Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Rock Medicine

Episode Date: February 1, 2019

This week on Sawbones, we'll meet a San Francisco doctor that reimagined how we care for people with drug addiction and got a hit put out on himself in the process. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saabones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. Hello everybody and welcome to SoBones, a mayoral tour of Miss Guy in Medicine. I'm your co-host Justin McRoy. Yeah!

Not in a museum, a place of learning and growth, so anyway. This is a podcast recording. This is a heist. We're all going to steal that anilope thing. This is of course you all remember the plan that we went over with Clooney and Hathaway. We're all in on it. Oceans 200, I don't know, 15. A lot more than we thought. A lot more than we thought. Oceans more than oceans more than we planned. Yeah, listen, the ex filtration strategy we had for the analog will not work.

It's so much bigger than my truck guys. I said we could get it in my truck and we can't fit it in my truck. I'm sorry. See, we have a car to take the analog home in. We took an Uber here, so there's no way that analog's fitting in that. We took an Uber.

There's Uber, there's Uber XL, there's Uber analog. It's perfect if you stole an analog from a nice museum that lets you record a podcast there. What an amazing room to have a show in. I feel very privileged. This is so cool. I really, I'm so excited to be here. You know what, before we get to, can everybody here okay?

I like to make sure everybody's good. Good. Sorry, some of you are standing. I would stand in solidarity, but you understand. So, Sydney, we're here in beautiful San Francisco, California. That's right. I'm part of the nightlife. Yeah. I wore my sticker because it's a nightlife. That's probably like nightlife sounds like, ooh, intriguing. And so I put it on because I was like, nobody's ever thought about me that way. Like nightlife. Nightlife.

Nightlife. Here comes the party. Look at her, nightlife. Usually when we go somewhere, when we go on tour, we like to do a show. I feel like I say this every time. I need to mix it up. You say it. Okay. Say it different than I say it. Say it different than you say it. You know, on the road. But I don't say it that way. I know I'm doing it different.

You said it on the road. You know, on the road, we like to keep it somatic. We like to keep it geographically appropriate. And so this is gonna see this confusing because this is where you'd say in the what the thing is, and I don't know what the thing is. So I'll take it over. Yeah, perfect.

I, I warmed it up for you. Here, here's the rock. So I was looking into the medical history of the area to something relevant to San Francisco. And usually on our show, if you listen to the show, you might know that I talk about things that we've done in medical history that were bad or dumb. Just not great.

I mean, racist. And I found something that isn't that. It's still a great medical history story. And I didn't know it. And I'm hoping some of you don't know it. And we can talk about it because it's a really fun, great story. And the kind of the theme of it is that healthcare is a right and not a privilege.

Which is something that obviously a lot of you, and we here at Sawbones feel very strongly about. And so I wanted to tell this story because that kind of battle cry turns out probably started here, and I didn't know that. So I want to talk about what is probably either the first or at least one of the first free clinics in the country. Gina.

What? That's exciting. It's a really cool idea. Did you want me to play jockchams with my mouth? Like, what do you want me to do? Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun John Wick 3 today. I'm a maximum bump of dude. What, I need something a little more 60s. That's where we're going. We're going back to the 1960s. Do do do do.

All the leaves are by my leaves about and the sky is gray. OK, there we go. The sky is gray. Cut off on your dreamer. All the winners there. Let's go. Uh-huh. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh,

Are you good? Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, I did a room-appropriate remix for you. I blended it to Africa accidentally. Now, as you're probably aware in the 1960s, you can, you can, you all the leaves of brama ease. Is it not like a cue? It's not like an every time.

OK, got it. I'm moving forward with this show. I'm moving forward. We're going on. Got it. A lot of people were coming to San Francisco. If you're going to San Francisco, you won't want for every time you stop talking or this is going to get

exoskeleton. Just the one. One. Should have talked about this before. If you wanted all these great music cues, I wish you'd give me ads up. They were they were coming to take part in the in the kind of counter culture that had developed in the country but was centered largely in the kind of counterculture that had developed in the country, but was centered largely in the area, of course.

