Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Colonel Bob Adams MD On How to Be Your Own Best Advocate EP 66

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Retired Army Colonel and Navy SEAL Bob Adams, M.D. sits down with John R Miles to talk about being your own best advocate in life. He discusses why this is so vital through the viewpoint of over 30 years as a doctor and applying the lessons he learned from BUD/S and his 12 years as a SEAL. Like this? Please subscribe, and join me on my new platform for peak performance, life coaching, and personal growth: https://passionstruck.com/. Please post a screenshot of your listening on Instagram & tag us so we can thank you personally! Thank you for Watching the Passion Struck podcast. Dr. Robert (Bob) Adams is a family physician with the UNC health system. He entered medical school after serving as an elite Navy SEAL for 12 years. He is the author of SIX DAYS OF IMPOSSIBLE - NAVY HELL WEEK – and The book SWORDS AND SAINTS - A DOCTOR'S JOURNEY - A must-read for future doctors and those wishing for change. He graduated from the Naval Academy, BUD/S class 81, obtained his MBA from James Madison University, and went to medical school at Wake Forrest. New Interviews with the World's GREATEST high achievers will be posted every Tuesday with a Momentum Friday inspirational message! Colonel Bob Adams Show Notes 0:00 Teaser from Dr. Bob Adams 2:05 Dr. Bob Adams Episode Introduction 4:31 His path to becoming a Navy SEAL 8:35 The difference between UDT and SEALs 10:51 Biggest Lesson Learned in BUD/S Training 16:29 Why he never hit the wall during Hell Week 18:56 How the Lone Survivor accurately depicts SEAL valor 22:45 His advice for Naval Academy Midshipmen 27:29 Why he became an Army physician 33:07 How he became the Delta Force Flight Surgeon 36:12 His book about Navy SEAL Hell Week 41:40 Why he believes we need to be our own best advocate 48:32 Why it isn't easy to trust agencies like the CDC 55:56 His third book featuring letters from the civil war ENGAGE WITH BOB ADAMS MD *Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buds81/ *LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbobmd/ *SEALS AND SAINTS website: https://swordsandseals.com/ *SIX DAYS OF IMPOSSIBLE: https://www.sealhellweek.com/   ENGAGE WITH JOHN R. MILES * Subscribe to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles * Leave a comment, 5-star rating (please!) * Support me: https://johnrmiles.com * Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Johnrmiles.c0m​. * Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles​ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles ABOUT JOHN R. MILES * https://johnrmiles.com/my-story/ * Guides: https://johnrmiles.com/blog/ * Coaching: https://passionstruck.com/coaching/ * Speaking: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking-business-transformation/ * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_struck PASSION STRUCK *Subscribe to Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passion-struck-podcast/id1553279283 *Website: https://passionstruck.com/ *About: https://passionstruck.com/about-passionstruck-johnrmiles/ *Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast *LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/passionstruck *Blog: https://passionstruck.com/blog/

I started realizing that if I retired and all of these experiences at war and at peace as a military doctor and as a civilian doctor didn't get written down, then they just might die with me. And there are good stories and they're fascinating stories and they're every single chapter is a patient experience or a life experience becoming a doctor that I've told many, many times before, as teaching points to residents and physician extenders, so they can learn without having to experience some of the good and bad things that I experienced. And so it took me only less than a

year to write as just published last year, and it is, in fact, designed to be the combination of stories about doctors as medical students, as learning residents, as young doctors, as doctors at war, and doctors in challenging situations, such that anybody that ever thinks they want to be a doctor read this book. It'll give you a good, true experience of what it means to go through the very difficult seven years of training or more that it takes to be a doctor. Welcome visionaries, graders, innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and growth seekers of all types to the PassionStruck podcast.

Hi, I'm John Miles, a peak performance coach, multi industry CEO, Navy veteran, and entrepreneur on a mission to make Passion Go viral for millions worldwide. In each week, I do so by sharing with you an inspirational message, an interviewing I achievers from all walks of life to unlock their secrets and lessons to become an action-struck. The purpose of our show is to serve you the listener by giving you tips, tasks, and activities. You can use to achieve peak performance and for two passion-driven life you have always wanted to have. And let's become passion star. Hi, welcome to episode 66 of the Passion Struct Podcast with where retired

Army Colonel Navy Seal Dr. Robert Adams. And if you haven't caught the other episodes and I'll leave them in the outro, we are doing a whole month of passion star podcasts dedicated to veterans who served during the global war on terror. And I wanted to give the audience a huge shout out for helping us pass 100,000 downloads of the podcast and over 1,400 five star likes. Thank you so much for helping us on our goal of making Passion Goviral for millions worldwide. I'm going to start out today's episode with a quote from our guest, Dr. Bob Adams, from his book, Six Days of Impossible. And in it, he writes,

When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he must accept his suffering as a task, his single and unique task. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way he bears his burden. Now, let me tell you a little bit more about Dr. Bob Adams. He is a family physician within the UNC Health System. He entered medical school after serving as an elite seal for over 12 years. He is the author of six days of impossible Navy Hell Week and also the book Swords and Saints,

a doctor's journey. It is a must-read for future doctors and those wishing for change in the healthcare system. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and from Buds Class of 81. I've obtained his MBA from James Madison University and went to medical school at Wake Forest. And in our discussion today, we talk about his path from the Naval Academy to becoming a seal.

