The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - The Truth About The Medical Industry, Hospitals, Medicine, & A Medical Career Ft. John Lawrence, Author Of Playing Doctor

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

#650: Today, we're sitting down with John Lawrence, author of the series 'Playing Doctor.' John attended Georgetown University where he told his career advisor that the only thing he did not want to be was a doctor. He subsequently survived medical school and residency training in Utah and practiced for over 20 years before transitioning to becoming a writer, where he shares his best and scariest moments from practicing. Today, we sit down for a conversation about all things medical school, what happens behind the scenes in hospitals, and how he transitioned to becoming a writer. He also puts on his white coat again and gives us a few tips on when you should take your children to the ER, why overprescribing pain meds has become such a large issue in the US, and gives us a peek into teaching hospitals and what you should know about them.   To connect with John Lawrence click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential. This episode is brought to you by Primal Kitchen You can find Primal Kitchen products at Target, Walmart, or your local grocery store. Or go to PrimalKitchen.com and use code SKINNYPK for 20% off your entire order. This episode is brought to you by MWH As Melissa says herself, “Don’t trust me, try me.” Visit melissawoodhealth.com and use code SKINNY at checkout to get your first month free off your monthly membership. This episode is brought to you by Tecovas Tecovas are handmade from the most premium leathers. Visit tecovas.com and point your toes west. This episode is brought to you by Cymbiotika Cymbiotika is a health supplement company, designing sophisticated organic formulations that are scientifically proven to increase vitality and longevity by filling nutritional gaps that result from our modern day diet. Receive up to 15% off your purchase at cymbiotika.com/SKINNY This episode is brought to you by Heineken   100% taste. 0% alcohol. Click HERE to purchase. Must be 21+ to buy. This episode is brought to you by Vroom Find your next ride on vroom.com Produced by Dear Media  

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her.

You know, the way I got into these stories was basically writing emails to friends back before blogs existed. You know, it was back in the late 90s. And I'd send these email blasts out when I was on call at 3 in the morning, just this crazy stream of consciousness that would leave my friends asking, you know, are you breaking into the pharmacy or something? Just random thoughts. Emergency amputation.

This person who got septic and was dying, his family, he didn't want to have his leg cut off. We're like, if we don't cut this off, we couldn't get in touch with the intending doctors. And the residents say, well, we gotta do it. I mean, he's gonna die if we don't get this thing off. So they're like, all right, John,

you gotta go bring it down to, this is in the VA hospital. So I'm walking around with this leg in a garbage bag. I'm thinking, it's three in the morning on a Saturday. My friends aren't doing this. They're all having a great time together. They're out partying and I'm doing this. Welcome back to the Him and Her Show. We are doing something fun today. One of my favorite ways to have guests on this podcast is to read, to read wide, to read random, to read niche. And then what I do is if I really like the book, I'll reach out to the author on Instagram and basically beg them to come on the podcast. And that is exactly what I did with Dr. John Lawrence. He is the author of the series

Playing Doctor. So I was on Amazon perusing around trying to find a good autobiography. And this popped up. I am deathly afraid of hospitals and anything medical. And I think that maybe made me intrigued with the subject. Sure enough, I bought the book Playing Doctor, and I read all three of them in two weeks. I loved it so much. You have to read it if you're as intrigued with the medical system as I am. And luckily, he came on the show. Today, we're going to discuss all the things, everything you need to know about a teaching hospital, the craziest burn unit stories, ER stories, the different phases of medical school, his advice on bringing your kids to the hospital and when you should bring your kids,

why doctors are over-prescribing pain meds, the ins and outs of hospitals, and what's it like, really, to be a doctor. On that note, let's welcome Dr. John Lawrence, the author of the series Playing Doctor, to the Him and Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. John. John, I don't know what you like to be called i have to give you a little backstory i have a irrational fear of hospitals like ask my husband i faint at a needle vasco vagal or whatever if we go to the hospital ever even for something beautiful like childbirth like we could go there and we're like good we're there i won't touch the elevator button i have i think i'm she made me she she this is like people are gonna not like this but i get home i have brand new pair of shoes i'm looking for them like where the hell did they go she threw them away She made me, this is like people are going to not like this, but I get home, I have a brand

new pair of shoes. I'm looking for them. Where the hell did they go? She threw them away because she's so nervous. No, I'm too nervous. It's not that I'm worried about, just scared of hospitals. I can't explain it. I don't know. I'm scared. I don't like the fact of someone taking my blood. It just scares me. Anyways, I got served on Amazon, your book, Playing Doctor, part one. And immediately I downloaded it on my Kindle because I am intrigued by why I'm so triggered by the hospital. So I started reading it and I could not put it down. It was light, but also gave you the juicy stuff. It also showed your life, which is super interesting. And just you sort of like fumbling through medical school and then residency and then actually being a doctor, which are part two and part three. And I think I read your whole series in like,

I want to say like two weeks. And then I harassed you on Instagram. I found you on Instagram and harassed you. And so here you are. Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you both for having me. It is so amazing to be here because I've become a fan of your podcast. To be here is, as I mentioned, just surreal. So I'm so glad you found the books. And when I realized when you've sent me that message, I was, it made my, I can't even describe it. Just to have somebody you don't know reach out and say, I read your i enjoyed them is for any i think creator artist is to hear not that i consider myself an artist but it was just so special to have somebody you know reach out and tell you suddenly feel legitimate that somebody enjoyed them and that's the only reason you write these books is hopefully for me it was you know maybe this is something

that'll entertain people maybe it'll be something that tells people about this world they don't know because we've all had the experience usually with medical people, whether in a clinic, in a hospital. And believe me, when we walked out with our first child, I was grasping arms, like not letting him go anywhere near the walls to touch anything in a hospital. So it does. So you're the same as me. It's not a totally irrational fear. Okay, okay. So I want to go, I want to sort of do this podcast like you've done the books.

And I want to go back to part one of medical school. You didn't really want to go to medical school. I'm certainly not the typical story given I wasn't planning my entire life around, I want to be a doctor. I didn't grow up thinking I was going to be a doctor. When I went to undergraduate, when my career counselor asked me what you want to be, I said, I don't know. I just don't want to be a doctor. The idea of going to pre-med and carrying all these heavy books around just looked ridiculous to me. And where did you grow up just quickly? I was born in New York, grew up in England, came back to New York. Now I live in Utah. I was thinking I was going to go. I mean, I love the idea of writing. I started in college. I got into some screenwriting classes and acting

and loved it, but I thought that's just a dream world. I don't know how anybody actually pursues this. This is a while ago. And I was thinking I'd go into law and just work on environmental issues and took the LSATs, was going down that path and was working at some law firms, intern years in between college and didn't think it was the path I wanted to go down. And so I had thought about medicine,

just kind of off the side, well, you know, like thinking, well, I can take care of athletes. You know, these are, these are, uh, this, you know, something I enjoy sports, go down that path, but never really took it too seriously. And it really was this moment when my, even my advisor, like, don't just jump path, figure out what you're doing. And then I went to, um, I was living in France, was a ski guide and this French doctor who i couldn't really understand because my french isn't that good basically was talking about medecins sans frontieres that you know going doctors without borders just not bad no i was like yeah and he's like i get to ski with my daughter and then you know there's this other life i was like okay that's great and then you know this can i could

also do like community theater and do some writing so it became this path and i thought let me go do this but i hadn't taken a single pre-med class where I had to go back to all my pre-med classes, had to apply. Yeah. It wasn't exactly what I was planning to do, but I thought this is going to be a, you know, it's going to provide a good life. You hurt your head. I'll let you, real bad. So I actually get into medical school, which is something they probably regret at the school all these years later, because I definitely was not their typical student. And I was going on a mountain bike ride around four weeks before medical school's about to start. And the next thing I wake up in the hospital, I'm in a neuro ward. I'm seeing all my friends that you have, like, you know, in the movies, you have this like

tunnel vision, you're looking all around and I've got, I can recognize my friends. They're all looking at me. I can't really hear what they're saying. And it's kind of coming in and out. And I had had a pretty bad mountain bike crash. I'm in there and it was, you know, I learned all these medical facts. I learned what perseverating is when you keep asking the same questions over and over and over just on repeat, just going, what happened? Why are we here? What happened to my bike?