And they were sharing everything. They were sharing their food, and they were sharing their space, and they were sharing their beds, and they were sharing their drugs, and everybody was sharing, and it was loving, and it was wonderful, and everybody was getting along pretty okay in the beginning. It was this revolutionary experiment and a lot of people wanted to be in on it. And our story starts before the summer of love, not too far before, in January of 1967. In January, there was a concert in Golden Gate Park, the human BN. You get it? The human B the human BN. You get it? The human BN?

BN. Okay. Oh, all right. All right. Best job. Just being there. It's a huge deal, right? This giant concert.

And there was like, Alan Ginsburg was there leading people in chance. Timothy Leary was there. There were all kinds of bands, the Grateful Dead, Big Brother in the Holding Company, and Jefferson Airplane, this giant concert, and everybody was singing and dancing and chanting and beads and face paint, the whole thing.

Everything we've seen. You all know. You know, documentaries. We've all watched you. You probably call it Tuesday. I know you all. And a lot of the people there were doing drugs. And because of that, there was one participant who he wasn't doing drugs,

but he came because he knew a lot of humans would be. And that was... Is he a robot? Oh my god, is he a robot? No. No. Just a doctor. Just a doctor. An alien.

Just a doctor. Okay. Dr. David Smith, who was a 28 year old physician, who came because- That can't stop you for a second, that does sound like a robot fake name, though. No, this is real name. I am David Smith.

Smith. I hear humans are doing drugs. He came largely because at the time he was studying the effects of different substances on the behavior of rats. So he was working in the Pharmacology Department, the University of California. So he was working in the pharmacology department, the University of California, and he was injecting things like LSD and meth into mice and watching them to see what happens. And he thought, you know what would be better? Let's see what happens in humans.

And I bet there will be a bunch of humans that I can observe at this concert. So he came to the concert and you have to imagine like everybody's all, I assumed, all like, you know, beaded in long hair and like groovy and everything. And then he's like wandering around. I picture him in that blazer that you wear sometimes. That I wear? The Brown Quarter Roy one. Ah, yes. The Professor Lactos Intolerant Jacket. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

That's the one I've heard of buzz kills before, but it's tough to be like, so on a scale of one to 10. No, I've been hoping. How purple is your shirt? Go on. Oh, good. So he's wondering around, and he's watching people and he's observing them have their experiences. And on the whole, this event is notable for the fact that it went pretty well.

People were okay. They cleaned up their messes. There weren't any major fights. There was no big disturbance. There weren't any major fights. There was no big disturbance. There weren't like people being carted away in ambulances or anything like that. It went overall pretty well. And this went a big way in kind of communicating

this idea to the rest of the country like, OK, these people are serious. This isn't just like a bunch of kids who want to have fun. Like, this is a whole movement. This is a new way of life. And so what resulted from this is everybody in the city kind of knew after this, like, you know, I bet once school lets out the summer,

a lot of people are coming to San Francisco. And of course, they were right. So there were a lot of business owners and, you know, concerned citizens in the town who came forward to the City Council, and they created this thing called the Council for the Summer of Love, and they said, listen, we have to prepare because they're coming. And they're not necessarily bringing money.

And they don't necessarily have a place to sleep or food or anything. It's the exact same meeting the Pizza Hut lunch buffet has every time I'm gonna come. He won't necessarily have money or a place to sleep. But he is coming. So make this special Apple dessert pie, please. Or else go burn this place to the ground.

So they created this council to try to prepare. They even proposed to kind of law enforcement. Like we should go ahead and prepare Golden Gate State Park to let them sleep at. Hey, we're in Golden Gate State Park, right? Sort of next to it. In it. In it.

Nice. So they were like, let them sleep here. Nice. Not like in the Africa room, but out there. And the sheriff was like, no. no, we're not gonna do that. We're not gonna, if we just pretend they're not coming, surely they won't, or they'll get bored, or whatever, they'll get hungry, they'll go back home.

Don't worry, it'll be fine. And Dr. Smith in particular was concerned. If you're listening to this podcast later, that was probably the most confusing thing you've ever heard. I've almost certainly edited this out, but I think a Jaguar growled at us? Is that what that is? I can't read the plaque. Cheetah for sure. Okay, Cheetah, the big cat, the tree just growled. Cheetah.

