Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Dr. Brian Goldman: Toronto Mike'd #1042

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

In this 1042nd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by Dr. Brian Goldman as they discuss music, 1050 CHUM, COVID-19, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and The Power of Teamwork. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Patrons like you.

Welcome to episode 1042 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville.

Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. And Canna Cabana. The lowest prices on cannabis. Guaranteed. Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. Joining me this week, making his return to Toronto Mic'd,

it's Dr. Brian Goldman. Welcome back. Glad to be here. Great music. Thank you. You know, yesterday, I think it was yesterday, was the birthday of the gentleman who put that together. His name is Ill Vibe, local rapper, producer, Ill Vibe.

So if you're looking for, I don't know, maybe white coat, black art needs a new theme song, you know where to go. You know what? We ditched the theme song years ago. You know why? Because it took too long to get into the show and every second counts yeah because you're constrained by time on the cbc they don't give you unlimited time so i suppose you have to watch a clock your smart move you know on that note like i noticed with

these streaming shows uh no it's so when you had i guess at some point the people who put together the television for you know basic cable realized that like a really long theme song was one or two less like minutes for uh you know for content and then you have extra ads and stuff so get rid of the theme song but so there was this trend i guess at some point where the theme songs on basic cable particularly became like super short. Like, did you ever watch lost?

Yep. Like the lost thing, I think it was like two and a half seconds or something for, for lots of, what are you watching these days? I'm watching, I'm going through Veep. So this is where I'm at.

I missed Veep. Uh, did you ever watch Veep? Oh yeah is where I'm at. I missed Veep. Did you ever watch Veep? Oh, yeah. Better late than never. Yeah. I'm not sure, like, how I missed it. I mean, I knew of it, but for some reason,

I never started it until a few months ago. But now I'm burning through it, and I'm just, I'm absolutely, like, loving this show. So I don't know what I missed. What are you watching these days?

Tokyo Vice. It's the Michael Mann executive produced show based on Jesse Adelstein, the journalist who speaks fluent Japanese and headed over to the greatest Tokyo Daily newspaper where he wanted to explore the underworld of Tokyo gangs. And it's fascinating. It's gritty.

There are great characters. Loving every minute of it. Okay, and where do I... So part of my problem today is where are these things? Like it's such a fragmented... It used to be in the old days you paid for your cable subscription and then you knew what channel to watch it on. But where would I find this show you're watching?

I think it's Crave. Crave. Okay. Crave is the only one I think is worth the money, to be honest. So is that an HBO show or is it? I'm putting you on the spot. Oh, I don't know. I don't know.

It's a show. It's a show. You know what? They're all blurring in my mind. We've watched a lot of them during this gall darn pandemic. But yeah, yeah. So, okay, let me get to know you a little better. So maybe I should tell the listenership off the top, though.

If you're looking for the A to Z, the ongoing history of Dr. Brian Goldman's life and times, okay, you want to go into the archives of Toronto Mike and dig up episode 653. That's the lucky number there. And I'll just read the description I wrote at the time. So I always write it right after the show. Mike chats with Dr. Brian Goldman, host of White Coat Black Art on CBC Radio and the new podcast, The Dose.

It was new at the time about that and many COVID-19 questions from you and me. So are you all COVID-ed out by now? Well, you know, yeah, kind of, kind of. And in fact, it's interesting. The Dose has now kind of pivoted back to a lot of non-COVID subjects. Like next week we're doing vitamin D because vitamin D at one point was a wonder treatment for everything.

And now it's kind of taken, it's been kicked to the curb a bit now, but it's time to kind of rebalance that. We're doing shows on running. We're doing shows on walking. 10,000 steps, you know, is it BS or is there something real about it? So, you know, stuff that we need to kind of get,

survive and get back into the world. We're doing that too. In addition to COVID, of course. Sure. Yeah. COVID lingers, unfortunately. But okay, great. And it's fantastic.

And this is a good opportunity to remind people that when does White Coat Black Art air on CBC Radio 1? So first of all, it airs on Saturdays. Most parts of the country, certainly in Toronto, in Ontario, in Quebec, it airs, it runs at 1 p.m. on Saturday, 6.30 p.m. on Sundays. Same show, rebroadcast. But you can always, you know, you can get it on the dial or on the CBC Listen app. You can also download the podcast because they don't call it a podcast because it's broadcast, which means, as you said, it's constrained by time.

The dose, on the other hand, drops every Thursday, and it's one show a week. And each of them has websites. You can – webpages at cbc.ca slash whitecoat. Or you can just go to your favorite podcast provider. Please rate us five stars, just as you want to rate your wonderful podcast five stars, so that more people can find us. You say that to all the podcast hosts.

No, no, no. Only the ones who invite me on the show to appear. Well, hey, so you were episode 653, but I want to thank you because you contributed to episode 1000. That means a lot to me. It was a bit of a monster to put together, but it was just fantastic getting your clip and sticking that in there. Thanks for that.

Well, thank you for asking. And, you know, it's an honor to be part of such an auspicious occasion because 1,000 episodes is not easy. It requires a lot of ingenuity on your part. You are a self-made host, and I appreciate that. So good on you. I'm looking forward to number 2,000. Well, maybe start thinking about what you're going to record for that one it's coming soon now okay so we are

at some point in this conversation we're going to get to know you a little better and talk about some current event stuff and then i want to talk to you about the power of teamwork and it's interesting because here this up this podcast is called tor Toronto Mic'd and it's under the TMDS umbrella, which is Toronto Mic Digital Services. It's really me, myself and I. Like this is the team behind this content people are listening to right now. So we'll get into this later. But I am the team around here. And maybe that explains.

Maybe that's the problem. But we are going to talk about teamwork but you you know we talked about tv there a couple of minutes ago and it's funny because i knew you we were going to chat today and then yesterday during my bike ride i like to think about okay who's coming up i'm like okay oh dr brian goldman's coming up i'm thinking about things i want to ask you about and one of the things that is bouncing around my head is I wonder what kind of music, does he like music? What kind of music does Dr. Brian Goldman listen to? If he's trying to relax or if he's working out or if he's psyching himself up for something, tell me, what do you listen I listened to the stuff that, that I grew up on. Um, I, uh, you know, I have, I have sometimes my running music, although I've been listening to podcasts

more. Um, I, I, I kind of get settled down more by, I don't want to be energized cause I don't want to burn myself out, but I, you know, I listened to the Beatles. Um, I listened to the Beatles. I listened to, you know, I went through a whole nostalgia tour. So the Animals and the Dave Clark Five and the Early Stones. So as if you're a Toronto guy, right? Yeah. So is it safe to say you were a chum bug? Oh, God, yeah. Oh, yeah.

10, 50, chum. Yeah, I was, yeah. Oh, yeah. 10-50 chum. Yeah, I was, yeah. Let's talk just a bit about this. Reason why is because your episode, this right now we're talking, it's episode 1,000 and what is it, 42? I said it off the top. Yeah. So episode 10-50 is coming in a couple of weeks.

And I actually recorded a Zoom the other day. I'll tell you who was on it. And then I want to talk to you about the station. So Jim Van Horn was on this thing. Scott Carpenter, Chuck McCoy, Roger Ashby, and Amber Paye, but she comes later. She's post top 40 because she's just too young to be honest. But we basically were talking about 1050 Chum. And I'm just curious, like, who are your favorite personalities? And just tell me anything you can about that station. Because I forgot.

Yeah, it's, what is it, TSN 1050 right now? Well, now it's, yeah, it's been TSN. It was country and west. I remember the day they switched to country and western and how bizarre that was. When was this? Oh, I don't know. Probably in the 70s.

