. Our outcomes
are better, they're their reputation factor.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
I have to say for for someone in your line
and work, outcomes extremely important.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It kind of matters. It's kind of important. I know
that the work you do is so do.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
The work you and your team do right, yes, is
so harrowing, so focused, and so high stakes and such
a difficult thing to do. And yet over the time
getting to know you, you are a light, easy, cheerful,
(15:25):
upbeat human being.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And I find that fascinating. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
But I'm kind of interested, is to because I know
a little bit about your story.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
We talked in the last time.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
You got some tragedy in your past, You've got difficulty
in your own life, and.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
All everyone's had challenges, of course.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Of course, but I wonder and what I want to
talk to you about today was a little bit about
maintaining emotional equilibrium as someone who works in the face
of death almost every day.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Such a great question, because I would tell you there's
people listening who do very difficult brain surgery or brain
aneurysm surgery, or some of our cardiac surgeons that do
aortic work. We're going to say, this guy's just a
little robotic lung surgeon. He's not dealing with life and
death like I'm or people who do other jobs out
there that are putting themselves at danger. My patient's at danger,
(16:20):
but I'm sitting on a robot. I got my nice
lucky socks on. I'm comfortable. I'm not a danger like
people that serve community. So I always look at it
that way. That I was operating yesterday very blessed. We
had three or four visitors from other countries and a
college student and a medical student. And during the operation,
the one guy came over to me and said, you're
(16:41):
really having fun. I'm like, they pay me to do this.
How lucky am I that I get paid to do this?
And then to help inspire and teach. A world famous
guy was there from China, a world famous guy was
there from Spain. The other person was from from France.
What a great honor to be able to have those
people in our ore. And you're teaching these guys these well,
(17:03):
and they teach us. So I mean it's an exchange
of ideas because every single one of our visitors does
something better than we do. If you listen, if you
listen to them, they all have better ways to do
things than us, every one of them.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
This is all very good, doctor, but let's have a
a let's work with the idea that I am the
therapist and you.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Okay, I thought we were out of the patient. I
switch it somehow. I don't bet because I said to.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
You, how do you maintain emotional equilibrium in the face
of life and death decisions for other people? Sometimes, yes,
that you're making And you, doctor told me about all
the people that do other work. And I think that's
lovely and noble, but it ain't.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
But that's my answer. Really, that actually is my saying
about other people. I honestly do because I know that
other people that are doing things that are more dangerous,
right they have a higher like our risk of lung
our ninety day mortality for long surgy is almost zero now.
When I started, it was two and a half percent.
Now with little incisions and robots and the anaesthesiologists are
(18:03):
so good, in the nurses and the pulmonologists, it's zero
our last five years. That's why we're number one in
US news and will report our outcomes are amazing, and
that's a credit to the team. But there's things like
other types of operations that have much higher morbidity immortality.
So to answer your question directly and not evaded, not
to switch therapist patient.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
I didn't think you were evade. I think that you are.
I think you are a genuinely upbeat I am nice guys.
It's just my nature.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
As I always see the glass half full, of the
coffee cup right half full. I always have seen it
that way. I'm so lucky to get to do what
I do. I don't find it stressful. I thrive on competition.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I'm a member of a place I go up to
on the weekends and I play golf and pickleball, and
unless it's super close, and unless it comes down to
the last putt or the last drive in the eighteenth hole,
or the fifth game, I play singles pickleball with a
couple of incredible athletes who are unbelievably successful, people much
more successful than me, and it comes down to that
fifth game, that final point. That is what I thrive on.
(19:08):
And I love that, and unfortunately oftentimes I lose. Is
going to be a nice question, Are you a good loser.
Are you good at it? No, I'm a terrible loser.
You want to hear from a surgeon. Yeah, Now, in
the O R, we can't lose. So in the O
we've been very fortunate not to have had a thirty
or ninety immortality in literally almost six years on an
elect of lung cancer. That's a credit to the team
(19:30):
and to all the techniques we've talked to me about
elective lung surgery.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
That means said, you tell a patient, look, you got
something here you want to do with it? Or no,
that's that's basically yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
And we say you have a growing nodule, it looks
like an obvious cancer. And before surgery, we assess their
risks with breathing tests, stress tests, echo cardiogram, we get
a cat scan, a PETS gain, we make sure it
hasn't metastasized. So we stage their cancer. We assess their risks,
and then we do an operation that I've done nineteen thousand,
(20:01):
one hundred and eighteen of I think, now, wow, over
two thousand, eight hundred robots. And so when you do
that every day, and I have partners who are better
than me, and partners who do this as well, and
we as a team come together and meet every quarter.
How can we get better? How can we give the
patient a better experience? Because our outcomes are so good,
how can we give them a better experience? So we
give them our cell phone. We do facetimes with them
(20:23):
on the weekend. Yeah, they check in with me every day,
throwing a percoset in there as well. They get purposes
for three days. Because it is a victim get elective
lung surgery, we throw it a few more. You're going
to be on the table with nothing in your lungs. No,
do you give it the percose that you can do
what you fucking like? Give it a p I've heard
(20:43):
that before.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Oh my god, I mean, is a consideration and you're
lying to work, you go like you look at the
personality of a patient and you say, look, this is
the person with drug and alcohol history.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
They have a problem with it.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
And yet this surgery has to be done and they're
going to need a painkiller after it is consideration?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Do you think about it? Not only is the consideration,
it is something we preemptively work on and we get
them into a pain clinic even before surgery. That's interesting,
so that there's a pain doctor who can manage the narcotics,
because it's like drinking a cup of coffee. If you
have twenty cups of coffee day, me giving the other
one doesn't help. So if you're comingly actively addicted to
any type of narcotic and then I'm going to rev
(21:22):
up your pain cycle with an operation. Even little tiny
incisions hurt, they're going to require a lot more. It's
incumbent on us actually to do that. And I think
we do a great job again because we have amazing
pain doctors at NYU lang On Health. Well. Pain is
one thing, but addiction is another.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
It is, and so I wonder is it like particularly
something like the world that I move in.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I know a lot of sober alcoholics and.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
And a law of not a law, but I have
heard stories, and I've known people who have had long
time sobriety screwed.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Up through procedures. Yeah they have. They have a procedure, yep.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
They take a painkiller and they're not prepared for what
it does, you know, and and it sets off a
cycle of addiction, which is difficult to understand.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I think even if you have and I have it,
I don't think it's difficult to understand. We I mean,
we all know as healthcare providers what these medicines can do. Right,
we only can give you three pills when you leave
the hospital. You have to come back and see us
in person. We try to get that history now where
we can get smoked or burned when the patient is
one hundred percent honest and I had one of those
(22:33):
last year, and you know, then all of a sudden,
they're a week out, two weeks out, and they're doing
more drug seeking behavior, and it's like, what have we missed?
Then you see them in person. I always you say,
bring a family member, and the family member usually says, well,
you know, doctor Ugo, twenty days ago, patient X was
taken four these a day because it quote back pain.
(22:55):
Who's giving it to you? Oh, we have a wonderful
medical doctor who gives us twenty a week. I don't know.
So then we get an immediate in our pain clinic.
And then they become difficult conversations because of course the
patient has a viewpoint, an advantage point that's a little
bit different sometimes from the healthcare provider, and you need
to listen in the answer somewhere in the middle. But
do you support if a pain is psycho semitic. Yes, Yes,
(23:19):
I had a patient today that I think it is
because they had a lesion in their chest that just
doesn't cause the pain that they're having, and that pain
only occurred once the patient got the cat skin and
heard that division.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yes, So it's interesting to me because the idea of
the emotionality of that, I find this fascinating. I've had
a friend, a couple of friends actually now who have
had heart surgeries, big ones.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, bypass all wires in the sternamy.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
So the effect of the surgery physically on both of
these guys was extremely one hundred percent successful. Yeah, they
both experienced profound owned the depression.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yes, after the surge. I've heard of that. Yeah, no one.
I mean I'm not you know, I don't anything the
basis and I'm not a scientist.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
But yeah, is that is that something that you're aware
of after because even after like a tiny surgery, if
I get I'm like, eh, messes with your head a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So there's two things in that. First of all, being
on cardiopulmonary bypass, which is something that happens specifically with
heart surgery because the heart's not beating. Then you have
to put him in a pump that both oxygenates and
circulates the blood around, so the machine is keeping you alive.
The machine's keeping there's some data that that could hurt
cognitive function. Remember my dad was a super smart surgeon.
(24:41):
He had bypassed. I gave him this IQ test before,
and like two months later he didn't do as well.
I'm like, bro, what the hell's going on here?
Speaker 6 (24:48):
You know?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
And then we did it again and he got better.
But so I think depression is common from a general
anesthetic depression and cognitive loss has been bantered around about
being on bypass, but there's no good data for it.
I think clearly maybe just being in the hospital, coming
in an operating room, dealing with your own mortality. No
matter what you say, everyone wonders, am I going to
wake up? Even a lung operation where we haven't had
(25:10):
a problem in years, every patient wonders, am I going
to wake up for this? I mean, I've had operations
and I always wonder, is this, like, you know, this
is the last thing I'm going to see my own
The last one was in my own O R. I
really can I ask what you were getting done? Is
I had your testicles, even I had plastic surgeon. I'm
on a lower poll in my right hemmy understand testically
(25:31):
getting the underball, and I always told that it looked
really bad and it needed to be fixed. Okay, it's
always nice to have symmetrical underball. There you go. So
what are you getting done? I had my bilateral need replaced,
all right? Yeah, so I can run around and play
pickleball with twenty one.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Year old I'm avoiding the knee thing right now myself.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
The best d well it is leg day. But yeah,
that's the best thing I did. Really. I could not run,
I couldn't compete, I couldn't play, I couldn't do all
the stuff I wanted to do. And for me, it's
about quality of life, not quantity, for sure, Yeah, for sure.