We applauded. Jaguar, I had to write the first time, didn't I? It's a Jaguar, because the spots have discolorations in the middle. Oh my gosh, if you're listening this later, all the scientists in the museum just applauded me. They all said, oh, they're putting some sort of science crowd onto me.

I become the king of science. It is his room, and I'm sorry. You may speak. Continue with your, how you say, podcasts. So, Dr. Smith was particularly concerned about the medical needs of all of these people who are coming. And he said, listen, I've spent a lot of time around some of these people doing drugs

and like stuff can go wrong. People can have bad trips. They can get sick. They're going to sleeping outside, maybe. We need to be ready, we need a clinic, we need something in place to take care of all these people who are coming. And pretty much the city council was like, no.

No, if we build a clinic and make it seem like we wanna take care of them, then they're going to want to come more and we don't want that. So no. And he continued to insist, you know, I've been seeing this new population of patients who are using drugs. I've been seeing more and more of these bad reactions. I'm really concerned.

And nobody was listening to him. And so that was when he first kind of stood up and said, listen, I'm really concerned and nobody was listening to him. And so that was when he first kind of stood up and said, listen, I'm serious. You know, we have to do something and still nobody would listen. And then David Smith did something that changed his entire life and helped him eventually change the minds of everyone around him. He took some LSD. I'm not joking.

He had been working with it for a long time, right? He had access to it in his lab, and he had never done it before. He really was kind of a straight-laced guy. Like, he saw this as like, and he'll, these are his own words. He saw this as like a laboratory experiment. He would go out and see people using drugs and observe them, and he wanted to spend his time kind of enshrined in academia away from all of that. He had no interest

in going out and trying this stuff and like being among the people. He just wanted to see what happened and go back to his lab and kind of experiment. And then he took some LSD and he had this spiritual revelation. I've seen enough after school specials. I know what happens next. He jumped through a plate glass window, right? And I'll always get you. You shouldn't take drugs in the second story of a building, folks.

Not if you're an after school special because you're gonna jump right through that window, the second the drug state your system. That's not what happened, thank goodness. Instead, what happened is after he, I guess got back from his trip, he, I don't know, was that the parlance? You said I'd done a lot of LSD.

We've had so many of those We've had so many of those in-tab paper tablets. Oh, it's in Banner Snatch. Yeah, like the little tablets of paper with it on it. They put it on there on the little tabs of paper. Is that, that is it? Is it paper? Okay, God, it a lot of thumbs up.

Oh, now all the drug people are giving me a crown too. A second drug crown. So after his trip, he realized that this was about more than practicality. It was about more than logistics. It was about more than the ability to kind of scientifically study the effective drugs in the wild. This was about the fact that people need care and his job as a doctor, as a human, what's to help provide that.

And that was the first time when in the midst of a meeting, a public meeting with city health officials, he stood up and he said, listen, healthcare is a right, not a privilege. We have to do this. Now, of course. And this... Listen, you know how you feel, okay? You can't get rid of that easy line every time.

She can't just say something that gets you here. That's thanks. Well, it... What's mine? The crown thing? All right, I'll come back to it. All right, that stinks. Well, it... What's mine? The crown thing? All right, I'll come back to it. All right, keep going.

Keep working on it. Keep working on it. And this sounds like, now we say this, and a lot of us say this over and over again. Like I said, it's kind of a battle cry, and it sounds like a cliche. This was a big idea to be voicing in public and demanding, and demanding that city officials and doctors listen to and respect at the time.

