Glauc Talk: How Many Times Can One Person Escape Death?
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- Today's episode is brought to you by Dax Co-Pilot from Microsoft. To learn about how Dax Co-Pilot can help you reduce burnout and restore the joy of practicing medicine, visit aka.ms/knockknockhigh. That's aka.ms/knockknockhigh. - Knock knock, hi.

Welcome, everybody, to Knock Knock High with the Glockenfleckens. I am Will Flannery, also known as Dr. Glockenflecken. I'm Kristen Flannery, also known as Lady Glockenflecken. Welcome to Glock Talk. That's right. Here we are. We got some things to talk about. We got some what? Some things to talk about.

Okay. Sometimes I feel like, I know we've talked before about how slow of a talker I am. And even our employee was like, I've got to listen to you on like two times speed. And so sometimes I feel like compelled to speak as quickly as I possibly can. Yeah. To try to compensate for my own shortcomings as a southern person who grew up talking slow. That's what you do. You grew up in Texas.

What's the rush? Why do we have to talk fast? What about you? I grew up in Texas also, and I'm a fast talker. So I don't know. I don't know if you're a fast talker. I'm a pretty fast talker. People have commented that it's difficult to find a speed that works for this podcast because we are, you're slow and I'm fast. And so if you speed it up, then I'm too fast. And it, yeah.

So there needs to be podcasting technology hasn't gotten there yet where you can separate people individually speed up or slow down the different people. Yeah. Business idea of the day. Someone should do that work. It's like some seems like that would violate the laws of physics somehow.

I don't know. We're recording on separate channels, right? Like my microphone goes one place, your microphone goes one place. So theoretically, I feel like the computer geniuses could do something with that. Let's really get into the audio engineering of podcasts. Let's do it. I think people will love it. What do you think? That's what people want to listen to on their commute. Yeah, okay.

So one thing, actually, the first thing I want to bring up is something that the algorithm on TikTok has been feeding me lately. And that's caving accidents. Caving accidents? Why? I don't know. Are you watching them? I mean, clearly, if it's sending you more. Well, it's like a storytelling thing. So there's like a few accounts where they tell stories.

stories of these terrifying either cave rescues or sometimes where the person does not survive just how they get into their the situations that they're meant to be like a like a warning for people it's more just like a like a true story yeah well yeah you can take it like that but it has um has taught me

that I don't like you first of all you just you don't ever have to do it like why you don't I don't know why these people feel so compelled to like squeeze and inch their way through small openings they can barely get through the way like even they can't even like breathe to hold their breath yeah

To keep their torso skinny enough. Compress their chest. Yeah. Like get all the air out of their lungs just so they can squeeze through and then they can breathe again. Oh my gosh. How does that sound to you? Awful. Like that's a claustrophobics nightmare. And so I just, right before we started recording, I saw one of these stories and it was a woman who, she's a cave instructor. Mm-hmm. And she,

One day she went into a cave and she slipped and fell. She got wedged like upside down for 48 hours. No, thank you. And then she served. She was rescued. She survived. Yeah.

And then two years later, she went into the same cave. Oh, no. And the same thing happened again. Lessons were not learned. And I can laugh because she did survive the second time around. It was like four or five days that she was down there. Oh, my gosh. So here's what I just don't understand. So you're going caving and you get stuck.

in a cave, dark cave, for 48 hours. Yeah. Are you going back into the cave? No, never. Ever for the rest of your life? No. What's in that cave? Was she like hunting for treasure? That's the thing. Is there something compelling in there? What is in the cave? That's a good question. What is the caving pursuit? What do you get out of it? She

sheer love of exploration i guess but it's so dark and you just have that light and then you're the risk of death and drowning there are some stories where you're down they're down in the cave and then it starts to rain you can imagine what happens next yeah the cave starts flooding and then they just slowly right you see it coming yeah nothing you can do about it

And then sometimes they can't even like retrieve the people that die in a cave. They're just like, that's where they're buried. And like, you look at the comments on all these caving videos and it's like, you know, the cool, the best part about caving is that you don't have to do it. Yeah.

