The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Rachel Wellner, Author of Marsha Roo (Doctoroo) Children’s Book Series & Board Certified General Surgeon Doctor

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

Rachel Wellner, Author of Marsha Roo (Doctoroo) Children's Book Series & Board Certified General Surgeon Doctor https://amzn.to/3LkObSJ Caelumds.com Doctor Marsha Roo (Doctoroo) is a children's book series created to entertain children at the preschool through the grade school level relying on educational content. The main character, Doctoroo, introduces kids to exciting challenges in basic health as she explores the world vanquishing health problems. The characters stimulate young minds by introducing them to a positive, professional figure who embodies the spirit of cultural competence, creativity, and adventure. Dr. Rachel Wellner is a board-certified general surgeon, Fellow of American College of Surgeons, and a Society of Surgical Oncology-trained breast oncology surgeon. She is also a novelist, comedian, and breast cancer surgeon dedicated to making the world a better place for her readers, audiences, and patients.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com.

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For the show, your family, friends, and relatives, go to goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Voss, linkedin.com, Fortress Chris Voss, youtube.com, Fortress Chris Voss, and TikTok, Chris Voss1. We have an amazing young lady on the show today. She is not only a doctor. We'll be talking about some of the amazing innovations and companies. She's starting to help with breast cancer and diagnosis, but she's also an author of some amazing children's books. So we're going to have a lot of fun on the show today. We're going

to do the full gambit as the kids say. Kids don't say that, but it sounded funny at the time in my head and it wasn't when it came out. So there you go. She's the author of an amazing series of books. Her latest one is called Dr. Rue and the Case of the Red Hot Hawaiians. Dr. Rachel Wellner joins me on the show today, and she's going to be talking about the really cool, amazing book she has for kids. So if you have kids, you're going to love this. And we'll be talking about her new breast cancer diagnosis solutions launch as well. But before we get into it, let's get to know her a little bit better. Dr. Rachel Wellner is the author of the Doctor Who series of children's

books. She is a board certified general surgeon, a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and Society of Surgical Oncology-Trained Breast Oncology Surgeon. In addition to her MD and surgical training, Dr. Wellner earned a master's in public health from Columbia University, reflecting her interest in global health. Most recently, she founded a startup called Calum Diagnostic Solutions Incorporated with a goal to identify cancer edges intraoperativity. I'm not getting that word right, am I? It's actually close.

I'll give you the space that we're doing, but we're actually trying to identify diagnoses early. So when you do a biopsy, we give the patient their news right away as opposed to making them wait up to 10 days. There you go. So there you go. I flunked second grade. Everybody knows that on the callback jokes. Prior to that, she was an assistant clinical professor of surgery at the Montefiore Einstein Center for Care, and she's been a director of breast cancer services

at NYE Continuum Cancer Center, Pasco Valley Hospital, and Palisades General Hospital. Welcome to the show, Rachel. How are you? Hi, Chris. Thank you for having me. I'm doing great this morning. Thank you.

There you go. An awesome sauce to have you on. Give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebs. Sure. I have a couple. I have www.drrachelwellner.com You can also find my Dr. Rue books on www.drrue.health So it's not a.com And my biopsy

company is www.calumds.com So that's C-A-E-L-U-M-D-S.com. So we're going to learn a lot of cool things during the show. We're going to learn about some of the amazing books that you've written. And then we're going to delve a little into breast cancer, breast cancer awareness and surgery and diagnosis, et cetera, et cetera. So let's lead off. You have this series of books that you've done, and I think there's four books in the series. Is that correct? Yes, there's four, three are text and one is the coloring book.