There weren't a lot of free clinics. Other places in the world, they'd already figured out that if you take care of people and give them health care, it's a good idea. Your society is better off. Obviously, we still have not figured that out today here. But this was a revolutionary idea, and he was saying it out loud and demanding it, and this idea, of course, would eventually, you know, like the country on fire. Hopefully, we're still working on it. Anyway, he decided at this point, this is a moral imperative. This isn't just a good idea. So,

imperative. This isn't just a good idea. So he rented a former dentist's office. It was like 14 rooms on the second floor of a building just off the hate. And he caught it at the Haydashberry free medical clinic. I mean, it was this, it was a really tiny area to be starting this whole medical clinic. And he had like 150 bucks is what he rented it for. It was like him and some other medical students. They just pulled their money. They went in together and they said, let's get this, let's get this office. Let's go. Let's, let's start taking care of people. So they opened the clinic on June 7th, 1967, right at the beginning of the summer of love and it was it was mainly run by volunteers they had some donations by some big money donors and then just people who wanted to help and they also made use of they looked to the local population of hippies and said listen nobody's going to come here unless it looks like a safe place so we kind of need you guys to make it look okay.

So they had tons of volunteers who were really there just to like welcome you in the door and give you flowers and take you to a seat and talk to you. And they had the whole place like painted in psychedelic colors like the rooms were all different neon shades. They had like black light posters everywhere. They had lava lamps in the rooms. I mean, it's a very cool, groovy clinic. And they thought, okay, maybe a few people will come in, maybe we'll help a few people who are, you know, having some bad trips.

That was their first idea. Like this is mainly gonna be utilized by, you know, people who have come out to San Francisco, they've probably not really experimented with drugs a lot. They're going to try drugs. They're going to be really freaked out. And they're going to come here and we're just going to call them down. We have some quiet rooms.

We'll show them some lava lamps. We'll talk to them very soothingly. They'll come down and then we'll return them to their family and friends and everything will be cool. We have some sedatives, if things go really bad, we have those on hand, but that'll be the main function. They were wrong. The clinic saw 250 people in that first day, which as a primary care doctor, 250 people, that's a lot of

people. And they were seeing everything. It wasn't just patients who, you know, were using acid for the first time and having a bad trip. They were seeing bronchitis. They were seeing food poisoning. They were, they had a couple bikers who came in who had some bad burns, like they got in a bad wreck, and they had some burns on their legs they had to tend to. They saw a malnutrition. People who had been living outside and hadn't had food for a while. They saw everything.

They were not prepared for how wide ranging their services were going to be. And it became clear this clinic was really going to change the health of the whole population, and this was just the beginning. So on that day, like I said, they saw 250 people, they did see up to, and this is, this is an amazing statistic, up to 12 people an hour that they were just helping come down from like LSD, which is amazing. Like the thought that they had, and these were mainly volunteers, just in rooms, just is amazing. Like the thought that they had, and those were mainly volunteers, just in rooms, just talking to people,

non-judgmental, just working through it with them, just like, it's cool, you're fine, you're safe, we're not judging you, we're not gonna call the cops. There are only rules in the clinic, where it was pretty straightforward, like don't bring drugs, don't do drugs in the clinic. We know you did them out there. Don't do them in here, because the cops come in.

And the cops did. The cops raided the place constantly, because they figured, like, we're going to find a lot of drugs here. But that was the only role. Don't bring your drugs in here. Don't do your drugs in here. And so nobody did.

Nobody was selling drugs. Nobody was doing drugs in the clinic. And so they stayed out of the way of the law, but they were constantly getting rated by the police and the people who were coming in were really stressed about that and freaked out, but it was never a problem. So they worked with all these people

and over the course of the summer of love, the clinic would treat 12,000 patients, which is a wild number of people in a summer. And these were people that like, to give you some comparison, if you're listening this later, that's probably about how many people are in this room. You can hear, I mean, that's 12,000 people just going nuts for their favorite show.

You're not very good at estimating around 12,000 people. Numbers. It's an audio medium, Sydney. So what was great is that this really created all this trust in the local community between the doctors and the nurses and the psychologists and the counselors and social workers and everybody who was volunteering at this clinic and the community, which was a really important thing because then it kind of gave them a heads up as new substances crept into the area,

which was really important as meth became a bigger issue within the community. And so they kind of already had a heads up as they started to see people coming in with some meth-related illnesses. And the other thing with that is that people were injecting meth. And so you started to see like more and more cases of infectious hepatitis because people were sharing needles and all that kind of stuff.