I don't think I have any idea that ever happened because this is my thought. I guess the Elvis era, like 1957 or something, it becomes top 40. And my understanding is it stays top 40 until like 1986. And then it becomes

like golden oldies. That's, but it was all, I'm pretty sure it was country western. You know what? Maybe that was CKFM. Maybe that was 1430, what became 590. Okay, CJCL. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, but at one point it was Foster Hewitt's channel, right? CKFH. CKFH. That's right. Um, let's go back to, to my, that top 40 era. So, so you're talking about the sixties and I'm a child of the sixties. Um, I'm young enough. I'm, I was too young for the hippie era, which means that I remember the 60s. You know, people said that if you remember the 60s, you weren't there. Anyway, bada-boom. So who do I remember from that era? Bob McAdory. The perennial.

The guy who was, he wasn't the perennial the guy who was he wasn't the top of the top I remember speak your mind speak your mind Larry Solway the late Larry Solway was the first shock jock

he was the first talk radio host and I can remember him saying will you turn your radio down will you turn your radio down? Will you turn your radio down, please? He argued with his guests, but he was fantastic. And, you know, I've gotten to work with Joe Solway, who recently retired from CBC, stalwart producer at Metro Morning for many, many years. And I remember how cataclysmic it was. Speak Your Mind debuted at 10 p.m. And I used to listen to it every night.

I used to try to go to sleep with it because I had insomnia from very early age. And I couldn't because he riled me up so much that I actually had to stop listening to it. And then one day, the worst night I ever had when I failed to sleep, I think I slept. I finally, I was up all night tossing and turning after listening to Larry Solway. I finally fell asleep at 5 a.m. And I slept in until 10 a.m. when guess what? That was the day that they switched Larry Solway from 10 p.m. to midnight to 10 a.m. to noon. And I had to listen to him again. And he so riled me up that I tell you, I've had a lifetime of insomnia ever since. was he was a great he he was he was a great uh host and and he really you know i think a lot of a lot of hosts of uh who are shock jocks even howard stern would would tip their hat

to larry solway for what he to what he brought to the field back then i i like i too young to remember 10 50 as a top 40 radio station. But I absolutely love hearing the stories about it because it's so difficult in 2022 to appreciate that the world we lived in, in the 60s, for example. Like I'm sure, I'm sure your parents were listening to 1010 CFRB and then you had 1050. What's that? Wally Crowder. Yeah. Every morning, Wally Crowder. Yeah. It's like with the sports. Da-da-da-da-da-da-dum. Da-da-da-da-da-da-dum.

Da-da-da-da-da-da-dum. Da-da-da-da-da-da-dum. Da-da-da-da-da-da-dum. Yeah, I can still hear him doing that. But nowadays, we talked about how fragmented the television universe is, but all media, like you've got a podcast, you've got a show on terrestrial radio, which I always wonder who's waiting for like that time on the weekend to listen when it can be on demand on your smartphone like it's just always

with you but i'm a podcast guy but like today and it's like oh where is it is it on prime is that thing on netflix oh my god it's on crave and so forth like this back in the day like people had like there were like three or four stations you might watch on the television and then you know typically you're tuned into like maybe you're tuned into ckey 590 or whatever but you're typically tuned into 1050 if you're younger like yourself or 1010 if you're maybe a little older but it's such a smaller universe yeah that's how that's how it works and you know as we start talking about this, because this is unrehearsed, didn't know this was going to happen, I remember the evening DJ, Brian Skinner. The Prez. The Prez, Brian Skinner.

And, I mean, that was the one that people listened to. If you wanted to find out who was on top, you know, the Stones were always competing with the Beatles to be number one on the charts. This is now way past Elvis Presley because Elvis Presley as a top 40 was killed by the Beatles. That was the end of his career as a top 40 artist. Now, okay, so my understanding is, and only from talking to people, so I mean this is episode 1042 and I do love talking about radio, but I understand the Rolling Stones may not have got their proper respect by 1050.

Maybe they were too... So 1050 was all Beatles all the time, but the Rolling Stones were sort of the bad boys, but they might not have got the airplay that they should have in the 60s. They were the total bad boys. Yeah, they were the antithesis. Paul McCartney was kind of clean cut with his beetle haircut

and he was a good guy and Mick Jagger was a bad boy. No question. So it was Keith Richards. Still are. Right. Did you know as a doctor, what's keeping Keith Richards alive? What's your professional opinion on that?

Plasmapheresis steroids bionic he may have bionic fingers by now probably need them on the serious tip like I sometimes will read an article about like oh Ozzy Osbourne has a gene or something that very few people have

that sort of enables him to get away with the abuse the drug and alcohol abuse he's put his body through? Like, is there any, like, medically speaking, is it possible some people are just, can get away with that where others can't? Yeah, yeah. You know, I, you know,

you can read about them in the National Enquirer. You know, I remember the egg farmer who ate, said he ate 30 eggs a day and didn't get a heart attack. Right. Although I'm not sure that, I mean, that,

that's a bit of a myth, but there's another myth there that I might, that I want to correct. And that is, you know, I certainly Mick Jagger is a very healthy specimen. He certainly lives a very healthy life. He is not,

he does not abuse his body. If anything, he, he probably treats it better than, than, not abuse his body. If anything, he, he probably treats it better than, than, than you or I. Right. But he, that was not always the case. I'm sure. So, uh, I'm sure, I mean, the stories are to be believed, uh, that sort of like at some point he realized, like, I'm not going to be an old man if I continue this lifestyle. Yeah. But, but you're, but you're absolutely right. And I don't want to get away from that point that the, that your genes are important, that, that what, what your, your DNA,

your kind of genetic heritage determines how much abuse you can, you can subject your body to. But you don't really, the only way to find out is the hard way, right? You mean like the N of one experiment, there's no sliding doors, you know, you mean like the end of one experiment, there's no sliding doors, you know, the Brian Goldman that never abused his body and the, and by the way, I'm abusing my body right now. Not in the way that anybody thinks I am. I broke a bone in my spine. What in November? Yeah. I was running in the streets of Vancouver, uh, you know, 6.00 AM wet pavement. It was constantly raining and the leaves had all kind of fallen

down over the curbs and i hit the lip of a curb really hard and it stopped my forward momentum so i fell and and i i injured my left hind quarter fractured a bone in my spine. I didn't know it at the time developed sciatica. And we've told by Dr. Michael failings, who is a brilliant spinal surgeon at Toronto Western hospital, Brian Goldman, you, you can never run again.

And this is after almost five decades as a, as a, as a jogger. And, and so, and, and, you know,

thank you. Thank you. You know, shout out to Brittany Kafka at Synergy. I don't get any special deals there. They're great physiotherapists and they help get back on my feet with core, core strengthening exercises and stretches and stuff like that. And I am back to running. Oh my God. Okay.

So I'm glad you're back because I know that that means to you both physically and mentally right like i mean i'm a big advocate for doing i do i cycle because my leg doesn't like to run but i cycle and i always say you know i'm yeah it allows me it's good for my physical health but i'm cycling for my mental health like literally that's that's my medicine is biking that's my drug that's my drug of choice. I have to run at least, you know, I can't run every day because, you know, you have to know when you're depleting yourself and how to put it back. You know, I have to watch, I have to make sure I have enough protein in my diet because I need to build what I'm losing.

