Season 2 Bonus Episode - Meet the Glaucomfleckens

05/28/2023

Season 2 Bonus Episode - Meet the Glaucomfleckens

Have you ever heard of Dr. Glaucomflecken?  How about Lady Glaucomflecken?  Well, millions of people have heard of them, and we'll get to know these funny and talented people too, on a special Season 2 Bonus Episode of the Healthy Matters Podcast!

We'll go over Dr. Glaucomflecken's start in comedy and Ophthalmology (yep, that's how you spell it), the origins of the characters in his skits, the importance of maintaining humor in our lives, and even an inspiring story from their own personal healthcare journey.  Join us as we sit down with these internet sensations to get wiser and have a healthy share of laughs.  It's good for you!

Check out the Glaucomflecken's own Knock Knock, Hi! podcast here!


Got a question for the doc?  Or an idea for a show?  Contact us!

Email - [e-mail]

Call - 612-873-TALK (8255)

Twitter - @drdavidhilden

Find out more at www.healthymatters.org

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Healthy Matters podcast with
Dr. David Hilden , primary carephysician and acute care
hospitalist at HennepinHealthcare in downtown
Minneapolis, where we cover thelatest in health, healthcare
and what matters to you. Andnow here's our host, Dr. David
Hilden .

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Healthy Matters
podcast. I'm your host, DavidHilden , and today we have a
very special show, a bonusepisode. We are recording here
in downtown Minneapolis fromHennepin Healthcare , also
known as the Big Countyhospital in Minneapolis. And
we're gonna be talking to Dr.
Gla Fln and Lady Gla Fln ,otherwise known as Will and

(00:43):
Kristen Flannery, you know themfrom internet fame. But I just
wanna start this out before Ieven introduce our guest by
saying that when I told acolleague in the hospital
hallways this morning that Iwas gonna be doing this
episode, they smiled and theysay , will you please say thank
you, ? Will you saythank you to these two? Because
they got us through thepandemic. So Will Kristen ,

(01:04):
welcome to the podcast. Thank

Speaker 3 (01:06):
You. Thank you so much. Good to be here. Thanks
for having

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Us. Now. Will, I'll start with you. You know, I, I
started out my career makingbarcodes as an electrical
engineer, so I'm a wee bit of anerd. Mm-hmm .
you on the other hand, soundslike you were a standup
comedian first.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, well, I was be because my barcode making
activities just didn't pan out,so I had to do something else.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
He was always a nerd, though,

Speaker 2 (01:31):
To be free . Were you a nerd? Were you , were

Speaker 3 (01:33):
You , no. Yeah , yeah , I've seen the pictures.
I did. I always thought , uh, Iwould go into medicine or like
science or something , uh,really going back to like,
probably early high school. AndI started doing standup as a
senior in high school cuz um ,my best friend was the funniest
person I know. He , uh, wassurreptitiously going to comedy

(01:55):
clubs at night and not tellinganybody about it. And he told
me about it and he was like,Hey, you should do this with
me. It's , this is , this willbe fun. So I , I did it. I , so
I went, I didn't tell, myparents didn't tell anybody.
We'd go and like a Wednesdaynight and we were 17, or I , he
was 18, I was 17 at the time,so I couldn't be in the comedy
club past a certain hour. Therewere like laws against that for

(02:18):
minors, I guess. And so I gotto tell five minutes of jokes
at like, you know, seven 15 inthe evening on a weeknight to
an audience of like eightpeople, three people. Yeah .
Yeah. It's like really , uh,not the primetime comedy club
going hours, but it was so muchfun and just being around other

(02:38):
funny people and riffing offeach other, writing jokes
together, just being in thatatmosphere. And I wasn't that
good at it. No one's reallygood at standup when they first
get started with it. But , um,it was just a really fun hobby
that I wanted to, even though Iwanted to go into medicine, I
wanted to continue doing thisreally as a hobby because it's
making a career outta standupcomedy is , um, I think in a

(03:02):
lot of ways easier thanbecoming a Doctor . So
Kristen ,

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Did you know Will at that stage? I mean, was he
funny?