And so it really gave, you know, David Smith and his crew by being nonjudgemental, by being open, by saying, we're not here to turn you in, we're not here to tell you what's wrong, we're just here to help you, really gave them the ability to reach a whole new population of patients who were being exposed to all kinds of stuff,

and we're afraid to seek care and traditional environments where, I mean, let's face it in the ER, you might have a cop standing there the whole time that you're going to check out. And so if you come in and you're on drugs, you might not want to go in there. That might be kind of a freaky environment. So it was a really big movement in this area of the country at this moment in time. The medicines, the medicines that ask you make my God for the mouth. So they got really close in particular, Dr. Smith formed a friendship with another doctor, so to speak.

Not really a doctor, but he was known by the name Dr. Zoom. Yes. And this was really important because Dr. Zoom was. Yeah, I know why it's really important. The name is Dr. Zoom. You can drink a little water if you need to. Said I'm gonna talk about Dr. Zoom for a second. What do you know about Dr. Zoom? I don't know anything about Dr. Zoom,

except it's the best person you've ever brought up on the show before. And I'm so excited to learn so much more about Dr. Zoom. Now I'm angry about the water, because you're keeping me from Zoom. So as I said, people had started out using a lot of psychedelics in marijuana, and then they were starting to use more meth. Dr. Zoom was, as I, I found him described in one article,

a world-class meth addict. LAUGHTER These are not my words. LAUGHTER That's not funny, I'm sorry. He had a, he always had a syringe, like, pin to his jacket. That was, like, his thing. Like, to tell everybody, like, I'm a world-class methatic.

Don't even act like I don't do meth. And he was really famous in the community already, and he initially wasn't going and seeking any medical care, but this clinic got such good reputation that he finally went there when he was sick and in need. Just as a fellow physician to try to- Well, he kind of became a consultant of sorts because he knew all the ins and outs of meth

and who was using it, what was, who was using what, and where it was coming from. And he had the in and all of the, you're gonna go all over this name. What was called the Crystal Palaces? Like not the place at Disney World. Oh, okay.

But, but like places where people did meth, it's Crystal Palace. Oh, okay, got it. Is that why they called it that? Cause the Disney World? I mean, is that why Disney World called it that? Because that's where all the characters go to do meth.

I cannot imagine that they... That's true, they have a friendship, right, so, breakfast, right? You all are Disneyland people. I don't know if you have the Crystal Palace here, but... Like, when are the poo is there? When are the poo does meth? Is what you're saying?

No! Wow. No! Learned a lot on this, so I'm not even watching this. No! Wow. No. Learned it a lot on this sobbing. No, but I was, when I read this, and I read this in multiple places, and I was like, so were these just like regularly known as crystal palaces?

Why did Disney World call that restaurant with winning the poo crystal palace? That seems like a weird name now. But this gave Dr. Smith access. He would actually like go to these places. Dr. Zoom would call him and be like, listen, we've got somebody. Greetings and salutations.

Tiss-eye, Dr. Zoom. Some more scouting wags you're doing all my math. But this was a- They have to solve 13 puzzles. So unlock the last chamber of mess that I've prepared for them, but you can cover treat them if you like. One physician to the next. Anyway, gotta go.

I'm gonna fight Batman. World class. World class. But these were like house calls. They were crystal palace calls. You would go to these crystal palaces and like, doctors weren't allowed in there. You weren't allowed in there unless you had a password. And here we have this like,

like I like to envision this like, Tweety Nerdy Doctor like, hello, I'm here to check somebody out. And like they would let him in and help people out, which was great. He had these contacts and he was that trusted. Now, it got to a point. He was kind of taking care of a lot of people who were,

and he was very clear on his opinions on drugs. And these are, at the time, I think they've changed now, but his opinions on drugs at the time were pretty clear. Meth is bad. Marijuana is fine. Psychedelics, as long as you're using them in the right place, can be fine. But meth, he was pretty clear on nobody should be using. And this started-

And you think this has changed over time? No, I mean, I don't know his personal- I mean, you know what, meth, I just you too quickly. It's going fine. I'm not going to say what his opinions now are on. Probably still down on meth. There was a division between all the different substances. And this started to gain the attention

of the community of meth dealers. In particular, one, like the big wig of the meth dealers, Papa Al,, Papa Al. And Papa Al was very upset about this whole situation. And so he decided, I'm gonna kill this guy, or I'm gonna have him killed. And I'm gonna take over his clinic, and I'm gonna use it to deal meth,

because that'll show him. So he offered $100 worth of meth to anybody who would off this doctor to just get him out of the picture. And... Wait, wait, wait. How much meth and does the offer still stay? And the doctor, Dr. Smith, was terrified. He heard the address.