That's always like the first comment on all of these TikTok videos, like hundreds, like tens of thousands of likes on those comments. It's always the first comment. The best part of caving is you don't have to do it. What else does that apply to?

The best part of blank is that you don't have to do it. I mean, anything in the ocean, I feel like. Like going swimming in the ocean. Scuba diving. Sure, I'm scared of even swimming in the ocean. The ocean is not where we belong. Just getting on a boat in open ocean. That's terrifying. Is there a situation, unless you're a deep sea fisherman, I guess, and that's your livelihood. I feel like, again, why do you have to do it? You don't. You can do something else. So what do you consider ocean?

Like where you cannot see the land. Is that like how far out would it be? Would you say is like. Well, I don't know if it necessarily has to do with how far out. It can also be how deep. Well, I mean, once you get like, you know. Like if there's a cliff shortly off the shore. It's like you're like, it's like a mile down. For me, anything above ankle depth is too far. So I, for me, because I do feel like I have a phobia of deep water. Yeah. Like legit phobia of deep water. Yeah.

Um, I think like anything, even like the deep end of a, like a 10 foot swimming pool gives me the, the Jenkins, the Gibby Gibbies. Uh, and I realized I said the Jenkins. You're going to have to explain the Jenkins. That was, that was like, that's a Flannery family thing. So my younger brother, when he was like five, we went to the Grand Canyon and he looked over the side and was like, Oh, this gives me the Jenkins. Yeah.

I think he was mixing it up with a word that people normally use, like kibijibis or something. But so ever since then, we just stuck. So we call it when you get that like stomach dropping from, we call it the Jenkins. Yeah. Driving along the side of a mountain. That gives you the Jenkins. Especially when someone else is driving. Yeah. That gives me the Jenkins. So anyway, for me, it's like if you're far enough out where you don't see land. Mm-hmm.

Too far. You've got the Jenkins. Well, no, it's just like that. That is like open ocean. Like, why do you have to go that far out? Yeah. Unless it's like to catch fish. That makes sense. But like. But aren't there fish other places?

Than the water? Than that far out. I don't know. I don't know. If you were a fish, wouldn't you want to be far away from humans? Can we switch to freshwater fish? Is that an option? People do that. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. There's lots of fishing in freshwater. That's what I'm saying. Do we have to be deep sea fishing? That's where you get the big fish. I guess. I don't know. Don't you? All those big fish that you love to eat so much. I know. Yeah. Seafood is my favorite. But they have, on TikTok, they have these...

These videos that are just like for people who are like, have a deep seated fear of deep water. Yeah.

And so it's like the test of being able to watch like deep water things. And it's like big cargo ships and like hundred foot waves going up and down. It's a little bit terrifying. Yeah. I'm glad we don't have to travel that way anymore. I get scared enough just flying over the ocean. I can't imagine if I had to sail over the ocean. Even a cruise ship. Yeah.

Yeah. How would you do on a cruise ship? Not great for a lot of reasons, I think. Yeah. Put aside like the risk of like dysentery for a second. But like just being on like a giant ship like that. I don't like the idea that I'm trapped. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's a big ship. It triggers your claustrophobia, right? Yeah. But it's still, you are still trapped. Okay. And I don't like being on the ocean, on the open ocean. That's scary. Yeah.

So if we were like maybe sailing where you have sight of the coast the whole time, that might be tolerable. We've done boat rides like that before. Yeah. But not like a ship. No, we've never done a ship. It's like a very small... We don't even know boats well enough to be able to talk about what kind of... A skiff. A skiff? Is that what it was? A catamaran. We've done catamaran. We've been on a catamaran before. And so...

What about Open Ocean Live?

scares you because i know what scares me okay yeah so sea monsters yeah monsters and drowning see it's not for me it's not the drowning it's the i don't know what's down there yeah that that's why i don't even like to go past ankles because i know there's stuff like right under the sand even being on the sand i'm not an ocean person okay see that doesn't bother me like being on swimming in the shallow water yeah like but like there's still jellyfish that can get you

Okay. And they're hard to see. Well, everybody else is doing it. It's fine. Yeah.