What's going on? And so I had a bleed in my brain. So pretty So pretty significant injury. I discovered I didn't have insurance at that point. I had like my med school insurance and my other insurance, which is another issue in medicine insurances. And I thought they overlapped. Turns out they missed each other. So the next day they said, well, the bleeding stopped. And I said, okay, I'm out of here. Took off. And for the next few weeks, which I don't remember very well, kind of my friends would take me for walks, everything really calm.

And the day before med school, I go for another mountain bike ride. And super careful, like a little five-hour ride through the mountains. And we're going back. And my friend's like, you don't need to go that slowly. I'm like, yes, I do. Got to be careful. And we get near the cars. And I finally just let the bike just roll down this nice clear path.

And all of a sudden, I'm upside down, sailing through the air, just ripped open all the scar tissue, slammed my head into a tree. And basically I had another concussion, which basically you have what's called second impact syndrome. So if you get two concussions within a few months, it can be potentially fail from the swelling. You know, luckily for me,

it just caused some pretty bad nausea, but it just made my amnesia even worse. And that was the day before medical school. So I showed up, you know, first day of medical school covered in bandages, covered, you know, it was bloodied gauze and can't stay awake, can't think straight. And that was, that was how med school started. So you got to spice it up a little, you know, the whole thing was looking a little predictable. The head injury stuff. Can you heal fully from that? Now, head injuries, I mean, you've had a few people on and talked about this, you know, Dr.

Amen, you know, you know, Peter Atiyah and stuff, you know, some of, head injuries, I mean, you've had a few people on and talked about this, Dr. Amen, Peter Attia and stuff, some of the head injuries. And actually, Jeff Byers, I guess, was talking about with the micro-concussions, with the constant impact, things you can do. So at the time, this is back in the mid-1990s, I think I was around a week into school and I got lost. I couldn't find my way home off two blocks from this. I'd driven a car, but I don't know if I should have been driving. I couldn't find my way home again. I was like, I can't figure out the two blocks that I turned here. So I went up to the neuro ward and I said, what can I do? This is, you know, I'm likely we hadn't had any tests yet in school. And they basically said, just takes time. It takes time. So I started my own protocol at that point going, okay, I've heard, you know, back in the

day, fish was brain food. So I started eating fish because I didn't eat any fish. I started, okay, I mean, I always exercise. I figured that's good for blood flow. I started mentally playing chess against myself. I would sit there and just play numbers in my head, counting up by twos, down by threes in a different language, just anything to get your brain working. And then the test started. And it was one of those wake-up calls when suddenly school used to be relatively easy. Like recall when you read something and you remember what it was, or somebody tells you something, you remember it. And that's what was completely gone. Well, because I was going to say, you got into medical school and like, I'm listening to you say that. And I was a terrible student. And I'm like, man, this guy's just like talking about

getting into medical school easily. And I think for a lot of people listening, like it's not easy to get into medical school. Well, I mean, I'm a little flippant about what it took, but I, like I said, I didn't even go, I went to undergrad and not having taken a single pre-med class. So I came back and had to go take all the pre-med classes. And I realized I was just going to live at home and with my mom and take, I, um, go to community college basically. And, and the, the state schools, it's like, all right, all these people applying from top universities, I'm competing against them. So I worked my butt off to get top grades. And actually it's mentioned in the book. I mean, I was like, I can't get a single thing wrong. I'd come home and study until three in the morning. I had to get an A plus or not an A plus, but I

worked to get perfect scores every test, did all the extra credits. So they gave me an A plus. And I'm in my first medical school interview and the guy's laughing at me going, what are these joke schools you went to? Who gets an A plus? That's not a real grade. And he goes, and guess what? You're white, you're male, you're not from in-state, you're not going to get in. How does it feel to experience reverse discrimination? And you're trying to smile going, okay, that doesn't feel so great right now. Didn't get in, got wait-listed that year. So I had to reapply a year later, but there was some work involved. When you're in medical school

and they start to teach you things, is there a process? Like let's say someone's listening and they want to know what it's like to actually be there on the ground. And you talk about it a lot in your book, but maybe like some actual things that happened. Sure.

And this was interesting just writing the books because the first year of med school is all rote memorization, it's books. And some of this might've changed in the last few years. They try to get students into the hospitals a little sooner. But first year was all book learning at that point. So, and the most famous class though was anatomy. You know, everybody pictures cadavers.

So there we are, we're invited up to this really decrepit looking place that should have been out of a horror film. And there's cadavers and you line up and you're there just, you know, reading the book and two of your other classmates are slicing and dicing. Is the cadaver naked or dressed up? Totally naked. I have a lot of questions about this.

It's in a Chanel dress, Lauren. Well, what if, this is like a question. What if like the girl died and she's wearing makeup? Is the makeup still on her? Like what is, what is the process? I didn't see any makeup. That's a good question. People have donated their bodies.

And it was really the first day of school. I'm like, can the cadaver be in glam? Well, that was the, I mean, this is, you don't want to make fun of the cadavers because they were donated, but there was definitely a rush to get the skinnier cadavers because you have the larger cadavers. It's a lot of fat tissue to cut through. So you got to see what different types of lifestyles left you with these cadavers. And again, this is the time when my head's not working really smoothly. That was my very first test was anatomy. The lowest grade in

the entire school or class at that point. I just remember erasing every single answer throughout the test. Nope, nope. I couldn't remember anything. And that's when I finally went in and said, can somebody, I need to see a counselor or do something. I finally should tell you guys I've had a head injury and this isn't going so well. I thought there's no way I can't continue it at school right now.

And I think the most thing, you know, when you asked about, you know, medical training and the things people think about are cadavers and delivering babies, you know, that's not until later on. So those first years, there you are, mostly book learning. And I remember a lot of students getting a little fresher going, why are we learning about physiology? We're learning about cells.

I don't want to treat cells. I want to actually treat the body. I want to do this. Then second year, you jump into more pathophysiology. Like, okay, here's an organ. Here's orthopedics. Let's talk about the bones. Let's talk about the injuries that happen to bones and how you're going to treat them.

