Sense of Soul - The Art of Human Care

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

We had the honor of introducing one of the most extraordinary souls we have ever met in our lives, Dr. Hassan Tetteh. Former Command surgeon for the national defense university,  Chief medical Informatics officer for the us navy. One of few thoracic and cardiac surgeon who specializes in heart and lung transplants. He is a best-selling author of four amazing books. His new book is The Art of Human Care. He joined us to share his personal journey of discovering "the healer within"  and to give us some insight on how to transform the effects of stress on the heart in order to lead a more healthy and happy  life.  On his life-threatening missions, he discovered that survival has more to do with the health of the spirit than it does with the physical vehicle that carries it.  Hassan shares with us his personal story about Covid 19, and how he has gotten through this unsure time. It was such an honor and we know you will love this episode!! Check out his website below. https://doctortetteh.com/ www.mysenseofsoul.com  

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Welcome. Today we have with us a former command surgeon for the National Defense University, chief medical informatics officer for the U.S. Navy, one of few thoracic and cardiac surgeons who specializes in heart and lung transplants. He is a best-selling author of four amazing books, and he is here today to share his personal journey on discovering the healer within. It is an absolute honor to have with us Dr. Hossam Teta. Thank you so much for your service for this country and thank you for being with us today. Thank you for the opportunity to visit

with you and your great audience. Thank you. As a Gold Star sister, I wanted to thank you as well. So my brother was killed in Iraq in 2007, six hours before he was supposed to be coming home for the birth of his daughter. And so my family could not be more grateful for the work that you did. And that is why that book was very emotional for me to read. But in a good way as well, your book was just very raw and real and gave me an insight to what really happens over there and the length that so many people go to, to be there for one another while under such horrible circumstances. So from my Gold Star family, my mother, my father, and his wife and daughter, we just want to thank you. Well, I want to thank you and certainly your brother for his sacrifice and your family's

support in their sacrifice. That was Gifts of the Heart, I imagine. And that was the book, actually my very first sort of novel, if you don't count something I did when I was a young, young, young, young child. But it was a very emotional journey for me to write that book. It was a cathartic experience and a very healing experience, but one that allowed me, as you mentioned, to capture some very raw emotion as well as some deep felt experiences

that I had during that time. It was quite transformational for sure. I think it was placed in my life at a perfect time because I'm at such peace with what my brother went through. And, you know, I just reunited with my niece about a year ago. And so if I would have read that before, I probably would have been thrown into like a mental breakdown, but I found a lot of healing in it. And the faith that you found through your experience there was kind of what my brother's death did for me as well. So it was relatable. And again, it was so raw. There were parts of it that reminded me of

stories I read in his journal and have heard from his battalion buddies, the camaraderie and the love. It was a powerful book for me. So thank you for writing it. Well, you're very welcome. I'm glad that it helped you out. And yeah, well, it brings me back as well. Thank you. I said, Mandy, why are you reading that book? I was like, there's a new book out. And she's like, oh, well, actually, I don't even know why then.

I mean, really, it was meant for her to read. Yeah. Wow. Well, I'm very happy that you discovered it and found it in that way and that it connected with you in such a deep way. That's really touching. Thank you. Yeah. You also pulled on my heartstrings too, because my dad actually died in the hospital. He needed a new heart and he passed away, unfortunately, after 11 days. But I did see that you were a big supporter of donating organs and you're a part of a program called STAR what does that stand for? Yeah so

it stands for specialized STAR teams specialized thoracic transplant adaptive recovery teams and what we do is we are a group of professionals and surgeons and care coordinators and folks that are really dedicated to increasing the amount of transplants that are done, improving the quality, and making sure that we can contribute to, you know, less people unfortunately succumbing to waiting on the list, just like you outlined. So yeah, it's a great opportunity to sort of fulfill a purpose and to use, you know, some of the talent and the skills that our team kind of comes to bear and dedicated to this very important work of helping more people get transplanted with life-saving organs. And also, you know, what is probably lost and maybe not necessarily as

relevant or realized is the fact that, you know, many of the people that become donors, particularly for heart and lungs, which is where our work is mainly kind of focused on, you know, there's this tragedy, you know, and sometimes this abrupt and unexpected, devastating, you know, event that now takes someone's life in such a way that they become brain dead, and now they become a donor. And, you know, I think our work at this sort of intersection of life and sort of the bridge between that and death, it gives, you know, a lot of families some peace and some closure, meaning to this terrible tragedy, knowing that their loved one is, you know is potentially going to contribute to saving