Like some of the most, like some of the best experiences I have in the water was snorkeling in Hawaii. Yeah. For the first time. I'd never done snorkeling before. Went to Maui. Yeah. It's like, right. When was this? It was like shortly before the birth of our first child. I was pregnant. So it was like 13 years ago. It was so much fun. But then I wouldn't want to get farther out there because I did see some sea monsters down there. Oh, what'd you see? Manta rays. Oh, yeah.

Yep, that's... Anything bigger than me is a sea monster, in my mind. Yeah. Or anything with any weapon that it has that can kill you. I think I would do okay on a cruise ship. Would you? I'd get seasick. Yeah, you're not so great on boats. I'd get seasick, but it wouldn't be scary just to be on that big of a ship in the water. Even if you can't see the coastline.

Like I do fine with like ferries and stuff. Like we've been on ferries before. Yeah. I feel like that's different. It's not. If anything, that's scarier because it's a smaller boat. Right. But it's also not the ocean. Ferries are usually like in a harbor. Okay. You know what I mean? Like it's not open ocean. The scariest thing would be like in a being in like a raft. Yeah. On the open ocean. Oh, man.

Did you see, there was that Greta, oh, I always forget her last name, Thunberg? Yeah. Documentary. And she, you know, she doesn't want to fly because that's bad for climate change. And so anytime she gets invited to a different continent and she has to cross an ocean, she

She sails and it's in something not much bigger than a raft. And it was just showing her like big waves on this thing. And it's just her and her dad sailing from Europe to America. To give a talk at like Columbia. Yeah. Or something or receive an award or something. I don't know. And she, the whole time she was just like so miserable and she was saying, I just want to go home. I don't know. That is commitment to a cause right there.

I'm sorry, but I don't love any cause enough to do something like that. Like we're in the 21st century for, you know, let's use what the innovations that we've

that the human brain has accomplished and put together. And well, it's kind of an act of protest. Right. Right. Brothers. What would they think about this? Well, they did not consider you have magical planes that fly through the air and you're just using a boat and they, and they pollute your air and make your planet warm to unsustainable levels for humanity. So I'm sorry. It sounds like it was like a,

Is it like a shtick or something? No, I think she personally cannot stomach morally flying in an airplane. So it's like a week-long trip across the ocean? I don't know how long it took. I can't remember. But yeah, a long time. Long time. Big waves. Small boat. Scary stuff. All powered by wind? I don't know. Okay.

I didn't know this, and now I have a lot of questions. You should watch the documentary. It's pretty good. You got to admire the conviction. I know. And she's a teenager while she's doing it. Whether or not you agree, like, she's walking the walk, right? She is. She is backing up her stance on things. Yep. Which very few people can say that they do. It's true. All right, so we've covered...

We've covered caving. Yeah. And the ocean. Any other fears you want to tackle? We're going to hear from people who love the ocean. We're ready for spiders yet? Oh, no. No, never. Okay. All right. We'll save that for next time. Yeah. I do know people, though, that love the ocean. Like I have friends that...

Just really love scuba diving, all sorts of stuff. Yeah. And scuba diving is even too much. Swimming with sharks. I actually can't go scuba diving. Because of your heart. Because of my heart. No scuba diver wants to take someone who's had a cardiac arrest. Nope. Like 50 feet underwater. Nope. Nope. No good. But also this gets like, I'm so glad we're on the same page with this because neither of us will ever want to or will own a boat. Yeah. Yes, true. Yes.

So we'll never have to fight about that. It's an expense that will never be talked about in our house. Nope. And that's beautiful. It is. You know, that's one of the things that first brought us together was mutual hatred of various things.

If you can't connect with another person on hatred over something, then what else is there, honestly? It's like one of the things is there have been probably six or seven times in our lives together that we've gotten a boat or been on a boat together, you know, a handful of times. Sure. And every single time, like after like 30 minutes, I'm like, okay. I did the boat. I'm satisfied. We did the boat. Yeah.

no need to do another boat for about five years and then eventually like our kids will convince hey let's get a boat like oh this might sit and that'd be fun in the 30 minutes later all right yeah that's it for another five years i think i think you are of the four of us in our family you hate boats the most and are the least successful at riding them because you get seasick i don't think anybody else could see i honestly don't understand like the

wanting to own a boat. Like it's nice to have someone that has a boat in case you want to go out on a boat, but then that would require somebody to buy a boat. So yeah. So somebody has to own a boat. I'm just glad it's not me. Yeah. All right. Let's take a break. Let's come back with some healthcare news. Hey, Kristen. Yeah. I've got some friends. I'd like you to meet. I see that.