Yeah. Yeah, about this. Yeah. Yeah, because this guy was a huge steel. And he thought, well, I'm as good as dead. So he went to the authorities and he was like, this guy's gonna put out a contract on my life. I'm gonna die. And they were like, listen, we told you not to open the place to begin with, so I guess it's your problem by.

So no help, no help from the police, nobody was willing to help him out. So he goes back to the clinic and he's like, I'm going to die. What am I going to do? A member of the hell's angels shows up. And says, call our boss, Barger. Just give him a call. Okay? And then leaves. Gives him a phone number. So, he calls this phone number and he says,

hey, I'm Dr. David Smith, I was told to call you. And he's like, yeah, six words. We will take care of this. Hang's up. That's it. Oh, no. Oh, no. So the next day, Papa Al gets a visit from two of Hell's Angels, and they're basically

like, here's the deal. Dr. Smith is your insurance policy. If something happens to him, you're dead, so you better hope he's fine. And nobody ever touched it. I think it was just... For people, stop. One sec. Just a moment. Say you can drink a bit more water if you like.

For people listening to a medical history podcast in the museum, you are pretty stoked about the hell's angels giving death threats to people. Like you're like, out of character joys, about like, yeah, kill him. Kill that mess dealer, Hells Angels? Yeah. I have no evidence how to do that. Hey, how did it art deposit to NPR? Go through for this month?

Good. Okay, yeah. Anyway, kill those guys. Yeah. Turn them apart. Okay, yeah, anyway, kill those guys, yeah! Tam apart! So as far as I know, they didn't kill him, but, you know, I mean, nobody ever knew what happened to him.

The last day, it's like, what do you think happened to that guy? And he was like, oh no. He never bothered me. He's gone. So the clinic continued on. It struggled to make ends meet at times because it was a free clinic. And it took care of everybody.

And it was mainly run with donations. And so there was a point where it was going to have to shut down because it didn't have enough money to keep going. And the way that it stayed open is that it had really great ties with the local musical community, the local rock community. In particular, Janice Joplin was a client of the clinic and a huge contributor to the clinic.

And would help them out when they needed money or when things were, when they thought they couldn't keep the doors open. In addition, the concert promoter Bill Graham was a close friend of the clinic. And so when they really got into a position where they thought they couldn't keep the doors open anymore, he staged two huge concerts. And at these concerts, I mean, again, big brother in the holding company, Jefferson,

airplane, huge bands played. They raised like $10,000, this is in 1968, you know, $10,000 to keep this clinic open. So these connections to all these big deal musicians and all the help they provided, all of these rock bands really help keep the clinic open. And in return, by 1972, Graham had this close relationship with him and he said, you know what, you know what, it would be a good idea. Because he was a huge promoter, right? He put on all these giant concerts.

He said, what would be a really good idea is if we had like a medical tent at these concerts, we should have that, because people come and they don't drink enough water, they get dehydrated, they get sunburns, they fall and they like break bones, they get hurt, and then, you know, people are doing drugs and all that kind of stuff, we need somebody here to help them out. So in 1972, he asked the clinic, he said, will you provide some coverage, some medical coverage? We're doing some concerts for the grateful dead,

for Led Zeppelin, will you have like a tent where we can send sick people? And they said, sure, no problem. After that, this grew with the help of a doctor, George Gay, human by skip. And he said, let's create a whole organization that does this. This is a need, events need doctors. So from that was born rock medicine, which is still a thing today. It was, you may have heard of it.

