December 18, 2024 • 26 mins
More rural districts are moving to a four-day school week. Parents, teachers and school leaders give it mixed reviews. Big Bird, Elmo, and Cookie Monster need a new home. Dr. Jim Keany, Co-Director of the Emergency Room at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, joins The Bill Handel Show for 'Medical News'! Dr. Keany talks with Bill about taking vitamin D and broken bones, why holding you pee is bad, and whether just going for a walk can help depression.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Wake Up Call on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
KFI AM six forty bill handle here. It is a
day Wednesday, December eighteenth, seven days out from Christmas, and
also the first night of Hanukah, which doesn't happen very often.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
The last time two thousand and five.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
And it looks like the Federal Reserve is set to
cut interest rates by a quarter of a point today, Amy,
do you know when they're meeting?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
What time or they already met.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I do not have the exact time their meeting, but
we should get the announcement about the interest rates after
they're done with their meetings this afternoon.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, it's eleven, well eleven o'clock now, so I'm assuming
in Washington. So I'm assuming that the decision.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
May have already been made.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And Honda and Nissan are discussing a possible merger because
both are going into the toilet sales wise, and a
lot of it has to especially in the EV world,
and allowed it has to do with China because china
Is ability to manufacture and sell their evs have exploded
because they're superb.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Quality and way less money.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
We don't buy them in the United states because of tariffs,
but they certainly do the rest of the world. Okay,
four day school week and this is going on all
over the country, not so much California, but certainly other states,
for example Missouri and Missouri. And this is a story
(01:31):
about a school district called the Independent School District of
Missouri has moved to the four day school week, which
means mondays, students and teachers get off. And this is
really a growing trend in rural communities more so than
in urban areas, because kids have to be picked up
(01:52):
and they go a long distance to school, and it's
a lot of money for the school district because you
have the bussing and you have just the cost of
teaching kids rurally, and so it makes sense for them.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So parents are kind of neat, But.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
There's one big issue about parents and why they love it.
By the way, there's no questions schools do better, students
do better.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
It's we have a five day work weekend.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I always use usd LA usd LA Unified School District
where I went to school today.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Go to a spelling class.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
If they had them go to an English class and
ask the kids to spell illiterate and they would have
a very difficult time, So would it make sense?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Students and parents love this, except parents have one big issue.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
What do you do on Monday when they go to
work childcare?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Because school takes care of your kids during the day,
what happens on Mondays?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
If it's four day we're four day school week.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, a lot of these school distric are providing daycare
because students are simply doing better. Also, absenteeism is down
because if you miss one day, you're only in school
for three days. Where if you miss the kid misses
the day of school, he's only in school. He only
(03:19):
misses twenty percent as opposed to a third of the
school week. So absenteeism is way down, and the problem
is the federal government. For example, a USD unified school
district in La, the federal government pays based on attendance,
and if a school kid meet is missus school day,
(03:45):
then the money drops from the Feds, which is why
in junior high in high school you have homeroom where
they count the number of students that are attending that day.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
So would it be better on a four day week?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
They have to change the law, of course, to give
the equivalent money for four days versus five days, So
it's sort of a mixed bag because of Monday and childcare.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Teachers love it.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
They love it because now they get the extra day
which a lot of them use to do school work.
English teachers, I don't even know how they operate because
they have to grade thirty or thirty two papers every
week on while writing assignments. Man, it's just it's crazy
the amount of hours they work. Shop different because you
(04:37):
just show up the shop. For example, would shop, you
show up, you cut off a finger in the saw,
you go home, so the teacher only gives you one
hour Math basically the same thing.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
You're great a little bit, but it's for the most
part multiple choice and it's easy. English is a killer.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
But the schools caesar for the schools, and the other
thing about school districts why they love it is because
they get high end teachers. You can't get a teacher
of that work in a rural area. They just don't
want to do that. They want to get paid real money,
not sides of bacon. It's hard to retain a good teacher.
(05:18):
And then the amount of money they pay teachers is
not very much. But a four day school week.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
And we're talking about studies that were done.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
The retention of teachers is higher, and we're talking about
experienced teacher.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
The applications for teachers is way up. Again.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Independent school district experienced teachers were almost impossible to find.
