Glauc Talk: Is Your Doctor Secretly Hoping You Stay Sick?
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Knock, knock, hi! Hey everybody, welcome to Knock, Knock, Hi! with the Glockenfleckens.

We got Lady Glockenflecken back. That's right. I'm here. That's right. The last one I was gone. I don't know what you said about that, if you told the story. Oh, I did. Yeah, okay. Oh, wait, I guess we haven't talked about it since you've actually... No, I have no idea what happened. Yeah. Anyway, Lady Glockenflecken, I am Dr. Glockenflecken. Thanks for joining us for an episode of Glock Talk. I got a lot to catch up on. Yeah.

So I told the people the story. Go back a couple episodes and you can hear about a four-wheeler, a little kid-sized four-wheeler. Yeah.

flipping over onto our daughter and then you saving the day, going and grabbing it and pulling it, yanking it off of our kid. Well, trying to. Kid was fine. Yeah, all children are fine. The question I have still, where exactly did you grab it? Do you know where you grabbed it?

Not really. I mean, if we flipped it over again, I could point to it. Whatever it was, was like a thousand degrees. It was very hot. And when did the pain kick in? Immediately. That's why I said I tried to save the day. Thankfully, the other kid's mom was there as well. And so as soon as I touched that, I just took my hand off. After you got it off.

You did pull it off. No, I didn't. This is what I'm saying. I tried to, but it was so painful that like, I just immediately, like my hand just got fried like an egg. So I was very unhelpful, but thankfully the other mom was there and she. She pulled it off. I'm not sure exactly what happened because I went immediately. There was a sprinkler. Well, when I got over there, I could see that like, okay, nobody is like,

injured. This is just like inconvenient now. Like we need to get, get the children out from under this thing because they are not going to be pleased. Um, so I, I went to the, uh, sprinkler that was on nearby and I just stuck my hand right in the sprinkler. Yeah. It was so painful. I have almost never been in that much pain. Like I've, that's more pain than I've ever seen you in. It was maybe right up there with childbirth. Seriously. Like not,

exaggerating at all yeah you were on the way over to the emergency department you were writhing in pain yeah um trying to get me to go very very fast yeah they they were like this is a dumb question but on a scale of one to and i was like 10 10 10 10 that was the best we were because we were right as soon as we got in like we we checked in at the desk and went right into triage yeah

which they do, you know, for everybody. There's a nurse there. Even the security guy could see, like, I just need to let this one in. And she was just sitting there, just writhing in the chair. And they got the blood pressure. They got the vitals, temperature. Which, by the way, can I tell you, my blood pressure is usually too low. Like I have to, you know, eat a little bit of extra salt or whatever. It was 157, I think, over...

70 something like it was insane that is ridiculous for mine i did kind of start laughing or i wanted to laugh whenever she asked you the pain scale yeah yeah scale from one to ten ten to ten it's ten and then i think um you know fortunately they did they pretty much brought you back right away

Oh, yeah. I didn't have to wait. You didn't sit out there waiting. Right. Like it was. Yeah, I really appreciated that. And what was your experience overall? Um, is with what specifically? I mean, it wasn't very fun. Oh, I know. But like, you know, you did it go about as you'd expect?

They were very professional. Yeah. Yeah. They did a great job. As soon as the Dilaudid kicked in, which took quite a while. It did. They gave you a good amount. They had to keep upping it. And you were zonked out for a while there. Yeah. I mean, that is a large reason why I missed recording the next day is because I was still feeling the effects of that and just was not a full human yet.

Oh, man. Well, and I just looked at your hand and it's peeling nicely. You've got some nice new skin underneath your palm and not as painful anymore. I mean, it's still like the new skin's a little tender. But aside from that, yeah. All right. You survived. Yay. Over the weekend, I did. I'm pretty sure I tore my hamstring. So it's just a string of great luck. Because you were at a conference. What was this conference you went to?

It's called Craft and Commerce. It's a conference for creators. Creator conference? Yes, it's a creator conference. It's a very good one. Cool. Really like it. You were in Boise? Boise, Idaho. And there was a dance party. Yeah, the closing party. See, here's the thing. Creators mostly are, well, I don't know, maybe not all of them, but the ones at this conference are mostly...

Millennials. And I am a millennial. However, I am an elder millennial. Sure. And so there's a big range of what counts as millennial, right? And so like I'm on the upper end. It's like 1981 to... Or something. I don't know. To 90...