Here's infections. Let's talk about all the different infections. Here's the drugs you're going to treat them. Here's what they are. You learn all the actual medical. You are downplaying how much work it was it was like seven days a week all night like you didn't have a life it seemed like no but the i think for people who are thinking about this this might be the inspiration again i think there's all

of life's anything you want to accomplish takes work and so when you're there it was just you accepted this is what you do and when you got out you had the best time so yes it was just, you accept it. This is what you do. And when you got out, you had the best time. So yes, it was seven days a week. You studied, you know, you got out of the hospital, you might go for bike ride or do something else. And then you studied until night and then you went back to school. And that was pretty much a seven day a week studying. And when you're in the hospital third and fourth, you're actually starting your clinical rotations. When you're seeing patients, same thing, you're on call. If you're not on call, you're back home studying again to get ready to go back to the hospital. And then it was kind of like when they let the animals out of the zoo. You'd see medical students kind of let out for the night or off together, and you just felt like you had to celebrate every moment. So you appreciated

having your one weekend off a month or your night out was just wonderful. Is residency in a hospital? So typically- Wait, not residency, sorry. Is school in a hospital so typically wait not residency sorry is school in a hospital that's what i meant yes so they have the teaching hospitals throughout the country so you'll go to medical school and these will usually be at what's called a teaching hospital because i think they get reimbursed for having students there and the patients know okay we're in a teaching hospital they're going to have patients you know students coming in with medical residents

to treat the patients as opposed opposed to, let's say, a private institution that might not want students and residents. And people don't want to see us, people who aren't quite trained yet. Remember when the residents came in when you were giving birth? That's okay. So in the book, I'm waiting for the part where you say that there's so many residents that are in the hospital. And you did explore that. You said like, there's people that are performing things that they've never performed. And I'll let you say it more eloquently, but like,

I think you said something like the first time you had to cut something, like it was, it's like they really kind of just throw you in. And that's probably the best teaching in a way because there's no other way to do it. You can read about it all you want. You can practice on plastic models

and things like that. But until you've actually done it, and again, I think this is everywhere in life, until you've made a mistake, you learn from when you don't do things right. In a way, you never forget those moments when you didn't do something right. And in front of the whole group, you've got these very intimidating rounds where it's the head doctor and the residents and the students, and you're talking about each case. And oh my goodness, if you made a mistake and they light you up. You never forget those moments and you quickly go and learn it. But the adage in medical training is see one, do one, teach one, which I think is applicable through all of life. Anytime you actually see it and then you do it

yourself, go, okay, but once you can teach it, you really realize, okay, you know what you're doing. I think like, well, for me, it's like, I, that fully makes sense. And I think like, how else would you teach someone without them actually like working on a real patient? I just don't want to be the patient that people are learning on. Maybe like maybe medical students are like, what an asshole. But like, I want the guy that's, that can teach it and put a master's class. So you want to see them have like a punch card when you can, let me see how many of

these you've done. How many, how many, you know How many lungs have you reinflated? And going back, we had these residents come in the first time Lauren was giving birth. And I don't think I've ever seen my wife snap faster. She's like, get the fuck out. Well, it's just like, I can't be pushing a seven pound baby out of my vagina and have people want to come in and learn about it. I know that's maybe really mean.

I'm already so scared of the hospital situation. She got really mad because she was crowning, and then I started signing autographs for them. No, you didn't. I'm just kidding. Believe me, as a medical student, to walk into these women who are there to determine if they're going to be delivering and go, hi, I'm a medical student. I need to check your cervix right now, was not the most easy thing to learn to say. I mean, there's no real graceful way or polite way. And the first time you had to do it, you just, you walked in and you did it.

And you go, they're about to kick me out, I know this. And the very first delivery I had, so you're excited, oh my goodness, I finally get my first delivery. I can't believe this is gonna happen. And I had had, I mean, tragically, a very dear friend of mine had just died and I'd flown out to meet his family.

And again, I'm a medical student, I'm freaked out. I can't even think straight. I haven't slept for 60 hours almost. a very dear friend of mine had just died and i'd flown out for for to meet his family and and again i'm a medical student i'm freaked out i can't you know i can't even think straight haven't slept for 60 hours almost i fly back and they said okay well here's your first delivery she's a really sweet woman you know it's great she's really close go ahead she speaks english and a lot of times you have non-english speakers so i just i walk into this room and i mean this woman looks like seriously looks like she's like the Tasmanian devil. She's standing there, this muumuu, and she's like, who the fuck are you?

I'm John. I'm the medical student. Get the fuck out now. Now. It's like, okay. Okay. And I just turned tail and ran. I mean, I was like, that was, you know, she was really close to delivering, did not want

to see a medical student at this point. Do you have to deliver in medical school? Like, is that a requirement to get through? Pretty much. Yeah. And the residency I did, I did a family practice residency, and we had six months of OB, which I really enjoyed. OB is really... People are happy there. Yeah, in general. And when it's not happy, it's really intense. And I think that's a really important thing about medical training and people who are thinking about medical school. It's one of those things, you are in the moment. When you are there, you cannot think about anything else. You are so focused, in certain practices for sure. But in OB, when things are getting intense, it's one of those,

you are. What was the transition from part one medical school to part two residency? What was that transition like? And after the transition, what happened? In medical school, and certainly mine was an extreme case, to go from your memory not working to trying to just pass school and you go in, you're seeing patients, you're seeing clinical work. And the transition is almost seamless. You finish medical school and July 1st, residents across the country start working in the hospital. Explain what residency is if you had to put it in a box for him. Do you know what that is, honey? Well, don't you partly live at the hospital during that time?

That used to be, yeah. That's why it was called residence, because you actually lived at the hospital. So now this is basically indentured servitude. It's the inexpensive way of saying, hi, we're going to have a lot of workers in the hospital. But so the people don't live there anymore. It's just- No. Well, I spent a lot of time there. Michael, you're there literally- Okay. So how many hours in a given day are you there?

It depends on what your surgical interns, they're very first. So the intern year is considered the first year of residency. And if you're in surgery, you might be living there. I mean, you might be there 120 hours a week. I rarely had 120 hour weeks. I had some weeks where I worked 120 hours. A lot of them were probably 60, 70 hour type weeks, sometimes less depending what rotation you're doing. You might be doing what's called an outpatient where you're maybe working in a pediatric doctor's office. But if you're in the hospital taking call, it might be every third night or when I was working burn units, every second night, you'd be, might go home for a few minutes. They get a call. You got to go back to the hospital. Tell me if I'm wrong. I heard burn unit is like the worst to have to. It was, I had

no desire to go into it. And the woman I was dating at the time, she was one of the top students ever in the history of the school. She's just, you know, super smart, worked tremendously hard. She said, John, you need to go do this. You're going to learn how to do procedures. You're going to learn how to do procedures. And as you said, Lauren, what is it like to be thrown in? So the very first day I show up and there's usually a resident and then there's an intern, kind of the beginner one. And then there's the medical students and there was no intern.

He had something else going on. So the resident looked at me and just said, you're the doctor. That half of the burn unit's me. That half is you. Take care of the patients. And you had to step up and you just did. And that's when you really learned, okay, he said, here's how you're going to put a central line in. You're suddenly going to cut this guy's neck and feed this line down into his heart. And you're hearing horror stories of residents who maybe fed it in too deeply and it hit the heart and put the patient into a coding situation. So you're really careful.

And the burn unit is one of the places, like you said, it can be really tough to work in because of the patients you're seeing there. But at the same time, for doctors, it's unbelievable training because you have to think of every single organ system. When somebody's in the burn unit, they have so much wrong with them that you just… When I think of the burn unit, I think of someone that's like they've been lit on fire. But is that what... Like their whole body?

See, I told you. People who aren't in hospital, we don't know. This is the Wiley Coyote Center. This is where everything's... This is when people have... What's the most common injury? What's Wiley Coyote Center? I'm just thinking it's everything that goes wrong.

People went down and looked for a methane leak in their house holding a lighter in front of their face. They decided, let me see how close I can get to the hot springs in Yosemite. Let me see kids who poiled boiling water spilled off. They went to reach for their soup bowl or something off the stove. It's a mix of all the things that can go wrong,

unfortunately, meth labs blowing up in people's face, that type of thing. And the single worst one, which I talk about in the book, the single worst case we had, it's a little warning about overtaking antibiotics, was this girl who had had a virus and her doctor, they said, can she take some antibiotics? They gave them, you know, a common antibiotic to take. And she started having this bad reaction. Her parents kind of kept her home thinking, can't be that bad, can't be that bad. And she ended up getting something called TENS, which is basically your skin starts sloughing off, her organs started sloughing

down. It looked like she'd been just dipped into her whole body into a huge thing of boiling oil. But you said the reason in the book that she got that is because you say he needs to hear this story is because her mom accidentally gave her a warm bath thinking it would relieve the rash, right? They tried some naturopathic treatments at home. And it was a really, really horrible story just because she was this beautiful, beautiful woman who was a singer and had this great family. And all of a sudden to see somebody who then was basically ended up needing bilateral lung transplant. So again, it was just that warning of antibiotics have side effects. You got to side effects. So someone's listening and they're on antibiotics or they have a kid on antibiotics. You don't want to give them a warm bath. Is that like the message? No, it wasn't so much. It was more of the time they waited was really.