Right. But I run every other day and I can tell you, like, right now I'm in the glow of the runner's high. You know, I ran, I ran about eight or nine K this morning. Good for you. And I do it because, you know, especially getting me through the pandemic and all the stress related to that and other stuff, I have found that, that I have to run if I want to have some mental wellbeing and focus to be able to do things. So what would have happened? Like, would you just transition to swimming? Like what happens if you could, if this injury meant you actually literally couldn't physically run? Well, I did it. I lived it. I didn't run for four months and, uh, which is the longest period of

time I've gone without running. Right. And I, um, uh, I switched to a stationary bike, not Peloton. You know, we had, we had a stationary bike because, you know, I, a few years ago, I thought, well, what do I do in the winter if I can't run outside, which I still ran outside, but I slipped and fell. And now I'm much more cognizant of doing that. So I get on the stationary bike and I find I have to be on the bike for at least 65 or 70 minutes and not infrequently a hundred, you know, just under two hours, running flat, like riding flat out, not at the number 10 setting, because that's crazy, but you know, number six out of 10. And, and I and the only you know, so that's how I get the same high. There's still,

you know, it's so monotonous. To get through those rides, I have to listen to podcasts, and I also have to count mentally. Like in my head, I count to 1,000, and then I go back and count to another 1,000. Like I do it in hundreds. And that to me is the equivalent of passing through another block, another block of running in another block to make me feel as if I'm getting somewhere. Because if I look at the clock, there's a

chronometer that clock watching is a really bad way to exercise. You're hitting on something that's really striking a chord with me because periodically, like you said, some days in this city, there's like an ice storm and it's minus, you know, there's a lot of, no no not a lot there's there's a good 10 days i can tell you because i measure every ride and i document all this stuff but there's a good 10 days a year where you the conditions are such that you can't bike right and i often flirt with the idea of oh because i have a trainer a bike trainer oh i can bike in the basement on the trainer or whatever and i hate it like i can't do it i'm i just can't do it i need to like have destinations and be out there on the streets. I can't bike stationary.

Yep. And that's, and, and, and, well, I've learned, I learned how to do it. I had to do it. Yeah. Now that's why people like Peloton because Peloton has these other attractions, you know, competition, encouragement, a mentor, and, uh, and, and, you know, you can actually watch a, watch your TV screen and, and feel as if you are riding somewhere, if you allow yourself to do the, to have the immersive experience. I don't know, is there, is there such a thing as VR? Like, can, can, can you wear a VR helmet while you're, you know, an Optimus Rhyme or a

Oculus Rhyme? Optimus Rhyme was our nickname for James Rhymer. Do you remember this? Yeah, I do. I do remember that. I still have a James Rhymer Optimus Rhyme t-shirt that I still sport occasionally because I was a big fan of James Rhymer. So how Optimus Rhyme are you about the Leafs

as they enter the playoff season? Okay, I will answer that. I'm the host here, Mr. Doctor. So my question to you before I answer that question is, who do you want to play in the first round? Well, it's tantalizing. When's the show going to air? Ten minutes after we say goodbye.

Oh, okay. Okay. So we are before the final Toronto-Boston game. Oh, yeah. No, I drop these things right away. Yeah, you're dropping on Friday, April 29. So this is important because Toronto's playing Boston, and I think Tavares, Austin Matthews, Mitch Marner are not in the game.

Who else is not playing? Is Muzzin playing? I think he needs to get into some game shape. Oh, Nylander's not playing either. So this is a really stripped-down version. They are playing to lose. I think, well, and Boston's a point back of Tampa Bay. So I think Toronto would much prefer to play Boston than to play Tampa Bay.

And I think there's some very good reasons for it because Patrice Bergeron and, God, why am I blanking on his name? Brad Marchand. Yeah, the Maritimer. The guy they call Brad Marchand on NESN, whatever they call it. NESN or whatever, yeah, New England. NESN, is that what it is? Yeah, yeah.

Brad Marchand. Anyway, they're older. They've got one line. Yeah, they know Boston Bruins hockey is great systems hockey. Their defense is better than ours. But for a change, their goaltender Bruins hockey is great systems hockey. You know, their defense is, is better than ours, but for, for a change, their goaltender is not lights out better than ours.

Right. You know, what Linus Olmark and then the other guy they've been using. So I haven't, like we've, I feel as if we haven't played them. And, uh,

I, you know, I think, I think it's time for a Toronto beat down, frankly. Oh, well that would avenge, uh, some of those horrific Boston Bruins losses we've had speaking to James Reimer. But,down, frankly. Oh, well, that would avenge some of those horrific Boston Bruins losses

we've had, speaking of James Reimer. But, okay, so I ask that because I co-host Hebsey on Sports every Friday morning. So you're coming off the running high. I'm coming off the Hebsey on Sports high. And I am on the record now as I would much rather play the Bruins

than the Tampa Bay Lightning. I think the Lightning would hammer us. Like, I don't see us going. I don't think we'd get to game six to be quite honest, but yeah, I, so I want Boston.

He, he's, he disagrees as usual, but, uh, I will say that I feel like I don't know how to feel about this team because, uh,

I was sure we would sweep the Habs last season. Yeah. And I know Tavares went out in game one, but I mean, come on, you know, if ifs and buts were candies and nuts, like if Fred Van Vliet plays last night,

who knows what happens, but one guy goes down and that doesn't justify suddenly a sweep becoming a loss in seven games or whatever. So I will say I, all bets are off with me and this team. Go ahead. So, you know,

so, you know, this is actually an opportunity for shameless plug because, because we're ahead. So, you know, so, you know, this is actually an opportunity for shameless plug because, because we're going to see, you know, my book is the power of teamwork and, uh, and it's not a shameless plug because this book is not just about teamwork and healthcare. I use not just metaphors, but brain science from, from sports psychology. And we are going to like the Leafs will go as far as, their team takes them not just the goalie the goalie is part of the team there's no question that a great goalie isn't just making saves

in the same way that Bazalewski isn't just a great goalie because he makes saves yes he makes saves but you know we saw for instance that that Eric Schaubert was quite capable of stopping breakaways, even better than Jack Campbell. But it's how much the defense clears bodies from the front of the net, blocks shots, gets rid of rebounds when the goalie can't reach, you know, misdirects the puck right into the slot. And it also depends on the forwards like Mitch Marner coming back and helping and not just running out of the defensive zone

into the neutral zone because they want to get a pass, a stretch pass, and go in on a two-on-one. So you have to be thinking team. And, you know, I've actually come to a very – I've come to a critical point. This is a critical moment in Austin Matthews' career. Either he puts the team on his back and scores a bunch of goals in this series and single-handedly is named one of the most important factors,

the most important factor, or he has a complete change of heart and someone pulls him aside and says, do you want to win a Stanley Cup? Score 20 fewer goals and be the best two-way player on the planet and then you're going to win a Stanley Cup, like Steve Heiserman. Another great two-way player is number 93, Doug Gilmoreoug gilmore yeah and he played way above his height

yeah the stories were legendary him trying to keep his uh 165 pounds or whatever he was the pasta meals and all that all right so much so much ground there to cover but um so because i do want to speak to you more about the power of teamwork i do know that this maple leafs team that i adore hasn't won a playoff series since 2004 and if my math is correct that's like 18 almost 18 years and uh that's since i have any i have a 17 and a half year old daughter who's never been alive for a forget stanley cup i've never been alive for a stanley. A playoff round victory, not even the play-in against Columbus.

Lately, I've noticed the trend is that Mitch Marner becomes invisible in the postseason, so they seem to rub him out, and that sort of takes us off. Anyway, we'll see what happens. I would like to see us play Boston. I don't really want to see us play Tampa in the first round. I think that would

suck, but we'll see, buddy. I do root for laundry as Jerry Seinfeld would say. I root for laundry. Whoever's done in the blue and white, those are my guys. We'll see. I hope spring's eternal.

We'll see. I'm traumatized. I'll tell you, I'm traumatized. I was traumatized by last year's playoff. The disappearing act, the frustration that Marner exhibited in the game, throwing the puck over the glass on more than one occasion, I think he tried to do too much, which is also one of the problems that that's not playing in a team when you try to take over and do it all by yourself. And you know what? You're talking about being a one-person

band. There are people who work in team environments where they're not in a team. They're in a group of individuals, and they don't trust their colleagues to pick up the slack. They feel as if if they ask for help, they won't get it. They don't offer help. It's the kind of environment where they say they're in it for themselves and their own personal goals and accolades like promotions and being acknowledged, getting awards, being told you're the top dog. and being acknowledged, getting awards, being told you're the top dog. And there's two ways to be the top dog. One way is to shine. The other way is to make other people look bad in comparison. And, you know, all of that is anti-team. Teamwork works.