There you go. I have an idea for 20 of them, but you know, as I entered the market, I wanted to start with about four. And it's kind of a series, isn't it? Of the same sort of characters? Yes, there is a doctor her name is dr marcia rue um she tells us the very powerful doctor whenever there's a medical case to be solved um and she's a kangaroo doctor living in australia with three helpful buddies um her nurse kirby koala her assistant terence toad and the mailman Lama, who's always the one who gives her the news about where a health crisis is

going on somewhere in the world. And then she flies her plane. She pilots her own plane to wherever that is to figure out what's going on. Usually with a young population of animals, children's population of animals in that area. Oh, nice. So it's a series of four books and you're hoping to do 20, uh, and

I'm sorry. With the same characters running all through them. Yes. But what we do is, um, or what I do is, uh, yeah, I have a team, so I have a public publishing manager, but I always create new characters that are, um, from the local area. local area so that there's always some variety. I try to add a lot of humor with the local characters that come into play. Like the book you mentioned, The Red Hot Hawaiians, there is a dance instructor named Gertie Goose, and she's just hilarious. She's got these scarves flaring, and's this very you know flamboyant beautiful dance teacher and she teaches the young piglet piglets how to prepare for the luau when their

skin gets all red and itchy and then doctors on the case to try to figure out what's causing the red and itchy skin amongst the piglets who are training for their luau and won't be able to dance unless she solves the mystery ah there you go so what age group is it targeted to it's like three to eight four to eight oh good it's my level of reading it includes second grade yes according to chris reading the bios these days uh yeah so there you go what what man What motivates you to want to write kids books? Well, I've had this idea, Dr. Rue, since medical school when I did my pediatric rotation. I kind of knew early on that I wasn't going to be a pediatrician, although I love kids. And when I went into my field, which was breast cancer oncology, I knew that I was only going to be

treating adults and mostly adult women, although not exclusively. Some men do get breast cancer as well, but very rarely would a child come into the practice, especially that young. So I wanted to give back in my own way to children. And I always had this sort of idea to create a differential diagnosis for the kids, which actually turns out to be a mystery, rule out this cause, rule out that cause, rule out this cause. So sending them on a sort of little detective mission to figure out what isn't causing the problem until they land on what is causing the problem. So that follows how we do medicine, how we practice medicine. And I wanted to take that knowledge and skills base and apply it to the youngest young because that's when health starts.

That's when, you know, when we develop good habits versus bad habits. And it really does, you know, set the blueprint for the rest of your life and your health. So I thought it was quite important to target young people. Those were my various motivations for writing this series. There you go. And then we probably need some more inspirations for kids to become doctors, maybe as well. You know, the way I looked at it is that this book is an inspiration for young kids to become doctors, scientists, technologists, artists. I really wanted to turn kids on to STEM.

So the science, technologies, engineering and math, although M is also medicine. So I wanted to turn kids on to that. But the artistry is so beautiful. And I can't take credit for that. I have a wonderful artist from the Ukraine who did all the illustrations. And I thought any kid who wants to, you know, become creative and turn on their, uh, their, their art,

uh, art side and their, uh, painting side, illustrative side, that would also motivate them. So there you go. The creative artwork is really important for brains.

We had somebody on recently where there was talking about how, uh, it really opens up the mind and, uh, stimulates, uh, the brain, which I need a lot of stimulation, mostly in electric shock therapy.

But that's another thing for my therapist. I was just reading over the weekend and posting on Facebook about how I guess they did some sort of test on people for boredom. And they put them in a room. It's a famous experiment. They, they, they asked them to sit quietly for 15 minutes in a room with nothing but their own thoughts, uh, which for most people is madness. And,

uh, and they gave them an option to hit a button to give themselves electric shock just cause they're bored. Right. You know, it beats living with your own thoughts, I guess for some people. And,

uh, and so people literally shocked themselves. Nearly half opted to shock themselves over the 15 minutes. So people can't sit in a sound chamber, huh? Yeah, some people, yeah, they're living in your own head. So I guess that's where that joke comes from. But I thought it was interesting. But, yeah, we do need more.