So I'm glad I did it well. Good? Were you
tough on yourself? You're probably a terrible patient, right. I
had it done the day before Christmas, both needs at
(26:12):
the same time, and I was back in the oar
January fifteenth. And that was a mistake, Craig, That was
a mistake because that was really sore and swollen. The
operations went well, and then the next Wednesday, I just
put one case out and then I waited another week
and I was a little bit better. But that's a
big operation with big recovery. I missed. I mean I
recovered quickly, but I blew that one. I need a
(26:35):
little more time. Well, I think that the danger is
as well. I mean, look, I go there, I'm not
a doctor, but you know I'm just you are a doctor.
You're getting a doctorate degree, honorary doctorate, and services to
show business in the industry, right, Okay, I would like
to doctor Ferguson. I'd be like doctor Jill Biden or
doctor Phil you know what I mean. Like had to
(26:56):
be a little different, a little different than that, just
a little bit t I'm gonna let you roll with it,
doctor Dre. Maybe then you can ask for the same
honor aarium because you are you will be a doctor.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Well, I think that's what it's about really For me,
I would like an ornary doctorate so that my corporate
rate for speaking as events goes through the roof.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
There you go, and that's what it's all about. You
live inside New York City, don't you.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
I live two blocks away. I two blocks away but
you pay the New York tax. I pay the New
York City state tax, the New York City tax, the
federal government tax. I'm a fifty three percent tax provider.
Do you know what? I'm an idiot?
Speaker 1 (27:35):
If if you were in the UK, yeah, you'd be
paying more. I'd be paying more. Yeah, I get it's
one of these. Is why I live in America.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
But if I was living in Florida, I'd be paying
a lot less.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Well, that is true, and they can't take your house
away from you in Florida.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Florida, and I think New Hampshire. That's a couple of
the other ones. Know about New Hampshire.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Also, these squatters, these squatters can take your house away
from you, but that's a difference. They move into your
house if you're not out there, and they can't get
rid of them where. I'll let you read about it.
I was just another patient. Tell me about that. Really, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Don't know about that. I don't want that happening. And
I'll never leave my house again.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
You won't. You'll come there, there'll be eight people hanging out,
throwing your furniture in the fireplace.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Nobody that, nobody wants to live in my house. Oh
my stuff is there.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
They might like your stuff. All right, this makes me
very sad. I don't like this at all, just the
reality of the squatterville that we live. You're not originally
from New York, New Jersey, New Jersey. That explains a lot.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
So you came up in the world. Then are you
from Franklin, Lakesburg and County. I don't know that, par
I know North all right? Okay, so I know the
place that John bon Jovi is from. Is that Red Bank?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Oh that's that's further Yeah, that's nice down there. Yeah,
well the shores are beautiful there, Yeah, beautiful. You know
the thing is when you could drive down the Red Bank.
We'll get back on you in a minute. But when
you look.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
With the Red Bank, the Red Bank, they have the
John bon Jovi service station, like.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
An actual gas where he works, like a rest stop
or something named after him. There's nobody there that's not
even John bon Jovi. Nobody. That's when you know you
hit it big when they have a rest stop, deserted
rest stop named after you. It's like a Scooby Doo says,
I mean, is by a snack like Yodels twinky, not
(29:25):
a thing, and he's not there, not even a picture
of him. Wait a minute, it's named after There's got
to be a plaque besides them.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
You know. And there's another one in a really good one. Actually,
rest up the James Gandolfini rest up in New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
That's what the diner is. That's where the diner. You
could sit in that. But somebody bought that booth. I
heard from him. But that's it. That's a different thing.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I mean, clearly, John bon Jovi's people need to be
looking into this.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
They do because because the guy's been much more successful. Well, yeah,
there's abous drawbacks. Obviously, he's he's been dead for a while.
That kind of helps. When you're dead, What are you
die of? It was something, but it wasn't a heart attack.
I think it was a heart attack. That was heart attack?
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Is that a tam that you guys actually would use
now acurate mielcardial infarction? All right, But a heart attack
can cover a bunch of different things, right, No heart attack.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Really means you have is schemia to the heart scheme
means low blood supply, right, and then the heart has
gets an infarct that dies and without enough blood supply,
no oxygen, no blood going to it, so can't empty
oxygen to the myocytes, the cells of the heart, that
part of the heart dies and it usually leads to
an arrhythmia, and the arrhythmia is what takes your life.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Actually, all right, So the irregular heartbeat thing is that, well,
that's an irregular heart beats.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Different these are fatal arrhythmias. A regular heartbeats that people
have a fib a flutter, that's very common. They don't
take your life. They're a nuisance we need to treat
with either blood thinners or replation or surgery. Are you hyper.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Aware of your own physical well being because of what
you know is so much?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Well, I don't know so much, but you're a medical
do I'm meant to totally into fitness. Like I weigh
myself every morning and work out four five times a week.
Measure my total body fat content which is now down
to ten percent, muscle and my lean muscle body masses
up to forty nine percent, which is good. Right, goal
was fifty So I know there, but you're nearly there.
(31:22):
We're going to hit it next quarter. Yeah, but yeah,
totally because I think in order to really super perform
or to permit your best, you know, as a husband
or a father, as a doctor, as a role model,
as a brother or sister, whatever it is, you really
have to have emotional and physical wellness and joy and
a playfulness. And if you don't have that, if you
(31:42):
don't have if you don't see the delight and the
play in life, and I don't think you can do
that unless you're really physically and mentally well, then you
really can't serve the people around you. I really firmly
believe in that. I think that's quite interesting.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
I agree with you, but not that that would mark
to you because I'm not appear in your business.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
But but you're a doctor. I'm getting there. You will be,
you know.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I think that it's a very holistic approach though, yes,
which is not there's not a great history of that
in your profession. The holistic approach to medicine is there.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I mean, it's fairly new that idea, especially insurgents, because
it takes it's so hard, it's such the training was
used to be so hard. It used to be one
hundred and twenty hours a week. Now we're only down
to eighty hours a week. Right, it's still you know,
four years of college, four years of medical school, five
years of general surgical training, two or three years of
fellowship training, and then usually another year. So you're thirty
(32:37):
four or thirty three when you first start out, you're
in debt, you're tired. Usually people have a family, there's
all these other issues, and you've devoted your whole life
to your trade that you've then given up parts of
your life that are more important, your roles at home,
which are supersede obviously your roles at work.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
But you've got to be driven to achieve that escape
velocity to meet and efficient see that. Back in the
day though, like in the Middle Ages, surgeons and barbers
they were the same thing.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Did you know that? Actually I believe I've heard that. Yeah,
because you know the red and white barber pool. Correct,
there is a medical poll.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Right, they used to have a pool and it was
a bloody toe wrapped right, so that red and white.
So what I'm gett up to is do you think
you could give a decent haircut?
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Hell? No no, But why not like to look at
your hairs perfect? Holp the camera, hope the camera sees
how I mean? I got my hair is all messed
the hell up, and hair is great.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
You're talking about tom my hair has reached fifty percent
body fat.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
The goal was forty. Visit the exercise program I sent
you on pdf by the email last week. Do you
do that? TOI pitious? You say, look, this is a program.
I want you to do that. So you had to
off to someone you gotta be a little bit careful
because I'm seeing them for lung cancer, but I am
taking care of the patient. When you have someone who
has either morbid obesity or other a that we know
(34:01):
actually represents a greater risk to their life than the
lung cancer, it is incumbent on me to say, we
need to get you in the gym, We need to
mix in a better diet, we need to get to this.
And of course everybody wants the shot, right, everybody wants Yeah,
they want some sort of a GOLP one inhibitor or something.
Is that what is Yeah, that's what is it. These
(34:22):
are glucajohn inhibitors. But the point is they make you
feel full, they reduce your appetite, and they reduce your
gastric emptying. So actually, if you're gonna have surgery. You
need to stop that two or three weeks before the operation,
just because when you go to sleep. We want to
remember they tell you don't need your drink after midnight.
That's your stomach empties. So when you go to sleep,
you don't aspirate food into your lungs. But if you
(34:44):
have a medicine that prevents the stomach from emptying, which
is what these inhibitors do. Hold on, hold on, you're
telling me.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Then if you take a zampick and you've got like
you have, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
A burger. That burger is just going to around there
for a while. It sits around your gastric empty time
is longer. Yeah, I don't like this at all. This
sounds dangerous to me. Well, it's not.
Speaker 6 (35:09):
We could go bad in there. It's already pretty bad
once it goes into your mouth. But it's a burger, right,
not like it's a sterile thing where you eat. Number
two is going into a giant sack of acid and bile.
So that's necessterily right exactly. But it does decrease your
transit at leads to constipation. People have a domino pain
if it's not dosed correctly. If you have to start
(35:31):
very slow and then slowly increase it.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I'm not an expert on this. I would refer to
the doctors who do it sure, but I know as
a physician. Now now I ask everybody, by the way,
are you on anything for weight loss? Because we're operating there,
and so many of them will say no. And then
the husband or the wife, or the family or the daughter,
and I said, okay, tell the doctor because they don't
want to tell us. And I say, well, you need
to stop that a few weeks before because it does
(35:55):
increase your risk of aspiration with induction. At least that's
the theory. See. Now I have a friend. You have
lots of friends, right, it's all the same guy with
a great story. The hell, I gotta go out drinking
with this guy. He doesn't drink anymore. I wonder what.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
But I have a friend who lost.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
They're all the same guy.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
I have a friend and he took ozembic and he
lost a lot of way and he looks great. And
I said to him, what does it do? And he said,
exactly what you do? He said, you just don't you
don't feel hungry. I don't eat because I'm hungry I
eat because I'm sad.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
That's interesting. Yeah, So I don't. It's not going to
work for me. So I eat when I'm sad. I mean,
last night we went out to dinner and I had
a racing fork. I had a racing strip by my
fork because I had that dessert and I'm just all this.