You seem a little too friendly with them, I have to say. Aren't they cute? Sure. With the little beady eyes and their little hands. The hands? The claws? I don't know. Appendages. Okay. How about that? Yeah, it works. Anyway, they just like, they'd like to say hi. Okay. They like to say hi. Okay. Wonderful. They're not, they, oh, look, the one's sticking around. It sure is. Right on my mic. These little guys are demodex and they live on your eyelashes. Yeah.

And they can cause flaky, red, irritated eyelids. See, that's not cool. That's a party foul. You just kind of want to rub them. You're not welcome here if you're going to do that. And it's caused sometimes by these little guys. Yep, that's rude. Demodex blepharitis. But you shouldn't get grossed out by this. Okay. All right, you got to get checked out. Yes, get checked out. To find out more, go to eyelidcheck.com. Again, that's E-Y-E.

L-I-D check.com for more information about these little guys and Demodex Blufferitis. Daredevil is born again on Disney+. Why did you stop being a vigilante? The line was crossed. Sometimes peace needs to be broken. Chaos must reign. On March 4th, the nine-episode event begins. I was raised to believe in grace. I was also raised to

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All right, here we go. Healthcare news. All right. Providence strike update. So in case you guys have not been paying attention, there's been a massive strike going on for like almost a month now. Yeah. The Providence health system is nurses. And for the first time in Oregon's history, physicians are striking as well. Yes, along with the nurses. So internal medicine, doctors, women's health.

Women's clinic, women's health clinic, doctors. There's a couple little, not all the physicians at Providence are striking. Hospitalists. Mostly within internal medicine and women's health. And the physicians have a contract. Yes, that is. I mean, by the time this airs, it'll be a little bit old news. But as we're recording it, that is fresh news. Right now, the situation is the physicians have a contract. The nurses do not.

And even more importantly, the physicians who are striking are staying on the line. Right. Until the nurses have a contract. So lots of solidarity, which is beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful to see. It really is. And I, you know, I agree with them. Oh, sure. Put that out there. Like Providence is being...

not very nice. And the whole idea thing is, is a big part of it is they're just not paying their employees to the same level as other hospitals in Portland, in the market, they're, they're way under paying. And so, um, and so it makes sense. Like that's one of the things that safe staffing is another thing. And yeah, people just should get, should get paid fairly. I mean, I would assume that those are related, right? If you're not

paying people well enough to incentivize people to work there. You're not going to have as many people working there and you're going to be short-staffed. Right. Or is there a separate staffing issue in addition to just what the payment is?

I honestly don't know. But I know those two things are, I'm sure they are related, but those are two big talking points with the striking and everything. So, you know, I just saw them out there a couple of days ago, still going strong. Yeah. So doing their chants and they're getting a honk. Every time I pass by them, I give them honks. A little beep beep. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

One time it was a little bit, like, awkward because I was driving past and there were stoplights on this road every, you know, pretty often. And so I was driving past and I did a nice, like, big, long few honks. And then the light immediately...

like turned yellow and the person in front of me stopped. You had to stop. And then I was just sitting there at the stoplight. It's like, I don't know how to, how to react now. There's still a lot of opposition though. Yeah. Even from physicians. I don't really know. It's just, I think there's a lot of people that are just very anti union type of thing. Okay. And especially in like the physician community. And yeah,

Physicians are just, there's a reason that they haven't organized into unions until recently. Why? I think for the most part it's been because physicians have historically been their own employers. They've been owners in practices and high-level positions. They have more say in how they're

Either a hospital or a clinic is run. Right, more autonomy. Yeah, more autonomy, exactly. But that is going away slowly. So that was going to be my question. Is the physicians that are anti-union, is there a demographic pattern to that? Like, is that some of the older? I don't know. And this is all just anecdotal. It's just things I'm seeing, comments from people on social media. I do think that it's probably people that just,