Now teacher applications since twenty twenty three are of three
hundred and sixty percent and the majority being veteran teachers. Also,
the teacher is saying, it just gives you more work
life balance. By the way, for those people that scream
(05:58):
about the education level collapsing, the hardest job probably.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
In the world are teachers. I think they're heroes. I
really do.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
The amount of money they make for the job they do,
and the pressure they have and the responsibility they have.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Is extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
So I've always admired teachers, except mine, which for some
reason I had a harder time dealing with.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
All Right, how to get.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Do you know? I actually remember when Sesame Street came
on the air.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Fifty five years ago. Was it just a dirt road
back then? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
It was, and high end lighting was a bulb on
that porcelain little stand that you took a chain and
you pull the chain.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah. Yeah, pretty much, but it was fifty five years ago.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
It broke all kinds of new ground and they had
a hard time getting started too. It was so revolutionary,
and it was on PBS, and PBS is governmental or
was governmentally funded, and it was believe me, and.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Then it exploded.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It just exploded when kids learned to read and count numbers,
and I mean kids at three years old all of
a sudden were reading and knowing. It was extraordinary to
see how successful it was. So it has gone on
for fifty five years now. Ten years ago PBS stopped
funding it and so now they're scrambling ten years ago
(07:42):
and they find HBO, and HBO funds it.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Now Sesame Street has never made money.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It is always being funded by some organization, be it
the government, which no longer does and so they have
to be funded by private enterprise read networks. And the
HBO deal which kicked in ten years ago is over.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
It's done.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And why because Warner Brothers Discovery says, while ten years
ago when we started streaming, we wanted kids fair, we
wanted the streaming service to go across the board.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
We have plenty of adult fair. And man, they had
some great stuff. They had Veep and they had Games
of Thrones. I mean that was pretty impressive stuff. And
so they.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Wanted to expand and come in with the Kids Fair
because streaming is basically twenty four to seven. Well it
turned out that yeah, kids when yeah, it doesn't matter
and Sesame Street in particular fell by the wayside.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And why is that? Well, because they have fifty five.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Years worth of programming and you take a three year
old doesn't really remember what episodes four years old were about.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
It's a little tough, and.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
The episodes are all independent, and so ones from fifty
five years ago still work today. It's like Disney when
it used to release This was with HBO, and this
was Michael Eisner and Frank Wells when they came in
and started running Disney, and they couldn't stop making money.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Why is that? Because they were releasing all the Disney.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Fair, all the movies, particularly every seven years, because it
was a new generation of kids and they were growing.
Disney was growing twenty to twenty five percent a year.
I mean that's why Eisner. I mean, here's a story. Eisner,
when he was booted, turned in his stop stock options.
(09:55):
Although this was before when Clinton kicked in thirty six
percent to thirty nine percent income as he turned in
his stock option six hundred million dollars in stock options.
That's how well Disney was doing. And so HBO going
after Kids, realized that Sesame Street basically with fifty I
(10:18):
to five episodes, Eh, so it has become iconic and
all over the world. And so what's happening, Well, they're
looking for a distributor and funding. So it's a fork
in the road for Cookie Monster, Elmo, Bert Ernie. Matter
of fact, the first episode is going to be which
(10:40):
way do you turn when there is a fork in
the road, and how much funding do you get from distributors?
And what is the distribution plan? Which is great for
a three year old kid to understand. I understand, I
get that. So it ain't the same, it really is,
by the way, HBO it was. So they were so
(11:02):
enamored of HBO. We're talking at HBO. They were so
enamored of Sesame Street. They even produced a talk show.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I don't know if you remember that. It was called
Not Too Late Show.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
The Not Too Late Show with Elmo and Elmo was
he interviews Jonas Brothers other celebrities that lasted two seasons
because the show was so lame. So the other thing
is Sesame Street is not only indestructible in terms of
(11:37):
the episodes it doesn't date, but.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It's now on numerous platforms.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
PBS still has it, Max still has this streaming service,
a YouTube channel with twenty five million subscribers has it.
So securing a new partner is going to be critical
to the company that makes it. Sesame Street Workshop. Is
it going to survive?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I'll tell you what does survive. Charlie brown linus Snoopy
Christmas Time. That's there every single Christmas and those are
what fifty years old, sixty years old. Charles Shoals is
still collecting insane.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Amounts of money from Snoopy.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And he doesn't spend much money, I might add because
he's kind of dead, but his estate is just tons
of money. Now, obviously Sesame Street can't be compared because
it's not a private concern. It's a public concern from
Sesame Street Workshop. But you're going to see a big change.
(12:45):
By the way, in October, about two point two million
views on PBS alone, no and streaming stations across the country,
and three quarters that came from video on demand platforms.
So as the world changes completely, you have a show
(13:05):
that is still mired fifty five years ago, which incidentally,
I don't think has lost its relevance. I don't think
it's lost is importance. I remember my kids when they
were little, did they watch Sesame Street?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
No?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
No, they didn't, actually, so I can't add that story
to this story.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Matter of fact, they did. I don't remember when my
kids were three. I don't remember that far back. I
really don't. Does explain a lot if they didn't, I
don't think they did.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I don't remember if they did or not, I don't remember.