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Um, no, and I'll let you decide which question
that's an answer to . No . Um ,no, I did not know him .
, I did not know him inhigh school. I, we met in
college , um, about halfwaythrough , um, our university
experience. So I , I wasn'tthere for the comedy club days,
but I was there by the time Imet him. He'd been doing it a

(03:31):
few years and he would, youknow, do open mic nights on
campus, things like that. So Idid see a few of those and
yeah, I thought, I thought hewas funny. And by this point,
you know, I've heard all of hisjokes so many times that yeah,
it's, you know, now I'm morelike a , he'll tell me a joke
and he'll say, that's funny.
, right? Like , yeah,

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Okay, ,

Speaker 4 (03:50):
That'll work. People will like that , you

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Know, I think you had a better dating strategy
than I did because you wannaknow how to kill a conversation
at a cocktail party. Talk aboutbarcodes, barcodes,

Speaker 4 (04:00):
, .

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah . You know, that's the end of that. Uh, you
know, and yeah , I didn't feellike it was terribly meaningful
work, although it probably is,but that's why I chose to go
into medicine then. And so thenWill, did you know, you wanted
to be an ophthalmologist?
Because it's a wee bit dorkyand I, I talked to our
ophthalmology chair here afterhe had just come and taken some
glass outta some kid's eye. Andso it's important, but, you
know, did you always know youwanted to

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Do that? No, I did not know I wanted to be an eye
doctor. In fact, when I got tomed school, I had no idea what
an ophthalmologist was. Couldyou

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Spell it? There's too many hs. It's

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Way too many Hs.
It's, it's , uh, the key tospelling ophthalmology is to
just , just add an extraconsonant every so often and
you'll eventually get there . But it's , um, I ,
my, my advisor in med schoolwas , was assigned to me, was
an ophthalmologist. And so Iremember asking her like, the
second week of med school,like, so what do you do? That's

(04:52):
eyeballs. Right? And that wasreally the beginning. And she,
she told me, she's like, you'regonna go away for a while .
You're gonna think about doingall these other things in
medicine, then you'll come backto ophthalmology because you
realize that, that it's, it'sclearly the best thing in
medicine. And objectivelythat's absolutely true. Like,
no , there's, I'm sure therehave been studies in like JAMA
and everything about howophthalmology clearly is the

(05:13):
best specialty. Uh , I don'tknow . I'm in private practice.
I don't pay attention toliterature anymore, but , um,

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, you don't have to, you don't , you know , I ,
the ophthalmologist saved mylife because I've got about 12
things wrong with my eyes. Andwhen I was two, I had like a
lateral rectus muscle problemthat, I don't know, I think
they tied it into a knot orsomething. And now I can see
again . So, you know,it was life changing for me. So
, uh,

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah . What are you then

Speaker 2 (05:36):
I find out they put, are

Speaker 3 (05:37):
You a little farsighted? Are you a little
farsighted? What are you? Oh ,

Speaker 2 (05:39):
I'm a little bit of everything. . Look , I ,
I got a lazy eye. I got, Idon't know, I , I forgot what
the muscles are. I'm aninternist , but I , but
I got a laser eye. I'mcolorblind, I have a refractory
problem. I think my eye's theshape of an egg or something
like that.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeah, you're, you're the , you're the perfect
patient for us. That's, this isgreat. It's like you were
designing a lab Yeah ,

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Exactly. To have all of the problems you guys can
fix . Okay . So, solet's talk a teeny bit about
how you got into this career asthe gla blackened . Cuz first
of all, maybe I was asleep thatday in med school, or maybe
they never taught it , or I wasprobably talking in class, cuz
that's what I do. But I don'thave any clue what Glock plein
is. Is it an actual thing? Itdoesn't sound very Irish and

(06:23):
the two of you look awfully

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Irish. Oh yes. Well, I am, I don't know if you have

Speaker 4 (06:28):
Flannery is a very Irish

Speaker 3 (06:29):
Name. Yeah , yeah , yeah , for sure. Uh, Glock
flein is an actual thing. It's,which is , which surprises
people, they actually think Myname is Dr. Glock Flein , which
, uh, it'd be a very strange ,uh, name for, I mean, a perfect
name for an ophthalmologist,but , um, also very strange.
Uh, I get people asking , uh,like calling in the clinic,

(06:49):
asking just to make anappointment with Dr. Glock
Flein . So it is something Ihave to deal with , uh, very
every so often.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
Yeah. They argue with the, the person who
answers the phone about, no,that's actually Dr. Flannery .
No, no. I want Dr. GlockFlecking . Yeah ,

Speaker 2 (07:02):
I want the real one.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah . But I can, if you're interested , I , I mean,
you said we weren't talkingabout ophthalmology, but , uh,
uh, but you don't have to giveme much , uh, space to, to just
tell you about ophthalmologyhere. So , uh, Glock flecking ,
uh, angle closure glaucoma.
Have you heard those wordsbefore?