It's the devil though, but.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
In an Italian restaurant last night, and the chocolateate thing
and it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
The one you have to order early because it's a
long time. I love that one. Well.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
See that's the danger of New York City as well.
Everything is delicious everything.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
There's great food there, great people, great food, great culture.
I have to say, I was away from New York
for a long time. You missed and New York missed you.
I missed it a lot.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I missed it a lot, and I'm happy to be back.
I saw i'd go to the Rangers game. But a
couple of weeks ago, the New York Rangers, New York
hang on. Remember I'm a sports fan, right. The NHL
season has been over for a few months, bro, all right.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
So it was a couple of months. A couple of
months ago they lost in the playoffs. Extremely disappointed.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, but they made the playoffs and that's where that
because they won that they want.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Residents Trophy, they won the President's Trevia at the best
record of any EHL team, That's what I meant. And
they weren't seated first. If you look at the Vegas odds,
they were second. But they should have gone to the
finals and they ended up didn't make it very disappointing
for me as a Rabbit, a Ranger fan.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Well, you're gonna hate what I've got to tell, you know,
I'm not gonna like. So I go, I call up
my guys and I say, listen, my.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Uncle Vinny from New Jersey. That guy. Maybe maybe it's
a guy I know, maybe it's not. Maybe you don't
ask that question. Maybe I don't get my break my
little rigoglass. Hey, mister robut search and you need those fingers?
No I don't, Yes, sir, I'll get you the money tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
So I call my I call a friend of mine
and a friend of ours, let's say, a friend of
ours and guy same guy, uh, And I say uh,
I'd say, can you get me in the Rangers game?
Speaker 2 (38:32):
And because they got me in before?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
And he said sure, And actually the New York Rangers
are fantastic. They're just beautiful the way they do the hospitality.
Come along, yes, but we remember you come on. And
so they have this like whole backstage thing. Yes, and
I go into this suite. They give you free popcorn. Yeah,
they give you dinner. It's like a full dinner.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Forget the dinner. You got free popcorn and free pop corn.
And that makes me mad because I have to pay
for my pop.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Well, it's and then they sit you in a little
private room and then you go out to the thing
and then they put your face up on it.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
You're on the jumbo screen. And then some people go
who's and everyone knows who you are.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
And then what he did was they're playing a game.
And this is my thirteen year old son's first professional
hockey game.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Best sport to watch in person is an NHL hockey game.
It's amazing and so exciting. The lights, the ice, the
snow when they stopped the puck, the speed, the violence,
so awesome.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
The puck comes off the ice right, security guy grabs
the puck.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Gives it to my kid. That's also his first hockey game,
and he had all his teeth when he goes Yeah. Yeah, yes,
guys don't when they get there first. No, he got
he just go handed. Yeah, so he has to know.
But I played hockey since I was five or six
years old, and I played in high school and got
recruited not by Division one teams it wasn't good enough,
but a few Division three teams. But I played baseball
(39:57):
in college as opposed to ice hockey.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
But I I'm not surprised by that though, because I
know that surge and culture, doctor culture and jock culture.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
This is almost exactly the same thing.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
You know, you guys are all kind of bro phil
the burn, fix the guy.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Feel the burn, and fix the guys where the hill
is the same it fhil the burn, fix the patient.
Do it right when take that death? Take that? But
you're right there, yea, there is that. Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
I wonder because I mentioned death and uh, and it
is part of life. Fortunately it's the very end of it.
Usually it's the end of it. You've been around it.
We've all been around it. But you've you've been you've
been around it in a way which both personally, which
we all have personally in one way or another. But
professionally you get to see it sometimes, especially.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
When because I do pediatrics, especially Jesus, we've had a
few recently who really been devastating. Yeah to the team,
to the staff, listen to the patient and the family
first and foremost of course, and it's all about them.
But when you know this is a patient who would
be operate on many times, and I won't say more
than that, so we become part of the family, of course.
(41:15):
And when you ultimately fail the patient and the mother
and the father and the uncles and sisters and they
succumb to the disease, it's incredibly it's it's humbling, and
it just reminds you. And this is why I have joy,
because you realize when you watch young people seven eight, nine, twelve, fifteen,
(41:36):
thirteen succumb to illnesses that they didn't deserve, that they
they shouldn't have never had, and you watch that and
you go home, you any closer to finding out No,
these are usually genetic mutations and being unlucky. You know,
it's not smoking and drinking. These kids never smoking, drank.
They're seven years old, eight years old, five years old,
they're born with it. Then you're going to go home
(41:58):
and complain because uh, you know, the oar started late.
I'm going to go home and complain because my lean
body mass is under fifty. You know, you put things
in perspective, mean that's to answer your questions out finding
balance and joy. I do think about other people what
they've gone through, and yeah, I lost my wife to
a terrible cancer, a chemotherapy induced cancer. So she had
(42:20):
breast cancer, got the chemo. The chemo caused the leukemia
and acute myologenious leukemia. It only happens in one in
six hundred patients, and she was the unlucky one. And
it was horrible. It was horrible for my children, it
was horrible for me in our community. But it's part
of who I am and it's part of life. And
I got to look that I had twenty one incredible
years with her, and I know people who didn't have that.
(42:43):
So it you got to look at the positives because
there's so many other negatives out there that I see
every day. WHOA but like this cup, for instance, I mean,
look at this thing. I don't know if you could
here is here's the mug that they're giving me on
the set.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Oh my god, that's the sample jar is that the
cats do I use that for?
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I used that because the urine. Yeah? Is it clear enough?
It is? Yeah? Wed it to your profession perfect. I
feel like I'm on friends with this.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
What about the mystical and spiritual site of all of that?
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Do you do?
Speaker 3 (43:18):
You?
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Everybody ponders it right to do so? I have it,
and and part of that is my bias. Right I
was born, my mother had us go to church. My wife,
deeply religious, made all my boys go to a Catholic
high school, even if they didn't have the best baseball, football,
or hockey team or basketball team. So that's part of
who I am. And you have to be aware of
(43:39):
your own biases and the ones you can check and
can't check. So I do have a spiritual belief. I
still pray. I still believe in that. I'm not devout
in any way and and uh in ways people might think,
but have a very deep spiritual belief that there's something
much bigger than me out there.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
There's a there's a very old joke which I'm sure
you've heard, but I'm gonna tellt from your friend. My
buddy told me this same guy, So as a priest
and a rabbi go to a boxing match, right, and
they stand next to you, Sharida, and before the fight starts,
they watch and one of the fighters crosses himself right
(44:17):
before the fight stars, and the rabbi said, oh, we
don't mind my asking, but what does that mean when
he does that?
Speaker 2 (44:22):
And the priest says, if he can't fight, not a
fucking thing. It is exactly right, right. I love it.
And so the practice the accent makes it so funny
because if I say that, it just doesn't funny. Well,
it's laughing even I'm not laughing. But the livery in
the accent is perfect. But well you know, it's it's team.
Speaker 5 (44:44):
It's me and my team, and they tell you that
was just you.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
But what I take from the joke is there is
a spiritual belief, but there's also a belief in science
and the Actually, what I think is weird in current
culture is maybe too big a word, but maybe maybe
current Coleman thought is that somehow science and spirituality or
(45:10):
science and religion can't co exist, and then co existed
nearly all the time.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
They not only they coexist, they're inextricably intertwined. That's pretty good,
right there. Not intertwined. Very good I'm talking about. I
think you just went past the male clinic right there.
Path not to mention literative literal fifty muscle man finally
got in my head the muscles of the bridge. But no,
I think it they are. In fact, I submit to
(45:34):
you can't have one without the other, because I have
seen things happen that don't make sense. People respond to
tumor therapies and have a thing called an aescopal effect
that I won't get too much into it, but you
treat a local tumor and then their metastases go away.
There's no science for that, although we're working on that
with some some new technology called pulsatile electrical field and
(45:55):
other things. But so I see things that happen that
is beyond science that doesn't make sense to me. So
I do think that there's there's something there. They both coexist.
But what I always tell my kids, it's great to
have faith, it's great to have confidence, but unless you've
done the work in the gym or on the robotic simulator.
(46:17):
All my kids are successful, and we're really good athletes,
are practiced, that confidence can't be immersed and based on nonsense.
It has to be based on hard work and the
acquisition of skills in order to achieve. Then you want
to pray go ahead, just like the guy said, doesn't
mean anything unless he can actually fight, unless he's done,
he's done the work. I totally agree with it.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
What about do you ever think about your own mortality?
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Do you have the time you know you do? Do
you think about a continuation of consciousness? Do you do?
You know? You don't think that's a thing. So I
answered that maybe too quickly. I don't think that, you know,
someone like me is not is never going to you know,
God's never going to appear to me. Angels don't appear
to God like me. I'm not going to have an
odd of body experience because I'm just the guy. But
(47:04):
I do think and praise sometimes that I'm going to
see people like my wife when I go to that
when I pass away, I will have some other existence
where people who mean something to me, I'll have time
with them. That drives me a little bit. Also to
be the right thing, to do the right thing, to
always be the right person and make good decisions. Because
(47:28):
my wife is watching, or my father who passed away,
his watching right the most important person in my life
over the years, of course, is your dad. My dad
was an incredible physician, unbelievable man, just impeccable morals. I
don't want to do anything that would ever make him
not proud of me, or my wife or you know,
my current girlfriend, or my children. So those things drive
(47:50):
me that there is something else out there much more importantly.
