Heroes in Business - HVTV Presents Lighting the Educational Flame with Dr. Jeff Kopstein

Episode Date: March 12, 2022

Host Marc Hoberman talks with Dr. Jeff Kopstein about the education needed to go into the field of medicine. He also speaks about the pandemic, vaccines, and his experiences working in the hospital setting in this episode of Lighting the Educational Flame presented by HVTV.  

Welcome to the talk show, Lighting the Educational Flame, with your host, Mark Hoberman. The goal of this show is to provide a learning experience to people of all ages, with guests from various fields and academics, a wide range of industries, and insight into the many forms of art, athletics, and entertainment. We hope you enjoy the show. Emergency room doctor, Jeff Kopstein, joins us tonight. Jeff will talk about his passion for medicine and helping others. Tonight, we get a glimpse into the world of medicine from a man who is spending his life helping others stay healthy.

Hello and welcome to the talk show Lighting the Educational Flame brought to you by Great Success Education. I'm your host, Mark Hoberman. Today's guest is Dr. Jeff Kopstein. Jeff, welcome to Lighting the Educational Flame. Hi there. Thanks, Mark. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's great to have you.

Boy, I got a doctor all to myself for a good half hour. I got a pain right here. That's the first thing you usually hear. Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure. You're a doctor and then they have you for four hours. So, Jeff, I know when kids are younger, I want to be a doctor. I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a fireman. I want to be a basketball player. At what point in your life

did you know that medicine was going to be your chosen career path? Yeah. I mean, basically for my entire life, as long as I can remember, you know, medicine was what I wanted to do. The first real memory I had of, you know, wanting to be a doctor was a second grade project. We had to build our profession in a shoebox. And I remember building a pediatrician's office in the shoebox. My parents helped me, but, you know, it was my choice, you know, my entire life. You know, that's what I wanted to do. It was always medicine. Now, what made you do that? Because you went to the doctor, because you saw things. What prompted you to say medicines for me? I mean, that's a young age, second grade. Yeah, second grade was a very young age. I mean, I think back then I was just

young. And, you know, for some reason, the science really, you know, really is what inspired me. And I picked medicine, you know, just what interested me. But the main thing was, you know, when I was growing up, I was, you know, 10 years old and, you know, my grandfather became very sick. You know, he had liver problems and ended up, long story short, was basically 24 hours away from, you know, from dying. And he ended up getting a liver transplant, you know, basically on his deathbed. And all of his doctors throughout that process. And especially after the process, you know, really inspired me to want to help people want to make an impact on people's lives. And, you know, from that moment on, I, you know, medicine, there was no, there was no changing from there. Well, I know that your grandfather

was a big influence on you because one of the pictures you sent, we'll probably put it up. Yeah. You, I think it it was graduating from medical school. Yeah. Yeah. So it was you and your grandfather. Yeah. One of my favorite moments in my life actually was that graduation from medical school. He's actually a dentist.

And at medical school, we were really lucky. And, you know, if one of your family members had a doctorate of any sort, they were able to what they call hood you or put the hood on you of your, you know, your degree, which you which is in the picture there, both of us having our different colored hoods to represent, you know, our different medical licenses. So yeah, that was one of my favorite moments. And I was extremely lucky to have him there with me, as I said, you know, with his liver transplant, he was actually only supposed to live about 10 years after his liver transplants, what they predicted, because back then, you know, the science and the medicine was not as up to date as it is now. But, you know, we were very lucky 23 years later, he's, he's still with us. So that's incredible. And it brings to mind a question. I have a friend who was a recipient

of a kidney. He got a kidney transplant about five years ago. And he told me, you know, it lasts about 10 to 15 years and you might need another one. So with liver transplant, so they said you're only expected to live 10 years. You can't get two. It's not like. Yeah, it's not like. Yeah, not like kidney. Kidney is a little different in that sense. Usually liver. It's you know, it's kind of a one one time thing. And, you know, 10 years was back then. And I still think it is 10 to 15 years about nowadays is the expectancy, but, you know, give or take. And luckily for him, it's been a lot more. We call him this year, the year of the Jordan, Michael Jordan.