another one's life in such a really profound way. So yeah, it's really great work. It's kind of the work that you say, wow, you know, I'm getting into do something that I'm really passionate about and makes a real difference in everyone's life with every one of the actions that we have. So in every case, it's been great. Well, how does one come to want to become someone who saves people's lives by transplanting organs? Yeah, you know, I think I have to say, I, you know, just talking about this recently with someone else, I didn't really sort of plan out to do this in so many ways, just like many, many people find themselves with, I think, a combination of serendipity, you know, some luck and just circumstance that, you know, kind of created this opportunity. I went to medical school and, you know, certainly wanted to be a doctor. I kind

of got that far. And then when I got into medical school, I just really became fascinated with surgery. And then I had an opportunity to meet a heart and lung surgeon. And I was like, wow, I want to do that. And then I had an opportunity to train at the University of Minnesota, which is a very, very historic place for transplantation, both abdominal transplant and thoracic transplant. And so I did a ton of transplant while I was a fellow. And, you know, I like to say that if you went to Minnesota and you trained where I did, you left that program either really loving transplants or never wanting to do one ever again. And so I fell into the former camp and, and in that sort of how, that's how it all evolved. And as I became, you know, interested

and sort of involved with other things, particularly in my military career, I still wanted to stay clinically connected. And this was a way to do that in such a deep and meaningful way to really do a procedure that, you know, required all of the training that I had developed and it sort of nurtured over the years and then use it in an effective way to see an opportunity to really help the community because there was a deep need for professional folks that could, you know, do this really important work.

And I really enjoy it. And I really think that we're making a difference and we're making a profound impact on not only the Transparent Senses that we partner and work with, but also the lives of a lot of people. So I just have to say, I visioned you as a little kid playing doctor, which we all did. And were you like, hey, can I take your heart? Put it in my lunchbox. Awesome. We also have something relatable. I'm a near-deather, two-time near-deather. I went into complete lung failure from asthma twice. So you also had a near-death experience and that was a little piece of your story. Can we hear about that? Sure. Yeah. Well, that, that, wow, that, that happened during undergrad and I was a junior in

college. I was biochem major, pre-med, ready to go to med school, you know, some sort of when I was young invincibles, I went to interview in Baltimore. I went to a small arts and science college in New York, upstate New York. and I traveled to Baltimore, had this great interview with Johns Hopkins. And I was like, I'm going to get into medical school. I know they love me because how could they not love me? It was awesome. You know, I had a great interview. And when I came back, I, over the past, over the few days of returning from my trip, I just became really sick. And I was just like, you know, feeling like I had the flu and hung over, you know, frat. No, no, no, not quite. But but I just really just didn't feel well. And I just had aches and pains. And, you know, nowadays with the, you know, with the sort of current crisis that we're living in, and, you know, I remember being next

to someone on the plane that was coughing the entire time that I was going down there and and I don't know if that's what happened but eventually what happened about seven days later after returning from my trip I found myself in the infirmary with a really high grade fever a really stiff neck terrible headache aches and pains couldn't hold anything down and my colleague the folks at the at infirmary, misdiagnosed me incorrectly with a stomach flu, but appropriately gave me, you know, something that probably helped prolong my life for a few hours until I got definitive care. So they gave me some penicillin tablets. I went back to my dorm room. You know, you mentioned the fraternity. Well, it's my fraternity brothers that I think in part saved my life because hours later on a Friday evening, all alone in my dorm room, all holed up, couldn't keep anything

down, well before cell phones and all that other stuff. You know, they came looking for me because we had an event that we were supposed to do that evening. And they were like, he's trying to get out of work. You know, let's go find him. And they found me in my dorm room, literally unresponsive and took me to the hospital local. And if you can imagine, you know, you talk about being very lucky. These two burly, you know, young guys from college bring me in and I'm like unresponsive Friday night, college town, you know, what are they thinking? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. What did

he drink? What did he take? And they're like, no, he doesn't drink. He doesn't take anything. He's really sick. And it, you know, I think it's a blessing that the doctors and the team there, you know, recognize that no, this was not your typical case. This is not something that looks obvious. It's probably something a little bit more unique. And what they did is they proceeded to diagnose me with bacterial meningitis. And I remember sort of these things kind of, you know, episodically here and there being in this kind of fetal position, needle going in my back, telling me not to move and bright lights and people with masks. And it was really a surreal experience. And I know, Manny, I know you can, you know, identify with that. And

so what happened subsequent to that would were, you know, identify with that. And so what happened subsequent to that, we're, you know, we're bound to a few weeks in the hospital with a tube in every orifice of my body. And the whole time I'm thinking to myself, you know, I got to get over this thing because there's this acceptance letter waiting for me at Hopkins and I got to be a doctor. And I, you know, I really think that's what kept me alive. And, and, uh, you know, I was completely ignorant to what I had. And when I did realize what I in fact had and, and understood the gravity of, of the condition that I was in, you know, it just gave me this, uh, deep sense of gratitude, you know, because I was,