Though working conditions in a corporate environment just hasn't hit them, right? Either they're in like an academic medical center or their own private practice and just aren't attuned to the specific types of challenges that

that physicians who work at a big private equity, you know, conglomerate or a, you know, Optum owned hospital or just anything, any of one of these like big corporatized medical systems, they have to deal with, there are certain things they're dealing with. I think other people are not dealing with and it's pushing people to want to unionize, which makes sense. You know, if they're, they're being,

Taken advantage of and not... I mean, they're losing the autonomy and they're losing any power that they want held within the organizations. And so people, when you feel a bit powerless and taken advantage of and you don't either are practicing in safe working conditions in healthcare or you feel like you're not paid adequately, then sometimes you got to strike. You got to unionize.

And it's just a relatively new thing for physicians. But I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of it. How do you feel about it as a private practice physician? Like, from a patient standpoint, I can't really tell a difference when I go to a private practice clinic versus when I go to, you know, the Providence system or Legacy here. They all feel like the doctor is rushed. There's only a little bit of time, et cetera, et cetera. So, like,

from a patient standpoint, it doesn't look any different, but I'm sure behind the scenes, it feels different. Yeah. I think that most physicians are just overworked. Population's aging. There's, you know, we have a physician shortage. But yeah, I think, you know, as rushed and as difficult as you experience as a patient, I think behind the scenes, it's even worse. And, and

Physicians, healthcare professionals, people who see patients are trying to smooth over the patient side of things to a certain extent.

They're trying their best to like provide the best care they can. But the working conditions behind the scenes that you're not seeing are just getting worse and worse with regulation from insurance companies, with micromanagement from private equity firms that own the company, wanting you to bill a certain way, practice medicine a certain way. All that is... But how much of that do you deal with in private practice? Definitely still the insurance issues. Oh, the insurance thing has just gotten worse and worse. Yeah. Yeah.

And so that's probably a big source of frustration for us is just constantly having to try to negotiate fair reimbursement rates, prior authorization challenges. Now, fortunately, we're a big private practice, so we do have help and some staff that can help with that. But we're hiring staff just for doing those things. Yeah.

And so it's just a very complicated system. We are fortunate. I'm in a large physician-owned group, so we have autonomy, which does help a lot. But we still have our own stresses. Would you ever, just hypothetically, thought experiment, would you ever, as a group, say, you know what? Our visits have gotten too rushed. And since you still have the autonomy, you're going to say,

We're going to give it 30 minutes instead of 15 or whatever it is, because that works against your productivity, right? You can see fewer patients if you do that. But then the patients that you do see, you can spend more time with. So what's the balance there as partners in the practice? How do you decide that balance? I think you balance it.

well first of all we are like the largest community practice in a in a large metro area right and so it is incumbent upon us to see the vast majority of the population especially in more rural communities just outside the metro area um and so you know saying that okay our appointment slots are going to be twice as long now you've got

A lot of patients who are not able to get in to get the care that they need. Right. And so you're right. You have to balance that by saying, okay, like we don't want to make them so short that we're sacrificing good care. And so I think what you might be experiencing is not so much bad care, but just a, maybe an overworked, stressed out person.

Yeah. With with people that are are trying to keep up. Right. With the patient demand. And and so that that's the key is like you don't want to shorten things so much that you sacrifice. Right. Like adequate. Care. Care. But that's there is a gap.

right now. I mean, there are many gaps right now in our health care system, but that is one of them. And right now it feels like people are trying to pit patients against doctors, right, and whose priorities get to win out. But really what's happening, those two groups don't need to be fighting each other. They need to be fighting together because there is a chasm between them where the doctors feel like my job is to provide

Physical medical care. That's what I am here to do. And as long as I have done that, I have done my job well. And now you are better. Now you can see now you are alive, whatever it might be. I did my job.

On the patient side, it's yes, that definitely is important that the care is good. But there's the gap is there's not a psychological or whatever word you want to put there. There's not any sort of like support for either the patients or the doctors.

To be able to have a human experience with one another rather than just a transactional one of I gave you care and I gave you money for that care. What does it look like to you when you're coming in for an eye exam?