93 or 94. I have no idea what the cutoffs are. Or maybe it's right up to 2000. Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, you and I both. So anyway, point is, I'm a bit older than the majority of the people. Not all.

But the way that they closed this party is they have a dance party and it was fun and stuff. But I felt my age and I have learned that maybe 40 years old is the year that I need to swear off dance parties. What was the venue? It's called Tree Fort Music Hall and it's usually a concert sort of a place. So it was like a place that does. Yeah.

It was really cool as a conference venue. It wasn't like a Hilton ballroom. No, no, no. They just piped the music in. No, it's like a big, you know, it's kind of industrial looking on the inside. It's got a bar. They had a buffet. They had a DJ. Black lights and neon everything because it was like 90s themed. They had like face painting, neon face painting. They didn't irradiate you with UV light though. That's good. Yeah, I don't think so. Because that was...

The last time I heard about a dance party at a conference. Oh. And the lights they used were like actually UV emitting lights. And everybody ended up with corneal abrasions and sunburns. What? Yeah. Where was this? Yeah. It's a photo. You can get a UV photo toxicity to the cornea. No. So where? Oh, where? I'm not sure. It was like, this is like a year and a half ago or so. I don't know where the conference was. It was like a.

kind of a tech bro conference. Okay. And they had a similar thing. They had like a big, you know, rave type of, you know, dance party thing. Yeah. And, um, and then a lot of the people would woke up in the morning with searing pain in their eyes. Oh my gosh. It turns out the lights were you that were used on the stage had were UV lights. And, uh, and so if you get enough UV light, it's basically like a snow blindness. That's what snow blindness is. So,

the sunlight reflects off the bright snow up into your eyes. Because often, normally you have eyelids and your brow can block a lot of sunlight coming from up top. But if it's reflected down below or it's right in front of your face, you're going to get direct UV light. And that can cause desquamation of your cornea. That's quite a word. Yeah, you like that word? Desquamation. Desquamation. Desquamation. D-E-S-Q-U-A-M-A-T.

A-T-I-O-N. Desquamation of your cornea. You didn't know you were getting a spelling bee today, everyone. Basically, the epithelium of the cornea sloughs off.

Ouch. Which is as painful as it sounds. Yeah. Because the cornea is, you know, one of the most densely packed nerve endings in the body. So, yeah. It sucks. Give me good content, though. I got to talk about it. I'm sure, yeah. It heals up okay, so it's okay to laugh about it. But, you know, tech bros, it's kind of funny. You know, the whole. Sure.

Sure. The whole image of it. Yeah. But I'm sorry you tore your hamstring. I know. It's not great. You must have been really busting a move out there. I don't know. I just am old. This is what happens. I'm old and I have. Did you do the splits? I don't know. Maybe. Who knows?

How much did you have to drink? No, I'm just kidding. But I am old and I have EDS, right? So like I just am fragile now is the lesson I've learned. You should have known better. Well, now I do. This is a lesson. That's what I just said. I have now learned. It's interesting. Like I've been to a lot of conferences. Granted, I don't like stick around usually till the end of the conference. But I don't...

I don't see a lot of dance parties happening at medical conferences. No, this was a very different... Because, yeah, I came from, like, the academic world. Yeah. Now we speak at a lot of medical conferences. Those are all, you know... A little bit more buttoned up. Much more buttoned up. Yeah, this was very casual. Like, even the speakers were wearing, like, jeans and stuff. It's just, like, very chill. Gotcha. But you still learn a lot.

a whole lot you know like it doesn't it doesn't mean that it's just like not a good it was still a great conference but it was just like more casual which i loved i think we need more dance parties i think so i think we need to just make tell people don't wear suits anymore like it's just just let's just really let it down let it i think it's just a it's old-fashioned feeling sometimes yeah you know you know you can learn and you can learn in jeans that's right

Absolutely. It's fine. Maybe like a step above like pajamas. I learn in my pajamas all the time. Listen to my podcast in the morning. But that's not exactly socially acceptable. Yeah. You know, for us docs, it's like you wouldn't show up in scrubs to a car. That's a little bit much. But I mean, why? You can be casual. As long as they're clean. We've had this debate. I know. I know.

Anyway, well, I'm glad you made it back in one piece. Yep, I did. Except you left your hamstring on the floor in Boise. Apparently. At the dance hall in Boise. Yep. I'm of an age. It sounds like I need to go next year. Yeah, you should. For creators. You should. It's really good. It's about, you know, it's creators helping other creators with, you know, their creator businesses. So it's...