Speaker 2 (07:18):
That one I remember.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
Angle flat . It's very bad. Yeah . really
high pressure inside the eyecauses things inside the eye to
kind of die and not work sogreat. And you get these little
grayish white flex on the lensthat are called Glock flecking
.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
It's very exciting.
Right ?

Speaker 3 (07:35):
It's hilarious, right ? It's that is

Speaker 4 (07:37):
Great . All your audience,

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Like why that's right up there with barcodes.
Dude, I think you might killthe , the conversation, the

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Perfect name for a comedian. Uh , wouldn't it ,
wouldn't you think ?

Speaker 2 (07:46):
I think it is the perfect name. I probably have
that condition too, and I justdon't know it.

Speaker 4 (07:50):
. It's

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Possible. Maybe you could . Okay . So let's pivot
that . Before I do, before Italk about your cast of
characters, Kristen , how didyou ever think you'd be doing
this? So you didn't havemedical training, but you have
all this advanced training. Youwent to college, you've got
your own career and your ownRight now you're like a
superhero, which we're gonnaget to later. You're a public

(08:12):
speaker, you're doing apodcast. Yeah. Did you , how
did, did you ever imagine thisis what you were gonna be
doing?

Speaker 4 (08:19):
No, I, I have, I went, my formal training is in
social psychology and cognitiveneuroscience. Um, and I, I went
to grad school for that. Um,and then for a plethora of
reasons I pivoted into , um,gifted education and marketing
and communications. And , uh,now I'm here. So it's been kind

(08:39):
of a , a windy road justbecause that's how life turned
out for me. But yeah, I neverwould've thought that, that I'd
be, first of all talking to,you know, the medical field and
secondly doing all of thesethings. So yeah, it's been,
it's been a surprise, but it'sfun. I enjoy it. And now I do
this full-time, so it's prettyawesome. Wow,

Speaker 2 (08:58):
That's so cool. And you play an obstetrician
gynecologist.

Speaker 4 (09:02):
Yeah. .

Speaker 2 (09:02):
I bet you never thought that either.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
No. Yeah. Very occasionally I show up in , in
some glam videos.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
So Kristen , you're a social psychologist. Are you
analyzing that guy to yourright All the time?

Speaker 4 (09:14):
I've been doing that for over a decade. Yeah. Mm-hmm
. like, I don'tknow , 15 years now of all
times.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
The pathology must run deep. There's

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Plenty .
There's plenty there. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (09:22):
There's plenty there.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
You should, you should see the things she walks
in on me doing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Recording

Speaker 3 (09:28):
These videos, . Yeah,

Speaker 4 (09:29):
I could, I could write a book.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
So let's pivot a little bit and talk about the
casting characters that you'vecreated under your al Alter
ego. Uh , yes , Dr. GlaFlecking . So first of all, do
you, do you make all them up onyour own? Did you have a grand
strategy or do these just kindof come to you here and there
as you go? It

Speaker 3 (09:50):
Has come on as I've, as I've gone really, I didn't
have like a, like a big , uh,you know, scary looking
whiteboard with all thesearrows and pointing in
different directions. Like I'msome kind of ma you know, evil
genius , uh, developing a plan.
Uh , it's, it's really been,his

Speaker 4 (10:07):
Brain is just very weird. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
It's , it's really been kinda as like , so
basically I started doing thecharacters whenever I had this
series of videos, a first dayof med student rotation videos.
So I would take a specialty andI would do this, you know, the
med students coming on and, andthey're talking with the
attending. And that was where alot of the characters got their
start. Like neurology,psychiatry, the surgeon,

(10:32):
anesthesiology with the showercaps, all these things. The
characters have changed alittle bit over time. Like
initially I have a couple ofvideos where the emergency
doctor was just like wearing afleece or something, and
eventually I turned it into , just someone who's
perpetually wearing a bicyclehelmet and outfit. Uh, and so
they, they have changed alittle bit as I've, like,