That is watching and also guiding me. And I use
that in that fifth game of a pickleball match, I
might lose, but I use that to help me relax
and to perform under pressure. I'm really good at it.
In the o R I got to get better, and
the golf course and then the pickle ball singles court.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
But see, I think I think it is quite fascinating
because you've picked things the things you like to do.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Pickle Ball is very competitive.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Golf is you're always playing against yourself, really, that's who you.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
You never play against anyone else you can play against you.
I always play against someone else. And I'm like a
six and a half index, and I play against guys
with the same index, and we give no strokes, and
we go out a match play all the time every weekend.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
I see, I can't play golf like that. This is
how I play golf. I go out on my own
and I don't want to talk to anybody me.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Yeah, I just want to go ahead of my I
won't even go on stage if I have to poop.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
I work alone. Man, I didn't know you were going.
I said, we're going back to the other side.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
No I if I if I have to poop, we
got to take care of business before I go on stage.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
I don't like having anybody around, so I like that.
But you know you can do that and then we'll
go out and play. You're welcome to come up and
play golf, and we'd love to have you'd hate it
because because I'm no good. It doesn't matter if you're
Because because at this particular place, Silo Ridge, one of
the Discovery Lands, there's no dress code. You can play
two holes and get off. There's free alcohol, which probably
is not good for you. It's all right. Look if
(49:16):
it's free, it's never free to me. It's never free
to me, and I'm not a drinker. But I pushed
that on the guys. I'm playing against them, like you
do better after a shot, because I have shots to start.
But it's a unique place where it's so much when
you can play three holes and stop two holes, you
can go out and just go to the nine holes.
An amazing place in one of the best golf courses
and people and culture in the world. One of the
(49:36):
discovery lands called Silo Ridge.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
Well, i'll take it out, but let me just say
that we're kind of like.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Rolling to the end of this. But that was fast,
was it fast?
Speaker 5 (49:45):
No?
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Insually an hour with me really rolls. Yeah, it's about
an hour. Yeah, we did about an hour, so that'll
be I don't know what do you charge an hour?
It depends if it's a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
But like I say, I only talk to people I
want to talk to on this thing. I appreciate it,
and you are I fucking met everybody, everybody, and you
are a special human being.
Speaker 7 (50:14):
Well I don't know about but I appreciate. I appreciate
that perspective. It is absolutely the truth. And keep doing it.
And you know what, if it's you against the big c.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
One hundred percent, good for you. And that team is
the oncologist, the pulmonologist, the pathologist, all these people. You know,
I do want to put a plug in because you know,
we get this award as you know the best lung
cancer surgery or lung program and pulmonologists, but the pathologists,
the oncologists you know, Abe Jachoa, Josh Sabari all our
(50:48):
other oncologists who are world class get that accolade with us,
because how do you beat cancer. You don't beat it
with surgery alone. You know, Ben Cooper does radiation and
all these which is all part of the team. Uh,
It's just it's an amazing part of of what we do.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
Well, keep doing it and keep getting better at it.
I'm great to see You'll see you in the next
episode with you.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
It sounds great, sounds great. H
The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me,
buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.
(00:21):
I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but
you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They're available
at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour or
at your local outlet in your region. My name is
(00:45):
Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I
talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
My guest today has been here before, but he's so
expensive and funny and interesting, and I'll be honest, he's
a little weird, but that's kind of what you want
(01:07):
in someone who's as accomplished a surgeon as he is.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I know he's a surgeon.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
It's not any of this show business circus crap that
I usually get in here.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
He's a proper growing up doctor, doctor Robert J. S Folio.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So let me tell you this, yes, doctor, as a
doctor like sarcastically that I.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Shouldn't say that. You know why. You know, you didn't
deserve it.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
You are a doctor, and you're a very good doctor.
And that's and so I don't want to say doctor.
So let me let me try that again.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Let me tell you something, doctor, Yeah, that was a yeah,
all right.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
So the only rule I have for myself on this
podcast is I only talk to people I want to
talk to.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
That's the only rule. I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
See, and that's why you are my second repeat guest. Wow,
you're the only only the second person who ever did it?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
So now I have to ask who was the first?
Jesus very close, very close. Kathy Lee Geffert a very
good friend of Jesus, and she is, I mean, they
are best friend. You know. I listened to one of
your podcasts and it was her. Yeah, didn't do you know? Kathy?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
No, I feel I feel like you say that, like,
how would I meet you mean you're.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
A simple robotic lung surgeon. Why would I mean, come on?
Fuck you? Well that I hear a lot.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah. So the the idea that I would invite you
back is and I don't want you in any way
to think this is a way for me to get
free medical advice.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
But I'm happy to provide it because it's worth what
you pay for it. All right, So here you do
work on the esophius, right, I do. We've talked about
it that I think the last time you were here.
Because my father died of cancer. I remember. Obviously I'm paranoid,
but you have parrots. I do not have Barretts.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Because I got to nandoscope and they had to look
at what they called a molecular paneling and biopsy. Yeah, yeah,
that I got called Arnie Markowitz, did it?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
He's a sloon cattering beautiful. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So I don't want to I don't want to promote
the competition, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
No, So the competition is cancer and healthcare and equity
and diabetes. It's not slung kettering Columbia Cord. Now we
can say very noble man, but that is true. It
is true. And of course we can say that with
the NYU because we're the number one ranked lung cancer
program in the world and the number one hospital, number
two hospital in the United States and north of rank.
So of course we can take the higher road.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Wait, wait a minute, I got to ask then, in
the same way as Kathy Lee Gifford, who's.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
The number one hospital in the United States. Unfortunately, because
of a reputation factor as opposed to outcomes, the Mayo
Clinic is number one, number two. That's according to US
News and World Report, and also Mayo. They're named after
a condiment. It's not the it's not what you want
in a hospital. That's what we should be. That's what
we did wrong. You should be ketchup or some kind
(04:03):
of Berneese wow, that would have been that would have
played to the European client New York Bernese Hospital. That's it.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Then people really come to you. So let me ask
you this, right, So I got this. I got this
endoscope done. By the way, do you know that in
Britain on the National Health Service they give endoscopes without anesthesia.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
They do a lot of things in Britain in a
national healthcare system, like.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I was talking about Buddy and he gets an endoscope
he said, he said, I was the whole time I went,
you weren't asleep.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, it's crazy. Well, sometimes they do it because it's
a lot less expensive to do it in outpatient facilities,
which we do. But then to have an anesthesiologist there
as opposed to a nurse anesthesiologist to practice, you can
reduce your costs. And they give you a little bit
of twilight stuff like colonoscopy as opposed to being completely out. No,
I go for the phil probofall for the kolonoscopy too.
(04:55):
I remember that you enjoyed that.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, you know, it's not so much the caliscopy because
I have no memory.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
The fact you get one one a month has clued
me in that you would joy. Not so much the process.
I've got to be careful with that's medicine. Well you
know my history, you know with drugs. So I remember
like that prop See this is a thing. Did I
talk to you about this? What I got dental surgery done? No,
I don't know about the dental.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So I get a couple of years ago, I got
dental surgery done, and they give me a pain because
it's pretty painful thing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Right. It was like some bone marrow thing or something.
Bone it was. It wasn't a root canal. No, they
an extraction and then they put in an implant. Yeah,
I have an implant screwed into the bone. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
But they had to put bone marrow transplant in before
bone grafting. Yeah, an bone graft. So they do all
of that. It's all very painful. And the dog, she says,
here's some painkillers. And I said, well, I gotta be careful.
We went out, these would be all right, I take
one of these days. I don't even I don't even
put myself in charge of them. I give them to
my wife.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
That's fantastically responsible. Well, with my history, you gotta be careful,
and I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
So I give them to my wife, and I say,
all right, you'll none of these, and if it gets
too bad.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I'll take one. Right, so it gets really bad, which night,
first night? Second night? I think it was the second night,
you're not sure. It means they were working very well, but.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, so I take this one. It's called percisset.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, percocets. Jesus's that's the real deal.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I have never had a better drug in my fucking life. Really,
and I've taken one purpose of one of them. Man,
I just like the the I've taken everything everything, heroine, cocaine,
speed and all of I've had all all the drugs
I've had, But legal drugs.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Gosh, unbelieve it's interesting. So here's the funny thing. I
have never even had marijuana. I have tried nothing. Hate marijuana.
I hate the smell of it. I saw in New York.
It's says like you're in marijuana everywhere. It's unbelievable. I
come out of my apartment building at six thirty in
the morning, he goes see my patients, and the waft
of it sounds like a skunk. Literally sounds like a skunk.
(07:02):
That's what they call it. They call it skunk. It's
horrible people can do this. I just don't get it.
So I am so anti drug and alcohol just because
the way I was raising them, because being a doctor,
and see the message. You see what it does, See
what it does.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
We also I think it's uh, it's persecution against my people,
the Scots and the Irish because because.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Italians will be careful, there's a lot of wine going on.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
But here's the thing the Scot's in the Irish like
if you're a good old gooda Scots and Irish, you
know y gooda a good old Scots and I I
was going to say drunk, and then I changed my mind,
so it sided to goda.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I just made up a word. Go does the hell
of a word a go to you? We'll just make it.