Still a relatively new industry, right? So it's really useful to do that, to get together with other creators. Because most of us are just like alone in our homes making our things, you know? So it's nice to be able to get together in person and like swap strategies.

strategies and here's what I'm seeing that works and you know things like that so while you were in Boise I went to Iowa that's right so it was the 100th anniversary of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Iowa where you did your residency yep and I they wanted me to come and do a little entertainment at one of the like a banquet type of thing a nice event and

It was great. It was a lot of fun. I wrote all new jokes I never told before. And that's like people ask me if I get nervous like speaking. Yeah. And I usually don't. I don't get nervous. I get focused. Yeah. And and especially I say I don't get nervous whenever it's all stuff I've done before. Right.

This was like completely new material. Yeah. New jokes is always a gamble. I had never told these jokes to anybody. And it was like a lot of inside humor about the department and the faculty. And so this was like one of those few times where I actually was kind of nervous. Yeah. Because, you know, ideally you'd be able to try out some of the jokes. Right. Like before you actually like, you know.

are saying them publicly. Say them to a group of probably like 350, 400 people. Right. But I'd say 90% of it went well. Okay, good. There were a couple that still haunt me. Okay. Yeah, what are the 10%? A few days later that I won't tell them, but that just didn't, a couple of them that I thought they were like decent punchlines and just got like no reaction. Crickets. Yeah.

I quickly moved on. It was pretty good. And then a couple like, oh, groans because I took shots at some people. Uh-oh. It's fine. But then a lot of it was good. Lots of good hearty laughs. Yeah. Because you were roasting. I was roasting people. Yeah. That can be a little tricky. Sure. But I mostly roast our outgoing chair, who is a really good sport. Yeah. So that was safe.

Right. It was like some of the other people I was like, took a couple chances on and most of it mostly went well though. I don't think I burned any bridges. Okay, good. Cause this is your profession actually. It's ophthalmology. It worked out. Uh, um, it was a lot of fun. It was like, I got to see a lot of, a lot of people. Yeah. How does it feel like

roasting the people that used to be in charge of you, right? And like evaluating you. Like, are you far enough removed now that you see them more as peers? Or is there still a little bit of that dynamic of like,

Yeah. Being kind of afraid of them. No, I don't. I'm not afraid of them. I really do see them as peers. I'm seven, eight years out now from residency graduation. Yeah. And I, you know, I would never have said some of this stuff as a resident. Right. You know, that's what I'm saying, though. Like, it could be this little like. And I did as part of my residency.

residency graduation presentation, I did a little bit of roasting. It was a bunch tamer. Yeah. And of people that you knew were a hundred percent safe. Right. And actually I got feedback from the current chair, which is the same person I roasted this time around seven years ago. And he told me I didn't go after him hard enough. Okay. So I rectified that

Okay. This time. And how did it go? I think he loved it. He loved it? I think he loved it. Yeah. So it's great. He was laughing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And he's an oculoplastics specialist. Yeah. And that's a subspecialty within ophthalmology. And they're like the kind of the general surgeons of ophthalmology. Mm-hmm. And so easy pickings. Right. What?

What? Didn't he? I remember you telling stories about like he would say things in the middle. Oh, he had the most devastating roasts like of trainees in the operating room. Like as you are sitting there learning how to operate. Like, you know, he'd like, you know, ask you, you know, what color crayon they used on your diploma to like, you know, like, you know, stuff like that. It was it wasn't just like belittling.

for the sake of belittling, it was just like trying to throw you off your game just a little bit with these very creative one-liners. I guess the point was to try to help you learn to work through adversity in the operating room. But he was delivering all of the adversity. So I don't know if his methods quite were what...

Anyway, but yeah, he was known for like really great roasts of people in the operating room. In like a way that people could appreciate even though they were devastated? He would routinely crack me up, like making fun of me and roasting me. Well, yes, but you're not normal. I think most people took it very well. And he's one of these guys that's like,

He's a nice guy. He can give it just as much as he, he can take it as much as he gives it. And so these types of surgeons, it's like, if you can throw it back at him a little bit, like in the moment. He just respects you more. Yeah. It's like you get, you get a little bit more respect from him. So overall, and not, not every doctor, physicians like that. Right. And so. Well, I could see that going poorly too with some of the residents, like,

Not every person appreciates a roast. Yeah, I think it. But in the end, that's another good lesson, like not to take yourself so seriously that you're you're you're immune from criticism. Yeah. And it can go too far. You know, there's you can take it a little bit like one step too far, which I don't think I ever personally saw him.