So like give like human care, human centered. It's things like, okay, for eye exam, it's maybe a weird example because that's for me, I don't have, I don't need surgery yet. So I might feel differently if I'm coming in for surgery, but it would be things like addressing patients fears, not just in giving them the accurate information, which does already happen. The doctors are doing great at doing that, but,

Emotions are not logical. Emotions are not fact-based, information-based. They are more primal. They are feelings, separate systems entirely in the brain, the body. So when you're only addressing half of the system, right, you're giving them the information, but you're not addressing the actual emotion of like, this is scary.

then the patient is going to have an uncomfortable visit because they're going to be scared the whole time, even if the doctor is doing everything perfectly from, you know, the medical standpoint. So, and I'm not saying it's the doctor's job, but I don't know whose job it is, but there is that gap right now of how do you make

patients' experiences with the healthcare system feel more human rather than just get them in, get them out, you know, do the thing. Because it feels very much like as a patient, we are not really valued too much when doctors are just, you know, in and out. And nurses too. It's not just doctors. It's the whole system. It's not the

people's fault necessarily because they are just trying to operate within this system that has created this environment. So the system needs a spot where someone comes in, it's somebody's role, or it just works differently somehow to

allow people to be human within the healthcare system. And that goes for patients and it goes for doctors. Right now, doctors are being treated the same way. Like, you know, you're just robots that come in and make the people money, you know, at the top, make the private equity firms money. There's not a lot of, like, humanity support provided for the healthcare providers. As a whole, probably, yeah. Yeah. I mean...

It also depends on your experience, like the individual experience. I mean, you know, as a surgeon, we do a lot of like informed consent where we do address fears and concerns. I know, but again, you're addressing them with information. There's not a lot of like comfort in the healthcare system. Like saying, I know this seems scary to you, but don't worry, you're not going to see anything coming at you during the surgery. You're not going to have

I'm just trying to put what you're saying into context to like my job and what I do and see if I could do something to make things more. Well, again, like I said, it's a little difficult for me to do it with your. The only thing I can think of is just I don't like going to the eye doctor because I don't like having things close to my eyes. There is nothing that you can say to me that's going to make it where you don't have to be close to my eyes.

So I am going to be uncomfortable the whole time, no matter what you say or what care is provided. Right. But this is a hard example. But think more about like when I think the scarier the situation medically, the more this is important. Sure. So, you know, when you got your ICD and they told you they had to stop your heart.

to test it, to make sure that it could work to start it again, you remember how terrified you were. And the only thing they could give you, which worked fine, was the anesthesia to just knock you out entirely. Oh, that was great. Right. Enjoyed that. But when you don't get to do that, imagine if you had had to just carry that for a long time. And I don't know, I'm...

I just see this gap and it's with patients and it's also with their families and the co-survivors, right? There is nothing in the current health system to support the psychological and emotional aspects of healthcare and of disease and of all the things that come along with it. The medicine is great, right? We are very advanced in the medicine. Mm-hmm.

We have almost nothing for the rest of the human experience. Okay. You don't seem convinced. No, I do. I understand where you're coming from. I

Yeah, I just don't know how to fix that. Right. That's the challenge. And because we're in a profit driven system, that's not going to be profitable. And so that's probably why it doesn't exist. Or at least if it does exist, it does exist in some places. But those are always the exception, not the norm. Right. So things like this is a perfect example. Things like child life specialists. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Those are great. Why do we not do that anywhere else?

Um, palliative care. Great. Why do we not offer that to people in the, you know, families with people in the ICU? Like you have to ask for that. And then most often physicians don't even realize what it really is. They think it's hospice care. When you come in for an eye exam, I think we should offer you specifically palliative care. I would like that. I would also, uh, I would like to have some happy gas. That would help.

just give you a little night we we need you to we need to interact with us during an eye exam though i need to actually yeah it's a happy gas that doesn't put you to sleep oh okay it'll affect your vision a little bit but that's all right all right so i can't come in drunk what's the palliative care consult to the to the eye clinic yeah i think it's also like health care design is an area where we could we could make this better sure make

make the hospital not be such a scary place, make it more comfortable for people. Like I'm not saying you need to build a luxury resort, but it's just right now it's built. In your utopian idea of a healthcare system. Yeah. We'd have that. It would just feel better to interact with as specific as I can be right now in this very moment. All right, let's take a break. We'll be right back.