We'll just make it. It's a new word. We developed
it right here Urban Dictionary. Right.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
So if you're a goda, which means good old drunk
from Scotland or Island, right, you have to hide your
shame by by putting it in a brown paper or
flask flasks or a brown paper bag in the streets,
so people think you're having a soda and everybody knows
you're not having soa direct but you have to hide it.
But if you're you know, one of those continental types
(08:05):
it likes to smoke marijuana cigarettes.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
You can just walk down the streets smoke at them.
It's crazy. Yeah, I like the days when at least
they had to hide it. Now my apartment building, I
have a nice apartment building two blocks from work, so
I can be in the o R if there's a
problem close to the patients, or there's an administrative problem.
I'm in in two minutes. There's people on my floor
that's smoking. Not supposed to smoke in the building.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, but it gets in people's clothes and in their
hair and stuff, and they can't smell anymore.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
It's like cat people.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
It is great analogy. It's like cat people. The cat people,
they can't smell like these smell a cat, but these smell.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
A cat, and they always smell like cats.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah, and their houses smell like cats. Terrible when you
go to their houses and I go to their houses
and love.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I don't know. So what's the affinity between you and
the cat people. It's just there might be a there
might be an important thread there emotionally for you.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Well, I think I've probably run in a tox of
plasmosis from an old girlfriend.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Maybe very good, you know, cox of plasma because I'm
because I know what cats can do.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
My brother in law was bitten by a cat right
what year was, I don't know, like four or five
years ago recently. Yeah, So he's bitten by a cat
and he goes to our doctor in California. It's bad
because my wife is with him at the time she
was about that, we were in Scotland. She was going
to come over at Scotland. She said, I gotta stay
I mean, he was bitten by a cat. You gotta
(09:23):
stay by.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
You gotta kitting's got in the airplane and go. Well
apparently he gives yes, he got Oh you are filming. Yeah,
the lion's got a red streaky infection going up the tendon.
That can actually be very serious. That can be very serious.
That they were saying, maybe we have to amputate the arm.
Maybe that's drastic ivy antibiotics train. Yeah, and they opened
(09:47):
the bite and drain it right.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
They did all that and it was fine. But I
mean they said, I if you had left it longer
from a cat. So here's my next question. Was the
cat alive the next day. The cat's doing my my
wife's family of cat people. They like cats. They may
like him more than they like her brother.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Well that's now, that was the next question, because there
was the brother there two days later. Because when you
got to choose between the cat and the brother in
law versus brother.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Well, he doesn't he I don't think he even puts
it together like he would have a cat to this day,
not that one. No, maybe not that one. But but
that's the thing. People like, we have a cat. I
am a cat in my house, but I know now
that that cat is a potential deadly killer.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
You could also lose in a hand right or another
appendage of your body.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I would never let a cat bite my peepe you
just oh listen, by the way, I want to talk
to you about plastic surgery.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Here's the thing that's funny. How he went right from
his penis the plastic service.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Well, this is the sam there is a thread the
definitely definitely well, I was thinking, I'm going to get place.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
It's about my time. Sixty two now, yeah, and I
am also you're sixty two or a twenty fourth nineteen nine,
nineteen sixty two, May seventeen. I remember that, remember right,
older than me, so I know a little more about it.
As the camera shows, you look just a little bit over. Well,
that's what I'm saying. But it was great in our
own mind. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Sixty two, I think, okay, it's time for some plastic surgery.
I thought I'll start with my testicles. Wait what, well,
I'll get my testicles improved in some.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Way, I don't can. I think they're very plump? Well
you think no, no symmetric.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Look, I think by the way, I think actually even
calling them testicles is medically an actorate agree?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
What do you want to call them? Testical and friend?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I heard that just because because let's be honest, it's it's.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Not it's not equal partnership.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
It's not it's not law and hardy, it's you know,
it's testical and friend, it's you know, well so, so
I think what I'd like to do is have it
put into I'll have the other one built up, and
then the whole surrounding package smoothed out.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
They don't smooth. You don't want that smooth out. That's
got a certain ruga around it, so you have a
certain skin around it so if you get cold, it
can retract and help you stay warm. That's why this
has teleologically been selected for over eons of evolution to
work as well as they work. What do they know
(12:17):
about it so much? But here's the thing with the population.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
But what if I get my testicles, like, maybe get
some kind of coating put on them so they.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Don't get cold. So we're gonna you want fur coats
I want to look. I have a kind of threadbare
fur coat there already. But what I'm saying is silic,
some kind of silicon thing.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Maybe it's best. It's super effective chemical. Yeah, I forget
these links.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
It's a bit cancery, but it's a little Yeah. But
what I thought i'd do is if I have a
procedure done on my testicles. First, this is my insurance policy.
If they bought it, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
It's true because their testicles they look butched already. Nobody
and nobody sees them. Well, nobody cares, not that you're
showing testicular cleavage. I mean, it's not a common thing. Well,
you know, he could be. But if that was at
the Olympics. You saw that thing at the Olympics by
the guy with the swimming the French guy. No, the
opening ceremony of the Olympics, they had, Uh, that was outrageous.
(13:19):
It was outraged, mocking. Don't ask Kathy Lee about they
were mocking the last supper. Yeah, there was a guy
there with half a pair of pants showing the lower
hemi aspect of one of his testicles. That's outrageous. It's incredible.
We running here like under underball. Showing under ball, you
could say underball, I'm a physicians, I'm using some other
(13:39):
terms saying the same.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
I'm just I'm just speaking to the populace people who
want to understand what's going on medical, you know, like
the lower pole of the right descended testicle, but you
couldn't say it the underball, all right, so underball.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
So the guy who showed under ball, I saw a
picture of it. One of the patients was showing it
to me. They couldn't believe it. That's outrageous.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
So look, I figured though, that if I get the
plastic surgery done, you know, and they butcher, it doesn't matter,
because testicles look like they're botched.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
They do. They're one of the most ugliest.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
They are the deep sea creature of your pants. There's
no doubt about it. They they are, they're they're they're terrible.
They're not attractive. And anyway, as as a world renowned
surgeon and doctor, right, well, no team, our team is
world Your team is the number one lung cancer surgical
program again according to the US News and World.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Right right this year this year. Now, first of all,
we're tied tied for the Mayo clinic, the Mayo Clinic
also good. They're they're pretty good, all right. Our outcomes
are better, they're their reputation factor.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
I have to say for for someone in your line
and work, outcomes extremely important.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It kind of matters. It's kind of important. I know
that the work you do is so do.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
The work you and your team do right, yes, is
so harrowing, so focused, and so high stakes and such
a difficult thing to do. And yet over the time
getting to know you, you are a light, easy, cheerful,
(15:25):
upbeat human being.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And I find that fascinating. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
But I'm kind of interested, is to because I know
a little bit about your story.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
We talked in the last time.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
You got some tragedy in your past, You've got difficulty
in your own life, and.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
All everyone's had challenges, of course.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Of course, but I wonder and what I want to
talk to you about today was a little bit about
maintaining emotional equilibrium as someone who works in the face
of death almost every day.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Such a great question, because I would tell you there's
people listening who do very difficult brain surgery or brain
aneurysm surgery, or some of our cardiac surgeons that do
aortic work. We're going to say, this guy's just a
little robotic lung surgeon. He's not dealing with life and
death like I'm or people who do other jobs out
there that are putting themselves at danger. My patient's at danger,
(16:20):
but I'm sitting on a robot. I got my nice
lucky socks on. I'm comfortable. I'm not a danger like
people that serve community. So I always look at it
that way. That I was operating yesterday very blessed. We
had three or four visitors from other countries and a
college student and a medical student. And during the operation,
the one guy came over to me and said, you're
(16:41):
really having fun. I'm like, they pay me to do this.
How lucky am I that I get paid to do this?
And then to help inspire and teach. A world famous
guy was there from China, a world famous guy was
there from Spain. The other person was from from France.
What a great honor to be able to have those
people in our ore. And you're teaching these guys these well,
(17:03):
and they teach us. So I mean it's an exchange
of ideas because every single one of our visitors does
something better than we do. If you listen, if you
listen to them, they all have better ways to do
things than us, every one of them.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
This is all very good, doctor, but let's have a
a let's work with the idea that I am the
therapist and you.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Okay, I thought we were out of the patient. I
switch it somehow. I don't bet because I said to.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
You, how do you maintain emotional equilibrium in the face
of life and death decisions for other people? Sometimes, yes,
that you're making And you, doctor told me about all
the people that do other work. And I think that's
lovely and noble, but it ain't.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
But that's my answer. Really, that actually is my saying
about other people. I honestly do because I know that
other people that are doing things that are more dangerous,
right they have a higher like our risk of lung
our ninety day mortality for long surgy is almost zero now.
When I started, it was two and a half percent.
Now with little incisions and robots and the anaesthesiologists are
(18:03):
so good, in the nurses and the pulmonologists, it's zero
our last five years. That's why we're number one in
US news and will report our outcomes are amazing, and
that's a credit to the team. But there's things like
other types of operations that have much higher morbidity immortality.
So to answer your question directly and not evaded, not
to switch therapist patient.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
I didn't think you were evade. I think that you are.
I think you are a genuinely upbeat I am nice guys.
It's just my nature.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
As I always see the glass half full, of the
coffee cup right half full. I always have seen it
that way. I'm so lucky to get to do what
I do. I don't find it stressful. I thrive on competition.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I'm a member of a place I go up to
on the weekends and I play golf and pickleball, and
unless it's super close, and unless it comes down to
the last putt or the last drive in the eighteenth hole,
or the fifth game, I play singles pickleball with a
couple of incredible athletes who are unbelievably successful, people much
more successful than me, and it comes down to that
fifth game, that final point. That is what I thrive on.