To bring her in. Yeah. So if people are having a reaction, that's what the doctors are there for. They want to hear from you anytime you have something going wrong you're not sure about. And that's one of the, you know, I had certain pearls, things that you learned throughout medicine. And certainly for me, it's something I passed on to all the residents I taught. Anybody I taught was always, you know, listen, you have to listen. You have to listen to your patients.

If a parent tells you they're coming back in for a reason, they didn't think the other doctor listened, something, that's a red flag. You know, parents know their kids better than you ever will. You know, if a mother just says, I just know it's not right, never blow that off. You know, parents know their kids better than you ever will. If a mother just says, I just know it's not right, never blow that off. Parents know their kids. When someone's on antibiotics and they get a rash, do you think they should go right to the doctor because they can get that reaction? It's worth a call.

I don't think you need to go in all the time because you can have mild little reactions that start just like one localized area. But this was a full body. Certainly, if that happens, yes, you want to stop right away. Any kind of severe reactions. So people sometimes wait to go because they're trying to do holistic things. But if it's from antibiotics and it's a full body, you want to go to the doctor. Yeah, and that was a rare case.

That was a really, really rare case. That's something that needed to be treated right away. I've seen other patients with that same syndrome. And as long as they were treated right away, everything turned out okay. Back to the residency, when you start that, how long does it, I mean, how many weeks, months, years does it take with those kinds of hours? And also walk us through, it's so cool how you got to go to each, like talk about how you get to go to each thing. Yeah. So in medical school, you get exposure to a whole bunch of different options of what

you might want to do in your life. And the two big factors when you're thinking, once you're in medical school, are you going to become a medicine doctor, which means anything non-surgical, or a surgical doctor. So surgery is general surgery or orthopedics, plastic surgery, ENTs, and internal medicine, pediatrics. When you're taking care of people without actually doing surgery, theseTs, and internal medicine, pediatrics. When you're taking care of people without actually doing surgery, these things are considered medicine.

So medicine versus surgery is a big difference. But as a med student, you go through each of these, you get a chance to see all of them. And then when I did a family practice residency, same thing. We're doing months on the OB ward. You're working with the surgeons. You're spending another month in the ICU. You're spending another month doing,

let's say an outpatient sports clinic type thing. So you really get a lot of different exposure. Now, when you're a surgical resident, and usually residencies are three to five years, and you apply in med school. You basically go and interview at different residency programs, and then you apply. And there's some crazy match system where you put who your top choices are, and the match programs put who their top students are and some crazy number comes out and spits out and everybody on match day is supposed to show up and find out where you're going to go spend your next three to seven years. So it really depends what you're doing. If your family practice for me was three years, it's one of the reasons I chose it. Surgery is usually around five years

and then people might do a fellowship on top of that and go into something more specialized, pediatric surgery or plastics. And then they do more training on top of that. It's a while. There are three products that I use every single day for my kids. And I'm not the best cook, but I am serious about what's in my kitchen. And all these products are Primal Kitchen. The products that I use are the ketchup. I'm obsessed with this ketchup. I've switched out all my ketchup with this specific ketchup. My kids use this for their scrambled eggs. I put this on my hamburger with no bun. I also just love this ketchup if I'm making a meatloaf. And then I also use their avocado oil. It's the best. I've switched to avocado oil lately. And you just can't go wrong with this one. It's so

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All the buckets, there's the burn bucket, there's the OBGYN. What else are all the ones? So usually your third year, it's kind of, these are the ones you must do. So you're going to spend months just taking care of patients who have been admitted. That's internal medicine. Usually you have time on the pediatric ward and you have time in the ER. You have time on the surgery ward, usually general surgery. And then you have some electives. So burn unit was an elective. Orthopedics was an elective. OB-GYN, usually as medical students, you're mostly doing OB, the fun part, the delivering babies.

Later on, you might do the GYN, which is more. Who's like the Rolls Royce? Like who's like the ones that like think they're like the like A team? Is it like the surgeons? Like who's like walking in with the like. You're going to get me in trouble here no question well we all yeah the the reputation would certainly be surgeons are the coolest guy in the hospital you know the surgeons are kind of the the cool team they think they are and certainly you get into you know the orthopedic surgeons are

usually these complete overachievers you know these are the this is like eric hyden lives in our town okay you only won five gold medals you rode rode in the Tour de France. Now you're going to be an orthopedic surgeon. Sure. You're just a complete overachiever. Make the rest of us look like chimney sweeps. So the surgeons have that reputation. But I think when you're a med student, everybody makes you feel intimidated. The cardiologists certainly have a reputation of being really smart. One thing that struck me in your book as a mother now was the first time that you went in the pediatric unit. I mean, every single mother's worst nightmare is probably having to go to that unit. What was that like for you

the first time that you entered that area? Well, it's very different now that I'm a parent, how you see that and the experiences you have of wanting to be in there or not, certainly post COVID. You put on a doctor's hat. I think you have this moment where you're just, at least I was, you're very objective. And the pediatric war is crazy. For some reason, I was there during the winter months when you have this RSV, which is kind of becoming really popular now again. It's coming around. Yeah, it's big time right now. And I think I wrote about it in the book, but it was, I think I burned my pagers batteries out multiple times because you're just pagers going nuts. It's just, everybody's calling you, get up to this floor, get up to this floor. This patient, you know, patients are just

pediatric patients throughout the hospital in the hallways. So it's a very intense time period. And it's so hard because pediatrics is so different than adults who, well, I shouldn't say that. I think one of the biggest things you learn in medical school is how to get patients to answer questions. You have no idea how difficult it is to get somebody to just answer a yes or no question. You talk about that in the book a lot. Talk about that. Oh my goodness. You'd think it was the most straightforward thing in the world to walk and say, you walk in the morning and you have to interview every patient every morning early. If you've been in the hospital, you're like, who are these people coming in at five in the morning? It's

usually the residents because they have to write notes that they then have to present. So you'd walk in, hi, Mrs. Hopkins, did you have any chest pain last night? Sounds like a yes or no answer. And they tell you, say yes or no. I've got a yes or no questions for you. And for some reason, they always go off on some different topic. Saying, well, I don't know. I had dinner last night and the nurse forgot to bring my broccoli and I thought I should have some vegetables. I got five more patients to see. I've got grand round starting in a few minutes. And they just start rambling on and on.

You're going, okay. You just start skipping questions. Were you breathing okay? I think so. I think I was breathing fine. And then you later find out she had a breathing attack last night. They had to bring medicine in and you forgot to ask the nurse. And that's, again, lessons you learn.