I have to ask, I mean, are.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
They going to remember what they watched? The three?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I know my daughter Pamela was fully reading before she
entered kindergarten, I mean a full blown reader.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
And we didn't teach her either. She did it on
her own. And I thought she was a Nobel Prize
Laureate contender. She was so smart that you can do that,
And it turns out, eh, she wasn't. She just cracked
the code early, that's all. And that's what reading it's
all about. Just cracking the code. Nothing more, nothing less.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
So all right, so my daughter, she's bright.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
But everybody's kid is bright, right, I mean, how many
people think their kids are morons? Nobody that's like every baby,
Oh my baby is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
No it's not. It's ugly. I mean it's horrible looking.
No one ever says that.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Okay, it is time for as we do every single
Wednesday on Medical News with doctor Jim Keeney. Jim is
chief medical officers for Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center in
Long Beach and a board certified er doctor for Jim,
how long did you actually practice R medicine before you
became a chief medical.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Officer Just a little over thirty years.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So you're pretty good at it. You got a good
grip on it. I would think, Yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Get the hang of it after the first ten or fifteen.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Okay, a couple of topics I want to bring up,
and that is the whole issue of vitamin D. Okay,
let's start with we need vitamin D and vitamin D
usually is in milk. And I understand if you go
outside and you're in the sun for thirty eight seconds,
you get all the vitamin D you need. And that
connects directly with the strength of your bones.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
So a lot of people take vitamin D.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I mean a lot of people as a matter of course,
in their daily vitamin regimen.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
How connected actually is that?
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, I mean you're right. Vitamin D we started once
we started testing it, we realize that a large percentage
of the US population has insufficient levels of vitamin D,
probably about a third overall. If you look at special
groups like people over sixty five, it's more than fifty percent.
If you look at people with dark skin, probably because
of the ability to convert vitamin D due to sun exposure,
(15:58):
they have deficiency rates as high is seventy or eighty percent.
So you know, obese individuals are at risk. There's a
lot of different reasons you may be at risk, and
you know the best source is ultraviolet light. But the
problem is that now we all use sunscreen. We all
know don't go out in the sun without sunscreen. So
even though thirty minutes of mid day sun two to
(16:18):
three times a week would probably get you a good
amount of vitamin D because your body uses that ultraviolet
light to convert the chemical into vitamin D from your diet,
you still we probably don't get enough because of sunscreen.
So it is still recommended that people take vitamin D.
It's just that in this case, what we're talking about
(16:40):
is people maybe think that you know that we're fifty
sixty years old and will prevent osteoporosis by taking vitamin
D and prevent bone fractures. Well, your bones are already
built by then, and so right at this point, you're
not trying to add calcium to your bones. You're trying
to reduce the loss of calcium. And it turns out
that for that particular function vitamin D, there's not a
(17:03):
ton of evidence that in the average person it really
helps you maintain reduce the risk for fracture.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Hey, you're about as modern medicine thinking as anybody out there.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You're not into that fruity weirdo.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Wio will medicine like people that are very close to
me are. I won't mention any names here, lindsay, but
and I'm not into that stuff at all. What kind
of do you do vitamins every day?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And which ones are they? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
So I do multi vitamin and vitamin D. I also
do fish oil, And there was more evidence that seemed
to support fish oil seeming to get less support these days,
but I feel like, you know, it's a good thing
to take, So I do those three basically.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
That's pretty much it. Huh okay, So you don't do
that whole regimen of you know, the handfuls of and
so the osteoporosis. You know that the as we get older,
our bones just get more fragile and they lose density.
If I'm not mistaken, right, isn't that osteoporosis.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, osteoporosis, And then we have certain pills that will
increase the density of your bone. The problem is bone
has two parts, right, It's think of like a test
tube as a glass cylinder, and the outside is the
hard part and then the bone to keep that from
shattering on the inside is the spongy bone, and that
has some flexibility to it. That's the part that we
(18:31):
tend to lose quite a bit of, and that's the
part that these medicines that we give don't recreate. So
what you're doing is making that glass tube harder and harder,
but it's still not giving all the support that's necessary.
So ideally people get adequate calcium vitamin D intake. You know,
I should mention, you know, because I have a little
(18:52):
bit of heartburn. I take enough calcium daily two in
the form of tombs that you know that probably would
be considered to supplement as well. But yeah, it's so basically,
you know, you want to try and do this when
you're a teenager. You want to make sure you have
adequate vitamin D and calcium intake. You want to make
sure you have adequate physical activity and continue that all
(19:14):
the way through your twenties and thirties. And that's what's
going to prevent osteoporosis really when you're sixty or seventy.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So it's not a question of the bones becoming weaker,
it's they become more brittle.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Do I have that writer or is it both?