My understanding is, especially with COVID, a lot of doctors have left the field. We already have a lot of different issues with the baby boomers and late Gen Xers leaving the employment market. And my understanding of the doctor market is we need more doctors, and they're kind of dwindling, especially with kind of where we have the boomers leaving. And I think there's like one out of, for every seven boomer leaving, there's one new worker to replace them. So there's definitely a glut coming from what we've heard from doctors. Yeah, there's sadly a lot of career dissatisfaction in it,

even though it's such a wonderful field. It's so fulfilling. And so, you know, it gives you so much purpose to take care of patients. But there's a lot of overworking and there's a lot of stress. There's a lot of burnout. So, you know, there does need to be some changes in the way the field is run in order to attract what you want, which is the best and the brightest, to be taking care of your health. You do not, you don't want any less than that because this is, you know, your most important possession that you have, which is your body and your health. So you really do want, you know, very, very capable people taking care of your health. You know, I think

that that's what everybody wants. And we're, we've been so lucky in America. I know a lot of people always complain about the healthcare system here and there could be ways to do it better. And, of course, universal health care is so important. But we really do do it very well here. We don't turn people away. We take people right away. You know, we care for people and all of their needs as best as possible, as soon as possible. But you are seeing, everybody's seeing the remnants and the vestiges

of an overworked, overtired system. And a lot of kids that don't want to go through 16 years of school and training to get to their, to make their first dollar, you know, it's not, it's not that simple, you know. Yeah. I've heard a lot of doctors complain about the insurance situation for getting paid, you know, and getting paid and how they love doing their work. But they've got to have three to four people in their office that are just chasing money at insurance companies going, hey, can I pay you? Yeah, that's kind of what I mean by the sort of circles that are around the actual practice of medicine. Like most of us love the practice of medicine. I love the surgery. I love taking care of people and all the other paperwork and the insurance companies and

fighting with them to approve a necessary test for a test and things like that. That's what kind of really gets us down. There you go. There you go. So what are some of the feedback you're getting from the kids out there and the thing? And maybe you should make a book for 55 year olds like me for coloring books. How come no one makes coloring books for 55-year-olds? What the hell is going on there?

I picked up the coloring book, and I've been filling it out myself as a 48-year-old. So there's nothing against it. Actually, coloring books are excellent for learning. There you go. Excellent for continued plasticity of the brain. So as we age, our brains become less plastic, meaning less capable of expanding and learning and forming new synapses. But we, you know, science has discovered that plasticity never

ends. And you can see it when a person has a stroke, for instance, and they're rehabbed, and they can get their movement back. That's their brain being retrained to use their, use their joints, their, their, their, their appendages, their arms, their legs, whatever. So the brain is plastic and it can be retrained, can be stretched out. So doing these sort of mindful exercises, always being conscious and exploring what I would call multiple domains of learning. So you brought it up earlier, but just to kind of extrapolate. So reading is one way of learning, but then looking at pictures is another way of learning. Listening to sounds is another way of learning. Tactile learning.

So like in surgery, putting your hands on organs and things like that is a way of learning. Olfactory, your smell is a way of learning. And when you combine all five of your senses like that, it's very powerful. It's something that you generally don't forget when you combine those five senses in your learning process. So the more you can do that as a child, as an adult, the more something's going to stick in your brain and you're not going to forget it.

I mean, we'll call it nostalgia, but I'll call it learning. So that's one little point so yeah so coloring books are another way getting somebody engaged and filling within the lines and being detail oriented but also giving them a chance to be artistic and come up with their own color scheme um is another very very good way of children learning and remembering characters and remembering stories. In my coloring book also, it's called Who is Dr. Rue? So it also goes through who she is and what she does, and it's not purely just the coloring. There you go.

Well, I did have to give up crayons because when I was a child, I was addicted to eating them. Well, that doesn't pick a face up. It shows in old age. So it took me years of rehab and uh and psychology and shock therapy actually we'll use that as a callback joke the show um and uh detox center yeah so i i have to uh i think in fact i'm court ordered to stay away from crayons i don't know why but that's a whole nother show uh so what sort of research do you have to do to with children books, how to write educational books without being preachy or, you know, making it fun for the kids without trying to, I don't know, you know, be preachy. Oh, it's a really it's a really good question. I mean, OK, so let's take my second book, which was which was Doctor in the Case of the Hacking Hippo.