Always ask the nurse, what happened last night? What about the kids? So kids are really tough because they can't answer any questions. So you're constantly, kids are, I don't want to say reduced. When you're with a real infant, they become just numbers. Milligrams per kilograms. How much urine have they put out how much liquids have we put in you're always constantly just basically watching

numbers and trying to assess what's going on and and looking at the patient and a lot of pediatrics is is knowing how to talk to parents you know reassuring the parents they're usually in really good hands in these hospitals you know pediatric doctors are amazing that's an art form what do you do if, I always wonder this, and you're the perfect person to ask, what do you do if there is a parent that brings their kid in and you can tell that there's abuse going on or like a Munchausen situation happening? It's really difficult. The laws made it somewhat easier for doctors, at least in different states. It's mandated. If you suspect non-accidental trauma, which is abuse,

you have to report it. And so it becomes very awkward as a doctor when you suspect something. And sometimes it's very, I mean, it's obvious, I guess, if somebody walks in and they've said, these kids were abused, we're taking them, the state's bringing them in. But a lot of times it's maybe a well-to-do parents who's, who they bring them in and you, and you say, oh, they, they fell down the stairs and you can tell the kids just not responding the way you think, or you might get an x-ray and you say, wait, there's another, you know, the radiologist says there's a second break in that same area where they might have an injury now, an old break. You know, could this be, could this be abuse? You know, could this be non-accidental trauma? And you have to confront the parents.

So it's a really hard, and it was a hard lesson for me. This is one of the things that your blood just starts boiling. And it really took the pediatric doctors saying, okay, we all have the same reaction. You want to go attack the parents. And they just said, sometimes,

I mean, there are bad situations, but sometimes these people had a really hard day. They came back, they're stressed, and they overreacted to something that they regret. It's better to get them into anger management and hopefully have them there as parents than take every kid away and have you taken away for assault charges

for punching a parent in the face. That's just- Did you see a lot of Munchausens? Is it Munchausens by proxy or Munchausen? What's the difference? So you're talking about when maybe the parent is making their kids sick and to bring them in and just get this attention we think there's a some kind of psyche that goes with this we we did not as commonly you read about it all the time but it was such a you couldn't

tell it you suspected it like you know this you know certain kids who keep coming back and and the parents definitely liked being there i mentioned one woman who would actually started stealing scrubs and showing up in patient rooms and saying she was one of the doctor there to administer medicine. So that became an issue. And wasn't she like flirting with the doctor? Yeah, she was hitting, she was, yeah,

it was, it got a little uncomfortable. So she was using it as like her dating flirt ground. It was her place to be. She had other issues, but yeah. Well, at least I don't have to worry about that with you. You're never going to go in the hospital. Don't do that. No, I'm never going to go in the hospital. You're going to have the in the hospital you would rather see me down at the strip club or the horror house than in the hospital sorry i was listening to you talk and i was telling i was telling my friend the other day i don't

think it's possible until you become a parent to know the fear of like when your kid gets sick or when your kid gets hurt or when they're in a situation where you feel like you can't help them. I think you just can't, there's no way you can understand what that feels like until you have your own child. And I think it's one of the worst feelings in the world. And I'm wondering from your perspective, now that you are a parent, do you think you could be as objective as you were then dealing with that kind of practice? Yes and no. It depends what role you're in. And when you're in the medical role,

you really go into an objective place. And I wish I could allay all your fears because as much as my stories are some of the highlights and the things that were entertaining, I mean, the people that work in hospitals are so dedicated. And I mentioned this in my intro and beginning to the books because I know I'm being flippant in a lot of the pages. And a lot of it's my own frustration with myself.

I mean, the people that work in the hospitals are the most caring people you can imagine. I mean, I've just seen so many people, residents, attending doctors who, they just don't go home. They're like, they know it's time to go home. They're just going to, this patient's not doing well. And they will just stand there for hours staring at just vitals, trying to think what else can be done. There is so much dedication into taking the best care of every patient. So as much

as I might joke, certainly the message is these people, it's amazing how hard they work and how much they care. At the same time for me as a parent, certainly when my kids have, we've had one who had a mild procedure and we're in there going, this is really minor. This is so minor. He's going to be in and out. And we're both just counting the minutes, nauseated, can't believe this is happening. And we're listening to other parents in the same waiting room whose kids are dealing with chronic issues or cancer and things like that. And they're there for their 12th surgery. And you're going, oh my goodness, I don't know if I don't have the strength to handle that. It's tough. This parenting gig, man.

Oh, it's a lot. Yeah. As a parent, Michael and I, whatever our kids get sick, we freak out like everyone does. I'm ordering fucking on Postmates like a blood pressure machine. I don't even know how to take it. Like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I got the oxygen thing. That's like the little like bunny that you put.

I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm going to text you next time or I'll message you. I'll voice note you what's going on. But how do you know or what are some things where you should take a child to the hospital? Like what's your like Dr. John's list? You got to go to the hospital. Well, the first thing I tell every parent because I'll get calls from friends or from other people saying, hi, what do you think?

I said, if you're concerned, go in.'" I mean, every doctor will tell you. If a parent is concerned, and again, if they're feeling warm and they look fine, or it's a runny nose, and I've had plenty of people who came in with runny noses, and they're going, "'My kid's had a runny nose.

"'He never gets a runny nose.'" I'm like, okay, I don't know what I'm gonna do. It's been 20 minutes of a runny nose, but let's at least listen them over, make sure there's nothing going on. But anytime you're concerned, if there's something you're concerned, any doctor wants to see you.

They want to know what's happening because if you're concerned, it's something intuitive, you know this isn't right. At the same time, I mean, the most common things we look at with kids are certainly high fevers, anything over a hundred and,

there's no specific number. What would you take your kid with a fever? Like when are you going to the hospital? What fever? If they're getting over a, like if they're getting up to 103, I might be going, okay, I'm going, and I know a lot of people, anybody listening to this doctor, like, no, no, no, it's not, it's this, it's that. I'm just giving a rough range of, you know, it depends how they look.

Cause they might be totally fine. They're just hot. And you give them a little medicine and the Tylenol takes it down. Well, it's probably okay. It's when fevers stay up, despite the fact that you maybe tried a little Tylenol. It's if they're looking lethargic. If they can't, you know, younger kids, if they can't drink,

if they're not eating, boom, that's a sign they're going to get dehydrated so quickly. What about like the lungs and the oxygen? That's the big one, yeah. Okay. If kids are breathing quickly, you know, by the time, again, it's really hard to assess even for doctors. So I think you have to go by the, something are breathing quickly. You know, by the time, again, it's really hard to assess even for doctors.

So I think you have to go by that. Something's not right. This is, they're breathing really hard. I'm talking with infants when you can see retractions, you see them using their ribs, they're using other muscles in their necks. They're not just breathing and they're breathing too quickly,

they'll wear themselves out. And that was an emergency situation. So these are a reason any doctor would want to have you call, say, hey, this is what's going on. And they're going to say, bring him in. Let's check him out. Part three, you talk about a lot of the patients that you start seeing as a doctor in different areas. And one common theme is people's obsession with prescription drugs and the ways that these people will manipulate the doctor into getting them prescription drugs. And these ways are creative.

They're resourceful. These people are coming to the ER. They're lying. They're using different names. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. They've really tried to crack down the last few years. But I think I joke about the fact that there must be an idiot's guide to getting medicines in the ER. And we're talking, say, prescription drugs usually control substances.

So you're dealing with narcotic pain medicines or sedatives, stimulants, and there's a big market for them. And really, that's what you saw. I got to the point where you could almost be in the lobby of your ER or urgent care center. You could look out and see somebody walking in and almost know what they're there for. You could almost, there was times you could almost say, I already know exactly what I'm going to diagnose them with and what I'm going to treat them with. You could just become that intuitive.

But pain-seeking patients, they had, there was these red flags. There's always these red flags that would go up. So they're coming in for back pain. They're coming in for a kidney stone. There are these kind of common ways that you could basically, or a headache. Because you can't say, no, you don't have a headache or no, you don't have back pain.