Yeah. But I'm sure some people, I think that line is different for different people. I think I would almost rather like if I have to be criticized, I would rather it be delivered in joke form. Right. Like make it funny. And because it shows that it's like,

Yeah, you're messing this up or you did mess up, but we're not taking it too seriously. We just want you to learn it that you messed up. You'd make fun of you for going too slowly, closing an incision. The classic joke is like, oh, we'll just let that heal by secondary intention, which means you're going so slow that the fibroblasts are winning. Yeah.

And they're just going to close the incision itself versus you as the surgeon. There's one of the best ones that we're told. And what I did as part of this roast is I invited all of his former fellows to come up on stage at the end of it and deliver some of his best lines back to him. Oh, nice. Which was a lot of fun. And one of my favorites was basically...

you know, saying that, uh, the makers of the suture are, um, are going to give him, you know, the, the trainee stock in the suture because he uses so much of it without actually closing the incision or something like that. So it's like, uh, you,

Like you can tell he's been given these lines for years and years and has been fine tuning. It's like a part of his, you know, his expertise. He's finding the right thing to say. He's been doing the same thing as you, just in a different way. Doing it in the operating room. Yeah. All right. Let's take a break. We'll come back. And I want to talk about the Renaissance Fair. Okay.

What you doing there, buddy? I'm so glad you asked. I'm being a Demodex. Oh, are you? Yeah, that's what they sound like. Those little mites? Uh-huh. If you put a microphone in front of them, I'm sure they would probably, most likely, maybe sound like that. You think so? I don't really know. Oh, well, let's see how much you do really know. Oh, you're going to quiz me? Yeah. Let's do it. What are the only two main species of Demodex mites found in humans? Type 1 and type 2. Close. Close.

Demodex folliculorum, which are found in the eyelash follicles. Okay. And demodex bravis, which are found in the melbomian glands. Okay, sure. Yeah. Okay, next one. Next question. Okay. Why do people with demodex blepharitis often feel itchy eyelids first thing in the morning? I know this. And because they avoid light and come out at night to mate.

Oh. Yeah. They're mating on your eyelids while you're sleeping. Super. How does that make you feel? So gross. And so people wake up with that itchy, irritated feeling because they've been moving around on the eyelash follicles all night. Yeah. Yeah. Great. I'm surprised you even brought that up. I know. I'm just trying to get used to these mites since Dumodux blepharitis is such a

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All right, let's talk about, we went to the Renaissance Fair. We did. In Oregon for the first time. Have you ever been to a Renaissance Fair? I think when I was like in high school or something, we went as like a field trip. Yeah, this is my first time to ever go there. Yeah. And it's impressive. Yeah. It's impressive. I know the one in Texas.

where I grew up, we both grew up in Texas, but it is like much bigger. It's like a huge thing. Is there only one in Texas? Like, is there one per state? I would think, because I went to like the Dallas area is what was closest to us, but there's one in Houston, right? Yeah, maybe there's probably several, maybe. Texas is such a big state, but there's, I was wondering, and I think you were too,

Like, is it one company that does all of these? It just moves around, yeah. Or is it,

And the reason I'm thinking that is because a lot of the performers talked about touring. Like, this is what they do. Right. And I was very impressed by them. Yeah, that's a hard job. They had their routine down. Yeah. And you can tell some of them have been doing it for like 30 years. Like, that's hard work. Yeah. Going around in person to all these places. Yeah. Living on the road. Yeah.

Try to make people laugh. But here's what I was thinking as we were exploring and experiencing the Ren Faire. They're so...

The attention to detail and making sure everything is like time period appropriate. Right. Obviously, everyone's wearing costumes. Yeah. And even down to the signs for like how you can pay for things. Yes, those were clever. It's like Our Lady of Visa. Yeah. Master card, but like with a space. Right. Yeah. You know. Right. So. New World Express. Yeah.

For American Express. That was my favorite. New World Express. I loved it. Lord Discover. So everything, the digital detail is great. The one thing that I found was missing was the first aid tent. It just seemed like a...

21st century first aid you know what i'm fine with that i think if i went to a uh medieval looking first aid tent i'm i might be a little here's my point because they have booths for obviously like people are selling their wares and you could buy very elaborate outfits that are time period specific for the renaissance and you can like uh they had like blacksmiths they had like you know

Everything. They had like the stocks. You could get the stock. Yeah. They had jousting. Took a picture of you in the stocks. Yeah. They had all this stuff. But there was nothing medical related. True. I did see a few. And I have no idea. I feel like this. I don't know. Is it the right time period? But I saw a few of the plague masks. The plague doctor masks. Yeah. So.