The biggest lessons he learned during his 12 years is a Navy seal. Why he made the pivot to becoming a doctor and why he chose the Army over the Navy, how he found himself becoming the flight surgeon or the Army's Delta Force, what he has learned over his 30 years of being a doctor and why it's vital you become your own best advocate

in navigating the health system. Now, let's become Passion Struck. I am so excited today to have Dr. Robert Adams on the show. Dr. Bob, thank you so much for joining the Passion Struck podcast. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Well, I always love to have Naval Academy Grads on the show, but you're not just the normal Naval Academy grad.

They're not that many Naval Academy grads who end up retiring as an Army colonel. So I want to get to that story. But can you tell me what prompted you to take for step? I always like to hear this of going to the Naval Academy in the first place. Sure, absolutely. I can ask that question a lot. Just really about following the Army's Army Navy football games, I've 18 years in the Army and 18 years in the Navy. But, you know, I mentioned it in my both my books in the SEAL training book and my doctor book, that I had no

interest in the military at all when I was in high school. Growing up in a military family moved every three years. My dad was a no six aviator in Pensacola, Florida when a article hit the reader's digest entitled, Super Commandos of the Wetlands. And I was about announcing the existence of the secret SEAL team group that was formed by Kennedy in 62, and this was 67. I read it, and I went, that's what I want to do.

And I walked into my dad's office and I said, hey, dad, how do I get into the Naval Academy? Because I'm going to be a seal. He didn't even know what the seal was. And he goes, I don't care. He wanted to go and the Naval Academy, let me help. And I just told him, I said, if I'm going to be in the seals, I might go be an officer and I'm going to be an officer. And might go to the Naval Academy. Like my dad, my granddad, you know, did, and my great-granddad was West Point in the Royal Career Military Men. And so that's where it came from.

I just said, if I'm going to go into the military, I think I'll do it as an officer. And I had lived in the Naval Academy superintendents home when I was five and six years old, because my granddad was superintendents of the Naval Academy. So going to our main Naval football game was old hat. It felt right at the time. Well, you know, I had recently done an interview

with Vice Admiral Ted Carter, who has been the superintendent the longest of any superintendent consecutively. And one thing that struck me when we spoke was he said that in all the military, the superintendent's house is the second most visited house. There is and I couldn't believe it, but he told me during his tenure, he had over 90,000 people in, in and out of it. So I can't imagine what that would have been like, being a youngster and seeing all that. You probably remember, as pleads, we had to go to the Superintendents' house for a formal reception and meet the Superintendents.

And there's why most classes, I think, still do that. But mine was sort of interesting when I showed up as a new plebe, and I walked into the servants' entrance to give my hat to the steward there. I looked at his name tag and I remembered him from when I lived there. And I said, Archisa, were you gonna chance here with Admiral Smedberg was here? He stops, he looks at my name tag, he goes,

Adam, you're not, you're not little Bobby Adams, are you? I'm sorry. I, yeah, you remembered me, I remember him. And it was fun getting back in there. I told you before the show that my father was Marine Corps Force Recon, but when they started up Force Recon back in the late 50s, there wasn't a Force Recon school. So the first few classes, they actually sent them to UDT training, underwater demolition training, if you're not familiar with that and you're a listener.

What is the difference between what a UDT soldier does and what a seal does for the person who doesn't understand the two different fields? Well, I'm going to answer that by giving you a today answer, which is there is no difference, but I'm going to step back to 1987 to answer your question that prior to the re-designation of underwater demolition teams to seal teams, there was a mission a difference in that and my first assignment was to underwater demolition team 11, which in 1987 was renamed seal team five. because special operations had a different mission from World War II until 1987, which was we owned the water up into the high water lines. So our missions and underwater demolition

all ended theoretically at the high water lines. We weren't crazy on land and doing what in Vietnam became seal team missions. And the seal team traditionally had the mission from the high water line inland. And so seal teams had trucks under water demolition teams had boats and scuba gear, but we both needed to do both, and we both trained to do both. And seal training is identical for both. It was simply which team you were assigned to determine which mission you was your primary mission. And the reason that change happened is quite logical.

There were only one seal team and two UDT teams on each coast in the 70s when I was there. And so the missions got mixed up all the time. You'd grab whoever was available and say, go do a lot of mission, go do a land mission, we're all trained equally for both. And so what was happening, we're running back and forth, borrowing each other gear to do whatever the mission to want. And finally, they go, okay, time out. Everybody's a seal team, everybody's

responsible for all missions from the water to the land and that's not that cheating gap. Okay, that's a great explanation. I didn't realize the origin of that transition but it makes complete sense. And I know the listeners, whenever I have a person who's gone through buds, always like to hear, is you went through what was the biggest lesson that buds taught you that's carried forward in your throughout your career? So that's really really good point. My first book, I really point you right here, which is six days

of impossible, maybe seal hell week, has the subtitle, a doctor looks back because 35 years after we went through training 11 on 70 of us that made it through freezing cold soaking wet winter training, shivering uncontrollably without sleep for seven days, you know, we get together and look at each other and go, why the 11 of us, why did the other 60 not make it? We're all equally qualified when we started physically and mentally, but 60 people quit. And when I went back and interviewed my classmates, what I did discover is that we all shared a common attribute or lesson that life had taught us. It had not, we didn't learn this in sealed training, I discovered after the fact, we have learned it through life. And that is, if you have been pushed and tested by either life or life's environments or

physical challenges, sports challenges, that those tests, those stresses tended to give you a tool for future endurance and future success. And this applies to athletics. Knowing we're going to have this talk and thinking about performance, I wanted to point out that when you look at endurance athletes, when you look at the people that are running the marathon in incredible times, running four and a half minutes miles for 26 miles, that's almost unimaginable to somebody that's ever tried to run a five minute mile. But they're older. The people who do this and succeed at it are older because they have learned to endure.