And, you know, the Maple Leafs will stand or fall, succeed or fail, on how well they function as a team. Tampa Bay is their model. They, you know know that's how you play playoff hockey that they know how to do it I had a poster of it was actually an unsuccessful Leafs team it was uh I'm just thinking of the people in that photo but that speaks to almost teams in the last 50 years but uh it's a basically team together everyone achieves more and uh you're right and quick question about your book the power of teamwork and i have a few more questions in a moment i have i have a covid question first but my question about the power of teamwork is why this topic now like was this was this on a run you had this idea that you wanted to

to talk about teamwork what sparked this this subject matter for your new book? Well, that's a clever question because I do a lot of thinking when I'm running. And I do a lot of thinking when I go on my walks with Tamara, my partner, after dinner. And, you know, a lot of us are kind of missing that deep thinking time in our lives, even though we've had it with COVID. And there's actually a great book.

I'm now I'm doing a shameless plug for another book. It's called, it's not mine. It's called stolen focus by Johan Hari. And it's basically how smartphones and bad food and not getting enough sleep and stress have, have stolen our attention span. So the, the attention span, you know, the opportunity for me to write the book came when every each and every one of my speeches was canceled. So no more prep, no more speech time, no more airport time.

Suddenly I had all this extra time and I was working from home and working from home meant I saved 90 minutes a day in commute time. So I had a lot of time and, you know, I had I have a, you know, a busy mind. And so this is the first time since the power of kindness that I started thinking hard about what book I was going to write. I sent in a pitch to my editor, Brad Wilson, at HarperCollins, and he kind of counter proposed something else. He actually pitched something to me. There is a book by Dr. Atul Gawande, who is, you know, he's a famous doctor, surgeon and writer. And he wrote a book called The Checklist Manifesto. And it's all about aviation's pre-flight checklist and how it was adapted for the operating room. And, you know, so what is the checklist? The checklist is the moment

when the anesthetist, the surgeons, the scrub nurses, everybody gets together and stops and says, who's the patient? So that you operate on the right patient. What do they suffer from? What's their condition? Appendicitis. If it's a leg operation, what leg are we operating on?

The right leg or the left leg? Because you don't want that bad outcome to happen that never event. And, and they would talk about what, what do we need to do to protect this patient? Do we need to reserve blood? Do we have blood on standby? Because this is a,

an operation with blood loss. Do we need antibiotics? Do we need other medications, blood thinners, for instance, that have to be administered a certain time after the operation. And, and to me, I looked at that and I said, this is the moment when three solitudes,

surgeons, anesthetists, and scrub nurses, all to get together as a team. Right. And so that's where the idea came from. And, you know, frankly, for me, it was my, I got to chronicle the journey of healthcare from me to we, and my journey of healthcare from me to we, and my own personal journey from me to we, which means putting my, you know, kicking my ego to the curb and not walking into the resuscitation room saying, you know, I alone am going to save this patient. We will save this patient. We will do the best effort. But to change that mindset is a really difficult thing.

That's what I want to talk about in the book. I read this book and lots to learn. Honestly, it might be me, myself and I over here, but actually that's not really true. Really, I'm just a part of like dozens of teams. So it's not, we're not one team here, whatever, you know, filling the world with great podcast content. But there's all these different teams.

I work with clients on different things all the time. So I'm like a part of many, many teams. But I'm wondering since thankfully you're not... Okay, quick backstory. I know this is what we do in Toronto, Mike, the little tangent, and then we will come back. But I recently, in fact, earlier this week, I had Dave Thomas from SCTV on a Zoom.

You should make a note to listen to this episode. Did you watch SCTV on a zoom. You, you should make, make a note to listen to this episode. Did you watch SCTV? Yes, I did all the time. Honestly, what I, okay, here's the thing.

So Dave Thomas to me is a big deal. I mean, you're a big deal of course, but Dave Thomas, like, wow, I get, you know,

and sometimes when I have a guest of that stature, there's a person in the middle, like a PR person or a spokesperson or a manager or somebody who will tell me how much time do you need? And I'll tell them what I want, which is like, oh, 90 minutes would be great. And then I'll be told you have 20 minutes or you have 30 minutes. And then I get told something like that. And then I make a decision like, am I going to, is it worthwhile? And for Dave Thomas, I would probably do 30 minutes to be honest. But with Dave, shout out to Dave Thomas, who's living in LA right now. But Dave was like, don't worry about the clock. Let's just chat sort of

like you've done here today. And it completely changes my approach without that clock. And it created what I think is podcast magic. Like I have over two hours of a conversation with Dave Thomas and the stories he was sharing and the little mind blows and tidbits along the way. Like it's absolute magic. And it was only possible because I had a guest who wasn't forcing me to clock watch. So this thing didn't go beyond 22 minutes or something.

And we had room to breathe and let these stories kind of come out. It was quite magical. Hey, Mike, can I tell you a teensy Dave Thomas story? Yeah, please. Well, I was a resident at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. And I walked by the fracture clinic and I saw a guy leaving who looked awfully familiar to me. We're talking 1980 now. It was Dave Thomas. Broke his wrist. Broke his wrist. Yeah. And I walked up to him. Um, and I said, well, how's it going? And he laughed and we had a nice chat there. And, and, you know,

I, I, I've met lots of famous people who, who kind of get that aversion of get away from me. Right. He loved it. Okay. And, you know, I have chutzpah, although, you know, I know how to, you know, in New York City, you don't walk up to famous people. When I saw Gene Wilder buying a quart of milk in the back of an all-night grocery store, I didn't walk up to him because it's not cool to do that in New York. I just said, oh, that's Gene Wilder.

But this guy was great. I mean, he's got the common touch. And the time he gave you was in that moment the time he gave me. And I was a resident at the time. He probably thought doctors do more important things than he does. That's probably how he thinks. You know, it's funny you talk about that moment in time

because this came up in my, you know, when you do two and a half hours or whatever, things come up organically. But the wrist breaking came up because somebody had assigned a picture of Bob and Doug McKenzie signed by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, but in their characters. And the Dave Thomas one, which was, you know, Doug, looked like it looked strange the way it was written.

So he always thought it was kind of faked maybe. And for 40 years or 40 whatever years, this gentleman was wondering, like, do I have a fake autograph or is it real? But he still cherished it. And he sent me a picture of it. And I literally, in this podcast, where we had room to breathe, we confirmed that the reason it looked so bad was because his wrist was broken.

So we talked about that moment in his life where his wrist was broken and why the autograph looked that way. He looked at it, confirmed, yes, he did sign that. Yes, that's Rick Moranis'. And then he signed, ready? Because I forwarded him this email in real time and he was looking at the picture, confirmed yes he did sign that yes that's rick moranis's and then he signed ready this because i forwarded him this email in real time and he was looking at the picture he then uh contacted

that individual to send another autographed like dave thomas autograph from today so this is the kind of guy we're talking about dave thomas and why do i bring this all up well i want to talk about it because i want people to hear it but i want you to know that uh even this conversation now is different because i realize you don't have to perform surgery in 20 minutes. I can breathe with the good doctor here. And we both have a Dave Thomas fractured wrist. Yeah. How's that even possible? The universe has brought us together for this moment, this exalted moment. You have no idea, viewers of Toronto Mike, what is going to happen next

because the two of us are here with you. And because we have room to breathe on this podcast, and I do have questions that are not related to the power of teamwork, but I do hope, would you be willing to share with us the story I read in your book about Elaine Bromley? Yeah, sure, I will, because it's the framing story of the book, and it's what gives the power of teamwork a really serious side.