So this one takes place locally in Australia. And the Fab Four that I mentioned, they get invited to the Sydney Opera House to watch the famous Hilda Hippo sing a concert. So they come, they go up and they have balcony seats and they're listening to this concert. She's doing a duet with Jeffrey Giraffe. It's very funny because he's got his neck wrapped around her hippo head, his long neck, and they're doing this beautiful duet. And then all of a sudden she then sings a solo. And just as she's about to hit her high note, she coughs. And then she goes in another high note and she hacks.

And, you know, her unfortunately her cough or sput she goes to hit another high note and she hacks and you know her unfortunately her cough or sputum goes everywhere and and yeah and and just kind of you know splashes all over the entire audience and which is which is actually kind of a funny image and you see all of the uh all the characters kind of yuck and then kirby who then Kirby, who's asleep, wakes up, you know. And so then they go on a mystery to help her because, you know, Hilda is devastated. She doesn't know what to do. The Queen of England is coming in a few weeks to be in the audience and she has to do a good job. She's under a lot of pressure. So Dr. Rue starts exploring the different causes with her team of what could be causing the problem. So we make it so fun.

You know, I include songs, I make up songs, I make up rhymes to try to remember things like in this one, there's a song about germs, you know, germs, odious germs, wherever you go, you find them. And this is supposed to engage the kids the whole time without being preachy at all. They're supposed to sing along with the characters, have a good time, and learn about, you know, I don't want to give up the whole goose, but one of the main lessons of this story is hand washing. So the song at the end is borrowed from Madonna, where you sing, don't just stand there, let's get to it, wash your hands, there's nothing to it, go, go, go.

And if you sing that 23 times, that's 20 seconds, which is the amount of time you're supposed sing don't just stand there let's get to it wash your hands there's nothing to it go go go and if you sing that 23 times that's 20 seconds which is the amount of time you're supposed to be so that's why i've taken the preach out of it and added the fun to it there you go you know so it's not preachy it's not saying you must do this and you have to do this and it shouldn't be a chore for anybody it should actually be fun and some of the other tips that people have asked me i've said well if kids don't want to wash their hands use the perfume scent that they like um use an action figure they can wash their hands with in the alphabet these are all ways of getting them to not think about a boring task or a preachy task. So all of my books have that stuff. I have a hula song for applying sunblock and things like that.

Again, taking the pain out of and the boredom out of things that sound like so boring, like health, and making it really fun and empowering the kids to kind of take control of their own health. There you go. Note to self, start washing my hands with my evil Knievel doll. There you go. I love it. People in Gen Z are what? We need to keep him clean too.

Well, you know. He's got a history of being a little dirty, that guy. Yeah, I keep him. I cuddle with him at night. I haven't grown out of that in 55 years. So, you know, my girlfriends think it's weird. But, you know, hey. Whatever floats your boat. Yeah, it's like that movie Ted.

I thought Evel Knievel was a cool guy. I mean, who could write like that? There you go. It's like that movie Ted. So before we roll out of the books and we're going to talk about your new company for breast cancer diagnosis and stuff and the cool things you're innovating there, anything more you want to tease out on the books? No, just really, I really encourage parents and kids to go out and get these books. Obviously, you know, if you're older, you can read them on your own. If you're a parent, you need to read them to your kids.

I promise you, parents, you will learn things from this book. These books are very well researched. So for instance, in the case of the picnic power is my recent one. We talk about one of the causes of why the bear cubs are being sick or are they over hibernating that comes from Terrence Toad. So he makes a mistake. He makes a mistake. Are they over not getting the proper sleep? It's during the summer months. So we explain or I explain the difference between hibernating and sleeping versus dormancy so these i don't just focus on only health i i actually teach about scientific phenomenon phenomenon in the animal kingdom and things like that so i promise you parents and kids you will learn

together about some really cool things like i, every book is very, very well researched. Every aspect of it, including the local fauna and animals that live in the areas, those have been researched. So when they fly to Hawaii, the chittle deer and the mongoose, every creature that's there are inhabiting that area. So nothing has been made up or is false. Everything is, is, is very factual. And again, I just think it's a great experience. It's a great bonding experience for parents and kids. And, um, I think, you know, buy the books because the more I can get these books out there, then I can come up with a second volume, maybe make a cartoon. This is, this is a chance to combine education with entertainment. There's just not enough out

there for kids to learn from and also be entertained by. And I think all parents will complain that they don't know what to expose their kids to in this day and age. It's not easy. So this is wholesome learning and all things good for your kids. There's not one negative here. There you go. Probably opens their mind to things around the world, a bigger world outside themselves and what goes on there. Absolutely. In addition to the health, I mean, I base this a little bit on my own life.