(19:08):
And I love that, and unfortunately oftentimes I lose. Is
going to be a nice question, Are you a good loser.
Are you good at it? No, I'm a terrible loser.
You want to hear from a surgeon. Yeah, Now, in
the O R, we can't lose. So in the O
we've been very fortunate not to have had a thirty
or ninety immortality in literally almost six years on an
elect of lung cancer. That's a credit to the team
(19:30):
and to all the techniques we've talked to me about
elective lung surgery.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
That means said, you tell a patient, look, you got
something here you want to do with it? Or no,
that's that's basically yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
And we say you have a growing nodule, it looks
like an obvious cancer. And before surgery, we assess their
risks with breathing tests, stress tests, echo cardiogram, we get
a cat scan, a PETS gain, we make sure it
hasn't metastasized. So we stage their cancer. We assess their risks,
and then we do an operation that I've done nineteen thousand,
(20:01):
one hundred and eighteen of I think, now, wow, over
two thousand, eight hundred robots. And so when you do
that every day, and I have partners who are better
than me, and partners who do this as well, and
we as a team come together and meet every quarter.
How can we get better? How can we give the
patient a better experience? Because our outcomes are so good,
how can we give them a better experience? So we
give them our cell phone. We do facetimes with them
(20:23):
on the weekend. Yeah, they check in with me every day,
throwing a percoset in there as well. They get purposes
for three days. Because it is a victim get elective
lung surgery, we throw it a few more. You're going
to be on the table with nothing in your lungs. No,
do you give it the percose that you can do
what you fucking like? Give it a p I've heard
(20:43):
that before.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Oh my god, I mean, is a consideration and you're
lying to work, you go like you look at the
personality of a patient and you say, look, this is
the person with drug and alcohol history.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
They have a problem with it.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
And yet this surgery has to be done and they're
going to need a painkiller after it is consideration?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Do you think about it? Not only is the consideration,
it is something we preemptively work on and we get
them into a pain clinic even before surgery. That's interesting,
so that there's a pain doctor who can manage the narcotics,
because it's like drinking a cup of coffee. If you
have twenty cups of coffee day, me giving the other
one doesn't help. So if you're comingly actively addicted to
any type of narcotic and then I'm going to rev
(21:22):
up your pain cycle with an operation. Even little tiny
incisions hurt, they're going to require a lot more. It's
incumbent on us actually to do that. And I think
we do a great job again because we have amazing
pain doctors at NYU lang On Health. Well. Pain is
one thing, but addiction is another.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
It is, and so I wonder is it like particularly
something like the world that I move in.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I know a lot of sober alcoholics and.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
And a law of not a law, but I have
heard stories, and I've known people who have had long
time sobriety screwed.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Up through procedures. Yeah they have. They have a procedure, yep.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
They take a painkiller and they're not prepared for what
it does, you know, and and it sets off a
cycle of addiction, which is difficult to understand.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I think even if you have and I have it,
I don't think it's difficult to understand. We I mean,
we all know as healthcare providers what these medicines can do. Right,
we only can give you three pills when you leave
the hospital. You have to come back and see us
in person. We try to get that history now where
we can get smoked or burned when the patient is
one hundred percent honest and I had one of those
(22:33):
last year, and you know, then all of a sudden,
they're a week out, two weeks out, and they're doing
more drug seeking behavior, and it's like, what have we missed?
Then you see them in person. I always you say,
bring a family member, and the family member usually says, well,
you know, doctor Ugo, twenty days ago, patient X was
taken four these a day because it quote back pain.
(22:55):
Who's giving it to you? Oh, we have a wonderful
medical doctor who gives us twenty a week. I don't know.
So then we get an immediate in our pain clinic.
And then they become difficult conversations because of course the
patient has a viewpoint, an advantage point that's a little
bit different sometimes from the healthcare provider, and you need
to listen in the answer somewhere in the middle. But
do you support if a pain is psycho semitic. Yes, Yes,
(23:19):
I had a patient today that I think it is
because they had a lesion in their chest that just
doesn't cause the pain that they're having, and that pain
only occurred once the patient got the cat skin and
heard that division.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yes, So it's interesting to me because the idea of
the emotionality of that, I find this fascinating. I've had
a friend, a couple of friends actually now who have
had heart surgeries, big ones.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, bypass all wires in the sternamy.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
So the effect of the surgery physically on both of
these guys was extremely one hundred percent successful. Yeah, they
both experienced profound owned the depression.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yes, after the surge. I've heard of that. Yeah, no one.
I mean I'm not you know, I don't anything the
basis and I'm not a scientist.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
But yeah, is that is that something that you're aware
of after because even after like a tiny surgery, if
I get I'm like, eh, messes with your head a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So there's two things in that. First of all, being
on cardiopulmonary bypass, which is something that happens specifically with
heart surgery because the heart's not beating. Then you have
to put him in a pump that both oxygenates and
circulates the blood around, so the machine is keeping you alive.
The machine's keeping there's some data that that could hurt
cognitive function. Remember my dad was a super smart surgeon.
(24:41):
He had bypassed. I gave him this IQ test before,
and like two months later he didn't do as well.
I'm like, bro, what the hell's going on here?
Speaker 6 (24:48):
You know?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
And then we did it again and he got better.
But so I think depression is common from a general
anesthetic depression and cognitive loss has been bantered around about
being on bypass, but there's no good data for it.
I think clearly maybe just being in the hospital, coming
in an operating room, dealing with your own mortality. No
matter what you say, everyone wonders, am I going to
wake up? Even a lung operation where we haven't had
(25:10):
a problem in years, every patient wonders, am I going
to wake up for this? I mean, I've had operations
and I always wonder, is this, like, you know, this
is the last thing I'm going to see my own
The last one was in my own O R. I
really can I ask what you were getting done? Is
I had your testicles, even I had plastic surgeon. I'm
on a lower poll in my right hemmy understand testically
(25:31):
getting the underball, and I always told that it looked
really bad and it needed to be fixed. Okay, it's
always nice to have symmetrical underball. There you go. So
what are you getting done? I had my bilateral need replaced,
all right? Yeah, so I can run around and play
pickleball with twenty one.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Year old I'm avoiding the knee thing right now myself.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
The best d well it is leg day. But yeah,
that's the best thing I did. Really. I could not run,
I couldn't compete, I couldn't play, I couldn't do all
the stuff I wanted to do. And for me, it's
about quality of life, not quantity, for sure, Yeah, for sure.
So I'm glad I did it well. Good? Were you
tough on yourself? You're probably a terrible patient, right. I
had it done the day before Christmas, both needs at
(26:12):
the same time, and I was back in the oar
January fifteenth. And that was a mistake, Craig, That was
a mistake because that was really sore and swollen. The
operations went well, and then the next Wednesday, I just
put one case out and then I waited another week
and I was a little bit better. But that's a
big operation with big recovery. I missed. I mean I
recovered quickly, but I blew that one. I need a
(26:35):
little more time. Well, I think that the danger is
as well. I mean, look, I go there, I'm not
a doctor, but you know I'm just you are a doctor.
You're getting a doctorate degree, honorary doctorate, and services to
show business in the industry, right, Okay, I would like
to doctor Ferguson. I'd be like doctor Jill Biden or
doctor Phil you know what I mean. Like had to
(26:56):
be a little different, a little different than that, just
a little bit t I'm gonna let you roll with it,
doctor Dre. Maybe then you can ask for the same
honor aarium because you are you will be a doctor.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Well, I think that's what it's about really For me,
I would like an ornary doctorate so that my corporate
rate for speaking as events goes through the roof.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
There you go, and that's what it's all about. You
live inside New York City, don't you.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
I live two blocks away. I two blocks away but
you pay the New York tax. I pay the New
York City state tax, the New York City tax, the
federal government tax. I'm a fifty three percent tax provider.
Do you know what? I'm an idiot?
Speaker 1 (27:35):
If if you were in the UK, yeah, you'd be
paying more. I'd be paying more. Yeah, I get it's
one of these. Is why I live in America.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
But if I was living in Florida, I'd be paying
a lot less.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Well, that is true, and they can't take your house
away from you in Florida.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Florida, and I think New Hampshire. That's a couple of
the other ones. Know about New Hampshire.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Also, these squatters, these squatters can take your house away
from you, but that's a difference. They move into your
house if you're not out there, and they can't get
rid of them where. I'll let you read about it.
I was just another patient. Tell me about that. Really, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Don't know about that. I don't want that happening. And
I'll never leave my house again.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
You won't. You'll come there, there'll be eight people hanging out,
throwing your furniture in the fireplace.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Nobody that, nobody wants to live in my house. Oh
my stuff is there.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
They might like your stuff. All right, this makes me
very sad. I don't like this at all, just the
reality of the squatterville that we live. You're not originally
from New York, New Jersey, New Jersey. That explains a lot.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
So you came up in the world. Then are you
from Franklin, Lakesburg and County. I don't know that, par
I know North all right? Okay, so I know the
place that John bon Jovi is from. Is that Red Bank?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Oh that's that's further Yeah, that's nice down there. Yeah,
well the shores are beautiful there, Yeah, beautiful. You know
the thing is when you could drive down the Red Bank.