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah? I mean in a way, they just they become
more brittle, they become more glass like, And it's that
because it's hard. But yet glass is easily fractured. So
if you make that thinner, then of course it's going
to fracture easier.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Okay, the medical questions of gargantuan proportions, why it's bad
to hold your pe.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
All right, well, let's dig into that. So you know,
I mean human beings, this is how we work, right,
is that your bladder you know, gets about halfway full,
and you start realizing that you could probably urinate, but
you know, that doesn't work. We live in a society
where you can't just you know, be like a bird
on a wire and it just falls out. So you
(20:14):
need to be able to control it and wait. And
that's normal. So I don't want anybody freaking out that
they if they wait to urinate, they're going to cause
any damage. That's that's just normal function. But you get
to a point where it gets pretty uncomfortable and if
you're you know, trying to finish that business meeting or
finish that movie you're watching, or you know, whatever you're
doing that's delaying you're finishing your Christmas shopping, you know,
(20:39):
at that point it can, over time, in extreme cases,
cause problems. You know, when you don't urinate, there's not
a good flow and you can actually start building up
bacteria and that makes you more prone to urinary tract infections.
But over time, if you keep doing this chronic overfilling
of the bladder, it can you know, so it's like
(21:00):
a rubber band that you've overstretched. You just stretched the
bladder out to the point where it doesn't contract efficiently,
and then you can't fully empty your bladder and you
end up with urinary retention, which also puts you at
risk for bladder infection.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Here's a question, because holding your pee, this has happened
to me and others for a long period of time,
which you know based on what you said, sometimes happens
and then you start to urinate and this is men
I assume, and it doesn't come out as well as
it does during normal times. Is that a prostate thing?
(21:37):
Mainly I've talked about dribbles and drabbles.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So that's exactly how you can tell
the size of the prostate in any email. So as
you're sitting in a public restroom and you listen to
the strength of the stream, you're able to judge. The
only is how doctors think, right, You're able to judge
every stall and figure out who has the large prostate
and who has all prostate.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
How often do you do that, Jim?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I'm just curious that you go into public restrooms to
listen to guys pee in the other stalls, also guys
peeing and peeing installs.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
That's a question there too.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah, I guess I simplified stalls, stalls, you know, urinuls whatever.
But either way, yeah, I know I can't not hear it,
you know, Unfortunately, I just can't go in there and
not hear the guy next if he has a large
bladder all over.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
I know, I get it. Thirty years into er medicine.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Do you ever tilt your head closer so you have
better hearing? No?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Not allowed, definitely not allowed.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Okay, all right, always a great topic. All right, walking, walking,
and depression. How do those connect?
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Well, I mean this is not really new. It's that
exercise and depression are connected and as in inversely connected.
So the more you exercise, the better off you'll be
as far as depression goes. And there's been studies that
show that the vigorous exercise thirty minutes, three or four
times a week is equal to something like prozac or
(23:16):
a lot of these antidepressants. So you know, exercise is
definitely helpful. But what I think what this really points
out is they were talking about seven thousand steps, and
so there's people out there trying to get ten thousand
steps a day, and seven thousand is not an overly
vigorous exercise that maybe somebody you know with other physical
(23:38):
ailments or problems couldn't do. And so I think the
point here is that you know, really just getting some
exercise will help, and don't necessarily look to kill it.
Just go find something that you like to do that
puts your body in movement. And whether that's yoga or
pickleball or walking or you know, golf or whatever, or gardening,
(23:58):
you know, those things, all our physical activities that can
help you not only stay physically fit, but mentally fit.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
All right, I consider you my doctor in many ways.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I go to you as a go to and not
asking for a diagnosis because I know, in nevermind we
went to this whole legal thing before.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
But here's what I do.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I walk an hour a day, I take an antidepressant
in really good dosages, and I still want to climb
up to the top of the parking structure and take
a swan dive off.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
What is that about?
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Well, I mean, by.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
The way, I'm not exaggerating, I'm still depressed.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
It's not really a laughing matter. But there are different
degrees obviously of depression, anxiety, all these other conditions. There's
there's bipolar depression, there's different forms of depression and some
of these more serious levels and forms. It's not necessarily
going to be simply treated with exercise. I think you'd
actually be worse off if you didn't exercise, so I
(24:59):
think it's helping you. But in your case, you know,
there are people that, due to chemistry and balance in
their brain, require a little more help than just exercise.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
All right, thanks, Jim, A good way to end the show.
I require a little bit more because there are.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
People in my position.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Jim, A pleasure. We'll talk again next Wednesday, assuming I'm
still alive.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Okay, take care, take care. All right, that's it, guys.
We're done.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Another day and another well it would be a dollar,
but you know we we're here at Ihearts.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
It's another eighty two cents.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Tomorrow morning Wake Up Call Amy from five to six.