Elaine Bromley was a woman in her 20s, a young mother of two kids under the age of seven. Her husband, Martin Bromley, is an airline pilot, still is. And he, in fact, he teaches aviation safety to pilots. And Elaine Bromley developed a bout of sinusitis. And a lot of us are plagued by sinus infections. So she got a serious infection and had to be admitted to hospital on intravenous antibiotics. And so she got a serious infection and had to be admitted to hospital on intravenous antibiotics and so she was referred to an ear nose and throat surgeon who said you know there's this routine procedure we can do you have a deviated septum we can clean out the sinus and we can take care of both so that you won't be bothered by by sinus infections again and so she went into hospital

in the early in the early 20 aughts and she was admitted to a private hospital next to the National Health Service, a full-service hospital, publicly funded hospital. And she went in there, her two kids came with, and Martin, just so they could see that mommy would be all right. And they were there during the pre-op phase. It was same-day surgery. It should have taken 90 minutes. Fibro-optic surgery, get it done. You know, quick anesthesia. She wakes up. She goes home.

Martin picks her up. Right. So, and there's this poignant moment in the book where they, you know, it's time for her to be taken to the operating room. And so she's taken in a stretcher. The family follows. And then they reach a T spot in the hall where she goes one way to her destiny and the family after saying goodbye goes the other way.

So what happened in the operating room was a rare emergency. And it's called can't intubate, can't oxygenate, or can't intubate, can't ventilate. Basically, when somebody's put under anesthesia, the anesthetist has to help them breathe, give them oxygen if they're paralyzed, breathe for them on a ventilator, put them on a machine for life support. But to do that, you've got to insert an airway to secure the airway, and you have to put them on oxygen. Well, the anesthetist wasn't able to do it for a whole bunch of reasons. And not only that,

they were trying to administer oxygen, but her oxygen level kept dropping and dropping and dropping. And, you know, our normal oxygen, you know, we have during COVID, we have these pulse oximeters that allow you to see what your oxygen saturation is. People brought them

home because if they had COVID, they needed to know when to come to hospital. A normal oxygen saturation for you or me fit adults probably 95, 96, 97%. When you've got chronic obstructive lung disease, it's around 88, 89%. And if it's 60 or 50, you're in trouble. You're suffering an acute emergency where you're at risk of suffering irreversible brain damage or having a heart attack or dying. And during this period of time, when the anesthetist tried to intubate or tried to secure the airway of Elaine Bromley, her oxygen saturation went down to the 40s and stayed there for 20 minutes. And during that time, this anesthesiologist and then a second one came in to assist. And then the ear, nose and throat surgeon sequentially tried one after another, after another, each one at a time to try to get an airway and bump up her oxygen. And they all failed.

Well, this is the equivalent of a stall in an in-flight emergency. It's a flat out emergency. You're gonna die unless you fix this problem. And in fact, a nurse came in with a surgical airway. That's the treatment, to recognize it and to perform a tracheostomy. And that didn't happen. And when they tried to wake her up, she didn't wake up.

And she was taken to the intensive care unit. And Martin knew that she would not want to be on a ventilator for the rest of her life. And so he consented to have the ventilator withdrawn about two weeks later. And since that time, Martin has been showing a video documentary called Just a Routine Procedure to anesthesiologists. And so he's been fighting to improve human factors, improve communication that would prevent this from happening and teaching anesthesiologists that this is a recognized emergency. It's rare, but it happens. And this is how you get out of it. I wanted to look at that sad story from the lens of teamwork. What I saw when I looked at the transcript of what

happened in that room, because there was an inquest, was three experts with more than 60 years of combined experience in their fields, not operating as a team. There was no leader. And, you know, often we think that a leader is the one who has all the answers. Wrong. A great leader trusts the team. A great leader doesn't answer the questions. A great leader asks questions and receives the wisdom from the team. And everybody on the team feels safe to shout out what they think they see.

And that's not just true of health care. That just true of healthcare. That's true of broadcasting. It's true of the entertainment industry, business, not-for-profits, car dealership, that you want people to contribute their ideas and you don't want your meetings to be the place where great ideas go to die because somebody says, we tried that last year and it didn't work. Or who are you to be suggesting that right now? Why don't you get a few years under your belt and learn the ropes here before you suggest something? Or just a pecking order that says, I'm in command here. I'm the one that has to come up with the great ideas. Well, they don't say it, but that's exactly how they act. As you so succinctly put it in the book, a group is not a team.

No, it's not. A group, meaning a group of individuals. And a lot of us believe that we work in a team because everybody talks teamwork. It's like motherhood, team, team, team. You know, teamwork makes the dream work. But that's a cliche. The truth behind it is that most of us work in a group of individuals where we are more concerned with our personal goals than our than the team goals. In fact, we may not know, I say, you know, do you want to win a championship to a team? Well, of course I want to win a championship. Are you sure? Are you sure you don't value your next contract more than the, than the team victory? Because we know that in our

value system in professional sports, that superstars are going to get paid regardless of whether they're on a winning team or not. They're going to get paid if they hit their milestone. So Austin Matthews gets 60 goals and I believe me, I think he gets it. I think he gets teamwork. And, and, but, but the point is that you may work in a place where, where individual goals are more important, where you don't help your teammates, where good ideas are squelched,

where we reward the superstars and we ignore everybody else when everybody on the team has a superpower. Everybody has a superpower that they bring to work every day and they ought to be appreciated for it. There's a line in your book. I think you quote Dr. Trevor Jane. there's a line in your book. It's, uh, I think you quote Dr. Trevor Jane. Uh, yeah, you kind of use an example, uh, in the wake of a Swiss air, uh, one 11 crash there, but you, you know, uh, you know, trust each member, empower them to do their jobs and back them to the hilt.

That's leadership. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and he, he put that to the test. He does it today. You know, he is a trauma surgeon, emergency physician in PEI, who is in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve. And he works at Roll 2 and Roll 3 hospitals on missions. He's been in places like Iraq and Kosovo. He continues to be on missions. But back in the aftermath of Swiss Air, he was a senior medical student who had experience in a pathology lab where he was an assistant to a physician, a mentor, who did autopsies. And so he was the guy with the pathology experience and he was recruited, called at the middle of the night in the aftermath of the Swiss air crash to go to hangar B at Canadian forces base Shearwater in you know, not far from, from Peggy's Cove, the closest base to Peggy's Cove. And, and the reason why he was called out of bed at four o'clock in the morning was that he was the guy with the pathology experience. Now, the story that he told is amazing. So he

arrives in Hangar B and it's chaos because they're just transitioning from a rescue operation to a recovery operation. And the surgeons and the doctors who were recruited to come there and save people were sadly being sent home because there's nobody to save here. They had all died. There was not a single person who was brought out alive from that horrible crash. But Trevor Jane noticed that there was a problem. They had an x-ray machine because now that it was a recovery operation, they were going to have to have x-rays to match with dental records to

identify the victims. And the guy who brought the x-ray machine off a truck couldn't get it off the truck. Well, it turns out that Trevor Jane knew how to work the portable x-ray machine to wheel it off. You have to turn it on and you wheel it off. And once he did that, he became known as the guy who could do stuff. And what he did was he got high up on a pile of stuff that had been delivered and he breadboarded, he drew a plan for what became 12 autopsy suites. He was 28 years old. He was not even a doctor. And what he did was he became the director of that entire operation. And, you know And he recognized early on that he would not be able to accomplish that without having a team. He needed a team of individuals.