They have learned to process the pain and put it aside. So the brain, if you let the pain be in the front of your brain, the pain is all the brain's gonna see. So in order to survive no sleep six days, freezing cold, shivering uncontrolled where people pushing you beyond your limits, you've got to be able to put aside the pain. And so in Azure question, the SEAL teams and their design for HELL Week have a very real purpose.

And that is to take the individual to the point of no return, mentally, physically, or both. mentally, physically, or both. And by the way, that's different place in everybody's experience base. If you got beat up really bad by life before you got there, your maximum is here. If you were the star quarterback and dated the prettiest two meters, your maximum was down here.

And quite honestly, the seals have always been disturbed by the fact that the Stark quarterbacks don't ever seem to make it through seal training. Because when it gets really really hard, their brain lets the pain stay in the front and they go, you know, I got I got options. I'm out of here. So the lesson that I discovered and that all 11 of us shared with each other after the fact was life had beat us up before we got there. And we had endurance climbs that were already established. We were able to put pain aside.

And that's what the marathoner does, and that's what the swimmer does, put the pain aside. Forgive me for expanding on the athletic side of things, but I was just reading an article today about one of America's swimmers that has trained differently than anybody on the US team. He has chosen to make his training, sprint, sprint, sprint, sprint, sprint,

100% every time he swims, where everybody else does long-term endurance training at 80%. And he's chosen to say, no, I'm going to run at 100%, which hurts, which is painful. So he'll slim a sprint, give himself a 15 second rest, and then do it again at 100%. And he's planning to win a gold with that training routine

that nobody's ever done. But all he's discovered is by training your body I think that's a really good point. And it's something that I actually experienced in my own life. I was a competitive runner, went to the Naval Academy to run cross country and track initially. But I reached a point when I was in high school where I was in high school. I was a competitive runner. I was a competitive runner. I was a competitive runner. I was a competitive runner.

I was a competitive runner. I was a competitive runner. I was a competitive runner. I was a competitive runner. I was a competitive runner. I went to the Naval Academy to run cross country and track initially. I was a competitive runner. I went to the Naval Academy to run cross country and track initially, but I reached a point when I was in high school where I had kind of plateaued around my junior year. And I started to realize it was because when I was hitting that point that I didn't

think I could get past, I didn't push myself to do it. And it wasn't until I had that mental breakthrough because it wasn't a physical one. It was really a mental one that I could carry myself to the next level. And once you did that, you could take yourself to the next level and the next level, et cetera. And my time's probably from that point to the end of my senior year, improved astronomically.

I've probably shaved off 30 to 45 seconds on a 5K in cross country. And it's amazing when embraced discomfort. And I think David Goggins and other CEO does a great job discussing it. That until you do that, you're never gonna achieve your full capabilities because you're limiting yourself to what you think you can do.

So I think that's an excellent point. Well, and allow me to make a follow-on point, if you would, when I was doing my interviews and I put this in my book before I did the interviews, I was embarrassed to share with my classmates that we were all very aware that there was this line that we were supposed to get to. Usually Wednesday night, Thursday of hell week, having four days of sleep and shivering, people will hit that wall, they'll hit the wall, and they have to make the individual choice to step over it and go on. And what the instructors are doing, they're watching you and waiting for you to hit your personal point of no return.

And that's when your brain says, the muscles will not do another pushup. The legs will not run any faster. The body is ceasing. And a lot of us, you know, played wrestling across which you've great sports for seal training we've discovered and been pushed to our limits But I never hit the wall and I was embarrassed to tell my classmates

That point where we were supposed to hit I never got there and two of my classmates went oh my god I didn't tell anybody else but neither did I and I went what well wait a minute How come the three of us despite the fact that we were pushed beyond what we had really imagined we could do, never viewed that as an absolute end point. And my position conclusion is this, life had already beat up the three of us before we went to seal training to the point that if the seals tried to take take his passport life had already taken us, it would have been illegal. So, of course, the lesson there is life spares, life stresses, the alcoholic parent, you know, the adopted unwanted child, the people who, who's only

meet they had, and these are men in my class, was when they shot a school with their swing shot, because they were at that before, those life lessons give you strong, strong building blocks to future success. And so when you spent your 12, because I think it turned out to be, was it 12 years that you served in the SEAL teams or was it longer than that? Oh, years. Did you ever in those 12 years hit that point where you thought even though you had those life lessons, you had reached another level of discomfort during

an deployment or a specific event or did you never reach that point? There's a wonderful book that I recommend everybody called Loan Survivor, and it's the story of the soul survivor of a horrible wartime experience in Afghanistan where he buried in a stream breathing through a straw, basically, well, the bed, his look for him, and then found himself half without clothes, you know, and having to e and e through the mountains of Afghanistan until we was finally found by local, luckily, friendly tribes were able to get them expelled. And that book is the only book that I've ever read that about seal experiences that is a clear example of why we do hell week, because he could not have done what he did, which to me, as I read it, was just still awe-inspiring,

having not been through hell week. So many people would have given up long before he reached that end point. And I give you that example because the anterior question is almost nobody in the seal teams after we finish training, ever is asked to go to that point again. But we've learned in our mind that that point

really doesn't exist. So the lesson of hell week is to teach you that the absolute endurance, a failure point doesn't exist. You'll go until your body stops working and rarely, rarely, rarely, that if ever has that occurred in real missions scenarios. What's interesting, I happened to hear Marcus Latrial, the balloon survivor, given interview.