That's great. I was going to say the bionic man, Lee Major. Anybody watching knows what I'm talking about, the $6 million man. So I want to circle back to something you said earlier. You did mention science, and we are on lighting the educational flame, and we put like an edutainment spin on it. But I want to talk more about the education process, because you did mention science. So what fields of study were necessary well before medical school, you know, to give you the foundation of going to med school, you know, because many people I know and interview and friendly with and family members, many of them are in fields that kind of had nothing to do some of them with anything they

learned in school, I'm sure they got some knowledge, and whatever. But when it comes to medicine, you know, it's a little bit different, you really, you have to have the prerequisites. So what are the many things you had to study in order to first even get into medical school? Yeah. So, I mean, during your undergraduate, you know, the thing with undergraduate is you have to do your pre-med classes. So for anyone interested in going to medical school, there are the prerequisites as far as pre-medicine goes. So your typical, you know, organic chemistry, biology, all those science classes, even math classes, calculus, all of those, you know, are part of your prerequisites. The good thing though, is that they don't require your major to actually be in science. So you can be any major you want to be, you can minor in anything you want to be, you just have to have taken those classes. So you

can be a music major, poli-sci major, anything like that. And you'll still have those prerequisites as long as you do those classes to get into medical school. And I think that's good because it doesn't really commit people in undergraduate to having to go to medicine if you want to still major in something else, if you're not really sure. So I think that's a good thing that they don't necessarily require. I mean, I did a science major just because I knew that's what I was interested in, as I said before. But, you know, for someone who's not fully committed or not interested, you know, not 100% wanting to go to medicine, an undergraduate, you know, it's still a young age, you know, it's good that they don't require that.

Well, you know, studies have shown that up to 50% of sophomores in college don't even know their major yet. Yeah. So when it comes to the field of medicine, those prerequisites are for anything, I'm guessing. Dentistry, pediatrics, thoracic surgery, anything. Exactly. At what point in a med student's life, academic life, does he or she have to make the choice, this is the field I'm going into? Do you graduate from medical school, and then you choose your field? Is it like graduating from law school? And when you graduate, I'm going into to be a defense attorney, I'm going

to criminal law, I'm going into corporate law. What does that look like? Yeah, so basically, once you get into medical school, you still, you know, you know, you're wanting to be a doctor, but you don't have to choose which field you want to be in yet so medical school your first two years of medical school is strictly in the classroom so that's where you're doing your actual medical school courses um you know anatomy pharmacology you know microbiology all those classes book studying is in your first two years your second two years of medical school are when you're doing your rotations. So your third year of medical school, that first year after those two years,

you're doing your rotations where you're one month after the next you're going from pediatrics to surgery, to internal medicine, family medicine, all of these different fields of medicine, you're doing one month at a time. And that's when you kind of get exposed to what the lifestyle is, what you're gonna to be doing on a day to day basis. And then right before your fourth year or right at the beginning of your fourth year is when you pretty much have to decide.

That's when you basically go and decide this is the field I want to go into, because that's when you apply for your residency. And your residency is going to be that next step after medical school, after you graduate, which is when you go into your field. So during your fourth year is when you pretty much kind of specialize in those rotations, figure out exactly what field you want to do and then apply to residency. So when you do, what percentage of people do you think choose residency within the 15 mile, 20 mile radius of where they graduate from school? Do they get it and fly to another state? How does that work? So that is the biggest thing that people, it's really hard to understand. Even when you're in the process, it's really hard to understand. Residency is pretty much chosen for you. Basically, you go and do these audition rotations and apply to these different programs around the country. I mean, people go from state to state, anywhere in the entire country,

you do your, you know, your rotations in the field you want to do. And then there's what's called a match program. So you actually have to match with the program. So you rank your top programs, the programs rate their top students, and the computer pretty much matches you. So there's actually a match day, which is one of the biggest days of your medical school, because that is when, you know, you are going to be chosen of which program you're going to, and everyone finds out on the same day, and the programs, the actual residency programs, the training programs, find out on that same day also who their students are going to be for the next coming year. So it's actually a pretty interesting process that I don't think really exists in any other field. Well, it's funny because it may not exist in any other field, but I taught high school for so many

years. To me, it sounds like the day when the list comes out is who gets what part because you auditioned and West Side Story, you're Tony, you're Maria, you're in the ensemble. Exactly. So how many times, I mean, is there always a time when there is no match? So there are students that don't match. So yeah, there could be. So basically what happens is at the first day of the week on a Monday, it usually is, you find out if you matched. So out of all the programs on your list that you ranked, you find out on Monday if you did match. If you didn't match, they call it a scramble, which is during that week, they release the programs that still have open spots. And you then can go back to those programs that you originally didn't apply to or didn't audition

for and say, hey, I'm still looking, you're looking, let's talk. And you kind of do another kind of last minute interview over the phone or Zoom, that kind of thing. And then you kind of go through a rematch if you don't match. But there are still a lot of students that don't match. It's not an easy process, just like getting to medical school. Residency is the same thing. You know, there's different fields that are more competitive than other fields. You know, your board scores are going to terminate your GPA, you know, your entire application, just like getting into medical school and just like into law school, any other field. It's very competitive. And so a lot of people, I shouldn't say a lot, but there are a group of