I think there's an untapped potential here for the Renaissance Faire to have an experience of

Or a, you could do a show or, or just have a, like a big tent where it's like a midi, like a, um, Renaissance apothecary. Okay. You could go, you could, you could buy your roots, your mandrake root. You could buy your, uh, your bore liver, uh, supplements. Uh, just, you know what? Just take some of these like crazy people off of the internet.

And tell them, okay, you know what? You're going to sell all these subletters. Why don't you just do it at the Renaissance Fair? Yeah. Where what you're doing is more time specific. Right. What is the word we're looking for? We are tripping over this. It's like period appropriate maybe. Yeah. There's a term. Sorry, everybody. Anachronistic? You're shouting it at your. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Or you could go and if you want to experience leeches.

Oh, great. You know, like all the Renaissance medieval type thing and everybody's wearing the plague doctor mask. It's all natural. You could do a, I know I was researching some of the things they could do. Removal of bad hair. Ah, like that, like some of the diseases held in your hair. And so you just rip it out. Get a haircut. A haircut. You get a haircut.

At the medieval apothecary, medieval physician. I was thinking you'd have to pull it out because it's still on your head if you just get a haircut. I mean, shave it. I don't know. Yeah, maybe just pull it. Just gotta wax it. That would be hard. You'll wax different parts of your body. Yeah, now we're getting a little bit crazy. Although, not everything there was family friendly. No.

And we went on a Sunday afternoon. Yeah. So. And I know they have, maybe this is one of those like Ren Faire after dark type things. So they do that sometimes. Yeah. Right. You have to be 20, yeah, over 21 after a certain time of day. Where they just really go nuts. Right. Bloodletting. You could get a little blood. Oh, turn it into a blood drive. Oh.

Oh. How about that? Yes, the bloodletting could be a blood drive. Bloodletting is actually, they do take your blood. Yeah. But then they dress it up. Yeah. And you have plague doctors that are taking the blood from you. That's actually a good idea. I like that idea. That's a great idea. Oh, my God. They got to do that. Yeah. All right. Who do I... Who do we contact? What kind of telegram do I send to the people that run... I guess it would be Pony Express. Is it by pigeon? I don't know. Oh, yeah. Probably...

Probably carrier pigeons. How was the mail delivered back then? Did they have mail? I don't know. We need Lindsay Fitzharris back on to answer our questions. I think it was, it must have just been people, um,

had to physically obviously deliver it. So is that what the Pony Express was? I think so. That was like later. That was in America. 1800s or something. Yeah. Maybe carrier pigeons. Who knows? I know what they did. I think carrier pigeons were actually like World War I or II. Well, Game of Thrones, they used carrier pigeons. Did they?

I mean, that's a Ravens. They use Ravens. Send a Raven. Yeah. Cause I don't know why. So pigeons didn't exist back then. I don't know. Who knows? Ravens are better at it. They're just scarier. They are scary. They're smart though. So maybe they, uh, could understand their task. All right. So speaking of, um, of Renaissance era medicine, um, I, I had a little argument with someone on Twitter. Okay. Um,

Which I promised myself I would never like do that. I wouldn't do this anymore. Why are you still over there? So here's why I'm on X. Because it is. There's no community there. No. No community. It doesn't even feel like most of these people are real people. Right. Well, they're probably not. Probably not. A lot of them aren't. But occasionally, like the reason I'll go there is to follow live interviews.

current events because there's still a lot of people there, a lot of news organizations, a lot of, and so, so whenever like something is happening, like the, that the airplane crash, the air India, you heard about that. I did. I, I intentionally did not. And I am aware that an airplane crashed. I want to know nothing else about it because I have to travel by plane. Right. So frequently. We're not going to talk about that, but the point is like stuff like that happens. Yeah. Like Twitter is still a,

good place to go for like breaking news. And also, um, a lot of this, the, the sports commentary stuff in real time, like during a sporting event happens on Twitter. And so it's still a great place for like in the moment things happen.

They're happening. But it's like all the other stuff that just there's like nothing else good about it. But because I'm still on there occasionally, I'll still see things that piss me off. And then you can't help yourself. I can't help myself. All right. So here's here's the the tweet. I'm going to read it to you. I want I want to get your reaction. OK, to this tweet. OK. Doctors shouldn't be able to get richer as people get sicker. I'm surprised more people don't understand why this is a problem.