When I used to do a lot of public health work, I used to travel to Central America and India and other places where there were underserved populations and provide medical care to these populations. I really wanted to do it more as an adult, but when you have a practice, it becomes a little challenging to combine the two. But it's one of my true passions is to travel and provide health to the sickest sick who cannot otherwise get access to health. So that's why I made her a traveling doc. There you go.

So based on your life and, you know, hopefully can inspire more kids, you know, teach them science and stuff that's going on in the world and maybe inspire some new doctors to come up because I'm getting old. I need some more doctors. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But we all want to have good care out there. Definitely.

Definitely. And I'm going to need a lot of doctors. I had too much fun in life. So let's talk about your new company that you've launched and what you do there. And maybe what you're currently doing as a doctor. Go ahead and plug away absolutely so after 20 years in the in the clinical space um i uh have founded and become the ceo of a company called kalem diagnostic solutions now not to correct you chris but it's not just for breast cancer um okay this is for all solid malignancies um and

maybe even the liquid malignancies like leukemia, but we haven't, we're taking it one step at a time. We're starting with the top five most common, which are breast, lungs, skin, colon, and prostate. So I've basically discovered a technology that can diagnose a biopsy in five minutes. Wow. Tells you what you've got cancer-wise, non-cancer in five minutes. Obviously, the next step beyond that is to not just find out whether the patient has cancer, but to give them prognostic information, treatment information, everything up front. And because of the way the technology works, I have 100% belief that we will be able to do that through AI algorithm analysis and software and be able to determine exactly what kind of cancer somebody has, exactly what treatment they will be amenable to, what will work, what won't work. And again,

what that person's prognosis is. And that's just sort of the beginning. So, you know, it can open up potentials for cures and other possibilities. So that's, that's the start. We're a little early stage right now, but we've gotten a lot of traction. I have an amazing team of these 13, just powerhouse people with engineering skills, clinical skills, business development skills, business skills, finance world startups. And we're attracting a lot of potential investors at this point, at the same time as we're prototyping, dealing with the FDA and their process and reimbursement so that the hospitals can get reimbursed for this valuable technology. And the idea is, I mean, look where this got came inspired from was from my patients

when they would get a biopsy of the breast and they would have to wait sometimes one day, sometimes two days, sometimes five days, sometimes 10 days, depending on where. And I would get phone calls because I used to give out my cell phone to the patients, you know,

crying saying we can't function. I would have to write prescriptions for five days for Xanax. Could not function while they were waiting for the test. I'm despondent, can't talk to my husband, can't talk to my kids, can't go to work. Every problem that you can imagine, not to mention that sometimes there were problems like we'd find out that five days later that we'd missed the spot and the patient would have to come back in for a second bi they thought it was done also during those delays people would leave and go to other hospitals get second opinions elsewhere and end up the hot the doctor would lose the patient and

go somewhere else um and the other big problem is because a practitioner wants to guarantee they get the cancer or get the suspicious area they They'll keep sticking the patient. Needle, needle, needle, needle, needle. Not the biggest deal in breast, although talk to a breast cancer biopsy patient and they'll tell you otherwise, they do not want to get biopsy 12 times. But if you're a lung cancer patient and you have needle after needle after needle, that needle can actually collapse your lung or give you chest pain. 68% of patients undergoing a lung biopsy through the chest wall are hospitalized within 30 days for either a pneumothorax, which is a collapsed lung, chest pain, or shortness of breath. That's way too high. Those expenses are astronomical.