I just realized this whole episode, all we've talked about are things that we're afraid of. Yeah. Ocean, boats. What else was there? Spiders, eyes. Spiders, eyeball exams. Yep. Just dread about just going to the doctor, apparently. Yeah. I'm afraid of the health care system.

I mean, do you dread going to the doctor? Like, is that when you have an appointment, is it just... Depends on which kind of appointment. Well, clearly eyeball. Yeah, I do dread any eyeball. I dread it. I think you love dentists. I wouldn't say I love it, but it doesn't bother me. I guess no one is like happy generally to go to the doctor. Right, like it's still like an inconvenience to your day. Unless you're going to get Botox or something.

I don't know. Like a cosmetic thing. Maybe, but that still involves having a good time. I don't think that's a good time. Is it? It still involves needles. I'm afraid of needles. There's not much Kristen is unafraid of. Listen, I am a person with anxiety. I don't know why you're surprised by this every time.

All right. Well, I thought maybe we could try to do something a little different to close out the episode. So let's do some scenarios. Okay. A little bit of what would you do? All right. So I think I asked you one last time. So why don't you ask me one this time? Okay. I think this is appropriate. Okay. Because it deals with, or at least for me, it brings up a memory that deals with both the ocean and a fear. Okay. Let's see if I can come up with what you're thinking. Okay.

Okay, you're asked to go on a horseback ride for a work retreat. How do you handle it? So I know exactly what you're thinking. Yeah. Okay, so first off, like, horses are fine.

But I am a tall person. And like getting up high on another tall thing. You need like a Budweiser horse. Full Clydesdale. I feel a bit precarious on things like ladders. I don't like, I'm not, they all give me the Jenkins. Yep. And so if I'm asked to go on a horseback ride.

ride for a work retreat, my first questions are of how, uh, rugged is the terrain? I'd say if we're like walking on, you know, a nice flat trail. Okay. I think I can handle that. Uh, and, um, and I would be fine. And the reason I know that I need to know that the terrain is because last time I was on a horse, it was probably what you're thinking about was on our honeymoon. Yep.

Uh, we decided to go on this horseback ride thing. You know, we were at like a sandals resort or something. Yeah. And they had horseback riding excursion. Along like the surf and in the, I don't know, woods or whatever. They decided to do at the end of this horseback ride, which you did not do.

Oh, I did. You went into the water with the horse? Yes. I remember you not doing it. I did do it because I remember how it felt. Okay. I did not like how that felt with the... I don't like wet hair on my skin. Wet horse hair. You're in like a swimsuit on this horse in the ocean that I'm already afraid of. They decided to run all the horses into the surf. Yeah.

Where it was like the horse had their head above the water and their neck, but the top of their back was in the water. Yeah. So as you sit on the horse, you are sitting in the water. It was fairly deep into the water. And as the horse was getting out there, my horse in particular, me with my higher center of gravity, started wobbling. I was losing it.

I was losing it. You got some waves happening a little bit. And then, bam, I was in the water. I fell off the horse into the water as like this group of 10 horses and riders were all coming up behind me. Around you. I...

I could have very easily died. You could have. You could have gotten stomped on. You could have stomped right on my head. I feel like I was close to that. What did you think whenever you saw it? Did you see me fall? Well, I know why you think I wasn't, why you think I didn't do it. We must have done this more than once because after that first time where I did it,

I remember I had to go to the restroom. And so I went to the, there was a restroom like up above where I could see down below was the beach. Gotcha. And like there was up a cliff or something. And I saw you fall from there. So like I wasn't even close enough to do anything about it. So I was just watching helplessly, hoping nobody stepped on you, like no horses stepped on you.

It was really scary because for like a few seconds, you know, I wasn't sure if you had just been killed. I was almost the subject of a TikTok interview.