Neil and I join from six to nine with this
show and working throughout most of the day and night,
Cono and Ann. This is KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
You've been listening to Wake Up Call with me, Amy King.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You can always hear Wake Up Call five to six
am Monday through Friday on KFI AM six forty and
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Wake Up Call on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
KFI AM six forty bill handle here. It is a
day Wednesday, December eighteenth, seven days out from Christmas, and
also the first night of Hanukah, which doesn't happen very often.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
The last time two thousand and five.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
And it looks like the Federal Reserve is set to
cut interest rates by a quarter of a point today, Amy,
do you know when they're meeting?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
What time or they already met.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I do not have the exact time their meeting, but
we should get the announcement about the interest rates after
they're done with their meetings this afternoon.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, it's eleven, well eleven o'clock now, so I'm assuming
in Washington. So I'm assuming that the decision.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
May have already been made.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And Honda and Nissan are discussing a possible merger because
both are going into the toilet sales wise, and a
lot of it has to especially in the EV world,
and allowed it has to do with China because china
Is ability to manufacture and sell their evs have exploded
because they're superb.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Quality and way less money.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
We don't buy them in the United states because of tariffs,
but they certainly do the rest of the world. Okay,
four day school week and this is going on all
over the country, not so much California, but certainly other states,
for example Missouri and Missouri. And this is a story
(01:31):
about a school district called the Independent School District of
Missouri has moved to the four day school week, which
means mondays, students and teachers get off. And this is
really a growing trend in rural communities more so than
in urban areas, because kids have to be picked up
(01:52):
and they go a long distance to school, and it's
a lot of money for the school district because you
have the bussing and you have just the cost of
teaching kids rurally, and so it makes sense for them.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So parents are kind of neat, But.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
There's one big issue about parents and why they love it.
By the way, there's no questions schools do better, students
do better.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
It's we have a five day work weekend.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I always use usd LA usd LA Unified School District
where I went to school today.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Go to a spelling class.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
If they had them go to an English class and
ask the kids to spell illiterate and they would have
a very difficult time, So would it make sense?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Students and parents love this, except parents have one big issue.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
What do you do on Monday when they go to
work childcare?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Because school takes care of your kids during the day,
what happens on Mondays?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
If it's four day we're four day school week.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, a lot of these school distric are providing daycare
because students are simply doing better. Also, absenteeism is down
because if you miss one day, you're only in school
for three days. Where if you miss the kid misses
the day of school, he's only in school. He only
(03:19):
misses twenty percent as opposed to a third of the
school week. So absenteeism is way down, and the problem
is the federal government. For example, a USD unified school
district in La, the federal government pays based on attendance,
and if a school kid meet is missus school day,
(03:45):
then the money drops from the Feds, which is why
in junior high in high school you have homeroom where
they count the number of students that are attending that day.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
So would it be better on a four day week?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
They have to change the law, of course, to give
the equivalent money for four days versus five days, So
it's sort of a mixed bag because of Monday and childcare.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Teachers love it.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
They love it because now they get the extra day
which a lot of them use to do school work.
English teachers, I don't even know how they operate because
they have to grade thirty or thirty two papers every
week on while writing assignments. Man, it's just it's crazy
the amount of hours they work. Shop different because you
(04:37):
just show up the shop. For example, would shop, you
show up, you cut off a finger in the saw,
you go home, so the teacher only gives you one
hour Math basically the same thing.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
You're great a little bit, but it's for the most
part multiple choice and it's easy. English is a killer.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
But the schools caesar for the schools, and the other
thing about school districts why they love it is because
they get high end teachers. You can't get a teacher
of that work in a rural area. They just don't
want to do that. They want to get paid real money,
not sides of bacon. It's hard to retain a good teacher.
(05:18):
And then the amount of money they pay teachers is
not very much. But a four day school week.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
And we're talking about studies that were done.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
The retention of teachers is higher, and we're talking about
experienced teacher.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
The applications for teachers is way up. Again.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Independent school district experienced teachers were almost impossible to find.