So those are kind of the flags that go up. And unfortunately, all the people that have legitimate back pain or headaches then have to be put under this scrutiny. And there was almost this ongoing, you just have the same conversation every day. So you get to, you figure out that they want something for the pain. So have you taken any of this pills before? No, I never take pills. Have you tried ibuprofen? I'm allergic to ibuprofen. They're allergic to everything except this medicine they've heard is good, something called hydrocodone. They almost like stumble over the name and you'd be going, okay. Have you talked

to your doctor? You had a doctor for this? Oh yeah, they're out of town. Every time the doctor's out of town, they're usually extremely complimentary. So you'd have people who are always telling, oh, you are the best doctor. You always take the best care of me. And it's so nice you guys are here today. I'm so glad for this. Other ones were having like the entire family. They'd have the entire family eating lunch in there. And they just, that sense of, I just want to get these guys out of here. I just, you know, I can't have the screaming baby. They're changing diapers. They use the urgency of the baby pooping. And they're like, come on, I got to get my pills. A hundred percent.

And the same thing for when they've lost their prescription. I mean, you cannot count the times you hear, my car was broken into. I put my prescription in the wash. The dog ate the pills. My kid ate the pills. I dumped them down the sink. And you just hear this over and over.

And then you can get a report. You can actually get this report that shows all the different pills they've gotten. So here's this person that's basically told you, I've never had any of these pills before. And you have to walk back in and go, this is really weird. Okay, I've got this report that says you actually received three prescriptions yesterday, another two the day before. You've actually had like 600 Lord Tab pills in the last month. And they're like, that's not me.

Somebody stole my wallet. I lost my identification. And you'd have these crazy stories where I had this woman walk in and same thing. She's super friendly. So she's like, hey, can't wait to see you, doc. I'll be right back. So I walk in. She says, oh, doc, I had knee surgery a month ago. My horse kicked me this week and it's just killing me. I just need something for the pain. I'm like, well, okay, let's look at this situation. You look and she has all this ink on her leg. And I said, which is kind of the ink you expect to see if you have an infection. It's marking this red area on her knee. And I said, did anybody else

see you? Have you gone to an ER? No. You didn't go to another medical clinic where they marked you for an infection? No. Nobody thought you had a skin infection and wrote this? No, I told them it's just a sunburn. So you did go to an ER. Yeah, I went to an ER, but I really don't like them. I don't like the way they treat me. I'm like, okay. So you've got this sunburn. How come you don't have any, you're not red on your other, on your other leg or on your arms? You know? And she says, well, I'm really burnt to my chest. And so I was saying, it's out of her chest. I'm like, okay, that's, you know, flirting is not going to get us through this, this point. Said you haven't, you know, this, okay, I really got to get in touch with their surgeon. Since you had surgery, I want to make sure you're okay.

She's like, well, they're out of town, so you can't talk to them. So let me just go, I need to find out what medicines the other doctors put you on in case I don't want to put you on a different medicine. So I call up her doctor and say, oh yeah, we know her. Her doctors are in town. She called up three days ago saying she got kicked

by a horse and she's not allowed to have medicines. We're happy to see her today. So I have to walk back in and say, this is really weird, but did you get kicked earlier in the week too? This is like, you've now been kicked twice by the horse. Your doctors are willing to see you. And do you think maybe you've got a pill problem? Do they storm off or do they let you confront them?

Everybody's different. I've had definitely times. There's some people who get really furious. I mean, I remember walking out of an urgent care clinic at midnight and thinking, I'm going to get hit by a two by four as soon as I walk out of this clinic. These people get so irate. Other people I've had just, this one woman's like a catatonic state.

She just froze up and stared at the floor. I didn't know if she was going to like just lose it and attack me. And then all of a sudden she's burst into tears crying. I've had other people who apologize. You know, I've had people who fake their own, they add on to the prescription I wrote them. They add on a bunch of refills and the pharmacist will call up and say, I know you never give

refills. Is this real? No, I didn't do that. And they'll come back and just say, I'm so sorry. Are a lot of these people who are drug users that are addicted to drugs, are some of them actually selling it on the street? Yeah. I mean, it's a really difficult situation to explain because you have people who are legitimately physiologically addicted to medicine. And right now addiction clinics across the country have a waiting list because it's such a huge problem. And it's not their fault.

It's not, you know, these aren't people who are just going, oh my goodness, I just want to do something. I just want to take pills. No, I had a really close friend who's a very accomplished businessman, smart guy, doesn't drink alcohol ever. He had double knee surgery and they put him on pills. But I mean, I guess that's a really painful surgery. And he had to check himself into a rehab and we're talking like he's, this guy's never had substance abuse, never drank nothing. And he had

to literally put himself into rehab to get off this stuff. Really difficult and so hard to go through. And so I think anybody in life, you probably, you know, whether it's friends, family, might see people go through this. So it's really sad when you see that happen. Luckily, if he can go in and get help, that's great. And other people are selling it. I think you have people who they come in, they have, let's say, Medicare covers. For $3, they get a prescription for 90 pills, and then they can sell them on the streets for $20 a pill.

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is provide a few details and they'll give you an offer in as little as two minutes. They'll even come pick it up for free. Vroom is the better way to buy and sell cars. And that's exactly what their customers are saying. Like Timothy, who said great cars, great shopping experience and app, great service all the way through delivery. Check it out for yourself and find your next ride on vroom.com. That's vroom.com. From a doctor's perspective, from an outside, I feel like there must be a place for some of this medicine. But from your perspective, is some of this stuff too strong? Is some of it not necessary? Is all of it necessary? Like it's become such a big issue in this country.

Like where's the line of, you know, this is what is needed for, you know, medical practice and for, you know, reassurance and for pain management. And this is like just overkill. Like where do you kind of draw the line? There is certainly an epidemic across the country with these controlled substances. And the fact that prescription medicines cause more overdose deaths than recreational drugs

in the last few years was, I think, a wake-up call. So there are a lot of measures being put into place. They're being much stricter about following up on doctors and pharmacists who are giving out these prescriptions. They're really trying to pay attention to controlling it. Better that said, there's so many different places that you get it. You know, kids are ordering stuff online.

We had it happen in our small town in Utah. These two middle schoolers died from ordering some pills, you know, that they got off the internet. You know, it's supposed to be some, you know, they're laced with fentanyl and it can kill you. So the difficult thing is everybody's different. It's really hard to know why, like your friend, why one person who's never had a peer or something, an addictive personality could take a pill and become addicted and why other people can take more pills and not

be addicted, just take it at a limited time. So doctors, a lot of effort is being put into educating doctors, how many prescriptions you can give. At that point, let's get them in for counseling. The common maybe misconception, or I don't know if there's truth, there's not a lot. I think a lot of people that aren't doctors feel that doctors are making a ton of money by prescribing all this. And so they're like incentivized. Is that true or is that a myth? Oh man, I wish. I could have done a whole lot better. You hear people, whether it comes to vaccines or prescriptions or whatever, like, oh, the doctors are all making all the money. No, this is the tough one. Again, the economics of medicine, you look at people talk, I mean, you go to different countries and healthcare is so much more affordable. And the US

just has a mess right now. I think it's between insurance companies and what we pay for medicine can be crazy. That said, it's not the doctors really making a lot of money. I mean, okay, there's really bad stories where you have hospital clinics saying, you're going to work on our pain clinic and we need you to write this many hundreds of prescriptions a day. And these doctors get burned out because all they do, they've been told you need to see this many patients

because for every prescription they write, basically it's every patient they see, the hospital gets reimbursed. So pain medicine is a cash cow. You get these pain clinics where that's all they were doing for years. For the hospitals. Right, so the hospitals might be making the money. And again, these are, you know, big generalizations. You know, these are, you know, I imagine a lot of this has changed in the last few years.