I shouldn't have survived. And, and so that was a very formative experience, because it happened at a time well before I was a doctor. And so when I finally did get into medical school, and you know, sort of progressed throughout my career, anytime I had a patient encounter, particularly one in which the patient was in the hospital, and they were in that gown, and they're in this bed, and they're anxious, and they were in that gown and they're in this bed and they're anxious and they're, you know, full of fear and anxiety and uncertainty and they feel helpless. I'm like, I know exactly how you feel because I felt just like that. You talk about a near-death experience sort of, you know, totally, you know, resetting your perspective on life.

It certainly did that for me. But it also, you know, provided me with this great, I think, perspective of what it feels like to be a patient. And I think empowered me with this and engendered me really with this sense of empathy, because I can relate. And even though it happened so many years ago, I'm relating this story to you like it was yesterday, right? Because, you know, it was over 20 years ago. But nonetheless, you know, the connected stories of all of these tragic experiences that I encounter with donors, and their families and these tragic events, it kind of reinforces what I experienced as a young,

you know, sort of adolescent, so many years ago, because it gives me this, you know, great appreciation on a very visceral level of the delicate balance between life and death, and how you never know what's going to happen, you know, from one time to the next. You know, I remember my experience as a young invincible thinking, man, nothing could happen to me. And this little bug, you know, almost took my life. And at the same time, every, you know, every few days or so, I'm reminded from, you know, my transplant work and how frail and how fragile life can be. And, you know, so it gives me this real deep sense of appreciation for the here and for

the now and for the present. And I think that it's overall been a very good thing that I think has really informed the way that I practice and approach my patient care and sort of life in general. I love that. It's kind of like when I went to school to be a certified addictions counselor and being in recovery. It's kind of what we all do once we get sober. We always go into kind of that field because we know what it's like to be them. So it makes it that much more relatable and you can really have a lot more empathy for those people that are coming in to get sober because you've been there. So I can relate to that story as well. Wow.

I have to say I'm kind of pissed. How comes when I was in the hospital and had like a hundred holes in my lungs and they brought in my family to say goodbye to me and I was in complete respiratory failure. Why wasn't I offered any lungs? I didn't even know that there was such a thing as a lung transplant. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, that's a shame. I'm sure you'd be a candidate. So I'm hoping by the end of this, I can get your phone number so that when I need them, I can just call you and you can hook me up. Well, we can certainly put you with the right people. There's a whole process of transplant. And you know, it's one of the most purest ways of practicing medicine.

That's the other reason why I really love transplant medicine and transplant surgery. Because when you think about how we evaluate a patient for a transplant, there is a whole team of really, really caring, talented, smart people that are involved in the whole process. You know, you have behavioral health professionals, you have the psychiatrists, the psychologists, you have social workers, and then you have the whole army and sort of team of medical people, surgical people, all evaluating this one individual to say, hey, are they one, a good candidate, or two, are they going to be good with getting a transplant? Are they going to be compliant? Can we look at how we can make it socially better for them? You know, do they have the right family support?

Can you think about if we were able to treat all people like that, no matter what their condition was, not just folks that are getting transplant, you'd get like the best world in terms of like care of this whole, you know, team of professionals working and dedicated to your well-being and your health. Yeah, that's funny, because, you know, when I was going through it, I felt like we were having to defend his life in order to get him a heart, which we should, because there's so many people that might need that one heart, so I get it, but I remember sitting down with those people at first who end up being absolutely wonderful but in the moment I was like what like you're questioning

whether or not this man would want to live and was dedicated his entire life to the community they don't know any of that but that's what they wanted to hear they did absolutely yeah yeah it was interesting I've never been through anything like that, of course, but it was, I was like, oh yeah, I will fight for my dad to have this heart. You said something about this team. You know, there's so many people involved that a lot of people don't realize. I mean, you named off all those therapists. There's a lot of people. You mentioned that in your book too. When you were over in Afghanistan, you know, you got a lot of thank yous for what you were doing. And then you extended it out to everyone else because it wasn't you that were saving these