Called horse accidents. Where somebody has an animation of me on a horse. A gangly six foot four man. Going out into the water. Who does no horseback experience. Getting stomped on while his brand new newlywed bride is up on a cliff just watching in helpless horror. Yeah.

That was the last time I was on a horse. You know, it really is a metaphor for the rest of our marriage. Like, that should have been a warning sign right there. How many lives do I have left? I don't know. I think you've done four so far. Yeah, I've got four down. So I don't know how many I get. Okay, so that is why I think this is a good question. So you're asked to go on a horseback ride for work retreat now, knowing your history. First off, I say, do I have to? Yeah.

And then I remember that I am an owner of the practice. So, yes, I do have to. Oh, I thought you were going to say, no, I don't, because I'm the boss.

Well, yeah, but then you're not a team player. Right. You're not being a good role model. Like you got to show up for stuff like this. Can I just show up with one of those horses, like little fake horses you put between your legs? Then we're now we're talking. I'll even, I'll even gallop. I'll make the horse sound. Question. Would you be someone else's horse?

No. Would someone be able to get on your back while you have the stick horse? A small child, yes. Okay. But I know that's... You could be the pony rides for the kids of the people. What are we even doing now? What kind of retreat? What kind of work retreat is this? Good question. If the kids are there.

All right. Well, anyway, I think we should wrap it up. All right. I'm just saying, you've got the arms and legs of a horse, so you could do it. Oh, goodness. All right. Well, if you guys have any other scenarios or things, problems that you want us to solve, any specific scenarios you want our take on, have you ever been asked to go on a horseback ride at a work retreat? What kind of...

What are the strangest activities you've been asked to do on a work retreat? Ooh, that's a good question. I would love that. I bet there's some... I know there's like goat yoga. That's a thing people do on work retreats. What about you? Do you have any... I'm trying to think. I mean, I don't think I...

I've been on many work retreats, but there have been a lot of professional development days. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, professional development activities. We had to do all sorts of like, yeah. Icebreakers. Right. Things you have to do with all your coworkers in a conference room. I do not want to break the ice. I want to keep that ice rock hard. With that, we'll end here. Lots of ways you can reach out to us.

Email us, knockknockhigh at human-content.com. Visit us on our social media platforms. You can hang out with us in the Human Content Podcast family at humancontentpods. How to be patient is going strong. That's right. They're doing great. Yep. Yep. Margaret Duncan. That's right. I like it. I've been listening to it just as a fan. They're a dynamo. Yeah, they're fun. They're really good together. Thanks to all the listeners leaving feedback and reviews. If you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcast, I'm trying to talk too fast.

I'm trying to go against my nature. Maybe I should do this part because I'm a faster talker. You can't do it like me. Yeah, I can do it well. We can give you a shout out. By the way, our YouTube channel, at Glockenfleckens. Go check that out. We can give you a shout out. Today, at Matt W. Coleman on YouTube said, I love that Kristen has adopted body medicine as I refer to the skull and ribs as medicine bones. Love it. I would love to know what other...

what else has like permeated into the medical community from my videos? What has become part of the lexicon? Yeah, exactly. Like that's, I think that's really cool. Yeah. Um,

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Hey, Kristen, how's the eye contact with your doctor? Like when I go in for a visit, we're having a conversation, it's hit or miss. You know, sometimes they look at you, but a lot of the time they're looking at their computer because they have to write down all the things. You're a big eye contact person. I am. It's a pet peeve if you're not making eye contact when someone is talking. You've told me so many times. Many, many times. You know what would help, though? What? Dax Copilot from Microsoft. That would help.

It makes a big difference. Yeah, you're right. Reduces administrative burden, lets physicians focus on patients, make that eye contact, form a connection. That's right. Not having to look at the computer all the time. Right. 90% of patients say their physician spends less time on a computer.

When they're using Dax Copilot. That's what I want. It's a big deal. 85% of patients say their physician is more focused with Dax Copilot. You like focus. Sure. Focus on you. Focus on the patient. Focus on the problem. That's right. Learn about how Dax Copilot can help you reduce burnout and restore the joy of practicing medicine. Visit aka.ms slash knock, knock high. That's aka.ms slash knock, knock high.

You've been caught dead.