But no, the doctors aren't getting reimbursed per prescription, anything like that. What are the common causes of people coming into the ER? You mentioned earlier that a lot of kids will reach up and like grab boiling water. I would like to know as a parent and just for myself, what are things that we should be looking for that you saw all the time? So adult ERs and pediatric ERs, two very different things. If we're looking at kids specifically, if you're asking as a parent, by age groups, you have usually cold concerns that, hey, my kid's not breathing right.

He's got a really severe cold and RSVC, and it's these really horrible colds that make them not breathe well. As kids get older, the most common things you might see are more accidents, crashing on their bikes, cutting themselves, pool accidents. These are when I talk about severe things. A lot of people use the ER as their primary care. It's easy to get into. I'm just going to walk in here and get treated. Adults are across the board. But yeah, kids, the most common thing you're seeing are accidents and falling down. I mean, I can't tell you. Every two or three-year-olds walk in, they either have a sliced chin or a sliced forehead. I sliced everything. Townes just, he took the dog's water the other day. He's one and a half, took the dog's water and the water spills all over the ground

and then he walks through it and he slips and lands right on his tooth. It's like the end of a cartoon. It's like, it's on and on and on and on with the falls. The good thing is kids are made to bounce. That's the good thing. They really do just bounce back up. You talked a lot about abscess, which I This is gross. I'm sorry. Why is that

such a thing? It's like all over. Every time I watch a hospital show and read a hospital book, the abscess is like the thing. What is that? I know. I haven't seen one outside of my hospital life. I've never seen anybody else except when you're in the hospital. They come in. It was one... Okay. The reason I said, oh, gross. It's the one thing that would turn my stomach too. You're like, oh, goodness. What's it from? Infection? Well, certainly you'd see a lot in, let's say, on the arm of drug users. And at the time, there was a lot of methicillin-resistant staph aureus. MRSA was really common, especially from hospitals. It could be from anything. You'd get it from a hair follicle got infected and it turned

into something nasty. So again, maybe they waited too long. Taylor, you better be listening right now. Not Carson, our producer. Our other producer, Taylor, has real bad razor burn. I bet you he has abscess all around his penis. You better go get that checked out. Oh, the things we're seeing.

I would love to know, because there's a lot, I'm sure, of nurses who are listening. And I think nurses need to, I would love for you to just speak on the energy and good vibes that nurses bring to the whole equation. Oh, certainly. Nurses in the hospital setting, they almost run the show. They're the ones that are on the floor. So doctors might be running back and forth between different floors, different patients

in the cases. So doctors might be running back and forth between different floors, different patients in the cases. Nurses are amazing. Like I said, one of the pearls you learn, if you're smart, is ask the nurses about the patients. They know the patients better than the doctors do because they spend so much time with them. So this absolutely essential,

amazing part of the workforce. And at the same time, you might have, let's say, a surgical nurse. And all they do is work in the OR. So a lot of friends of mine who went into nursing school, I think they have an amazing experience because they're doing so much of the medical care themselves. And you commonly see, I think, on TV shows,

and a little bit of a cliche of, oh, the doctors are the hotshot residents thinking they're going to boss the nurses around. They're really quickly put in their place. And just like doctors. Sounds like marriage. Yeah. And you really quickly put in their place, you know, because, and just like doctors. Sounds like marriage. Yeah. And you can't put all nurses in one group, just like you can't put all doctors in one

group. There's really great doctors. There's good doctors. There's some not great doctors. And same thing with nurses. It depends on the level of training, but, you know, really dedicated, essential part of medicine and certainly a lack. I know they're really looking constantly for needing nurses.

I think with COVID, it made it even tougher. Anybody working in the hospitals, the hours and the shifts were just getting overwhelming for a lot of people. Were you practicing during COVID? That's right when I stepped away. It was almost to the end of 2019. I'd really cut down my time and decided to leave fully.

And then 2020 hits and I'm thinking, oh my goodness, I need to volunteer and just let people know. So I bought a bunch of medical supplies and just thought, okay, if anybody gets hurt, they can come. I can sew people up. I can do things. And so they don't have to go to the hospitals. They don't need to bother the hospitals that are so busy. Just in your community. Yeah. And even when it was hitting New York, I'm like, oh, do I need doctors to come to New York? And then I've got three kids and you're going, is this, you know, if I start working in the hospitals again, like, is this, I'm going to bring this back. And so I knew if it, where we were,

it never got as severe as it did in some of the other states. So I didn't have to make that decision. And when you, I mean, I'm looking at you and you look like a physically fit, able guy, able to, like, I'm wondering why you decided to step away at the end. Mostly time to move on and wanted to be doing something else. I'd practiced for 20 years and my interest has really been, I love writing and I walked into another job that had using medicine as well, but not working with patients. So it was just kind of time to move on. And as you mentioned at the beginning, it was something that I did,

but I always had a question in my mind. It wasn't, you know, when I was writing, when I was, I love sharing these stories. You know, the way I got into these stories was basically writing emails to friends back before blogs existed. You know, it was back in the 19, you know, late 90s. And I'd send these email blasts out

when I was on call at three in the morning, just this crazy stream of consciousness that would leave my friends asking, you know, are you breaking into the pharmacy or something? Just random thoughts, but sharing these stories so that people got to hear. This is what happens in the hospital. I'm walking around with an amputated leg at three in the morning. Oh my goodness. Here's this person who's, all these crazy things.

What do you mean you're holding the leg? It's one of those moments where you're going, I bet none of my friends are doing this right now. We'd have to have this emergency amputation. This person who got septic and was dying, he didn't want to have his leg cut off. We're like, if we don't cut this off, we couldn't get in touch with the intending doctors. And the residents say, well, we got to do it. I mean, he's going to die if we don't get this thing off. So they're like, all right, John, you got to go bring it down to, this is in the VA hospital. So I'm walking around with this leg in a garbage bag. I'm thinking,

it's three in the morning on a Saturday. My friends aren't doing this. They're all having a great time together. They're out partying and I'm doing this. Tell us about the time you stitched yourself up. Which? You stitched yourself up and your wife got mad and said, get the fuck to the hospital. We're talking about the manscaping? Yes, the manscaping. He was manscaping. Yeah. The two chapters that seem to get a lot of interest where I thought a spider had bitten my penis back in Telluride. I got a lot of interest in that in book one. That was horrific. And, oh, we bring this up.

So, yeah, doctors do some really silly things. So, I think we let the cat out of the bag. There I was, manscaping. Wait, hold on. But manscaping with like scissors or manscaping with a razor? I had an electric razor, a little electric one. I thought, okay, you know what? This is, it said it's not going to cut you.

Michael and Carson do it too. They both do it. No, no, no. I had to look up, it was actually a word. I'm like, I Googled it. I was like, oh, it's actually a term I can use. No, there's like a kit called Manscaping. There's a company now that's actually been a part of the show called Manscaping.

No, but he was using an electric razor. Oh, wait, wait. So I think it was Manscaping that I was using. And all of a sudden, I just see like blood shoot out and i'm in the shower i'm like oh my goodness i you know i mean and a lot of times when blood's in water it looks a lot worse than it is i was like okay one it's bad because i don't know what i've cut at this point i'm like trying not to freak out like you know get out of the shower and i go out and there's just blood flowing everywhere and i'm taking gauze and i'm looking up like all my wife's towels in our

bathroom are all white. And she's a designer. So she's got this beautiful tile, which is all white and wood and intricate. I'm going, oh my goodness, I'm getting blood everywhere. I'm trying to stop the bleeding. She's about to arrive home with the kids from school. I'm going, okay, I do not need her to walk in

and have all the kids show up. And there I've got blood. They think I've castrated myself and I couldn't stop it. And so finally I ended up getting like, this is, they don't teach you this in medical school, but I ended up getting like those potato chip clips that you close bags with, those little, and I clip it onto my scrotum.