Well, I'm noticing here that this is written by someone who claims to have an MD. Yep. So this is coming from an MD. I'm not going to, it doesn't honestly matter who it is, but that statement, what is your initial reaction to that statement? I think that it is, personally, I feel like it's a little misguided. Yeah.

There's so much that goes into the finances of how the health care system works. And then what is it like a tiny percentage, 8% or something? I don't know. Some small percentage actually goes towards, you know, physicians being paid. A small amount. It's very small. It's actually going to these other places like insurance companies and administrative costs and all of this. Yeah.

Right? Is that correct? No, that's correct. Yeah. Tell you what, let me take a break. We've got to take one more break. Oh, that means we've got to really get into this. And then I'm going to tell you kind of what I think about this and how I responded. Okay. All right. So the statement is doctors shouldn't be able to get richer as people get sicker. Now, the implication with this statement is that it's the doctors saying,

That are keeping people sick. Right. So they can make more money. Right. And.

This coming from a doctor, because I've seen that people see this stuff all the time. This is like a common thing. Doctors are all, they're all paid by big pharma. Right, well, because we hear that being a doctor is one of the things that as a little kid, your parents, you know, hope that maybe one day you will be because, you know, of the salary and whatever. So I think there's already a common perception in the public that doctors are all rich. And this, this is the, this kind of thinking is,

That doctors are going against what they're supposed to be trying to do. Right. Because, by the way, when we go into medical school, nobody thinks, I can't wait to keep my patients from getting better so that I can make more money. That does not make any sense whatsoever. Right.

But you only see this with this kind of argument, this kind of thinking with physicians for whatever reason. You don't blame firefighters.

Oh, yeah, I see what you're saying. For fighting fires. Right. Right? Yeah. It's like the firefighters are starting fires so that they can fight the fires and make more money. Yeah, so they can make more money fighting fires. Or how about mechanics for broken cars? They're out there breaking all the cars. It's nonsensical thinking. Yeah. It's just we have...

People are living longer. People get sick. Our population is increasing. People are getting older. They're having more medical issues. So you need doctors. You need doctors to be advancing medicine, to take care of people as they get older, as they get. Yeah, people are getting sicker. And yeah, there's lots of things that are causing us to be sicker. Our food is probably one of them. Yes.

But it's the fact that it's like the doctors themselves, they're like, oh, I know what you have, sir. But we're, I'm not actually, I don't want to make that better. Yeah. I'm going to, because someone's over here is paying me to make sure you don't get, come on. Yeah. What is this? So anyway, I try not to engage with people like, but this particular doctor that I'm responding to with this.

has like over almost 300,000 followers on Twitter alone and probably a lot more on other platforms as well. And so this is one of those things like, okay, I got it. I'm going to say something here. First, do you know anything about this person? I don't recognize his name. Doesn't matter what the name is. This is the first time I'm seeing it. But are they one of the doctors that has become like a grifter is what I'm really wondering. Well, so here's,

So when I looked into this creator and half of it is all about, you know, the whole what's hot right now, which is metabolic health. You know, so like he does coaching and he sells, you know. Yeah, he's selling supplements. He's selling supplements. Okay, well, that's all you got to say. He's selling, he has his own line of supplements. Of course. Inflammation and immune support is one of the names of the supplements. Mm-hmm.

So he wants you to believe that doctors are out to get you so that you will buy his thing instead. Exactly. It's like, don't, don't all this, all the traditional medicine is bad. Like the doctors are keeping you sick. They don't want you to get better.

I know how to make you better. Which is really ironic. By the way, if you sign up for a subscription, you can get these supplements sent to you every month. Come on, guy. Like, come on. And so I just called them out on it. And there's like this back and forth. I basically said, you know, you can disregard the medical opinion of any physician claiming doctor's profit off keeping you sick. And in their next breath, try to sell you their own unregulated, not evidence-based supplement. Mm-hmm.

And then I'm not going to go into the whole bag, but he responded to me. And then, and then I, so, and this is exactly, and it took like, it took up like half my day. And it's just like, this is why it, on one hand, like, I think it's important that people call out these types of, you know, charlatans, these types of snake oil salesmen. But it just, it's bad for your mental health to have to, to like, to have to do that.

But then also, like, okay, I am what I think I would consider an ethical physician. I follow evidence with the things I recommend and I take certain parts of the healthcare system to task. He's out there calling, this guy's calling me like a clown and I'm just like a clown doctor. Okay, whatever. Like ad hominem attacks, I don't really care about. But my point is, though,

Does calling them out, like the people that buy into this type of thinking that this guy is putting out there, does any amount of other evidence-based people taking him to task really change anything?