And he brought up two points that I thought were really interesting. One is he said when friendly villager came upon him, he said his hand was locked and loaded on his weapon because he thought he's in this foreign country, he couldn't trust anyone, and he said he's not sure even to this day what possessed him, not to fire on the person, but he just sensed he wasn't going to hurt him, although all around him were other Taliban coming down on him. And then the other interesting thing is he said that the movie doesn't portray the worst part of the whole ordeal and he said, you know, a lot of what the movie depicts was accurate except maybe 80% of what actually happened to them. But he said where it got it completely wrong is he said

the worst part of the whole mission was when the American troops actually got him and how during a mission it was to get him out because at that time the whole country was descending on them at that time and it was like a group, small group of people trying to take on thousands of people and he said that is the heroine or he that doesn't get talked about and should because you know he considers all the people who went in there and got him to be the real heroes. He never thought he was getting out of there. So great story and I agree a great book. So one of the things before we get into your transition to becoming a doctor, I always like to ask Naval Academy grads is when I was a midshipman, I loved the four-stall lectures because they would

bring in guest speakers who would talk on various topics, but they were always so inspiring. And I always ask a Naval Academy grad, if you could go back and teach the midshipman, which could be any college or soon-to-be college graduate, a lesson. What would it be? So I was actually encouraged to be a forced electorate by one of my classmates who read my book and his big fan of the story behind it. He kept saying, you know, we need to bring you to the academy so that you can tell everybody the plebes, the seniors that are getting ready to go out and join the Marine Corps or fly a jet airplane or find themself in more time scenarios, the lessons that were learned that you and I just discussed.

Quite honestly, I would have a wonderful time telling the story of my plebe year where I thought I was the leading demerit earner in my class until a recent reunion when a rear admiral came up to me and said, what's the say here about you saying you have more than anyone in our class? And in my day 300 Domerics would put you on to get out of your list and I had 285 And I said 285 I'm looking to beat that. He goes, 295, son, you're in second place. And I wasn't a bad believe. I was just a really inefficient Cleveland.

And I wasn't really good at what I did. And my granddad was a superintendent of the Naval Academy. And I would want to tell people that story in so many different ways that failure is a great building block to future success. I got lots and lots of numerics in my first year,

and I learned from each one, a numeric for not publishing my shoes, right? And darn, if I didn't learn how to publish my shoes, I got numerics marching off the merits. Because I didn't do it their way they wanted me to do it. So, I would have a fun time telling the stories of both the Naval Academy and its learning opportunities because, believe me, your has traditionally been most difficult.

It's gotten a lot better. I just heard from a Naval Academy representative that they've got about a 95% freshman year success story. They're going on to their next years. They're not quitting like they did in the old days because they've made it more positive, more reinforcing, more not gentle, but more of a learning experience about leadership

and becoming the man or woman that you want to be. So I would also tell the story of my grandfather and along the same lines, who a senior was one to American being kicked out. And decided to go over the wall and take his date to the Army Navy Country Club for a dance on a Saturday night back in 1925 when he didn't own civilian clothes. And he got seen there by a professor who turned him

into the superintendant, and by the way, the other Mitchim and the Walsh Wetham was a later four star animal group Patrick, and the two of them got caught. Got sent to the superintendant's office called and the suit's office the next morning. We're left out there sweating for 30 minutes and the suit called him in, knew that if these guys were put on a port one more time, I'd be the end of their careers. And of course this was after

the war to end all wars, so who needs them anyway. But Super Jen and said, gentlemen, came to my attention, they were two men that have to be able to get the Army and the Country Club without a 30 last night. And I just wanted to let you guys know that I hope I never find out who those two men were. Disments. And really I tell that story fast forward to his time at the Naval Academy. The exact same thing happened to too much shipment. He did the same call and made him wait.

Brought him in as a gentleman. I hope I never find out who those two men were dismissing. He looks like he goes, okay, God, we're leaving now, right? I paid the debt. You did me a favor, I learned from the experience and I cast that learning experience on you. So, you know, those are the kinds of stories that may be fun to get a laugh

in a forced ulcerative lecture. God, that would be great. Tech Carter told me when he gave his, when he was leaving the Naval Academy, is the last thing he did, he brought out a tape of him on the crisis right, making a complete fool out of himself, and the forest all was all around

with the price of right, up to that life. Well, let's get into now this transition you made because there are not very many seals who then become doctors. I know Johnny Kim who's an astronaut, uh, currently, get it, but yours is an unusual path because you applied to both the Navy's medical program and the armies and the army, it seemed gave you a sweeter field than the Navy's medical program and the ARMYs. And the Army, it seemed, gave you a sweeter feel than the Navy. Is that pretty accurate?