I'm going, oh my goodness, I'm in so much pain with this. Wait, so this was on the, I'm going to use just like a non, this is on the ball sack. This is on the ball sack. Yeah, we're on the ball sack. I can't see it yet because there's so much blood. I can't see what it is yet.

And there's no way I'm going to the emergency room at this point. I just figure if I just clamp it, it's going to stop. Also, they're going to be like, hey, John. Oh, and I'm going, and so I've got- Hey, Dr. John. This is definitely not going to walk in and do that. I have to explain that.

Yeah. There are some downsides to knowing people in the medical community. And so I'm walking around with this big gauze thing, trying to let the kids not to notice that it looks like I'm just really excited at the moment. And an hour later, I take the clips off. Blood is streaming down. Cups of blood are flowing down. I clip it back on. And there's like, no way I'm going to tell my wife about this because the kids, I don't care how far away they are, they could be outside a hundred yards away. They would hear it. Kids have this, like your kids might be young,

but they hear everything. If it's related to something they're not supposed to hear what what what was that i mean they're gonna you know if they hear me telling my wife chandler hi i don't know what i did i need to like maybe go to the er or something i know they'll what happened dad and you know tomorrow everybody in the school will know that you know i'd slice my balls off so i finally see that i can finally i see this cut and it take kids. I don't know. It's probably around midnight. It's around six hours later. I'm finally going, this is so painful. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep the clips on. It's not slowing the bleeding down. I don't know what damage I'm doing and I can't let it keep bleeding because I'm seriously going to just end

up bleeding to death. It's gonna be like one of those suicide things where you just, you know, open your veins and just bleed out in your bed. And they think it's some terrible way to go. Death by cut, not sack. Exactly. And then the kids will have to deal with that for the rest of their lives. It was a bizarre thing. So I finally had to get, I found an old suture kit

and just decided I'm going to sew myself up. And it was like the same thing. I was like, it was, I just had to sit down, blood's pouring out and I put the stitch through. And all of a sudden I realized in the last few years, I'm now, I'm in my fifties and my vision has gotten a little worse. And all of a sudden I go, I can't see a thing. I can't see between the blood coming out, this tiny suture thread.

So I feel like go waddling out into this, into the room, find my readers, come back, trying to get some light on it. Oh my God. And I'm just, yeah. So did you stitch it up? So I stitch it up. I was able to stitch it up and stop the bleeding and I kept thinking I should probably leave a note in case for some reason it starts

bleeding again I'm asleep and I just bleed out and the kids let them know what happens can you bleed out of your balls well apparently the way I was bleeding I mean I've seen a lot of times when you go this is a this is a unique way to kill someone it was a few centimeters slice I'd gone right through a vein so I finally tell my wife the next day just so she knows what was if I was acting weird and she laughs and says, I'm an idiot. Then she tells a friend of hers who actually works for the rival company and they decide they want to interview me and basically have a whole thing saying, you know, here's the story of what happened. With the other brand.

With the other brand. It turns out they both live in our same hometown. It was like a viral ad. Like for this, oh, for the- Yeah, yeah. Like the- There's two main out they both live in our same hometown. It was like a viral ad. Like for this... There's two main companies that made manscaping razors. And the opposite company interviewed him on an ad. Didn't the ad go viral? It had a few million hits.

Yeah. And so I didn't think anybody would actually see it until my friend's kids were like, is that their dad? Is that real? It is John. Anything's possible. Hilarious. Well, John, we've never had anyone on the podcast talk about how they almost bled out from their balls.

But we've also never had anyone talk about Munchausen. None of the doctors that have come on the show have stitched up their own balls besides you. Well, you don't know. You should ask. That might be a common question now. I'll ask Peter a tear next time. Before we go, I would love to talk about your transition of now, of what you're doing right

now. So you have a huge film on Amazon called The Cyclist. And you also are working, I'll let you speak on this, but I hope you're working on bringing this to television. And three books. Thank you so much. Like I said, hearing you enjoy the books, hearing people who will write me and say, we love the books. And is there another one? Or I would

love to see this as a series as you mentioned to me. And it just gives me the confidence. I think a lot of people who write or do things certainly have a little insecurity about is this of any value? And that's certainly a message I'd love to pass to anybody, whether you're thinking about medical school, you're thinking about writing a book or being a songwriter or opening a restaurant, just do it in life. Really, that's the difference between everybody and the people that have things out there is just making that decision to go out and take the time and do it. Because there's so many reasons you don't, including myself, where I would write these and think, there's so many books out there.

There's so many better writers. There's so many people who've written about medical things. And then I heard this woman saying, yeah, but what if you had your favorite restaurant? What if they'd never opened it because there's another pizza place? And they figured they're never going to do it. So there's always somebody you might find your niche.

You have something to say and people want to hear it. And so for me, yeah, I love the transition to writing. I've been working on a lot of scripts over the years and hoping to make more films. The first one was a great learning experience. It was kind of my true independent film and great experience for Film School 101. And maybe your inspiration saying this should be a series

might be the motivation that kicks me into it. So yeah, I've been outlining the ideas how this could be a series. Not make it about me, but make it more about that whole medical training. Because I think like, as you mentioned, I think a lot of people are curious about what really goes on in medical school and this training and that level of what really happens. And it's a really exciting experience. As much as I can joke about it, there is a lot

of laughter in the hospital. I think anytime people have had bad things happen, you overcome it with a lot of laughter. So there's a lot of camaraderie. There's a lot of hard work, but it's a really great experience. I will say I've read a lot of laughter. So there's a lot of camaraderie. There's a lot of hard work, but it's a really great experience. I will say I've read a lot of books on hospitals because I am so intrigued because I'm so scared. And this is definitely my favorite series, my favorite book. I found it to be like so informative,

but also lighthearted and digestible. And I can recommend with like, everyone should go read his books. They're so good. They walk you through the whole situation. There's lots of funny stories. There's also intense stories. And I just think you did such a beautiful job, which is why I stalked you on Instagram. Where can everyone buy your book, support your film and find you? Oh, well, one, thank you so much. And, and the books right now are available on Amazon I'm about to start the audio book

and I think I'll try to get more of a wide release for all of these so they'll be available in all the common places but right now on Amazon and certainly if anybody reads them and share them with your friends if you like them if you don't maybe don't say anything the reviews are amazing I was looking at the reviews you got some good reviews

I don't read reviews because- No, you got thousands and thousands of five-star reviews. That's fast. That's hard to get. That's not easy. I need to be a little bit better about the social media aspect and getting the word out there, but it's- When I do more, you can come on more podcasts.

Come and do more shows. Michael, your finger's in my Instagram post. It looks like a scrotum after that story. I've had enough. Should I put my scrotum on the table? Where can everyone find your Instagram? John Lawrence Ryder. And I've had enough. Should I put my scrotum on the table? Where can everyone find your Instagram? John Lawrence Ryder. And I will post more.

I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to. Yeah, post more. And the film is also on Amazon. It was kind of a, became a bit of a generic story, but it went to a few film festivals, which was really great experience. And on to the next one.

Playing doctor. John Lawrence, thank you for And on to the next one. Playing doctor. John Lawrence, thank you for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much. Michael and Lawrence, this is amazing. It's such a treat. Thank you. Hope you loved this episode. Make sure you are subscribed to the Him and Her newsletter, tscpodcast.com.

And also, if you want to watch this episode, we are on YouTube now. Just search the Him and Her show. I think that's so fun that you can now like be in the room with us sort of. And on that note, we'll see you guys next time. Thank you.