So we're talking about saving the hospital a lot of money, saving the patient tremendous aggravation. No patient wants to get a chest tube placed or possibly die because they lost their lung or bled to death from a liver biopsy or something like that. So the idea is to reduce the number of needle sticks because we'll give them immediate feedback right away. Each biopsy will tell them if it's cancer or not, so they can stop taking extra needle sticks and be able to give that patient the answer right away so that they don't have to go home and wait incessantly to find out what they've got. There you go.

That was what drove me into doing this. And then I found all these other wonderful advantages to this technology. There you go. Yeah, I can see how that's really important. I've had my friends post on Facebook, you know, I just went in for a biopsy and we've got to wait X number of days and I'm on pins and needles and I'm really kind of freaking out. One of my first companies, it was a big company, was a courier delivery service and we delivered for a company called ARUP, or was it ARUP? Yeah, but ARUP here in Utah.

And they did medical testing on blood, biopsies. Basically, all the hospitals would send their stuff to them for testing. And I remember there were times where biopsies would get lost and then they would expire because they weren't, or sometimes they weren't cooled right or sometimes there wasn't enough. There was all sorts of testing we would see. I mean, sometimes we would go to a clinic or a hospital and pick something up and they would spill it on the table.

And you're like, holy crap, somebody's got to come back in for that. And yeah, we would hear all sorts of nightmare stories over the years of different things. And coming back in for a breast biopsy or any sort of biopsy to have it done again just because somebody fumbled the football uh just what a nightmare yeah that does it's rare that pathology gets mixed up or lost but it does happen and so you know it's it's rare that like a will get mislabeled with the wrong patient or just gets lost completely while it's being sent out or sent around the hospital.

But it does happen. So this is definitely a way to, and we're not obviating pathology. We're still going to send the specimen for confirmation with the pathologist. But the idea is, is that we'll make life a lot easier for those pathologists. Like for instance, right now, like I said, they're digging through 12 biopsies looking for the needle in the haystack. We're going to be able to tell them, okay, here's where we found the cancer in vial one specimen two. They can go right to that, get their answers, triage their specimens, and then go on to the next case and be able to do maybe three, four, five,

six more cases during that day. So treating several more patients, making more money for the hospital and their department, it's just a win-win situation. And we're not even in competition so much with the liquid biopsy companies that are, you know, the blood tests that are saying you may have a high probability of having prostate cancer. Okay, great. So wait, not great. It's not great. But I'm just saying you've gotten that result. Now you have to come to get your imaging and your scoping and your biopsying to prove that that liquid biopsy was correct. We don't we don't take out prostates based on a blood test. We need to know exactly what we're removing, you know, via biopsy. So we work in tandem and synergy with those things. But what will also help is that the after send outs. So when we take pieces of tissue and send out to other companies to give you that information I just mentioned to prognostic and treatment,

we might be able to do that in one-stop shop. And that will help. That will help with expense. That's meaningful use of healthcare. It's responsible use of healthcare. It's not wasting thousands and thousands of dollars to do very expensive send-out tests that we really fight with insurance companies about. So this might be a way to get the

insurance companies a little softened to pay for something that works just as well and can be done, like I said, instantly by the bedside. There you go. Plus, I mean, if you do have cancer, you want to get on it right away and get active. Right we want to be able to book those patients i mean that's the that was the other advantage is is you know as soon as you've got that diagnosis and you have some basic information you can at least start some sort of treatment or treatment plan you may not be able to get the definitive treatment plan right off from the get-go but you can begin that treatment plan and put that patient into the system so that they're not waiting. Usually, I mean, in my case, in the breast cancer world, I would say two weeks to a month usually before we would get that patient either on the table or for chemotherapy to shrink

their tumors, depending on what they needed. I mean, it's just the nature of the system to find out all the information, whether the other breast is containing tumor, whether they need to see a plastic surgeon for a reconstruction or something else, and then finding the operating room time. So all of it kind of coalescing together would allow the process to be streamlined and the patients to be booked, at least booked in the system right away. And I think the process to be streamlined and the patients to be booked, at least booked in the system right away. And I think the treatment would be much, much more done more quickly, especially underserved areas. In some of these underserved areas, patients are waiting 72 to 90 days, especially in underserved areas. So I practiced in New York City where it was a little

less of a problem where patients, although I practice in the Bronx as well, and also out in Queens. So I saw differences between, you know, between the, the areas that were being served. But you go out to the middle America, where there are not many providers and not as many hospitals, not as many facilities, and patients are waiting sometimes three months before they get into treatment, in my mind, it's unacceptable. During that period, if it's that long, that cancer has the opportunity to grow and spread. Yeah, yeah, and that's scary. On your website, you guys talk about how cancer is an ever-increasing problem affecting the world's population.