Marines. It was all of you from the people in the field and transferring and putting them in the helicopter and then getting to you. It was all of you that were saving these lives. Absolutely. Yeah. It was entirely a team effort. You know, I'm very fond of talking about, you know, this, this incredible power of partnerships and how, when you think about what a team could do, you know, there's even, you know, my parents, my parents are from West Africa, you know, so they're West African immigrant parents. And there's this ancient proverb from, from where my mom is from in Freetown and it's Freetown, Sierra Leone. And it's, it says, you know, so they're West African immigrant parents. And there's this ancient proverb from where my mom is from in Freetown, and it's Freetown, Sierra Leone. And it says, you know, if you want to go fast, go by yourself. But if you want to go far, go with others. And that is like

the embodiment of like, you know, what you can accomplish with a team, right? Yeah, you can go real fast. If you go by yourself, you're not going to last very long, you may not make a lot of progress, you go really fast. But if you you have a team, and you're like partners to last very long. You may not make a lot of progress. You go really fast. But if you have a team and you're like partners, you can do incredible things. I mean, you think of the greatest discoveries and best companies built, you know, you just think on a very basic individual level. You know, think about you and your family. We were asking, really, will your dad have a partner in taking care of his heart and getting back to health. And yes, we wanted to make sure that there was a partnership there. But in the desert, what I realized was we were literally making the impossible possible every day. We were in the middle of nowhere,

in the middle of the desert, intense operating on people that were mortally injured. The worst injuries, as I outlined in the book and described them, worse than anything I'd ever seen in any civilian hospital that I worked with, you know. And I would argue that in the best circumstances, some of those patients would never even survive in some of the best hospitals. But here we were in the middle of nowhere, in a tent, and it was only it was only yeah yeah performing miracles every day making the impossible possible really as a testament to the you know combined teamwork and all of those individuals that kind of came together to do something really good and important

to make sure that you know we could save these lives of these uh these folks that were really mortally wounded yeah it's amazing yeah what. Well, and I read that you actually discovered that survival had more to do with the health of the spirit than it did the actual physical vehicle. Yeah. Well, I think that that was certainly something that was personally felt by me. I believe that, you know,

it was despite my ignorance about what I had with bacterial meningitis, that it was the real will and the sort of desire to live that I think helped me out. And so that's always been my personal mantra. And then over the years, I've come in to appreciate

and to discover lots of good literature that show that the mental state of our patients and mental state of any individual absolutely, you know, has a profound impact on their health in just without any conditions or without any ailments, just as a baseline. And then in the work that I've done with my patients, I've always recognized this very interesting and very powerful observation, which is when patients have this will to live and they have something to live for, they can rally through almost anything. And conversely, when I've encountered patients that don't really have that kind of like spark in that light, it really is something to give me a lot of pause and concern, because I always wonder, like, are they going to

be able to, you know, deal with this when they, you know, when they have to recover from a really big procedure from a big surgery, or, or even just this illness or this sickness. And so I always try my best whenever encountering patients, particularly when they have to go through a big procedure, to kind of appreciate what's in their life. What is it that they're living for? Do they have grandkids? Do they have children? Is there a hobby? Is there like a purpose that they have that really drives them?

With my dad, it was that his business was going to go under if he wasn't there. And that was a concern because that's what put him in there to begin with. So was he willing to make those changes in his lifestyle that got him into the hospital with heart issues? Cause he had no stress relief. Wow. He was, you know, he had nothing, you know, he had no practices of how he released. His release was working and that was killing him. And it did eventually. Wow. That's kind of what pushed me into learning some of those tools because I knew that I had been experiencing anxiety my whole

life. I had been medicated for it my whole life. That was my tool was the medication. And so this really pushed me to go ahead and, and try new things. And I, I immersed myself in mindfulness and meditation. And I feel like I really, really changed almost something in our family of how we're not going to work ourselves to death because that was kind of a common thing to work work work work work gotta be the best gotta do you know do do do do do and you know I just kind of gave that up I surrendered yeah so when you were in Afghanistan you were reading a book about meditation did I read that right you did you did and you're talking uh you're talking my language and you talk about the meditation and the peace you can find and how incredibly helpful it is to bring you health and peace. tried to reconcile much of that in the book, in the Gifts of the Heart book. But coming back in

that transition, oh my gosh, it was so challenging. It was so difficult. It was really, really, you know, a stressful time, you know, and I tried my best to not make it a post-traumatic stress disorder, but I was definitely stressed post-trauma. And one of the things that I discovered, you're right, while I was out in the desert is I read a lot. And I'd always known about meditation and I read about it and things like that before deploying. But when I came back and I reflected on those times that I read about the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, for example, I said, wow, here's this great warrior. He would retreat to his tent, like I did, after a terrible day of battle. And in our case, this terrible day of like battling in the OR trying to save lives. I mean, it was just so emotionally draining and