It was born right here in San Francisco. And the idea was that at big concerts, at big outdoor events, you need somebody to help sick people. And you need somebody who's not gonna be there to like cart you off to the ER right away, who's not gonna be there to like let you sober up and then take you to jail. You just need people to help take care of you.

Once you're okay, once you're stable, get you back to your friends and family, get you home safe. That's the whole idea of rock medicine, which still operates today. And they send volunteers to all kinds of huge events around here, like all the 49ers games and all the big concerts and everything. It's football.

Good job, Justin. There's at least one birthday here. It's like, thank you. Which is super cool. It was all born out of this free clinic, this connection with this free clinic, and then Bill Graham, and this was the birth of rock medicine,

which is still very alive and well today, which I personally think is very cool because when I was like 14, I saw a documentary about rock medicine on television, and I saw this doctor taking care of somebody who was like crowd surfing and like fell, like broke their wrist or something. And I was, I saw this doctor, and he had a caduceus tattooed on his ankle.

And I remember thinking, I want to be that doctor. That doctor is so cool. And I have that same tattoo now. Because this is not a joke. It's because of that doctor who was volunteering for rock medicine that I saw on a documentary when I was 14. I just learned about this. Yeah, that's wonderful.

I don't know that's where it came from. I love you. Anyway, I love you too. You're just sweet. Okay, good. Anyway. Back to the podcast. Where's Dr. Zoom?

Bring him back. Yeah. Bring him back. You complain a lot on our show that I have a bad habit of wanting to follow every person I talk about. Until they die, yes. Yes. It is known.

I decided not to do that with Dr. Zoom. Oh, okay, I got to see you think maybe he's mayor somewhere or something. He could be an astronaut. We don't know. He could have kicked the habit. I think once you're a world class methodics, he maybe don't, there's probably not a great. Let's not.

He's fine, he's here today. He's fine. He's not, he's not here today. Let's not dwell on that. Let's not dwell on that, you see, I'm sure he's fine. That's not the point. Let's talk about what happened to this clinic,

this tiny little, you tiny little second floor clinic that was funded by donations, that was run by volunteers that had lovelamps in the exam rooms, that the city council didn't wanna happen, that the police didn't wanna happen. Instead, it continued and it grew because more people volunteered and more people donated, and actually it got a lot of support

from the university. Eventually I think a lot of that was actually due to Nancy Pelosi, who was on the board at the university and was like wanted to funnel a lot of like yeah we'll support this is a really good idea. And so it got a lot of help at that point and then after the Vietnam war it started catering to a lot of veterans who were coming back and needed help. And it started to get some like federal funding as a result of how much help it was giving to veterans. And so the clinic just continued to grow. And eventually, it is now, it has been absorbed by what is called health right 360. It's part of that today. So it's still alive and well today in health rights 360.

It mainly joined because as part of the affordable care act, it had to do like electronic medical records and all that kind of stuff. And it's a lot easier, I can tell you this from experience, it's a lot easier to do that in a big organization than it is like a private office. It's really expensive to do that stuff. So it is still alive and well today. And the spirit of the free clinic and the idea that healthcare should be available to everybody for free, and that you don't need my personal

opinions or judgment when you come for help, when you come for medical care, you just need help. That idea really, I mean, it's at the country on fire, and there you can find clinics like this all over the US today. I mean, we had a free clinic in our tiny little town in West Virginia And I think this idea the free clinic movement was really born of Of this you can really trace its roots back to David Smith and the this first free clinic so Congratulations Sam for this case. You're very proud

And it's also the home of Sketchfest, which we're so happy to be a part of this year, is so thrilled in for us. Thank you for having us Sketchfest wherever you are. And thanks to the Maximum Fund Network as having us as part of their extended podcasting family. Should you thank the... Thanks to the chat.

Did we decide it's a chat room? She'd, uh, whatever. She'd, uh, for allowing us to... For continue, unabated without murdering us. Uh, thanks, taxpayers. For the use of our song, Medicines is the intro and outro of our program. And thanks to you for being here.

I'm listening to us. Thank you. Appreciate it. Anyway, that is gonna do it for us for this week's episode of Saw Bones. Until next time, my name is Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright!

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