There's 20 million cases of cancer diagnosed annually worldwide there's a compound annual growth rate of 2.5 percent holy crap that's that's an interesting phenomenon part of that is because those are world statistics part of it i mean here's the good news is that part of it is because screening is getting better in, especially in parts of the world where they never had screening before. So part of it is we're just getting more numbers because we didn't capture them before. But the other part of it is very complicated. It's genetic, it's environmental, it's, you know, it's the food we eat, it's the air we breathe in. It's, uh, the cancer rates are definitely going up. The other part of the good news is people are living longer from other causes.

Like people used to die when, when I was growing up a lot more frequently from heart disease and they don't as frequently because we're much more aggressive with that. So they live a little longer to get cancer, but there are plenty of my breast cancer role, 30 year old women getting breast cancer. And it was always like, what is up with that? It didn't make sense. It's, it's like, you know, so the, you know, again, being a polyfactorial disease, you know, you could only say age, genetics, family history, where they grew up, if there was something toxic, where they grew up, the environment and actually, you know, render a cure, render somebody disease-free so they can go on to live a normal life.

So the screening and the early detection and the early treatment is very, very important. Living in a world where the CAGR that you just mentioned is so high, we have to respond. And the beginning response is a tool like what I'm trying to introduce, is to make that diagnosis right away and to get that person into treatment right away. Most definitely. It helps lower lost revenue, elevated costs of care delivery, increased risk of injuring patient, or at least addresses those. The needle sticks, for instance. If you can find out, get the important shot on the first needle stick as opposed to on the 12th, you really reduce that patient's chance of injury.

Yeah. I mean, 10 minutes as opposed to two weeks. And yeah, I mean, I, I would be, you know, I, I've had things with my dogs where they've had my dogs and my kids, but I, they've had the, you know, they've had something tested and you're, you're literally, you know, you kind of live in suspension and it kind of gets to you a little bit. So I can imagine, you know, by the way, this has, this has a big role in the veterinary world as well. There's no question that this could be used in the, in any world where you're diagnosing mammals or creatures for,

for cancer. So this, this has a very big, you know, we haven't even counted up that as a, as a target market, but it is a target market as well. There you go.

Cancer is cancer. And it's a pretty darned evil as far as I'm concerned. It's an evil disease. It's an evil disease that has eluded us for a long, long time and hopefully not forever. And the sooner we can get to fixing it, the better. So as we go out, Rachel, any final thoughts on everything you do there? You're doing quite a a lot you got everything from breast cancer to to uh doing children's books yeah i'm busy and i and believe it or not i would like to get clinically involved again after you know after i've uh you know uh raised the money and done all the clinical testing and and we've built our our minimal viable products and and uh started testing uh you know

extensively uh and then and then start creating revenue by actually selling the selling the device. Actually, what's really nice is that we've got it on a subscription model. So we're looking to sell it for say, like $20,000 per year. And that way, the hospitals, the medical centers can say, well, look how much revenue we brought in because of this machine. And they can decide if they want to buy it a year later. Like a lot of these companies come in with a $300,000, $500,000 massive capital expense, one-time expense, but hospital purchasing departments just say it's too much. And we don't know we're taking a risk. We don't know if it's going to

bring us money in. I mean, look, you've got to think about the money side of these things too. I know your show talks about thought leaders and CEOs and everything else. So obviously there's a very big human component to what I'm doing, but there's also a very big financial component to what I'm doing as well. And so when you're trying to make a case for making this type of a sale and for getting investments and things, you have to know there's a target customer on the other end. And having a subscription model, a yearly fee like

that, that's so much lower than what most device companies will consider selling you their devices for. It's like music to the ears for the hospitals and purchasing departments don't even necessarily need to get involved at such a low cost. So that's what we're working on. My team is to make sure that we can keep it at a low cost, keep it affordable, make it an annual cost so that they can recoup all their money and make money off of the machine so that it becomes an expense that they're happy to happy to pay for. And patients are over overjoyed with the results that they're getting. And that's that's what that's what my company's about.