taxing. Not to mention the fact that we were in danger. I think we had, you know, you could hear mortars and you know, you yourself was, you know, you were already in harm's way, so to speak. So it was incredibly stressful. And coming back and trying to reconcile that was a really challenging transition, especially since when you got back home, you just recognize how oblivious or kind of blind to the world of that we were just coming from, everyone else was, you know, and it was so hard to explain like what I was going through and what I saw. of that we were just coming from everyone else was, you know, and it was so hard to explain, like what I was going through and what I saw. And thankfully, I had very supportive family.

But I also discovered meditation. And it was such a great tool to have in terms of dealing with and coping with the anxiety, the stress, the burden of all of that weight, you know, that I had sort of like, you know, went through and experienced. And it also gave me another, you know, very, you know, strong perspective in terms of how, you know, all of these experiences with war impact so many people. Because you think about it, all my life I, you know, trained and worked in hospitals where there were VA veterans, right? And they would wear these hats and they'd be like 70, 80 years old. And they may have had a one year, two year, even less experience. In their whole life, 80 years old,

they had a little experience of going out to war and combat and they still have that hat. It's because war is unlike any other experience I think you can have as a human being. And when you experience it, it just like leaves a mark on your whole psyche. It like transforms you into this individual that you can be stuck in that time. But it also is such a profound experience that you have over your course of your lifetime that it totally made sense for me now to understand why so many of these individuals were stuck in this era. And it also made sense to me how hard it was to overcome some of those things and why some people don't talk about it. And some people just kind of live in that time. But meditation, I have to say, was by far one of the strongest and most powerful tools to reconcile, deal with, and help,

and ideally negotiate and navigate that really challenging, challenging time in my life. I was completely shocked to hear that you guys were carrying guns. Like here you are a doctor. Exactly. Yeah. Well, we were shocked too when they gave it to us. I have this, well, we, you know, we deployed with the Marines. And so before we deployed, we had these weeks and weeks of training in Camp Lejeune. And they were teaching all of the doctors and the nurses to fire weapons. Oh, my God. And we were like, what is going on here? And, you know, it was, it was, it was never lost

of me. We'd have like, you know, some of the senior, you know, they would tell us all the time, like doc, nurses, you guys, listen, the enemy doesn't know that you're a doctor. You got to learn how to defend yourself. Here you are a group of people that are probably, you know, are impasse and you're of service to the world and you put yourself in the line of purpose and that is to save others. Yet you're given a gun to kill someone. Talk about a contradiction. Yeah. Well, we, we, we always try to say, you know, this is to defend ourselves and to defend our team members, but yeah, no, it was, it was not taken lightly at all. Yeah. I have a quote from you. A sad soul can kill you quicker than a germ, which, you know, this I think is something

everyone needs to hear because there's a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety right now. We're all wearing masks everywhere we go. This could be a very stressful time. It could be very stressful. Well, it is a stressful time. It is. Absolutely. Yeah.

Absolutely. That means so many things. Let me just say that, you know, at the beginning of this year, just like everyone else, it was 2020, brand new decade, you know, great year. I mean, I had so many plans, right? Like 2020, it's a new decade. You know, I had all these positive things going on. January was great.

You know, I just wrote that book and I've had like this plan of like going to go speak to all these people. And then God intervened. I know, right? I got another plan for you all. I got another plan for you. So fast forward February and then March. And I'd always been a student of pandemics. I love studying about pandemics, you know, because I just, from a historical standpoint, just recognize how profoundly impactful they were, how they transformed the world politically, economically, socially, technology, you know, from a technology standpoint. And then March happens, right? Boom.

It's, we're in a global pandemic. We're all in lockdown. We're all sheltered in. We're super, super scared. We don't know what's going on. And, you know, I'm a physician. I've taken care of patients that have this disease and this condition. I have no doubt that the one thing I can say for sure we know about COVID is this, we don't know a lot about

COVID. Like that is like absolutely the observation that I think is absolutely true. The one thing we know we don't know the one thing we know is that we don't know at least right now I can say that with absolute certainty September 25th 2020 in the near I can say that with absolute certain we don't know a lot about this and I also lost family members so my wife and I from New York originally in Brooklyn and this was such a deep personal loss because one of my aunts that passed away was in our kitchen. We were all sitting at the kitchen table in February, all talking about how she was going to come back in a few months to be there for my daughter's confirmation and to be there for her graduation from middle school. And now she wasn't with us.