Is it worth it? I can't help but thinking that. I feel like it is worth it because we can't just let these people go unchecked into society. Sure. But then is the ideology so entrenched that you can't reach people? I think that it is, and this could be a whole episode all on its own, but I think that from my psychology background,

I think you're right that, like, yes, the benefit of calling them out is not to change his mind or any of his, you know, people of similar philosophy. You're not changing their mind. You are just providing accountability in public, right? So you're saying, we're not going to let you just have a runaway train here. Like, it's kind of a form of protest, right? Of like, no, here's the boundary. However...

If you want to actually change people's minds, that's a whole different process. Like if you study what is effective in changing people's minds, it's not this like Twitter type or even just all of social media calling out. Yeah, it's understanding the person that believes these things. And then it is having real empathy and interest in people

I'm going to just assume that you are a smart person, that you are doing the best you can with the information you have, and you're not like, I'm not just going to come out and call you an idiot or something. And I want to understand how it is that you got to believe these things. Let's figure that out. Genuine curiosity, genuine interest, kindness, empathy.

build a relationship with the person. Right. And then, because the only way for them to like, um, change their mind is if you,

If they trust you to take them to a new opinion, you know, so you have to. So it's a slower, much more strategic, like, and I don't mean strategic in like a manipulative way. I just mean like there's a process that works to do this. And social media is not it. Yeah. Short form. Yeah.

Just blasting out your thoughts to the public. Right. Not the way to do it. I think that what that does is you could think of it more like a protest, right? Of, you know, like the No Kings Day protest that just happened. It sends a message, is what it does, to the person in power, or in the case of Twitter, to the person who posted. They're like, hey, we're watching. Yeah. And we're not pleased. Yeah. And so you can't just...

steamroll this thing, right? You're going to have some resistance here. That's what it does. That's what it's actually effective at. But it's not effective at like changing someone's mind. Yeah, like the individual. I mean, you know where you can potentially change their mind is like

in the interactions that physicians have with patients. Yeah. Because I've done that, you know, with ophthalmology related things. And again, it's because you have a relationship with that person. You're absolutely right. And, you know, getting them to not take, I've gotten people to stop taking homeopathic medications, eye drops, and just by

you know, explaining it to them. Right, because that's the thing. Assume good intention. Assume, you know, intelligence. Give people the benefit of the doubt that,

Somewhere, something taught them that this is the correct scientific thing to do and then show them why and how it's not and what is. But then the people that sold that supplement to that patient, their rebuttal would be like, well, of course. Yes. He wants you to be taking traditional medicine. Right. Because he profits off of it. Right. And people just believe that. Yeah.

By the way, you can look and see who's profiting, which physicians are profiting off of what. I mean, maybe that's the thing. The public needs to know how it all works. When a pharma company pays a physician, they have to report. You have to report that. And is that public information? It's public. It's part of what's called, I think it's the Sunshine Act. It's basically shedding light on payments. Yeah.

And, and so you can see like where there's a conflict of interest, you know, if you're, if you have an oncologist and they're being paid by a company that makes a medication that you are on, you know, it's, that's, that's reportable. You can look that up. Right. How do you look it up?

I don't know exactly where that information lies, but it's out there. Google Sunshine Act. Yeah. If you look for it, you'll be able to find that information out there. And it's an important thing, I think. That's why whenever you go to a conference, you see physicians give talks. They have disclosures so that people know, okay, well, he's talking about this.

Which he's been paid by this company and he's talking in favor of this guy. Like you need to know, you need to understand conflict of interest. Right. And those disclosures are very important. But see, patients don't have access to those disclosures.

That's at a conference with other physicians, right? Like we need to educate the general public about how the system actually works. If we want them to understand why it's nonsense. Right. Some of these other things that people are saying. But then also just because a physician does like consulting work for whether it's an industry company, pharmacy, whatever, like that doesn't mean they're wanting you to be sick.

So they can make, that still doesn't make any sense. Right. Like there's the, so this, this type of thinking, you know, I don't know how to make it go away, but it's, it's,

trust me, your position did not get into medicine to think I can, I can enrich myself as long as you don't get better like that. Trust me, there's, there's plenty of disease out there. Like we're, there's enough to go around where we're going to, we're going to be busy trying to make you better, like trying to make everybody on earth better. Like there's, there's, we don't need to be keeping someone sick to make money. And that's,

As the population gets older, yeah, if we're working harder at trying to improve the health of people, well, yeah, we should get paid. People should get paid for the work they do. You're doing work. You're doing more work than ever. So you get paid to do that work. None of this makes sense, and it just irritates me, as you can tell. Yeah. Yep. Sure can.