He needed nurses. He needed paramedics. He needed pathology assistants. He needed officers. He needed infantrymen. He needed dentists. He needed infantrymen. He needed dentists. He needed laboratory services. You know, they had to find the best DNA matching services to be able to match records. And he needed support staff in the back office to track down records, like what was the serial number on this hip?

We've got a fragment of an artificial hip. It was given to one person. And if we can find the hospital, then we can find the patient. And, you know, his interesting story, his background is that his dad is Hindu. His dad was born in India and he was bullied and beaten as a child, had his homework ripped apart and stolen. And he learned from a very early age how to trust the team and how to give a voice to the voiceless on the team. You know, the people who are afraid to speak up because they're going to be browbeaten or bullied. And that's why he's one of my heroes.

It's just such an amazing story of what he accomplished. And they identified each and every victim from Swiss Air 111. Not a single one was not identified. They found the remains of all of them. All right, Doc. So principally speaking, and everybody should buy this book. So go out and buy Dr. Brian Goldman's new book, The Power of Teamwork. Because it doesn't matter if you're in the medical field or not.

There's something to learn and take to your chosen industry and everyone's part of a team and you know we can talk platitudes about how i don't know uh teamwork means better results more efficiency but do we have like evidence science is there any uh uh can you speak to any uh you know evidence that yes in fact you know when you're not three silos and you work together and collaborate as a team, you do have a better chance of saving that patient or getting, I don't know, improved sales and higher revenue for your software company or whatnot. Like, we have any evidence of this? Oh, yeah, we have. We have lots of evidence. And I talk about it in the book.

Yeah, we have. We have lots of evidence, and I talk about it in the book. If you're talking about the healthcare, you know, the domain of healthcare, you know, the operative checklist does save lives. It prevents operating on the wrong side of the body. It results in better communication between different members of the team. between different members of the team. It helps, you know, learning how to operate together in a simulation model, like when you do simulations, simulated mock emergencies,

that helps, you know, there are many stories of, you know, for instance, I talk about the OC Transpo bus crash into the bus station where the local hospital of record, the Ottawa Hospital, was able to save every critically ill patient who was brought there. following the Las Vegas shooting of several years ago when Dr. Kevin Menace was the emergency position on duty, when more than 200 people who had had gunshot wounds were brought to Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas, and they saved the vast majority of them. And not because of Kevin Menace, but because he was an exceptional leader

who could assemble teams and could work with teams. And so there's plenty of evidence that that works. There's some high-tech evidence. Here in Toronto, Dr. Theodore Grancheroff, who is a surgeon at St. Michael's Hospital, is developing the body must come out of the body. And they do these counts and shows you in real time how anesthesiologists, surgeons, and nurses are working together or not working together or not communicating with one another. And the goal of this is to like right now they identify they can in a nine hour operation, they can identify to a two minute segment when the bad communication led to the instrument being left inside the body. They're doing that in retrospect, but the game plan is to use artificial intelligence, deep learning to alarm as it happens so that you can prevent the error from causing any kind of

harm. That's what they want to do now and in the future. It's funny. I, when you speak to this, amazing. I visualize like the third party logistics software, right? Where like, so, you know, where this, this product's coming in on this truck and then following it, where does, we're in the warehouse or where is it? Cause it needs to get to this place where like in real time, you can see where everything is. And, uh, I sort of visualize that kind of, uh, software if you will. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting, you know, this device, this system fosters teamwork in some unexpected ways. So for instance, you know, they've discovered that it's not just bad communication, it's distractions. So for instance, you can correlate errors to the number of times people wander in and out of the operating room. And because it's distracting.

And, you know, they actually have to, you know, the sound of the door opening and closing can be a distraction because the surgeon's thinking, who's come in? Why are they here? And are they going to introduce infections into the operating room? So if you can handle that, you can actually make things safer. And does it account for the, I always think of the, you know, because Marner's not playing tonight like we talked about earlier,

because when I saw him at the Raptor game last night, so it's like, does it account for this guy had a late night, didn't get much sleep, and this guy had a couple of extra glasses of wine last night because, you know, all that stuff? Well, it does, but you're raising a really important point because Theodor Grachoff, who is a surgeon, he's an insider to, to, to operating room culture. One of the earliest decisions they made, which was, I think the right one was to de-identify the footage, the video that they take and the sound that they take, because it's not

about naming and blaming and shaming. Right. So, so when you talk about Marner being at a party or being at a Raptors game, too bad for the Raptors, they made it interesting, that we're not into naming and shaming and blaming. Well, what you want to do is show people that if they care about peak performance, that here are the root causes of a failure. And when it comes to, but you're talking about the larger environment, how here are the root causes of a failure. And, you know, when it comes to, but you're talking about the larger environment, how much sleep the players get, and, you know, they should be very team focused. And, you know, the performance department of the major sports

teams is one of the most important departments that teaches players how to eat right, how to cook right, how much sleep they need, how to cook right, how to, how to, how much sleep they need, when they should nap, when to take a power nap, you know, what kind of meal that they should have before they, before they, before they play, before they practice, what kind of practice, how much is enough, load management, all those things. In addition to that, if you have, you know, very close video, you can develop like of games, you can develop artificial intelligence, like deep learning software that can pinpoint mistakes, you know, the cascade of mistakes that lead to a goal, for instance.

Right. What an age we live in. That's operating room too, obviously. What an age we live in. Okay. So that checklist too, and you described the checklist. I, so like, quick story is about 15 years ago, Humble Howard Glassman, I know you've been on Humble and Fred. Humble co-owned a,

like an airplane, a Cessna. And he would pilot this thing. And one day he's like, hey, you want to, want to go up in the airplane? We can go over Niagara Falls, do all this stuff.

I'm like, yeah, like I want to do that. Looking back, I'm like, what was I thinking? But I felt safe. This guy's a pilot. And I still remember when we, before we got in the plane at Buddenville airport, I still remember the checklist, very thorough checklist and every, you know, everything's on this list and you go through it one by one and it includes some obvious things like, do you have enough gas in the tank? And is there ice in the wings? Different things like that. But yeah, just walking through that checklist,

it takes the whole, you don't have to remember to do this or I forgot this because this is much like your profession, a life and death moment. It's not like a podcast. No, and you got to do things in the right order. One of the things we learned during COVID is how important it is to don PPE to protect yourself and to keep from spreading germs when you're intubating somebody who has COVID. You know, there's a risk that, you know, those

germs are airborne and they can get into the air and everybody in the room can breathe it. You can, you know, if you don't do this right, you can have an outbreak. And so there's a very precise checklist for donning and there's a precise checklist for doffing. One of the most important aspects of the checklist is that you don't just do the checklist. It's not an honor system. You need to have somebody, a spotter, watch you do the checklist to make sure you do it all so if you have two people on a plane for instance a pilot and a co-pilot uh then they're then they're doing it together and and they go through a very elaborate system i talk about that in the chapter on crew resource management which is the airline industry's version a really amped up version of what you saw uh when you were with

howard fascinating okay wow now you mentioned their covid so i'm gonna segue over just a few really amped up version of what you saw when you were with Howard. Fascinating. Okay. Wow. Now you mentioned their COVID. So I'm going to segue over just a few of my COVID questions because it's still with us. It's still with us. Have you, Dr. Brian Goldman, ever contracted COVID-19? So far, I haven't. I haven't. Our daughter who lives with us, she had a fairly prolonged viral illness in January that we think was COVID. I don't think she ever had a PCR because this is the time when the government was starting to kind of pull back on PCR testing.