So you want to talk about sad soul? I had a sad soul in April. I found myself in this deep, deep funk. Yeah. Like everybody else. And then on top of that, you can't even talk to your friends, right? It's like, it's crazy. And this was a sad soul, you know, this was a sad soul. And this was one of those things where I really found myself in this really bad place because, you know, I was living it, you know, clinically, I'm seeing all this crazy stuff in the hospital. I can't understand. It just doesn't make sense to me. I'm seeing people like that are young, that are healthy, that are old and everyone in between all of them just really suffering from this and people are

dying, you know, and then I have family members that are passing away and then you hear all this stuff and, you know, people think it's not real. So it was just a frustrating, grief-stricken, very bad time. And I started to recognize that if this were to continue in terms of, like, how I was dealing with this, this was not going to be good. Because we all know that if you are not, you know, of sound mind and a sound body, you become susceptible to getting sick. You talk about like, why do some people get cold? It's usually because, you know, your mind is just not right, you know, and, and it's just a sad thing. And so it was almost like a natural defense mechanism that kicked in for me. And I said, you know what, I have to get out of this

funk in this feeling, because I'm going into into the hospital and I'm taking care of patients and I'm exposed. And if I have in my mind this sort of sad soul, you know what? That germ is going to really get me. And I want to make sure that I build my resilience. And so I remember when it happened, it was the middle of May. I had just got done talking to one of my colleagues who was also a physician. And we were talking about each other and, you know, kind of like making sort of a self-assessment. And he said, Hasan, you are totally consumed with this whole thing, you know, and you are understandably in a bad place.

You've lost family members. You're in the hospital taking care of these patients. And then on top of that, you know, you're not only a student of history of pandemics, you know all this stuff, but you're like living and breathing and consuming all this news every day about what's going on. It was too much. And so I made a point to say, all right, I'm going to stop. I'm going to dictate what I take in. I'm not just going to listen, listen, listen. I'm going to be selective about what I let come in. But more importantly, I'm going to start a routine. And so from that point on, I said, I'm going to get up every day and have a routine. I'm going to hygiene. I'm not like staying in sweats or scrubs all day. I'm just going to go and wake up like I have a purpose and I have

something to do every day. I wake up, brush my teeth, take a shower, get ready, get activated. I'm going to run every day. And I started running a streak. And I've always been a runner, but I put that in the back burner. I was actually training for a marathon, but when I knew it got canceled, I was like, ah, I'm not going to train anymore. So I started running every day and I started writing every day. And it just gave me the sense of control and sort of helped me to reverse the sad soul

phenomenon. And I, absolutely. And it really helped. And, and I recognized that what it was doing more than anything was building my resilience. And I, I just felt more confident that no, I could go to the hospital. I could go out and be engaged and not be so scared because I believe that my immune system was good. I was doing all the right things, exercising, taking care of myself, sleeping right, meditating, all of the things that give you like the resilience that you need to not only deal with life, but certainly take care of and deal with,

you know, your resistance to this very terrible virus that's among us. So yeah, a long way to answer your question about what I mean. No, that was wonderful. But that was me really living that statement out to its fullest. So when you were studying the pandemic and like super into pandemics in the past, was there at any point like, were you like, oh my God, this is awesome. Now I get to live it and actually really learn. Not really in that way. But no, one of the things that's really fascinating about studying these pandemics from a historical context is that we as human beings, a human race, a civilization, if you look at the course of history that's been recorded, every 80 to 100 years, there's a real big one like this, you know, that comes about.

It's the bubonic plague, the black plague, the Spanish flu, and it wipes out all of these people. And you think about it, humans are pretty resilient people, and we do, you know, sort of overcome, and it takes a while. It's a couple years of just, you know, agony and grief and suffering and bad things happening. But it's also a good kind of story in the sense that humans, you know, we do survive, we do get through it, and we get through it. And we usually are better for it in a way that it builds a resilience. You know, if there's any one thing that's good about, you know, what's happening now, it's like families are, you know, whether they like it or not, are stuck together, right? You have to stay at home and you have to see your kids and you have

to talk, have dinner together. And even through that whole process, you have to say, it's like, wow, I'm actually spending a lot more time with them than I did before. And, you know, that process becomes like one of learning and understanding a little bit better. You also start thinking about like, how can I be innovative and still, you know, do work and be productive. And for those of us that have, you know, been impacted from this from a financial standpoint, and from like a work standpoint, you know, the really creative and resilient folks have started to realize, hey, I need to retool, I need to like learn something new, I need to reinvent myself, because what I was doing before is actually not relevant