That's why I changed services. I went to med school at 36 years old. I started trying to get in at 32. And we had a child at the time that I made the decision to switch from combat arms to medical, because I had gotten out of the active seals after my five year of catomy obligation was up, because it was a really, really hard-boost,

posted it non-time, there wasn't any money. We were jumping career war parachutes and using demolitions that were so old, it was dangerous to years. And I thought, well, there are no wars. I'm going to get out, join the reserves. But I had been out exactly six months when I called up the Navy and said, I made a world mistake. Let me back in. Seems like they don't have 30 days of paid vacation out here. And medical, medical services cost money. And they said, well, Lieutenant, we're in a drawdown now. We don't need to stay in the reserve and we'll call you when there's a war.

Well, fast forward, not in the reserves. And I'll get back to school and get my MBA. And I try to figure out what I'm going to do with my life because they darn it. They just won't start a war that will bring me back to the New York City. And so one day I come home to my wife and I finished my NBN and went to work in Washington DC, working with NagleC Systems Command doing special operations, research work. And I said, sweetheart, I don't like this job. I want to be happy like I was and as a Navy SEAL Veteran Commander again. I think I want to go to med school.

And she goes, whoops, okay, you know, we got a kid and it's gonna be a while and that's gonna be, we're gonna be poor for a long time. I see you have it. Let me try and she said, yeah, we were born happy when we got married and we can be born happy again. So go to what makes you happy. So boom, I set off the med school applications

as soon as an application comes in, you're allowed to apply for scholarships. So boom, I had them all filled out for the Army and the Navy, set them immediately and got the responses back immediately too. Maybe said we'll give you a three year Army said we'll give you a four year. And I was going to wake for sure,

it's a very expensive medical school. And I look at my wife as a sweetheart who were changing uniforms, because now I have two kids. And I'm 36 years old and $50,000 a year to wish them alone. Man, I need to change uniforms. Now, the interesting side of that story is, I had nothing to do with changing services. But, you know, I went from a Navy commander to an Army second lieutenant to go to med school and that

would have happened whether it had the Navy or the Army scholarship. When you go from a combat arms to a service agency, the system appropriately reduces your rank back to an entry level officer, so you're not graduating without any experience into positions of significant responsibility. And that's what happened. I did benefit doctors in commission those captains, and I was commissioned as a major, like I have credit, for prior commission service.

But the inevitable happened. I finished my three-year residency program. I'm training a doctor ready to go to start teaching other doctors, how to be doctors. And my first assignment is commander of a clinic. Major, we need you to take command. Oh, come on.

I'm a doctor. Let me go deliver babies and do doctor stuff. You can do that part tonight. The other part tonight, you gotta be in the community. And if I had to come out as an O5 or potentially O6, you know, I'd have been hospital commander not have been able to do what I love, which was doctorate.

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time and time again. Go to passionstruck.com slash coaching right now and let's get igniting. Well I remember you telling me one of the first duty stations you got I think was Fort Bragg and it's got to be pretty interesting when you're on an army base, one to see someone in an army unit who's wearing a seal trident, but probably even more unusual to see a doctor who's wearing a seal trident. So I'm sure being surrounded by rangers, being the r Ranger School is there and the different operations that When people started to take notice they were probably quite intrigued and wanting to have you become part of that Given you know that community very well How did you prevent that from from happening and eventually how did you then end up becoming light surgeon for the Delta Force

commanders? Well, it wasn't hard for a word to get out that there was an army doctor walking around with a Navy SEAL patch on his uniform and I had not been on that post more than a month before the Delta Force guys come up to my door and go, hey, hey, you want to come play with us? Because we heard that that patch on you tested real. And I very honestly said, you know guys, Ben or done that? No, thank you.

I've got a lot of things to do as a doctor. I'm teaching people out of B doctors. And I got nurse practitioners and BA's under my charge. I got a lot more babies I needed to deliver because I was full service family practice. And I said maybe in a couple of years, check back. And I'm interested in almost two years to the day. How about now? And they put me on the stand by this. And so two years later, I'd done what I needed to do to get good at what I needed to get good at and could be comfortable in an operational environment as a position.

And then I said sure. Until the next three and a half years I was the command surgeon for the Army's Delta Force and that experience I wouldn't trade for anything. But I have to comment on your other comment. There's not too many Army doctors with named Zilpaches. The other thing that happened the first month I was there and walking down the hallway of the main hospital and another army doctor comes towards me and we're both wearing the patch on our uniform and both of us see it, both of us stop

dead and point each other. Who the heck are you and what do you remember that? And his name was Sean MoVaney and Colonel Sean MoVaney retires a family position. I ended up being one of his teaching staff. He was just starting his residency there. And when we did the secret handshake and the elbow bumps and realized we neither of us were lying,

I looked at him and I said, so I'm curious, why didn't you decide and switch services? And his reason was very similar to one of my own motivations. He goes, I didn't like ships. And maybe he was gonna put doctors on ships during their residency. And you'd have to do a general medical officer tour after your internship and then come back and finish your residency. You have to do a general medical officer to or after your internship

and then come back and finish your residency. And I go, I get it because my first year in a hand was under destroyer out of the Naval Academy and it was a major motivator for me to get through a seal training. I did not want to go back. Well, so I wanted to hit on your other new books. So you have the one book about your naval steel experience,

that's right behind you. And then you wrote another book about your 30 years of being a doctor. And I wanted you to highlight a couple things out of that second book. What are some for the listeners out there or people who are watching this on YouTube? What are a couple golden nuggets out of that book that you would like the audience

to hear about? So the golden nugget is why I wrote this book. The first book about seal training was written because nobody had ever written a book about maybe Seal Hell Week that really looked back at the why and the wherefore and the lessons of Hell Week. There's been, every seal book has ever been written and mentioned Seal Hell Week and how it was a formative part of their lives. But when I tried to get somebody else to write it, I kept being told, but you wanna written you write it.