She rapid tested at least six or seven or eight times and they were all negative. But I think she had it, but I've not had it. My partner Tamara hasn't had it either. Because I wonder, so I'm, you know, I'm careful. Obviously, if I go to the grocery store, I mask up still. And when I'm going to my, you know, so in the last couple of weeks, I've been at Massey Hall,

Scotiabank Arena and the Dome to see the Jays. And I'll mask up till I get to my seat and then mainly wear the mask. But it would come down for when I was drinking my beer or eating my popcorn or whatever, having my footlong hot dog, all that good stuff. But, you know, my kids are in four different, three different schools. My four kids are kind of that. And they were playing hockey. My son was playing hockey.

And people are seeing, there's a lot of activity going around. I'm wondering, like, we sort of talked briefly about Ozzy Osbourne and Keith Richards, like having, maybe they have a gene that allows them to abuse their body and then live to an old age or whatever. And I'm, I, is there in the,

are you reading anything about possibly a percentage of the populace being just naturally immune to COVID-19? Well, you know, it's, these are all great questions. Let's just back up to something that we do know from the United States. Some data from the Centers for Disease Control, they did blood testing on a randomized, a random sample of the population. They've been doing it

since the beginning of the pandemic. And right now they reckon that 60% of the population has been infected with covid in the united states which is what 160 million people something like that something more than that more than uh 70 million people something like that and that's a that's a lot of people right and and you know you're they've had a million deaths they've not had you know they've not had so it's like one in in 170 is the risk of dying. I mean, it's tragic, especially, you know, for the families, but it's not 50%, you know, or 10% or, you know, like Station 11,

you know, the novel and the miniseries. That was another one that we watched, you know, that wiped out like 90% of the world's population. And so there are, are you know certainly we know that that the people who do get into trouble uh have compromised immune systems or they're much older they're much more frail there is almost certainly some kind of a genetic susceptibility we know early on before there were vaccines that there were people who were programmed, their immune system was programmed to develop this cascade of death, this cascade of

lung damage and needing a ventilator that, you know, you can be infected with COVID without going on to the lung destruction that occurred in some people and not others. So clearly there are host factors. There are clearly factors that determine whether you're going to get, get really sick with COVID or not. Has it, you know, I don't, I don't think it's been well studied and, and you know, other than the fact that we do know the general high risk categories. And, and one of the reasons why we wear masks and why we try to, you know, get vaccinated and, and be careful and, and, and, and and get tested and at the first sign of illness, not visit people who are vulnerable is because we don't want them to get infected. And that can still happen and still cause problems. Absolutely.

Now, I'm wondering, again, all just thoughts. I have no evidence of any of this. I'm merely wondering, like, so you haven't had COVID in your line of work. I'm wondering if that daily exercise, that thorough daily exercise that we talked about, your running, if that is helping you in this regard, if there's some link between being – that's a daily rigorous not every day but often you're doing a rigorous format

it's pretty significant you know what that is I got a phone here I'm going to cut it off okay sorry about that no problem couldn't even hear it they're like doc we need you in surgery what the hell are you doing on toronto mics we can see you

it's a uh it's a telemarketer that calls every day it's the same same number um anyway you know i i i was doing that before the pandemic right what's different now is that I mask. I think in advance about am I going to an indoor setting where there's, you know, indoor congregate setting where there's lots of people hanging around who might not be wearing masks, who might be infected. And what can I do to avoid that? I also don't have kids who are of a certain age, you know, going to school and not maybe practicing as good infection control. I'm washing my hands way more than I did before I've been vaccinated.

I think those factors are at least as important. I'd like to think my constitution makes a difference and that I'm running and that I'm in the best possible shape. Only from a messaging standpoint because I'm all interested. From a messaging standpoint, we get told, and I am boosted.

I'm not eligible yet for a fourth, but when I am, I'm going to do that ASAP. So we're told to get vaccinated, and we're told to wear masks, and we're told to use common sense. If you have any symptoms, go, you know, don't, yeah, shut it down and isolate and all these things, like all these common sense. If you have any symptoms, go, you know, don't, yeah, shut it down and isolate and all these things, like all these common sense things. But I don't feel there's any messaging around like, for example, like eat well and exercise and maybe take a vitamin D supplement because we don't get any natural vitamin D here in the winter or whatever. It seems like there

could be messaging to that that could work. I just wonder why there isn't more messaging around these things you can do. I'm just speculating here but I think that some of that messaging was seized by people who were opposed to masks and to vaccines. You know what I mean? As an alternative.

So like where I'm saying, get vaxxed, wear masks, and do these things, they were saying you don't need to get vaxxed and wear a mask. Just do those things. I think so. I think it got co-opted. I think it got co-opted by people who were opposed to mandates of any kind. by people who are opposed to mandates of any kind. And, you know, unfortunately, the whole messaging by public health around COVID has become so politicized.

Yes. And, you know, like a lot of people tune out when they hear the word, you know, basically being turned into a political wedge, like you're either with us or against us. You know, it's kind of entered that very ugly, at times ugly, polarizing debate with lots of personal attacks. I didn't have a lot of personal attacks early in the pandemic, but I have more recently on Twitter in the last couple of months.

Interesting you bring that up. By the way way quick aside before i go down that rabbit hole there is that i i will say that if we can politicize climate change we will politicize anything like the fact that whole that whole premise and i'm just speaking as like a guy in his basement who just you know no alignment to any ideology except that this whole like climate, if you're on the right side of the political spectrum, don't do anything about the environment. It's all going to work itself out. These scientific facts are not supposed to be politicized. And we do it all the time. It's gross.

Yeah, and it's scary. Yeah, and it's scary because especially now with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a lot of the climate change activities have been put on hold. Now the priority is securing a supply of liquid natural gas for countries like Poland and Bulgaria where the supplies have been shut off right now because they won't pay in rubles, which is their pretext for Putin trying to raise the stakes. Right. Okay. So you mentioned Twitter. I like Twitter. I'll go on the record as telling you it's the only social media platform I actually personally enjoy. So take that. I'm saying something because there are times, I mean, for the most part, I enjoy it.

Yeah. When I'm subjected to personal attacks, I don't. Right. And okay. So maybe we'll hear more about that when I just frame this with, okay. So Mark Weisblatt comes on this program once a month and we record like three hours on the previous month. What's going on in the zeitgeist?

Basically, it's, I find it fascinating. This guy has a daily newsletter at 1236.ca, so there's a shameless plug for Mark Wise's blog, but he's a good man. But he's always watching what's going on, and he's been monitoring what he calls, like, doctor Twitter fights, okay? And I'm going to read what he wrote me this morning

when he heard you were coming on. He said, feel free to ask Brian Goldman, what's with all these doctors losing their minds on Twitter all the time? There was never enough masks, never enough lockdowns. Doug Ford is to blame for the global pandemic. I could give you the names of these doctors,

happy face. He mentions one doctor by name. I know doctors don't like to speak ill of other doctors, but this other doctor is the worst. Doctors discovered Twitter in the past year or two as a cavern for their madness. First the journalists, then the politicians,

and thanks to the pandemic, the medical profession. What say you about the doctor fights we see in the time of COVID on Twitter? So I'm assuming from what you've said that he's actually calling out physicians who are more in the sky is falling. Right. I think that's what he's doing.

The sky is falling. You know, it's madness to relax any restrictions. And so what's with them? You know, I think at this point, it's pretty clear that there are two pandemics. There's the pandemic that the world is seeing, which is that they're, you know, for the most part, getting a mild illness.