We'll get back on you in a minute. But when
you look.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
With the Red Bank, the Red Bank, they have the
John bon Jovi service station, like.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
An actual gas where he works, like a rest stop
or something named after him. There's nobody there that's not
even John bon Jovi. Nobody. That's when you know you
hit it big when they have a rest stop, deserted
rest stop named after you. It's like a Scooby Doo says,
I mean, is by a snack like Yodels twinky, not
(29:25):
a thing, and he's not there, not even a picture
of him. Wait a minute, it's named after There's got
to be a plaque besides them.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
You know. And there's another one in a really good one. Actually,
rest up the James Gandolfini rest up in New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
That's what the diner is. That's where the diner. You
could sit in that. But somebody bought that booth. I
heard from him. But that's it. That's a different thing.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I mean, clearly, John bon Jovi's people need to be
looking into this.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
They do because because the guy's been much more successful. Well, yeah,
there's abous drawbacks. Obviously, he's he's been dead for a while.
That kind of helps. When you're dead, What are you
die of? It was something, but it wasn't a heart attack.
I think it was a heart attack. That was heart attack?
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Is that a tam that you guys actually would use
now acurate mielcardial infarction? All right, But a heart attack
can cover a bunch of different things, right, No heart attack.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Really means you have is schemia to the heart scheme
means low blood supply, right, and then the heart has
gets an infarct that dies and without enough blood supply,
no oxygen, no blood going to it, so can't empty
oxygen to the myocytes, the cells of the heart, that
part of the heart dies and it usually leads to
an arrhythmia, and the arrhythmia is what takes your life.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Actually, all right, So the irregular heartbeat thing is that, well,
that's an irregular heart beats.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Different these are fatal arrhythmias. A regular heartbeats that people
have a fib a flutter, that's very common. They don't
take your life. They're a nuisance we need to treat
with either blood thinners or replation or surgery. Are you hyper.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Aware of your own physical well being because of what
you know is so much?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Well, I don't know so much, but you're a medical
do I'm meant to totally into fitness. Like I weigh
myself every morning and work out four five times a week.
Measure my total body fat content which is now down
to ten percent, muscle and my lean muscle body masses
up to forty nine percent, which is good. Right, goal
was fifty So I know there, but you're nearly there.
(31:22):
We're going to hit it next quarter. Yeah, but yeah,
totally because I think in order to really super perform
or to permit your best, you know, as a husband
or a father, as a doctor, as a role model,
as a brother or sister, whatever it is, you really
have to have emotional and physical wellness and joy and
a playfulness. And if you don't have that, if you
(31:42):
don't have if you don't see the delight and the
play in life, and I don't think you can do
that unless you're really physically and mentally well, then you
really can't serve the people around you. I really firmly
believe in that. I think that's quite interesting.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
I agree with you, but not that that would mark
to you because I'm not appear in your business.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
But but you're a doctor. I'm getting there. You will be,
you know.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I think that it's a very holistic approach though, yes,
which is not there's not a great history of that
in your profession. The holistic approach to medicine is there.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I mean, it's fairly new that idea, especially insurgents, because
it takes it's so hard, it's such the training was
used to be so hard. It used to be one
hundred and twenty hours a week. Now we're only down
to eighty hours a week. Right, it's still you know,
four years of college, four years of medical school, five
years of general surgical training, two or three years of
fellowship training, and then usually another year. So you're thirty
(32:37):
four or thirty three when you first start out, you're
in debt, you're tired. Usually people have a family, there's
all these other issues, and you've devoted your whole life
to your trade that you've then given up parts of
your life that are more important, your roles at home,
which are supersede obviously your roles at work.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
But you've got to be driven to achieve that escape
velocity to meet and efficient see that. Back in the
day though, like in the Middle Ages, surgeons and barbers
they were the same thing.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Did you know that? Actually I believe I've heard that. Yeah,
because you know the red and white barber pool. Correct,
there is a medical poll.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Right, they used to have a pool and it was
a bloody toe wrapped right, so that red and white.
So what I'm gett up to is do you think
you could give a decent haircut?
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Hell? No no, But why not like to look at
your hairs perfect? Holp the camera, hope the camera sees
how I mean? I got my hair is all messed
the hell up, and hair is great.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
You're talking about tom my hair has reached fifty percent
body fat.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
The goal was forty. Visit the exercise program I sent
you on pdf by the email last week. Do you
do that? TOI pitious? You say, look, this is a program.
I want you to do that. So you had to
off to someone you gotta be a little bit careful
because I'm seeing them for lung cancer, but I am
taking care of the patient. When you have someone who
has either morbid obesity or other a that we know
(34:01):
actually represents a greater risk to their life than the
lung cancer, it is incumbent on me to say, we
need to get you in the gym, We need to
mix in a better diet, we need to get to this.
And of course everybody wants the shot, right, everybody wants Yeah,
they want some sort of a GOLP one inhibitor or something.
Is that what is Yeah, that's what is it. These
(34:22):
are glucajohn inhibitors. But the point is they make you
feel full, they reduce your appetite, and they reduce your
gastric emptying. So actually, if you're gonna have surgery. You
need to stop that two or three weeks before the operation,
just because when you go to sleep. We want to
remember they tell you don't need your drink after midnight.
That's your stomach empties. So when you go to sleep,
you don't aspirate food into your lungs. But if you
(34:44):
have a medicine that prevents the stomach from emptying, which
is what these inhibitors do. Hold on, hold on, you're
telling me.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Then if you take a zampick and you've got like
you have, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
A burger. That burger is just going to around there
for a while. It sits around your gastric empty time
is longer. Yeah, I don't like this at all. This
sounds dangerous to me. Well, it's not.
Speaker 6 (35:09):
We could go bad in there. It's already pretty bad
once it goes into your mouth. But it's a burger, right,
not like it's a sterile thing where you eat. Number
two is going into a giant sack of acid and bile.
So that's necessterily right exactly. But it does decrease your
transit at leads to constipation. People have a domino pain
if it's not dosed correctly. If you have to start
(35:31):
very slow and then slowly increase it.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I'm not an expert on this. I would refer to
the doctors who do it sure, but I know as
a physician. Now now I ask everybody, by the way,
are you on anything for weight loss? Because we're operating there,
and so many of them will say no. And then
the husband or the wife, or the family or the daughter,
and I said, okay, tell the doctor because they don't
want to tell us. And I say, well, you need
to stop that a few weeks before because it does
(35:55):
increase your risk of aspiration with induction. At least that's
the theory. See. Now I have a friend. You have
lots of friends, right, it's all the same guy with
a great story. The hell, I gotta go out drinking
with this guy. He doesn't drink anymore. I wonder what.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
But I have a friend who lost.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
They're all the same guy.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
I have a friend and he took ozembic and he
lost a lot of way and he looks great. And
I said to him, what does it do? And he said,
exactly what you do? He said, you just don't you
don't feel hungry. I don't eat because I'm hungry I
eat because I'm sad.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
That's interesting. Yeah, So I don't. It's not going to
work for me. So I eat when I'm sad. I mean,
last night we went out to dinner and I had
a racing fork. I had a racing strip by my
fork because I had that dessert and I'm just all this.
It's the devil though, but.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
In an Italian restaurant last night, and the chocolateate thing
and it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
The one you have to order early because it's a
long time. I love that one. Well.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
See that's the danger of New York City as well.
Everything is delicious everything.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
There's great food there, great people, great food, great culture.
I have to say, I was away from New York
for a long time. You missed and New York missed you.
I missed it a lot.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I missed it a lot, and I'm happy to be back.
I saw i'd go to the Rangers game. But a
couple of weeks ago, the New York Rangers, New York
hang on. Remember I'm a sports fan, right. The NHL
season has been over for a few months, bro, all right.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
So it was a couple of months. A couple of
months ago they lost in the playoffs. Extremely disappointed.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, but they made the playoffs and that's where that
because they won that they want.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Residents Trophy, they won the President's Trevia at the best
record of any EHL team, That's what I meant. And
they weren't seated first. If you look at the Vegas odds,
they were second. But they should have gone to the
finals and they ended up didn't make it very disappointing
for me as a Rabbit, a Ranger fan.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Well, you're gonna hate what I've got to tell, you know,
I'm not gonna like. So I go, I call up
my guys and I say, listen, my.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Uncle Vinny from New Jersey. That guy. Maybe maybe it's
a guy I know, maybe it's not. Maybe you don't
ask that question. Maybe I don't get my break my
little rigoglass. Hey, mister robut search and you need those fingers?
No I don't, Yes, sir, I'll get you the money tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
So I call my I call a friend of mine
and a friend of ours, let's say, a friend of
ours and guy same guy, uh, And I say uh,
I'd say, can you get me in the Rangers game?
Speaker 2 (38:32):
And because they got me in before?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
And he said sure, And actually the New York Rangers
are fantastic. They're just beautiful the way they do the hospitality.
Come along, yes, but we remember you come on. And
so they have this like whole backstage thing. Yes, and
I go into this suite. They give you free popcorn. Yeah,
they give you dinner. It's like a full dinner.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Forget the dinner. You got free popcorn and free pop corn.
And that makes me mad because I have to pay
for my pop.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Well, it's and then they sit you in a little
private room and then you go out to the thing
and then they put your face up on it.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
You're on the jumbo screen. And then some people go
who's and everyone knows who you are.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
And then what he did was they're playing a game.
And this is my thirteen year old son's first professional
hockey game.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Best sport to watch in person is an NHL hockey game.
It's amazing and so exciting. The lights, the ice, the
snow when they stopped the puck, the speed, the violence,
so awesome.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
The puck comes off the ice right, security guy grabs
the puck.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Gives it to my kid. That's also his first hockey game,
and he had all his teeth when he goes Yeah. Yeah, yes,
guys don't when they get there first. No, he got
he just go handed. Yeah, so he has to know.