people that don't match and have to kind of reapply the next year. Oh, and what do they do for that time period when they haven't matched? Yeah, when you don't match the, you try to improve your, you know, your resume, basically, or improve your application. So, you know, you do research, you try to publish papers, you know, you work with other professors at your school, do different things, maybe retake your boards, try to get higher scores, you know, to try to get to that next step. So let's talk about that next step. So you chose the fast-paced and demanding emergency room to follow your passion. But is that something everyone, when they go to the hospital for residency, that they start in the emergency room? Or is that something you choose? And then after

two years there, you may leave. Some people I know have never left. I know people who, you know, who've retired out of the emergency room. They went into the emergency room, retired career in the emergency room and they retired from the emergency room. Yeah. So my field, actually, I did a internal medicine residency.

And so, you know, when we spoke before, part of my job is working in the emergency room, but the field that I chose from internal medicine is called a hospitalist. So basically what I do, it's a pretty relatively new field. So that's why a lot of people don't know about it. And it really is kind of up and coming, I would say. But basically anyone who has to stay overnight

in the hospital or be admitted to the hospital from the emergency room, basically my job is to take over for those patients. So, you know, you go into the emergency room, the emergency room doctor sees you, treats you, determines, can you go home? If you go home, great, you're treated, go home. You know, I never see you. If you have to stay and be admitted to the hospital, you may be there depending on how sick you are, one, two, three, four days, a week, two weeks, it depends on how long, you know, how sick you are.

So at that point, once it's determined that you're staying in the hospital, that's kind of where I take over. So part of my job is in the emergency room, most of it is actually in the hospital itself. But yeah, so the next step is residency. And that's when you know, you determine, you know, basically what you're going to be doing for kind of the rest of your life and the rest of your career. So I chose internal medicine was my specialty. But there are, you know, basically what you're going to be doing for kind of the rest of your life and the rest of your career. So I chose internal medicine was my specialty. But there are, you know, like you were saying, specialties, emergency room is another specialty, general surgery, you know, dermatology, radiology, all those are different specialties that you choose in residency. And then even from there, you can even specialize further. And it's what they call fellowship, which is the

next step after residency, if you choose to even specialize more so in your field. So, for instance, from general surgery, you can become a cardiothoracic surgeon. You know, from, you know, internal medicine from my field, you can branch off and do fellowship in cardiology or gastroenterology or neurology. And so all these are different fields if you want to specialize further after. But residency, the length of it also is determined by which field you choose. You know, my residency was three years, but general surgery could be five years, neurosurgery, seven years, you know, it just depends. So. Well, interesting, because I never tell the viewers, I haven't told the viewers how I got from wherever I got as a teacher for 33 years to this show. And I was raised in Yonkers, New York, and at the age of 16, moved to Florida in Florida behind the wheel of a car.

I had an epileptic seizure. We did not know I had epilepsy. I was diagnosed at 16. And I'm bringing that about because I've had, you know, before the age of 20, I had all too many rides and ambulances, stays in the hospital. And those all important doctors, you know, I have so much respect for them and the nursing staff. sons. I think that it was a powerful thing to be a little more involved in your medical treatment than just leaving it to the doctor, not, you know, to bash anything, whatever, they're brilliant and all that. But I really think you have to be your own advocate. When my wife's parents were being treated for certain things, I was, I was the healthcare proxy. Cause unfortunately I had that information and those experiences through the years. Also I have mixed my, my regular internist last five or six years with a naturopath. Yeah. And just and I, and I've had some doctors who did not want,

forget about work with them. They don't really work with them, but they didn't want me going to them. And I found some doctors who said, hey, you can use them. They can order their blood tests, we'll order our blood tests. And I saw less of an ego than I had in the past. Where's your stand on that, on people advocating for themselves, being more knowledgeable? Because I wrote a memoir called Adversity Defeated, Turn Your Struggles Into Strengths when I was 54, and I was diagnosed at 16. So nobody knew I had it except for doctors and a couple of family members and two or three close friends. And I just think that getting more involved and not letting your illness or your struggles define you, you

define yourself. Where do you stand on that kind of school of thought? Yeah. I mean, I I'm very, very big on being your own advocate. And also, like you were saying, families being advocate for their family members, because, you know, in this day and age, we have so much research online, you know, so many opportunities to look things up ourselves. You know, there's there is a fine line. I do see a lot of patients coming in and saying, you know, this is what I read. This is what I want. And, you know, it's a little different when you come in like that stance, you know, our reply normally is, you know, didn't know Dr. Google