Now teacher applications since twenty twenty three are of three
hundred and sixty percent and the majority being veteran teachers. Also,
the teacher is saying, it just gives you more work
life balance. By the way, for those people that scream
(05:58):
about the education level collapsing, the hardest job probably.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
In the world are teachers. I think they're heroes. I
really do.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
The amount of money they make for the job they do,
and the pressure they have and the responsibility they have.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Is extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
So I've always admired teachers, except mine, which for some
reason I had a harder time dealing with.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
All Right, how to get.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Do you know? I actually remember when Sesame Street came
on the air.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Fifty five years ago. Was it just a dirt road
back then? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
It was, and high end lighting was a bulb on
that porcelain little stand that you took a chain and
you pull the chain.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah. Yeah, pretty much, but it was fifty five years ago.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
It broke all kinds of new ground and they had
a hard time getting started too. It was so revolutionary,
and it was on PBS, and PBS is governmental or
was governmentally funded, and it was believe me, and.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Then it exploded.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It just exploded when kids learned to read and count numbers,
and I mean kids at three years old all of
a sudden were reading and knowing. It was extraordinary to
see how successful it was. So it has gone on
for fifty five years now. Ten years ago PBS stopped
funding it and so now they're scrambling ten years ago
(07:42):
and they find HBO, and HBO funds it.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Now Sesame Street has never made money.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It is always being funded by some organization, be it
the government, which no longer does and so they have
to be funded by private enterprise read networks. And the
HBO deal which kicked in ten years ago is over.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
It's done.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And why because Warner Brothers Discovery says, while ten years
ago when we started streaming, we wanted kids fair, we
wanted the streaming service to go across the board.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
We have plenty of adult fair. And man, they had
some great stuff. They had Veep and they had Games
of Thrones. I mean that was pretty impressive stuff. And
so they.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Wanted to expand and come in with the Kids Fair
because streaming is basically twenty four to seven. Well it
turned out that yeah, kids when yeah, it doesn't matter
and Sesame Street in particular fell by the wayside.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And why is that? Well, because they have fifty five.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Years worth of programming and you take a three year
old doesn't really remember what episodes four years old were about.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
It's a little tough, and.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
The episodes are all independent, and so ones from fifty
five years ago still work today. It's like Disney when
it used to release This was with HBO, and this
was Michael Eisner and Frank Wells when they came in
and started running Disney, and they couldn't stop making money.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Why is that? Because they were releasing all the Disney.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Fair, all the movies, particularly every seven years, because it
was a new generation of kids and they were growing.
Disney was growing twenty to twenty five percent a year.
I mean that's why Eisner. I mean, here's a story. Eisner,
when he was booted, turned in his stop stock options.
(09:55):
Although this was before when Clinton kicked in thirty six
percent to thirty nine percent income as he turned in
his stock option six hundred million dollars in stock options.
That's how well Disney was doing. And so HBO going
after Kids, realized that Sesame Street basically with fifty I
(10:18):
to five episodes, Eh, so it has become iconic and
all over the world. And so what's happening, Well, they're
looking for a distributor and funding. So it's a fork
in the road for Cookie Monster, Elmo, Bert Ernie. Matter
of fact, the first episode is going to be which
(10:40):
way do you turn when there is a fork in
the road, and how much funding do you get from distributors?
And what is the distribution plan? Which is great for
a three year old kid to understand. I understand, I
get that. So it ain't the same, it really is,
by the way, HBO it was. So they were so
(11:02):
enamored of HBO. We're talking at HBO. They were so
enamored of Sesame Street. They even produced a talk show.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I don't know if you remember that. It was called
Not Too Late Show.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
The Not Too Late Show with Elmo and Elmo was
he interviews Jonas Brothers other celebrities that lasted two seasons
because the show was so lame. So the other thing
is Sesame Street is not only indestructible in terms of
(11:37):
the episodes it doesn't date, but.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It's now on numerous platforms.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
PBS still has it, Max still has this streaming service,
a YouTube channel with twenty five million subscribers has it.
So securing a new partner is going to be critical
to the company that makes it. Sesame Street Workshop. Is
it going to survive?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I'll tell you what does survive. Charlie brown linus Snoopy
Christmas Time. That's there every single Christmas and those are
what fifty years old, sixty years old. Charles Shoals is
still collecting insane.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Amounts of money from Snoopy.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And he doesn't spend much money, I might add because
he's kind of dead, but his estate is just tons
of money. Now, obviously Sesame Street can't be compared because
it's not a private concern. It's a public concern from
Sesame Street Workshop. But you're going to see a big change.
(12:45):
By the way, in October, about two point two million
views on PBS alone, no and streaming stations across the country,
and three quarters that came from video on demand platforms.
So as the world changes completely, you have a show
(13:05):
that is still mired fifty five years ago, which incidentally,
I don't think has lost its relevance. I don't think
it's lost is importance. I remember my kids when they
were little, did they watch Sesame Street?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
No?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
No, they didn't, actually, so I can't add that story
to this story.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Matter of fact, they did. I don't remember when my
kids were three. I don't remember that far back. I
really don't. Does explain a lot if they didn't, I
don't think they did.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I don't remember if they did or not, I don't remember.