anymore or not, you know, in demand. And if I don't do something and adjust, I'm going to be stuck. And some people are going to emerge from this and probably look back and say, ironically, that was actually a good thing. And I'm glad that happened because now I learned this new skill. I met this new person. I like, I reinvented myself and now I'm glad that happened because now I learned this new skill. I met this new person. I reinvented myself. And now I'm not only more relevant now, but I'm going to be more relevant in the future. And I'm going to evolve from this process and become a better person. And I'd like to think that's what's going to happen for a lot of people. And I'm not naive to know that it's not happening for so many.

And that's also a learning. How did you find freedom in your darkest place? That's a good question. So in the current book, The Art of Human Care, I talk about these three principles of purpose, personalization, and partnerships. That aspect and sort of the observation of like finding freedom in this dark place really comes from, I think, this understanding of how powerful having a purpose is, right? You know, I talked about the dark place of like almost dying with meningitis in undergrad. And my purpose, my light, my thing from finding freedom from that dark place was like, hey, I got to live because

I got to become a doctor, you know, and I got to get out of this hospital. You know, you talk about your experience. It's all of these times where we find ourselves in this dark place. And again, I talked about what happened earlier in the year and this sort of transformation I went through. Well, I think principally and fundamentally, it's not enough to just tell people just get over it and just get out of this dark place, because that's often not really what's going to make it happen. But I would say that the way I believe one finds purpose or finds freedom from this dark place and sort of finds their inner light is several fold is the one understand that you're in a dark place as we have and often do sometimes.

But then it's to think about what can I do for others in a way that gives me a purpose and in turn helps others. Because I believe real true purpose comes from helping others or in doing something for others that you find that purpose. a great example of like what you guys are doing in your podcast and then you're sharing these stories and in relating how your stories your challenges were overcome by you know your will and your desire to get from that dark place to the light and sharing this connection with others that's you know deriving a purpose for your existence and your like you you know, your work and what you're doing. And in my opportunity to share my stories with you all, that also is doing something for others. And in that way, we're for deriving this purpose. I believe like, you know, this art of human care that I talk about is really the sense of like a connection that we're all humans. And if we care about other people, in a way, we are,

in fact, discovering our purpose. And everyone does that in their own unique way. You might be a songwriter, you might be a poet, you might be someone that, you know, provides a service, you might be someone that volunteers. And in all those ways of caring for another human, you're really realizing and manifesting this purpose. And I think that's really one of the fundamental ways for you to emerge out of this dark place. Yeah. And the freedom that everyone really is looking and searching for, especially in a time like this. I read that art had a place in your heart and helped you.

Yeah, yeah. What kind of art were you doing? Well, I was, you know, back in my adolescent and my youthful days and growing up in New York City, I was a graffiti artist. And I wanted to go to art school and my dad wouldn't let me go. I got accepted to Art and Design High School in New York City and, you know, immigrant parents. My dad was from West Africa, from Ghana. He was like, you're not going to art school. You don't make any money as an artist. You're going to go to science and engineering school. Go be a doctor. But I always wanted to

be an artist. I still feel like I have this inner artist trapped in me. That's probably one of the reasons why I gravitated towards surgery because you have creative in surgery. Yeah. And the art of medicine is really that it really is an art. Take a lot of art science, but there's also a great infusion of art involved in medicine. I wanted to ask you about the panel that got together in 2019 to talk about, is college bad for your brain? And how an epidemic of stress is overwhelming to students, what you can do about it. Mandy and I both have kids that are in their 20s experiencing this, trying to figure out who they are and trying to keep up with the world, who the world wants them to be and the struggle.

Oh, sure. Yeah. You know, it's amazing to me. When I did that segment, it was with this university, Marahunchee University, and they asked me to participate in this thing. Is college bad for your brain? And well, what was interesting, and I don't know if it's part of that segment, but they started telling about all these statistics of like young people and like what they're going through, like the rates of suicide and depression and pharmacy. And, and it's kind of bizarre to me because in a way I'm like, well, college was real fun to me. I don't remember it being so, but it's a different time. It took me a while to really kind of like, you know, adjust my perspective because I was like, wait a minute, you know, even though I'm sort of an adult now, I still feel like I'm not an adult, but I mean,