So I did, it took me three and a half years to interview everybody and get it written. So it was a mission of intent because it needed to get written. Second book, I actually began as I was nearing retirement because I retired from active practice last year. You know, I still do medical stuff with veterans and with other patients and with companies

as a mandatory advisor. But I started realizing that if I retired and all of these experiences at war and at peace as a military doctor and as a civilian doctor didn't get written down, then they just might die with me and there are good stories and they're fascinating stories and there every single chapter is a patient experience or a life experience becoming a doctor that I've told many many times before as teaching points to residents and physician extenders so they can learn without having to experience

some of the good and bad things that I experienced. And so it took me only, less than a year to write, it was published last year, and it is in fact designed to be the combination of stories about doctors as medical students, as learning residents, as young doctors, as doctors at war, and doctors in challenging situations, such that anybody that ever thinks they want to be a doctor, read this book.

It'll give you a good, true experience of what it is, what it means to go through the very difficult seven years of training or more that it takes to be a doctor and the costs to, you know, financially and personally and family that are associated with that. But it also then gives you the, you know, the tears and the smiles and the excitement that doctors, you know, get to experience. I have two Iraq war chapters because I was in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division after my time with Delta. And I was a full bird colonel by then.

And we were the early part of the war. And I had American citizen who was six months pregnant come up to me and ask me if I would deliver her baby. And I said, no, I'm here to go home. What are you doing here in a war zone? Well, I'm with the USAID and I'm doing the most important thing in my life. And I'm going to have the baby here.

I didn't know I was pregnant when I got here. I'm not married. I'm going to have it here. So I had the choice of either letting it be delivered by the nuns that didn't have a hospital or oxygen or even a hospital in a war zone or bringing her into our facility and delivering her. And I did and she's a beautiful baby girl.

And I just got a picture of her as a teenager with her mom now, because we've stayed in touch. And then we know what a wonderful experience we're talking to have. And by the same token, there's another chapter where I get a call at two o'clock in the morning saying there's an enemy combatant on the way to me. It's been shot multiple times when he tried to blow himself up in a suicide attempt at the main gate and I needed to bring him

in stabilizing and ship him off to the surgeons and that story turns into this you know oh my god family practice, take a multiple gunshot wound, enemy combatant and make him keep him alive long enough to let American doctors save his life. What what what doctor ever expected that to be in their, you know, current experience basis, but they'll you know, they were lessons from that and I got the opportunity to point out that lessons from Madden, I got the opportunity to point out that now Colonel Craig Dobson then a young captain right out of pediatric training became the hero of that night and keeping that soldier alive during a middle of the night, ambulance, transfer to the surgeons, you know, and he's my hero to this day.

So stories like that make the book an adventure to read and also an educational experience for those that might want to go into medicine. Yeah, so can you, I wanted to take this just a little one step further because today when I go to the civilian medical system, you, you tend to get passed around from specialists to specialists compared to, I remember especially when I was in theater, when I was in the military, you didn't have that luxury. So, can you, for the listener, talk about kind of the difference between being a military physician and being a civilian physician, because I think there's a trend going on now where they're trying to take more and more of the military physicians out of those jobs.

And I think we both agree that it's kind of a tragedy that they're doing that. Yeah, it is a tragedy. There's a huge governmental push to replace military uniform positions with civilian providers. And, you know, it's very unlikely that those civilian providers are going to jump out of an airplane into foreign countries and then stay there all day and all night, you know, going to foreign deploy areas where they're getting shot. It's not going to happen. You know, they have unions and they have people know, going to forward to play the areas where they're getting shot, it's not going to happen.

You know, they have unions and they have people that are going to prevent that, and this can be very, very difficult to military to need a submission if that planned transition occurs. I personally don't think it can, and it hasn't happened yet, but it's being tweaked. But let me answer your first part of the question. First part of your question, this way, the military medical system is fantastic. It creates the best doctors that a military training system can create

far better in my humble opinion than most civilian systems do, because in the military, our, we don't pay malpractice insurance. We, therefore, we don't have lawyers telling us what we can and cannot do. As a family doctor in the military, I delivered my own babies.

I took care of my kids when they were born. I followed them all the way to adulthood and beyond. I took care of the mothers. I took care of their parents. So I was womb to tomb care. And that's what family practice of design to be. And as soon as I became a civilian, I had to sign up for malpracticing insurance. And they said, well, it's 10,000 a year to be a family doctor. If you deliver babies, it's 100,000 a year.