got their, you know, medical degree. But, you know, it is there, but in a lot of sense, there is so much information online, that people are going to have all of this knowledge coming to you. And so, you know, it very, it is very important for people to have that knowledge and not just trust, you know, whatever their doctor says, and be willing to be open to different treatments and know about their medical history. You can go see a new doctor or, God forbid, you have to go to the hospital and you may not know your medical history and they're starting from scratch. If you come in and you say, I'm taking these medications, I was diagnosed with this, there's a lot more to go off of. in and you say I'm taking these medications, I was diagnosed with this, you know, there's a lot more to go off of and it's easier for the doctors to be able to learn about you, to treat you, to know your history, to know where to go moving forward. And you know, a lot of these family, a lot of

these patients that come in, you know, we don't, it's so hard to even reach their families. You know, we want to, you know, especially this past year and a half, two years almost with COVID now, it was hard to see family because they weren't allowed in the hospitals. Before that, you know, it was, families would come in and we would see some family members and it would be great. We'd be able to talk about the treatment plans with the families. They'd be there for them. You know, they would know what's going on. And then other family members, we couldn't even reach them on the phone. Who would you want us to call? There's no family to even call. I mean, you try to call them and no one answers.

They don't even care about callbacks. And to me, it was a little strange to have a patient in the hospital for three, four, five days and not have a family member be reachable. So I think it's really, really important to know about your medical history, know about even your family's medical history if that time comes where you need to be involved. And, you know, do your own research online. But also, you know, listen

to the doctors, because you type in one symptom online, it tells you you're dying, basically. So, you know, you need to be careful with that line. So true, because I had a dermatologist back in Rockland County, New York, and in his office, there was a mug and it said, your Google search will have nothing to do with my diagnosis. It was really very funny. There was a time once I went to my internist. I don't even think I had 800 doctors,

but I had a good number of doctors. And I went and my body had turned blue. My arms had turned blue. I went on Google. The word leukemia came up. I went right to the doctor. He looked at me. He smiled.

He said, is that blue shirt over there brand new? And I said, yes. He said, okay, you can go home now and that'll be $20. So it was the dye of the shirt or something, sweating or whatever. So it's craziness. I want to circle back for a second. You did mention COVID, of course. And even though you're a younger doctor, certainly younger than most doctors I have at the moment, you were a doctor before COVID. Yeah. And you were a doctor during COVID.

How tremendously different or not was your job and the situations on a day-to-day basis during the uptick? You're in LA? Yes. During the uptick in California? Yeah. So I mean, all over the country, it's probably, you know, way different. You know, every doctor you'll talk to is different. For me, you know, we were basically in the hospital during this time where, you know, there were patients in hallways, there were patients,

you know, intubated and on ventilators, not in the ICU, because it's just too full. You know, we basically saw such a difference from, you know, one day to the next. And the biggest thing I would say is the support, like we were already just talking about the support from family, not having family be there for these patients who are in the hospital for weeks at a time, who are ventilated, who, you know, need support and have nobody there. To me, that was the biggest, the biggest impact that I saw on the patients themselves. It's, it's pretty remarkable, actually, how much, you know, outside support can help you in your recovery. And there have been multiple studies done on that, of, you know, family support, outside support from the community,

you know, on patients' recoveries. And so I think that was a big impact from the patient side. From the doctors and medical staff side and medical providers, nurses, everyone, I mean, it was just, it just took a toll on everybody. I mean, we went from, you know, having on average, you know, 15, 16, 17 patients a day that we would see to 25, 27 patients. And for me, it was hard personally, because I was not able to give each patient the amount of time that I'm used to, you know, I like going in and spending a lot of time with the patients every day, sitting down, you know, getting to know exactly who they are beyond just their medical problems. Because, you know, their lifestyle does affect

their healing does affect, you know, how they're treated moving forward. And so not having that time and that personal connection with the patients really impacted me personally. Yeah, and that was gonna lead me to my next question, which is, because also, I know that I've read some studies or just some articles about even people in comas being spoken to by family members. Yeah. And I was going to ask as a human being, not just a, you know, a human being happens to be a doctor. How did you and some of your colleagues deal with your own mental health during such a trying time and such a high pressure, emotional, medically induced emergency, you know, times 10 situation. Yeah, I mean, basically, we kind of had to rely on, you know, the supporting ourselves. You know,