That's what I like to stand for, which is value and integrity. And, you know, that's hopefully that will, that will be, you know, that will be experienced by everybody who gets to appreciate and experience

the Kalem system. There you go. There you go. So, give us your doctor read doctor because you'll love doctor and read doctor there's the fun you know the nice thing is is you know how when you go into the doctor's office they have the books or magazines there you know you can just put your books out there and you know there you go that's that's one of my plans is to get books and

and put it out there for for some things so you. You got something to read while you're waiting for that 10 minutes of the thing. And then you learn something in the process for sure. There you go. And just a PSA, if anybody has eating crayons addictions, get help. I do not. I don't treat that.

I do a lot of things but I don't treat that. But I can at lot of things, but I don't treat that, but I can, I can at least point you in the right direction. I have had a condition called PICA, but that's just my, you know, uh,

you can, you, if you have a crayon addiction, you can dial one 800, knock it the hell off. Uh, there you go. Uh,

well, thank you very much for Rachel for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun and very insightful. And we've covered the whole gambit, man. We went from, we went from, uh, medical stuff to children's books.

So there you go. We covered a large gamut. And I would say 25% of the stuff that I'm interested in, I've got a lot of interest. But we can do that. There you go. Well, thank you very much, Rachel, for coming to the show. We really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me, Chris. Really, it's been a pleasure. And you're a wonderful host, and I wish you the best of luck with your show. Not that you need it, but maybe stay away from those crayons. That'll keep your show going for longer. Yeah, that's probably true, although people don't know that's probably the secret to the show for 15 years

is the crayons. Ooh, okay. I won't mess. I won't mess. There's some jokes there, but I'm going to leave them alone. Anyway, thank you, Rachelachel for coming on the show thanks for tuning in as always uh go support our authors that we have on the show you can check out dr rue in the case of the red hot hawaiians and the other three books in the series uh the great thing is is uh you need kids uh gifts coming up because it's what it's almost october

your holiday time coming up people are watching this 10 years from now going what uh but because it's what it's almost october here holiday time coming up people are watching this 10 years from now going what uh but uh it's it's almost october now in 2023 people read the dates on the youtube videos please um you're getting any books for them kids there because the kids like christmas gifts last time i checked like 11 a piece they're really not very yeah my parents gave us rocks for Christmas. They even wrapped them. Don't do that. My parents didn't do that. Buy it on a whole set. That way you can give them away to everybody and their kids.

Maybe they won't bother you as much when you're at Thanksgiving dinner. Here, go read this. Then they won't be talking to you and stuff. That's how I work on Christmas. I'm like, go away. Go away. This is the reason I have dogs, and that's all.

No, I'm just kidding. I like kids. They're nice for other people. Anyway, guys, order up the books or find books that are sold. Refer to the share of family and friends and relatives. Go to goodreads.com. Oh, I should mention doctor.health and Amazon. That's where you can pick up most of these. There you go.

What was the first one? Okay, Doctor Who. We've got three. Doctor Who and the Case of the Picnic Pirates. Okay. Doctor Who and the Case of the Red Hot Hawaiians. Doctor Who and the Case of the Hacking Hippo. And the coloring book, Who is Doctor Who?

There you go. And you can find them all on Amazon or on that website. I gave you DoctorWho.Health, which will bring you to the Amazon site. Okay, DoctorWhoroo.health? www.doctoroo, so d-o-c-t-o-r-o-o.health. You spell out doctoroo like a kangaroo doctor. No d-r. There you go.

There you go. All right, guys, so check it out wherever fine books are sold. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time. That should have it.