Well, I can't do that. I'd have to deliver a lot of babies to pay that, be all right, we know. So don't do it. And as a result, in the civilian world, you can't do what you were trained to do because there's lawyers telling you you can't. So, you know, for example, just sack to me, it's from the male sterilization procedure that I was an expert at, better than most urologists. And we did it in our office on a routine basis. I did them in Iraq, on a cot basis. I did them in Iraq on a cotton war zone and when I became a civilian they said that that'll be $6,000 more if you

want to do them in your office. Well, it was you had $300 of a second to me. I keep breaking even. I'm not going to do it. And so I'll send them to a urologist who will charge you $3,000. And that's part of the system that is broken. Money and lawyers have a huge impact on how medicine is practiced. And the reason patients get pushed out and into a world that they don't understand. Because you come to your average civilian trained primary care provider and statistically that's going to be a P.I. or a nurse practitioner,

you know, that a family doc is supervising three to ten of and they're going to go, I don't know if that thing on your skin is a cancer and I don't see a dermatologist. Whereas a family doctor would go, that's nothing to me freezing off for you. Or they would go, gee, you're having all this GI distress, you better go see a gastroenterologist. Well, when GI guy's gonna go in, and GI,

you probably, under a lot of stress, you'll see a psychiatrist. And so patients get lost in this shuttle that occurs because we don't have enough well-trained family and internal medicine primary care providers that can own and manage a patient. And I'll give you one quick example of that. I'm going to next week, I'm heading off to Alaska to go salmon fishing, which in my summertime adventure that I've been doing for over 20 years. And my fishing buddy called me and goes, oh, I just got out of the hospital. I don't think I'm going to be able to go with you.

And he tells me the story of being admitted for severe anemia following his COVID shot, which might be the reason he was severely anemic is blood dysplasia for a commonly reported side effect. But while they were working them up, they C.T. this abdomen found a large mass in his stomach and said, Oh, you might have cancer. Go see a college doctor in six weeks. So he luckily he called me to pop up. I got blood transfusions and I'm waiting for a cancer doctor to tell me whether this thing in my stomach is cancer or not. So what I had to do is what I would have done for any of my own patients and he was not. Because I got on the phone, I got my cancer doctor of choice. I got him in the next day.

We got him diagnosed. We got him taken care of. He's in chemo now and he's probably going to survive this life threatening disease But had I not been there to help him and he's written me multiple times. Thank you The probability that he would have died from that delay from that hospitals inappropriate

Decision to discharge him with an unknown mass in his abdomen. They did it because of money. You know, there's a certain amount of days you can stay in a hospital and get paid for. You know, in retrospect, I believe, had they known what I know, they would have said, look, stop, stay here.

Let's bring the guy in, let's get him, listen, take care. But if you're the patient, and all you've been told is Well, you were in the Mechemary fix it. There's something going on. You need to see a cancer doctor for you'd go Okay, I guess you guys are acting you my own best interests but but acting in our best interests right now for the system to work require that you have a family doctor that takes care of you.

And, you know, I just, a similar example, I just had a conversation with my, a female relative, I will be specific, who's been CVI OBGYN doctor, you know, all of her life. That's the only doctor she's ever seen, but she's in her 60s now, and the OBGYN doctor says, I don't do Medicare. So what I do, you need a real doctor

to manage your blood pressure in the thyroid and other things. And she didn't understand that this doctor couldn't do what another doctor should and can. And so we're having to educate her about how the system works best. And quite honestly, I retired as COVID began coincidentally. And I'm really grateful for it because having been in charge of clinics my entire career and expecting people to do what I say and listen to what I say, I know I would be unpleasant participant

in the craziness is going on right now. And it's making it harder and harder for people to know what the right thing is to do. Well, I couldn't agree more about that. I don't know if we want to go down that rabbit hole, but it seems like the CDC changes their guidelines every other day, which makes it difficult for anyone to trust what is

reality and what is not. I didn't want to go into this a little bit further because as we discussed in a previous conversation, I spent nearly two decades trying to get both the civilian and then the VA medical system to help me figure out what was going on. I was having a number of symptoms as we've discussed of migraines, memory loss, cognitive decline, irritability, fatigue, other things. And I, in both places, kept getting stuck in this, what I call land of protocol, where you are kind of passed around like a hot potato, especially if people can't figure out

what the exact causes for me, you know, and ended up culminating in a meeting that I was, that I had with a, a DO, who happened to be a psychiatrist at the VA who said you have to be your own advocate if you want to get the care that you need. And I kind of wanted you to maybe talk to the audience about if they are facing medical issues, what does it mean to be your own advocate in the medical system and what is what is some of your advice for them to help navigate it? Excellent, excellent question. And I do make brief mention to that in my book that you must in fact

As you get older we're all gonna you're all gonna dissolve and to back to dust and things bad things are gonna happen And sometimes they start early and sometimes they hit you midlife, inevitably they can hit you in later years. If you don't learn how to be your own advocate, then badness is almost guaranteed. The biggest advice that I can give to anybody and I gave to my relatives recently is find a family physician. I made the same advice to my brother recently, find a family physician because he just became mediteriological and having been self-employed his whole life in a very successful man, but unable to afford ridiculous costs of self-insured medical care, he called me, goes, well, what do I do now? And I said, get a family physician.

Not a PA, not a nurse practitioner, but a family physician, or a be associated with a group that has family physicians who can become your managed care advisor. And when you get in that place and build a relationship with your PA, or your nurse practitioner,, your family doc, it's part of a managed care group.

Do not be afraid, and not our fact, insist on always getting an answer to the question, why? And why? And why not? You know, when a doctor says, I'm going to do the following blood tests on you, why? And I'm going to give you this medicine. Why?