I'm an adult now and I have all these responsibilities and all this thing. I think to myself, well, you know, then what do they, what do they have to be stressed about? They don't have a house. They don't have a kid. They don't have a car. You know, they don't have all these things. But there's actually, you know, if you put yourself in their shoes, again, this sort of walk in their shoes, it really I can start to understand because it was a consequence of like the student debt thing. It was like not having job opportunities and prospects. It was like social, you know, stressors and like the social media. Yes, like, and it's like, it's so much more, I think, stress and pressure to sort

of be something or be somebody. Well, I'm the helicopter parent. I'm guilty of it. I with my older children. Yeah. So I mean, and I see it in my own kids. There's like, you know, a lot of a lot more anxiety that they have a lot more stress. There's like, you know, a lot more anxiety that they have and a lot more stress. And I guess the world is just a lot more fast paced and just a lot more in your face all the time as it was when we were kids. And when I was an adolescent, you know, I like, we didn't have cell phones and did all this stuff all the time. And there wasn't this constant pressure of, you know, hey, you should look this

way, you should do this, you should be this, you know, that was not really there all the time. So I get it. And yeah, I was just fascinated and just happy that I could help, you know, offer a perspective. Fascinating. I have a question. If your son came to you right now and told you he wanted to be an artist, a graffiti artist. You know, so funny enough, I'll switch the question around, but I'll tell you what I answered my daughter. You know, my daughter, she showed an interest in art and, you know, has been, you know, so we made a little room in our, in our home, you know, it's very modest, but that's like the art room.

So there's a place to actually be creative. And that was kind of the nurture that, because I said, I didn't want to be that dad and say, well, you're not going to be an artist. So I'm trying to nurture the interest. And I told my wife, it's okay if she's on the payroll for the rest of the life. It's okay. We have a very successful friend who goes all over the United States and does graffiti. I have learned that artists actually do very well for themselves.

Especially good artists. They can do quite well, much better than doctors, actually. So perhaps that's what will happen. So I'll try and nurture that. So that's how I would answer that question. So we're going to ask you to break that shit down. And now it's time for break that shit down. This is what I would like to do. I think to break this down and, you know, however you define what's going on in your world right now is bad. I would say, and again, this is taking all the experience of being this, you know, pupil and the student of like the bad things that pandemics bring, how terrible things are in the world right

now. This is how I would break it down. Take a moment to just stop and think about what you have to be grateful for. And I think when you do that, you really immediately find that you are so much more a richer person, so much more a happier person, so much more a peaceful person than you actually imagined that you were. Because when you stop and say, all right, let me tell three things that I'm grateful for today. I'm alive. I'm breathing. I'm healthy. I'm not sick. That right there, you're like, you know, like head and shoulders, world and world above so many other people right now in the world. And even if you are sick, you can say, well, I still have a family. And if you're sick and you have a family, you could say, well, I have something to eat.

I mean, there's always something to be grateful for. And I think if you do nothing else than that and break it down, think about how much more fortunate you are than unfortunately the over 200 plus thousand people that are not here and they're not here with us right now, including my aunts and uncles, you know, that were here in January and in February. They're not here anymore. And if you just take a moment to just think about it from that standpoint, that's how I would break it down. Just have gratitude. You are such a beautiful person. My God. I was just thinking the same thing. Like your resume and your degrees are freaking phenomenal and fascinating. You have done so much, but what's more fascinating to me is your soul.

Thank you so much for that. I appreciate that. Yeah. I feel like you are just one of the most rarest souls. And I just am so glad that we've been blessed with you on this earth. Thank you for your service and everything you've done for everybody. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. And thank you for the opportunity to share this time with you and your audience. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Awesome. Where can our listeners find your amazing books and your story oh yeah thank you the books are all on amazon and so just hasan teta the books will come up and then my website which is dr teta.com so it's all spelled out d-o-c-t-o-r-t-e-t-e-h.com or even just put the art of human care and it'll come up brazilelle. Thank you for sharing your heart.

Thank you for sharing those tough stories and experiences that you had. Thank you for your vulnerability. I'm a strong believer that that is where we find healing and help other people, sharing our own personal struggles. So thank you for that. You're inspiring people and you're doing amazing work. And thank you for being a doctor during this doing amazing work and thank you for you know being a doctor during this pandemic oh thank you thanks again for the absolutely pleasant pleasant experience

here i really appreciate it and thanks so much for uh giving the opportunity to share of course thank you yes thank you very much do you guys have a format or do you have anything that you like your guests to do or uh or say as part of the... Yeah, you got to get up, do a little dance, you know, a little turkin. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.