But I played hockey since I was five or six
years old, and I played in high school and got
recruited not by Division one teams it wasn't good enough,
but a few Division three teams. But I played baseball
(39:57):
in college as opposed to ice hockey.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
But I I'm not surprised by that though, because I
know that surge and culture, doctor culture and jock culture.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
This is almost exactly the same thing.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
You know, you guys are all kind of bro phil
the burn, fix the guy.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Feel the burn, and fix the guys where the hill
is the same it fhil the burn, fix the patient.
Do it right when take that death? Take that? But
you're right there, yea, there is that. Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
I wonder because I mentioned death and uh, and it
is part of life. Fortunately it's the very end of it.
Usually it's the end of it. You've been around it.
We've all been around it. But you've you've been you've
been around it in a way which both personally, which
we all have personally in one way or another. But
professionally you get to see it sometimes, especially.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
When because I do pediatrics, especially Jesus, we've had a
few recently who really been devastating. Yeah to the team,
to the staff, listen to the patient and the family
first and foremost of course, and it's all about them.
But when you know this is a patient who would
be operate on many times, and I won't say more
than that, so we become part of the family, of course.
(41:15):
And when you ultimately fail the patient and the mother
and the father and the uncles and sisters and they
succumb to the disease, it's incredibly it's it's humbling, and
it just reminds you. And this is why I have joy,
because you realize when you watch young people seven eight, nine, twelve, fifteen,
(41:36):
thirteen succumb to illnesses that they didn't deserve, that they
they shouldn't have never had, and you watch that and
you go home, you any closer to finding out No,
these are usually genetic mutations and being unlucky. You know,
it's not smoking and drinking. These kids never smoking, drank.
They're seven years old, eight years old, five years old,
they're born with it. Then you're going to go home
(41:58):
and complain because uh, you know, the oar started late.
I'm going to go home and complain because my lean
body mass is under fifty. You know, you put things
in perspective, mean that's to answer your questions out finding
balance and joy. I do think about other people what
they've gone through, and yeah, I lost my wife to
a terrible cancer, a chemotherapy induced cancer. So she had
(42:20):
breast cancer, got the chemo. The chemo caused the leukemia
and acute myologenious leukemia. It only happens in one in
six hundred patients, and she was the unlucky one. And
it was horrible. It was horrible for my children, it
was horrible for me in our community. But it's part
of who I am and it's part of life. And
I got to look that I had twenty one incredible
years with her, and I know people who didn't have that.
(42:43):
So it you got to look at the positives because
there's so many other negatives out there that I see
every day. WHOA but like this cup, for instance, I mean,
look at this thing. I don't know if you could
here is here's the mug that they're giving me on
the set.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Oh my god, that's the sample jar is that the
cats do I use that for?
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I used that because the urine. Yeah? Is it clear enough?
It is? Yeah? Wed it to your profession perfect. I
feel like I'm on friends with this.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
What about the mystical and spiritual site of all of that?
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Do you do?
Speaker 3 (43:18):
You?
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Everybody ponders it right to do so? I have it,
and and part of that is my bias. Right I
was born, my mother had us go to church. My wife,
deeply religious, made all my boys go to a Catholic
high school, even if they didn't have the best baseball, football,
or hockey team or basketball team. So that's part of
who I am. And you have to be aware of
(43:39):
your own biases and the ones you can check and
can't check. So I do have a spiritual belief. I
still pray. I still believe in that. I'm not devout
in any way and and uh in ways people might think,
but have a very deep spiritual belief that there's something
much bigger than me out there.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
There's a there's a very old joke which I'm sure
you've heard, but I'm gonna tellt from your friend. My
buddy told me this same guy, So as a priest
and a rabbi go to a boxing match, right, and
they stand next to you, Sharida, and before the fight starts,
they watch and one of the fighters crosses himself right
(44:17):
before the fight stars, and the rabbi said, oh, we
don't mind my asking, but what does that mean when
he does that?
Speaker 2 (44:22):
And the priest says, if he can't fight, not a
fucking thing. It is exactly right, right. I love it.
And so the practice the accent makes it so funny
because if I say that, it just doesn't funny. Well,
it's laughing even I'm not laughing. But the livery in
the accent is perfect. But well you know, it's it's team.
Speaker 5 (44:44):
It's me and my team, and they tell you that
was just you.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
But what I take from the joke is there is
a spiritual belief, but there's also a belief in science
and the Actually, what I think is weird in current
culture is maybe too big a word, but maybe maybe
current Coleman thought is that somehow science and spirituality or
(45:10):
science and religion can't co exist, and then co existed
nearly all the time.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
They not only they coexist, they're inextricably intertwined. That's pretty good,
right there. Not intertwined. Very good I'm talking about. I
think you just went past the male clinic right there.
Path not to mention literative literal fifty muscle man finally
got in my head the muscles of the bridge. But no,
I think it they are. In fact, I submit to
(45:34):
you can't have one without the other, because I have
seen things happen that don't make sense. People respond to
tumor therapies and have a thing called an aescopal effect
that I won't get too much into it, but you
treat a local tumor and then their metastases go away.
There's no science for that, although we're working on that
with some some new technology called pulsatile electrical field and
(45:55):
other things. But so I see things that happen that
is beyond science that doesn't make sense to me. So
I do think that there's there's something there. They both coexist.
But what I always tell my kids, it's great to
have faith, it's great to have confidence, but unless you've
done the work in the gym or on the robotic simulator.
(46:17):
All my kids are successful, and we're really good athletes,
are practiced, that confidence can't be immersed and based on nonsense.
It has to be based on hard work and the
acquisition of skills in order to achieve. Then you want
to pray go ahead, just like the guy said, doesn't
mean anything unless he can actually fight, unless he's done,
he's done the work. I totally agree with it.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
What about do you ever think about your own mortality?
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Do you have the time you know you do? Do
you think about a continuation of consciousness? Do you do?
You know? You don't think that's a thing. So I
answered that maybe too quickly. I don't think that, you know,
someone like me is not is never going to you know,
God's never going to appear to me. Angels don't appear
to God like me. I'm not going to have an
odd of body experience because I'm just the guy. But
(47:04):
I do think and praise sometimes that I'm going to
see people like my wife when I go to that
when I pass away, I will have some other existence
where people who mean something to me, I'll have time
with them. That drives me a little bit. Also to
be the right thing, to do the right thing, to
always be the right person and make good decisions. Because
(47:28):
my wife is watching, or my father who passed away,
his watching right the most important person in my life
over the years, of course, is your dad. My dad
was an incredible physician, unbelievable man, just impeccable morals. I
don't want to do anything that would ever make him
not proud of me, or my wife or you know,
my current girlfriend, or my children. So those things drive
(47:50):
me that there is something else out there much more importantly.
That is watching and also guiding me. And I use
that in that fifth game of a pickleball match, I
might lose, but I use that to help me relax
and to perform under pressure. I'm really good at it.
In the o R I got to get better, and
the golf course and then the pickle ball singles court.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
But see, I think I think it is quite fascinating
because you've picked things the things you like to do.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Pickle Ball is very competitive.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Golf is you're always playing against yourself, really, that's who you.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
You never play against anyone else you can play against you.
I always play against someone else. And I'm like a
six and a half index, and I play against guys
with the same index, and we give no strokes, and
we go out a match play all the time every weekend.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
I see, I can't play golf like that. This is
how I play golf. I go out on my own
and I don't want to talk to anybody me.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Yeah, I just want to go ahead of my I
won't even go on stage if I have to poop.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
I work alone. Man, I didn't know you were going.
I said, we're going back to the other side.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
No I if I if I have to poop, we
got to take care of business before I go on stage.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
I don't like having anybody around, so I like that.
But you know you can do that and then we'll
go out and play. You're welcome to come up and
play golf, and we'd love to have you'd hate it
because because I'm no good. It doesn't matter if you're
Because because at this particular place, Silo Ridge, one of
the Discovery Lands, there's no dress code. You can play
two holes and get off. There's free alcohol, which probably
is not good for you. It's all right. Look if
(49:16):
it's free, it's never free to me. It's never free
to me, and I'm not a drinker. But I pushed
that on the guys. I'm playing against them, like you
do better after a shot, because I have shots to start.
But it's a unique place where it's so much when
you can play three holes and stop two holes, you
can go out and just go to the nine holes.
An amazing place in one of the best golf courses
and people and culture in the world. One of the
(49:36):
discovery lands called Silo Ridge.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
Well, i'll take it out, but let me just say
that we're kind of like.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Rolling to the end of this. But that was fast,
was it fast?
Speaker 5 (49:45):
No?
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Insually an hour with me really rolls. Yeah, it's about
an hour. Yeah, we did about an hour, so that'll
be I don't know what do you charge an hour?
It depends if it's a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
But like I say, I only talk to people I
want to talk to on this thing. I appreciate it,
and you are I fucking met everybody, everybody, and you
are a special human being.
Speaker 7 (50:14):
Well I don't know about but I appreciate. I appreciate
that perspective. It is absolutely the truth. And keep doing it.
And you know what, if it's you against the big c.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
One hundred percent, good for you. And that team is
the oncologist, the pulmonologist, the pathologist, all these people. You know,
I do want to put a plug in because you know,
we get this award as you know the best lung
cancer surgery or lung program and pulmonologists, but the pathologists,
the oncologists you know, Abe Jachoa, Josh Sabari all our
(50:48):
other oncologists who are world class get that accolade with us,
because how do you beat cancer. You don't beat it
with surgery alone. You know, Ben Cooper does radiation and
all these which is all part of the team. Uh,
It's just it's an amazing part of of what we do.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
Well, keep doing it and keep getting better at it.
I'm great to see You'll see you in the next
episode with you.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
It sounds great, sounds great. H
Host
Craig Ferguson
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