And, you know, I love it when my patients ask me, Hey, Doc, are you doing everything you can possibly for do for this problem that I am? You know, and my answer is always, well, based on what we know today, yes, but the truth and medicine changes on a regular basis. You know, what we know about in the Delta virus is changing on a daily basis. But you need somebody other than yourself to be that translator. And I tell people all the time, if you don't understand what somebody tells you in the medical world, you call me out translate. And it's really important. Because I'll send

people to surgeons, for example, to have a gallbladder removed or a dermatologist to have a malinoma removed. And then they're told all of the follow-on stuff and they don't understand. Now, so pick a phone call me. Don't call them because in many cases they don't know who you are. They just know that you have this or you have this. And I'm the guy that's going to tell you whether the medicine you can take works or interact with the other ones, or whether there's really something else we ought to consider. So use your relationships with doctors. Go to them when you're not sick. Make get an annual physical.

You know, Medicare pays for them. They want you to get them. The benefit will be when something comes up, you'll have somebody you can talk to about it. I can't even count the number of times that a patient has come to see me for a standard routine check-up. And the last thing they say to me as I picking up my computer

walk out of the room is, well, by the way, Doc, that is really important. I stop what I'm doing, but my computer down the go, what? What is it that you were going to tell me? And always, more often than not,

that leads to a real issue or a real problem or a real question that needed to be taken. What is it that you were going to tell me? And always, or more often than not, that leads to a real issue or a real problem or a real question that needed to be addressed. So yes, be your own advocate. Don't think you have to know how to speak medical because all our words are Greek and Latin. So, but have somebody that can translate for you. Here's a great story.

I got a phone call yesterday from the CEO class made a mind about a 90 year old relative of his. And is my, my Nantio relatives having hallucinations? Auditory hallucinations? Talking to the people that aren't there. You know, is this Alzheimer's? I said, okay, took a quick history and started with what medicines are you taking?

First word out about, well, they take this bone medicine for osteoporosis. Stop right there. Time out. Give me the name. Medicine is a lendronate. Look it out. Number one side effect of a lendronate fix. Calcium in the brain is auditory and visual hallucinations. So get this 90 year old off this medicine is causing very little benefit and Watch these symptoms go away and we could do but if he didn't have somebody to talk to These would have gotten potentially worse So you need somebody that you can pick up the phone and call and get evaluated So you need somebody that you can pick up the phone and call and get evaluated. Great. And if the viewer or listener would like to learn more about you or get in touch with you, how can they do that and how can they get access to your books? Cills.com is my primary website that has the two books that we're talking about here,

swords and seals. It has a way to contact me directly. My email address is from my Buds training class. There was Buds Class of 81. So if you want to email me directly, Buds81 at AOL.com. If you know people that want to know more about medicine, military medicine, share this podcast with them because it's, you know, John's a resource, memory resource, reach out and touch it, share this, share this podcast with people.

Hey, and before we close, I know you're in the middle of a third book and it happens to do with letters from your grandfather, I recall, can you just give that a plug? A please let me. This is Corporal Edwin Barton, my great-great-granddad, who wrote 260 letters to his wife Sarah during the Civil War. And those letters have been the borisly transcribed word for word mispelling and punctuation exactly as he wrote it. Well, he was a corporal in General Lance headquarters.

And the story itself is absolutely fascinating and historically significant because while I was researching the battles and the ships and the officers that he's talking about, I stumbled across a book and yeah, there was entitled, The History of the Seven Connecticut Infantry Regiment During the Civil War, published in 1905. And it talks all about the unity he was assigned to,

and tells me what all the battles were. So 26 chapters in this book now have introductory sections from this 1905 history book. And so you can read what the battle is, and then read his letter's home good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea.

I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. his only son went to West Point class in 1898. And he played football with another gentleman named

Smedberg class 1898. And these two men, where is it? Here it comes, had a son and daughter who married and became my grandfather, who is the three star supergeneral and able to count them and told you about. So it's, and I have two great, great grandads in the Civil War who had sons and went to

West Point 1898 who created the couple that was my grandad. So it's kind of a neat family connection. They're also called it's called my dear Sarah Civil War letters 1861 1865. What an incredible journey that you've been on writing that book. Sounds like just a fascinating tale. And Dr. Bob, thank you so much for spending time with us today on the show.

What a great guest you've been. John, thank you and fastenstruck for having me. Dr. Bob Adams episode was one of seven that we did during the month of September that are focused on veterans who served during the 20 year global war on terror. The others, if you miss them, include the Black call racing team, which competes in Moto America,

NASCAR Exfinity Driver Jesse Weegee, astronauts Kayla Baron and Wendy Lawrence, and Navy SEAL's William Brannum, Mark Devine, and Dan O'Shae. All fantastic episodes, and I hope you get a chance to check them out. I also mentioned today another episode that I did earlier in the year with former Navy SEAL on astronaut Chris Cassidy. That is one of my favorites I've recorded today. If there is a person you would like me to interview,

please DM me on Instagram and John Aramiles, and if you hadn't had a chance to check it out, visit our YouTube channel, also at John Aramiles. Please subscribe and check out the over 175 different videos we have across a myriad of different topics. Thank you so much for supporting this podcast and helping our mission of making passion go viral for millions. Your support means so much and if you truly love today's episode,

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