All right. That's all I have to say about that. I guess the lesson is stay off of Twitter. It's really not worth it. That's what I'm saying. Even the reason that I go on there now, I probably shouldn't. I just need to find something else. But, you know, old habits die hard, I guess. Yeah. All right. You know what might be more effective? Just one quick idea. What if you were to screenshot...

you know, either the original tweet or your, you, you quote tweeted the, um, your response. Um, just screenshot that and put it somewhere else. And you can even like, you know, put something over the name. So you're not like calling out any individual in particular. Like if you're trying to educate people about how it works, I think that's the way to go. Take it, grab it, say, I'm seeing these things and I'm going to share them and tell you why, um, this is flawed thinking. Yeah.

Instead of arguing with the person themselves. Because then they're just going to argue back.

That is one way to do it. But they'll find it. I don't know. I mean, that's fine. But like you're crossing out their name. So if they call you out on it, then they're only revealing themselves as, you know. That's okay if you're wanting to call out the thinking. Yes. But if you want people to know that this person is not a good person, you know, is not a good physician for doing these. So watch out. Don't go to this person. You kind of have to like tell people about that person. But anyway, that's a good thought.

All right. You guys do any of you have thoughts about which social media networks to stay away from? Or is it just all of them? Yeah. You can hit us up. Email us. Knock, knock. Hi at human dash content dot com. That's right. You know, it's very on topic here that if you want to stay off of social media, hey, we have an email newsletter. Let's take it over there. That's right.

The newsletter, it's doing great. People are interested in it. You can have much more nuanced and intelligent conversation. It's a relationship-building thing versus social media where it's more of a broadcast thing. Yeah, we get some really great emails from people about it, talking about their experiences in healthcare. All kinds of wide-ranging issues that we discuss on the newsletter. You can hang out with us and our Human Content Podcast family on Instagram and TikTok over at Human Content Pods.

Thank you to all the listeners who leave feedback and reviews. We love those reviews. Please go leave a review for us. If you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube, we can give you a shout out like at

Me, Marie001 on YouTube said, Kristen, as a woman who received a late ADHD diagnosis in my 30s and who also was exceedingly punctual and on top of it. Once exceedingly punctual. Oh, who was also, who also was once exceedingly punctual. Remember we talked about how I used to be like really on time and all these things. I have a theory. Prior to being properly medicated for ADHD, my primary method of coping with life was white hot anxiety. Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

I like to joke that I've just gotten lazy with age, but I actually think it has to do with getting better at managing my anxiety. As my anxiety got less severe, all the white-knuckling I did to take care of executive functioning fell away. I might be chronically low late, but boy, is life sweeter. I might be chronically late now, but boy, is life sweeter. Yes, I agree with all of that. Thank you for reaching out and, uh, Colt.

corroborating what I have to say. Yes, that's exactly what you've been talking about, right? Full video episodes are up every week on our YouTube channel at Glockenfleckens. Go check that out. Leave a comment. Patreon, lots of cool perks over there. Bonus episodes, reactive medical shows and movies. Hang out with other members of the Knock Knock High community. We're there, active in it. Early ad-free episode access, interactive Q&A, live stream events, and much more. Patreon.com slash Glockenflecken. We've made some good friends on Glockenflecken.

On Patreon. On our Patreon. We've made some good friends with Glockenfleckin. Yeah. All your characters that live in your head. Sounds like the new, like a new Mr. Rogers neighborhood. It does. No, but yes, on Patreon.

Patreon. There's some cool people over there we love talking to. We've really gotten to know a lot of people. Patreon.com slash Glockenplugger. Patreon community perks. I'm a little rusty here. Yeah, we've had a long week. New member shout out. Beth W and Amanda A. Thank you for being patrons. And thank you to the Jonathans as usual. Patrick Lucieci.

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the commercials for the, uh, for pharmaceutical coming to our side effects. I'm really, I'm really, which is good because I, I, because people tell me I speak too slow, but I can really, I can really crank it out. Yeah. You know, you know how you do that though, is you end up like just skipping entire letters to learn about it. No, no guys program. Just claim ethics, policy submission, verification, licensing terms, and hit release terms.

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