I have to ask, I mean, are.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
They going to remember what they watched? The three?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I know my daughter Pamela was fully reading before she
entered kindergarten, I mean a full blown reader.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
And we didn't teach her either. She did it on
her own. And I thought she was a Nobel Prize
Laureate contender. She was so smart that you can do that,
And it turns out, eh, she wasn't. She just cracked
the code early, that's all. And that's what reading it's
all about. Just cracking the code. Nothing more, nothing less.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
So all right, so my daughter, she's bright.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
But everybody's kid is bright, right, I mean, how many
people think their kids are morons? Nobody that's like every baby,
Oh my baby is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
No it's not. It's ugly. I mean it's horrible looking.
No one ever says that.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Okay, it is time for as we do every single
Wednesday on Medical News with doctor Jim Keeney. Jim is
chief medical officers for Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center in
Long Beach and a board certified er doctor for Jim,
how long did you actually practice R medicine before you
became a chief medical.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Officer Just a little over thirty years.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So you're pretty good at it. You got a good
grip on it. I would think, Yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Get the hang of it after the first ten or fifteen.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Okay, a couple of topics I want to bring up,
and that is the whole issue of vitamin D. Okay,
let's start with we need vitamin D and vitamin D
usually is in milk. And I understand if you go
outside and you're in the sun for thirty eight seconds,
you get all the vitamin D you need. And that
connects directly with the strength of your bones.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
So a lot of people take vitamin D.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I mean a lot of people as a matter of course,
in their daily vitamin regimen.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
How connected actually is that?
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, I mean you're right. Vitamin D we started once
we started testing it, we realize that a large percentage
of the US population has insufficient levels of vitamin D,
probably about a third overall. If you look at special
groups like people over sixty five, it's more than fifty percent.
If you look at people with dark skin, probably because
of the ability to convert vitamin D due to sun exposure,
(15:58):
they have deficiency rates as high is seventy or eighty percent.
So you know, obese individuals are at risk. There's a
lot of different reasons you may be at risk, and
you know the best source is ultraviolet light. But the
problem is that now we all use sunscreen. We all
know don't go out in the sun without sunscreen. So
even though thirty minutes of mid day sun two to
(16:18):
three times a week would probably get you a good
amount of vitamin D because your body uses that ultraviolet
light to convert the chemical into vitamin D from your diet,
you still we probably don't get enough because of sunscreen.
So it is still recommended that people take vitamin D.
It's just that in this case, what we're talking about
(16:40):
is people maybe think that you know that we're fifty
sixty years old and will prevent osteoporosis by taking vitamin
D and prevent bone fractures. Well, your bones are already
built by then, and so right at this point, you're
not trying to add calcium to your bones. You're trying
to reduce the loss of calcium. And it turns out
that for that particular function vitamin D, there's not a
(17:03):
ton of evidence that in the average person it really
helps you maintain reduce the risk for fracture.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Hey, you're about as modern medicine thinking as anybody out there.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You're not into that fruity weirdo.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Wio will medicine like people that are very close to
me are. I won't mention any names here, lindsay, but
and I'm not into that stuff at all. What kind
of do you do vitamins every day?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And which ones are they? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
So I do multi vitamin and vitamin D. I also
do fish oil, And there was more evidence that seemed
to support fish oil seeming to get less support these days,
but I feel like, you know, it's a good thing
to take, So I do those three basically.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
That's pretty much it. Huh okay, So you don't do
that whole regimen of you know, the handfuls of and
so the osteoporosis. You know that the as we get older,
our bones just get more fragile and they lose density.
If I'm not mistaken, right, isn't that osteoporosis.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, osteoporosis, And then we have certain pills that will
increase the density of your bone. The problem is bone
has two parts, right, It's think of like a test
tube as a glass cylinder, and the outside is the
hard part and then the bone to keep that from
shattering on the inside is the spongy bone, and that
has some flexibility to it. That's the part that we
(18:31):
tend to lose quite a bit of, and that's the
part that these medicines that we give don't recreate. So
what you're doing is making that glass tube harder and harder,
but it's still not giving all the support that's necessary.
So ideally people get adequate calcium vitamin D intake. You know,
I should mention, you know, because I have a little
(18:52):
bit of heartburn. I take enough calcium daily two in
the form of tombs that you know that probably would
be considered to supplement as well. But yeah, it's so basically,
you know, you want to try and do this when
you're a teenager. You want to make sure you have
adequate vitamin D and calcium intake. You want to make
sure you have adequate physical activity and continue that all
(19:14):
the way through your twenties and thirties. And that's what's
going to prevent osteoporosis really when you're sixty or seventy.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So it's not a question of the bones becoming weaker,
it's they become more brittle.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Do I have that writer or is it both?