a lot of times at the hospital, you know, we're colleagues, we're friends, you know, me and the other doctors, other nursing staff there. And, you know, we, we are cordial with each other professional, but it really became, I want to say a bonding time and, you know, really learning support. And, you know, I have never been in, you know, the army, the military, anything like that. But from what I hear, and from friends, you know, when you go through such a time like this, you really bond with the people who are there and the people outside the situation don't really understand what you are going through. And so, you know, to me, that's kind of, you know, we grew closer, you know, the doctors there, you know, we were able to sit down, talk about, you know, what's happening in our day, patients we've lost and really get support from each other,

because as much as when you come home, you do have that family, you do have friends to support you, they don't understand what you're truly going through. So that was kind of the biggest difference I saw was the bonding between your own colleagues and own medical staff and entire hospitals coming together to support each other. So, you know, along those lines, what are some aspects of your job that might surprise the average person, the average patient? Yeah, I think, you know, what they don't, what people don't really see is the amount of documentation that we have to do, actually, the amount of computer work, which is, I think, become more and more as the years have gone on. I mean, I haven't been a doctor for too,

too long. Like you said, you know, I'm relatively young compared to a lot of the doctors who've been in the, in their career for a long time. But, you know, with recently, I'm relatively young compared to a lot of the doctors who've been in the, in their career for a long time. But, you know, with recently, I would say over the last, so, you know, 10, 15, 20 years, especially the amount of what we call CYA or cover your, your butt, you know, we have to, you know, we have to do because a lot of, you know, the world right now is looking to sue doctors. You know, that's a big thing right now. And so a lot of what we have to do is, you know, documentation, make sure everything is, you know, cross your T's, dot your I's, you know, all of that has to be done. And so that does take a lot of our day that is behind the scenes that patients don't see. And I think a lot of that also does take away from the patient care, the face to face, the, you know, personal aspect of it, it does take a little bit away from that,

which is, you know, a little saddening, but that is probably the biggest thing I would say people don't realize. Great. And it's important, because that's behind the scenes stuff. That's things that people just don't see or know. So last question, I have to ask you, what is your advice for people in your professional opinion on boosters, vaccines? What advice would you like to give? This is probably a bigger audience than just the number of patients you see in a given time period. So what would you like to say about that?

Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing, you know, I'm going to sound like one of those TV ads right now, but is go talk to your doctor, you know, find a doctor that you trust and go talk to them. You know, if you need to go to three, four, five different ones before you find the one that you feel comfortable with, you know, that's the biggest thing. People come to me for advice all the time about, you know, whether it's vaccines, boosters, or just any medical problem in general. And my advice is just find someone you're comfortable with and that you trust. Because once you find that connection with the doctor, you'll feel a lot more comfortable taking their advice. You'll trust them. You know,

three or four doctors may be saying the same thing, but it's where you feel comfortable. And that's, to me, the most important thing is feeling comfortable taking the advice of a doctor because you are treating yourself basically by taking advice from a doctor. You know, the doctor can only tell you to take your medicine. It's up to you to actually do it. You know, and that's the biggest thing, you know, in the medical field right now is people taking care of themselves. We can only prescribe you medications. We can only recommend treatments and recommend imaging and stuff like that. It's up to you to actually listen if you want and do the treatments. And so find, find a doctor that you trust, find someone that you're comfortable with

and, you know, take their advice, do your own research and then listen to your doctor. So as far as boosters go personally, I mean, I listened to the research, all the studies, it all shows that the, you know, boosters for general population are working, vaccines working. Biggest thing I can say is the masks. I mean, the flu, the amount of flu that we've seen in the past two years now, because now we're coming up on the second flu season, it has tremendously decreased. I mean, almost to zero. And we've never seen anything like that before. And the only thing different that we're really seeing is the hand washing and masks. And so things do work.

You know, there are studies, there are things, things work. So I'll go back to it, but just find the doctor, trust them, feel comfortable and, you know, go forward with your treatments with them. Excellent advice. Thanks so much for that. So Dr. Jeff Kopstein, thank you so much for joining us today. Of course. The passion and all the you so much for joining us today. Of course. The passion and all the experiences that you've had in medicine. There's probably 30 more years in you to have more experiences.

Thank you so much for having me. I hope I inspire people who are out there, young people who are wanting to become doctors to pursue their passion. It's worth it in the end. A lot of work to get there as we talked about, but it's worth it. So thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. This is great information here for young people on entering any career path, but certainly medicine. To the viewers, this is Mark Holman thanking you for watching Lighting the Educational Flame.

Catch us Monday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on E360 TV on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire. Remember, we're 24-7 on the Lighting the Educational Flame YouTube channel. Have a great day. Jeff, thanks so much. Thank you for watching Lighting the Educational Flame. To contact Mark Hoberman, email him at info at gradesuccess.com or visit him on social media through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Thank you for watching Lighting the Educational Flame. Thank you.