It's happening. It's spreading all over the place. Why invest any effort into trying to stop it? And then you've got the pandemic as experienced by frontline people like me. And I can tell you that, you know, I worked Wednesday evening. I worked from 9 p.m. until 4 a.m. I worked yesterday from 4 p.m. until midnight because one of my colleagues contracted COVID. because one of my colleagues contracted COVID. I have to work for that colleague on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

And then I had a scheduled shift and I'm coming back on Sunday. I'm an old guy. That's a lot of shifts to do. And in the middle of all this, like every time one of my colleagues contracts COVID, they go into lockdown, which means their shifts have to be covered. It's not like we're going to go without an extra physician here. No. So we have an on-call system. I was on call Saturday and I had to do that shift. And so we're seeing a completely different pandemic right now. We're stressed out, we're exhausted. And I think some of those physicians have lost their frontal lobe kind of cognitive reserve that says,

think twice before you tweet. Okay. So I think, I think, I think that's what's happening, but we need to understand that their reality is true for what they're experiencing. And, and what I'm, unfortunately what I'm hearing is, you know, somebody tweeted to me today that, you know, we were talking about, you know, like the tension between we aren't doing enough to lock down and then the exasperated opponents, critics who say, you know, we did been public inquiries of frail seniors who were left to rot right in long-term care facilities because nothing was done for them the reason why we have lockdowns is to try to keep hospitals open so that so that if you need surgery if you need testing for breast cancer or a hip replacement that they that they can do it and a lot of people have had to put their surgeries on hold because of that they're just trying to keep the system open.

Tough. It's a tough one. Yeah, I mean, it is a global pandemic. So it's been 100 years, I guess, since we had to go find it. Mike, I want to tell you something. Can we all enjoy one thing that we have in common, not enjoy it or appreciate it? We're all sick of it.

All of us. Everybody all sick of it. All of us. Everybody is sick of it. Nobody's reveling in COVID-19, in Omicron, BA4, BA5, BA6, whatever. Good point. Thank you for addressing that here.

I know I've been taking up a lot. Once you told me there was no strict deadline, I said I'm going to take several hours to doc. Almost wrapping up here, really close. I want to ask you though as a medical doctor, practicing medical doctor, what are your thoughts on, and we're a few years late for this question,

but I have a sponsor this ties to, so I'm legit curious. What are your thoughts as a doctor on the legalization of cannabis in this country? It is something that has, it's happened. And for the most part, you know, I think we have shrugged and we've moved on from it. I don't think it has contributed to rising morbidity and drug abuse.

And that was predicted. So I think basically it hasn't been a cataclysm, and I think it's confirmation that it was time that it happened. So I think it's great. I think it's better. I haven't looked at the evidence lately. One of the main things that they were trying to do was to get the

gangs out of it. Get the illegal providers, and I think for the most part, that's happened. So, are they all making money? I have no idea. Well, that's a whole different story. That's a whole different story. There's a store everywhere. Like, there's a whole different story. There's a store everywhere.

There's a pot shop everywhere. Right. Okay, so my message now, before I ask you my final questions and then say goodbye to you, another great performance, another great episode of Dr. Brian Goldman. I love these. We're going to have to do this again. But I just want to say, yeah, there's a store everywhere,

but there are a hundred stores across this country that belong to the people at Canna Cabana and they won't be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories. So speaking for myself, if you're going to partake and enjoy the legal cannabis in this country, do it at Canna Cabana because they help support the real talk on Toronto Mic. And again, Brian, we've never met each other in the flesh. It's always been zoom,

but one day we will meet each other. I have fresh craft beer for you from great lakes brewery, and I have a lasagna for you, a frozen lasagna for you from Palma pasta, palmapasta.com. They're in the Mississauga and Oakville, the four retail stores, and they've been great supporters of the program. And two more supporters I want to thank here.

I want to thank stickeru.com. That's where you get your stickers and decals. You can get the dough stickers and just, yeah, I can just see it, man. Great merchandising and marketing there. But stickeru.com. They're in Liberty village, but available anywhere. You have an internet connection on this planet. And last but not least, Dr. Brian Goldman works hard to make sure there are less clients. Are they clients? Less people for Ridley funeral home to care for and Ridley funeral home

pillars of this community. The funeral director there. This is interesting. Brian is that the funeral director there, this is interesting, Brian, is that the funeral director there, Brad Jones, has his own podcast, which I love. It's called Life's Undertaking. So if anyone wants to try a new podcast,

it's a great spin on everything from a funeral director. Him and his six children, his wife and his six children, live on site where the funeral home is. I don't think there's anyone else in Toronto still doing that. Great podcast, Life's Undertaking with Brad Jones from Ridley Funeral Home. Okay. Dr. Brian Goldman, you wrote this book during the pandemic, but we just heard how busy you are as a doctor and you're getting your runs in. And I can only imagine, I know you weren't doing speaking engagements and that freed up some time, but it's funny. I get this question periodically. I get this. People will say to me, like I produce, I produce

15 podcasts. I have over a thousand episodes of Toronto Mic'd. We're recording one right now. I have four children. I get in over 10,000 kilometers of biking on Toronto and Mississauga streets every single calendar year. And sometimes people will say like, where do you find the time? But it's like, how do you not find the time for these passions? But my question to you is like, where do you find the time? Cause you've got also the CBC show and the podcast, the dose, where do you find the time to write a book? Well, I made the time. And like all great projects, you make the time. And, you know, I'll close on a serious note. A close member of my family has dementia. And, you know, this is now eight and nine years after my sister and I

buried our parents. My, my mom had, my late mom had dementia. You know, it's been all around, it's been all around my family. I know it all too well. I didn't think that I was going to be an unexpected caregiver again. And I am. And, um, you know, I'm, I'm at this point, you know, you're an unexpected caregiver when you when you find yourself going to to the pharmacy to pick up a couple of cases of depends. Right. And other personal care products. And, you know, at the moment I'm spending about. I'm feeding this person five or six meals a week. There and back, you know, visit the time I'm there.

You know, I think we're somewhere around 15 to 20 hours a week. Wow. So where do I find the time for that? You know what, Mike? Yeah. I have to do it. I have no choice. So I have to find, you know, I guess you cut corners on some other stuff.

You decide what's really important. But I love those times when I'm there because I'm a family member. And being a family member is, you know, being there for family is more important than, you know, having a little extra time. You know, I don't know that you probably didn't expect me to talk about that. But by the way, it also takes a team to be able to handle a crisis. And so, yeah, I'm grateful for the team that's helped me. Well, I'm so sorry you're going through that. But it's amazing. And this person in your life is very lucky to have you.

Very lucky to have you. Thanks. And then I just did the math in my head how many hours are uh committed to that loved one who needs you and then i added that to the hours they want you working at the hospital and then i realized you've got the uh you know white coat black art on cbc radio one and you've got the dose and then i realized i just took 90 minutes of your valuable life here brian so thank you thank you so much for doing this with me again today thanks i i uh i enjoyed speaking with you i always do because we talked music off

the top and i learned you love the beatles and and other songs from you so two questions here before i do the outro one is um would you return at some point would you return to kick out the jams with me? Like we'll play your 10 favorite songs of all time and talk about why you love those songs. Absolutely. Okay, that's a yes. And then I'll be interested in that episode to learn, medically speaking, scientifically speaking,

why do we all still love the songs we loved when we were teenagers? Like what's that about? Yeah, there's some good memory research on that. And emotions. There's great stuff on that, actually. And I know this to be true, because I'm about to kick out Pearl Jam's 10 after this. So what does that tell you right there?

As I wear my 1992 Doug Gilmore jersey. And that, that brings us to the end of our 1,040 second show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Brian, remind us, how do we follow you on Twitter? You can follow me on Twitter at Night Shift MD. And if you want to, if you're interested in the book,

it's powerofteamworkbook.com. All one word, powerofteamworkbook.com. And pick word, powerofteamworkbook.com. And pick it up, even if you're not in the medical profession. This is valuable, like, inset in education and why,

you know, leadership matters and that a group is not a team. The power of teamwork. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, they're at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta's at Palma Pasta.

Sticker U is at Sticker U. Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. See you all next week. I don't know what the future can hold or do for me and you. But I'm a much better man for having known you. Oh, you know that's true because everything is coming up.

Rosie and Grace.