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah? I mean in a way, they just they become
more brittle, they become more glass like, And it's that
because it's hard. But yet glass is easily fractured. So
if you make that thinner, then of course it's going
to fracture easier.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Okay, the medical questions of gargantuan proportions, why it's bad
to hold your pe.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
All right, well, let's dig into that. So you know,
I mean human beings, this is how we work, right,
is that your bladder you know, gets about halfway full,
and you start realizing that you could probably urinate, but
you know, that doesn't work. We live in a society
where you can't just you know, be like a bird
on a wire and it just falls out. So you
(20:14):
need to be able to control it and wait. And
that's normal. So I don't want anybody freaking out that
they if they wait to urinate, they're going to cause
any damage. That's that's just normal function. But you get
to a point where it gets pretty uncomfortable and if
you're you know, trying to finish that business meeting or
finish that movie you're watching, or you know, whatever you're
doing that's delaying you're finishing your Christmas shopping, you know,
(20:39):
at that point it can, over time, in extreme cases,
cause problems. You know, when you don't urinate, there's not
a good flow and you can actually start building up
bacteria and that makes you more prone to urinary tract infections.
But over time, if you keep doing this chronic overfilling
of the bladder, it can you know, so it's like
(21:00):
a rubber band that you've overstretched. You just stretched the
bladder out to the point where it doesn't contract efficiently,
and then you can't fully empty your bladder and you
end up with urinary retention, which also puts you at
risk for bladder infection.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Here's a question, because holding your pee, this has happened
to me and others for a long period of time,
which you know based on what you said, sometimes happens
and then you start to urinate and this is men
I assume, and it doesn't come out as well as
it does during normal times. Is that a prostate thing?
(21:37):
Mainly I've talked about dribbles and drabbles.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So that's exactly how you can tell
the size of the prostate in any email. So as
you're sitting in a public restroom and you listen to
the strength of the stream, you're able to judge. The
only is how doctors think, right, You're able to judge
every stall and figure out who has the large prostate
and who has all prostate.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
How often do you do that, Jim?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I'm just curious that you go into public restrooms to
listen to guys pee in the other stalls, also guys
peeing and peeing installs.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
That's a question there too.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah, I guess I simplified stalls, stalls, you know, urinuls whatever.
But either way, yeah, I know I can't not hear it,
you know, Unfortunately, I just can't go in there and
not hear the guy next if he has a large
bladder all over.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
I know, I get it. Thirty years into er medicine.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Do you ever tilt your head closer so you have
better hearing? No?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Not allowed, definitely not allowed.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Okay, all right, always a great topic. All right, walking, walking,
and depression. How do those connect?
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Well, I mean this is not really new. It's that
exercise and depression are connected and as in inversely connected.
So the more you exercise, the better off you'll be
as far as depression goes. And there's been studies that
show that the vigorous exercise thirty minutes, three or four
times a week is equal to something like prozac or
(23:16):
a lot of these antidepressants. So you know, exercise is
definitely helpful. But what I think what this really points
out is they were talking about seven thousand steps, and
so there's people out there trying to get ten thousand
steps a day, and seven thousand is not an overly
vigorous exercise that maybe somebody you know with other physical
(23:38):
ailments or problems couldn't do. And so I think the
point here is that you know, really just getting some
exercise will help, and don't necessarily look to kill it.
Just go find something that you like to do that
puts your body in movement. And whether that's yoga or
pickleball or walking or you know, golf or whatever, or gardening,
(23:58):
you know, those things, all our physical activities that can
help you not only stay physically fit, but mentally fit.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
All right, I consider you my doctor in many ways.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I go to you as a go to and not
asking for a diagnosis because I know, in nevermind we
went to this whole legal thing before.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
But here's what I do.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I walk an hour a day, I take an antidepressant
in really good dosages, and I still want to climb
up to the top of the parking structure and take
a swan dive off.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
What is that about?
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Well, I mean, by.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
The way, I'm not exaggerating, I'm still depressed.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
It's not really a laughing matter. But there are different
degrees obviously of depression, anxiety, all these other conditions. There's
there's bipolar depression, there's different forms of depression and some
of these more serious levels and forms. It's not necessarily
going to be simply treated with exercise. I think you'd
actually be worse off if you didn't exercise, so I
(24:59):
think it's helping you. But in your case, you know,
there are people that, due to chemistry and balance in
their brain, require a little more help than just exercise.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
All right, thanks, Jim, A good way to end the show.
I require a little bit more because there are.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
People in my position.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Jim, A pleasure. We'll talk again next Wednesday, assuming I'm
still alive.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Okay, take care, take care. All right, that's it, guys.
We're done.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Another day and another well it would be a dollar,
but you know we we're here at Ihearts.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
It's another eighty two cents.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Tomorrow morning Wake Up Call Amy from five to six.
Neil and I join from six to nine with this
show and working throughout most of the day and night,
Cono and Ann. This is KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
You've been listening to Wake Up Call with me, Amy King.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You can always hear Wake Up Call five to six
am Monday through Friday on KFI AM six forty and
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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