(10:52):
thought of more jokes. Butyeah, I just a , as I get the
ideas at this point, I've hitup almost every specialty.
There's a couple out there thatI haven't quite gotten to, but
, um, uh, they're, thecharacters are pretty well
fleshed out at this point. Doyou have

Speaker 2 (11:06):
A favorite, now the obvious answer is the internal
medicine guy . But doyou have a favorite? Because
that goes without saying,that's objectively true as
well. The,

Speaker 3 (11:14):
In the internal medicine doctor , uh, is very
non-descript. Uh, unfortunatelynot a lot of , um, defining
characteristics there just kindof blends into the background ,
uh, which I think maybe is acharacterization all itself. I
think that actually works quitewell. My favorite is the sci ,
like the psychiatrist. I , uh,I love the therapy videos. Um,

(11:37):
I don't know, I , I feel likeit changes week to week . Like
right now, I , I'm doing theserural medicine. I've been, I've
done a few of the ruralmedicine videos and I really
like that character a lot. Soof course, Jonathan and the,
the ophthalmologist interactingwith each other is, is a lot of
fun. So , yeah . So I

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Love the rural medicine ones. Yeah . I have
been that guy taking the callfrom the rural medicine guy
that's , there's some guy ,there's some farmer in North
Dakota whose limb is hangingoff . And , and it's

Speaker 3 (12:08):
Like, and he has to try to finish his fence .

Speaker 2 (12:09):
He should go in , in fact , he should get on a
chopper and come and land on aroof and have our guys sow his
leg back out . Well, you know,the cattle need to be milked.
Yeah. Christ gotta come in .
You did that. You nailed that

Speaker 3 (12:21):
. .
Yeah. I got a lot of goodfeedback on the rural medicine.
You know, I did my residencytraining in Iowa, so I, I took
care of a lot of farmers. Ivisited a lot of kind of rural
areas. And so that is , um,partly from my own experience,
just, you know, taking care ofpatients in that type of
community

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Is Jonathan based on a real guy. And for listeners,
if you don't know Jonathan, youneed to go online. You need to
check out the videos, you needto go, you need to , you also
need to listen to knock, knockhigh . You need to subscribe to
the podcast on YouTube.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
But, but you need to go learn about Jonathan because
in Jonathan , in the holy grailof medicine is to have a scribe
to do your stuff.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
That's my loyal scribe, Jonathan . That's

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Right . So do you have a scribe or did you , is

Speaker 3 (13:10):
This made up ? I do . I , no, I do have a loyal
scribe. Absolutely. That's,that's part of , uh, US
healthcare is that in order tobe efficient and actually enjoy
the time you spend at work, youhave to have a scribe. That's
how it works in this country.
, uh, I do have ascribe. So Jonathan is based on
the first scribe I ever had. Uh, his , his name is , uh, Luis

(13:31):
actually. And he is now a tech,so he's no longer scribes for
me. He's, he's a brilliant,brilliant guy. And so I based
it off of that. He's a littlebit quiet. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:42):
It's funny cuz he , I don't know that I ever heard
him say one word the whole timeI would come and have
appointments

Speaker 3 (13:48):
And things. He's, he's very just done . He's very
, he's very quiet. He just, hegets, gets to the work done.
He's very efficient. And so Ibased it off of Jonathan and
initially the first couple ofvideos that had Jonathan, he
actually spoke. He , but thejoke is, and in the content
that , uh, Jonathan masteredthe art of being seen but not
heard. And so , uh, and so the, the ancient scribing art of

(14:12):
being seen but not heard. And ,um, and so now he, he's like
this almost mythical characterwho has , uh, the power to do
almost anything in medicine ,uh, very quickly, very
efficiently,

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Including saute garlic for you and doing an
entire orthopedic clinic. Iunderstand

Speaker 3 (14:30):
And surgeries , he , he can take over , uh, when
the, when the surgeon needs abreak, he just steps right in.
Uh , because why shouldanesthesia only get the breaks?
Exactly . Maybe the surgeonshould get a break too, and
Jonathan steps in and justfinishes the job. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
I'll hail the Jonathans of the world. So
listeners, you know , uh, and ,and the producer of our podcast
actually, name is Jonathan, andhe's sitting right over there
and he's putting his, his handsup . I , but I'll hail
the Jonathan's other world. Uh, you know, you've nailed that.
So , uh, so specifically aswell, I walk into the clinic
and there's a lot of scribesand I'm, I'm doing my best to
like, introduce myself and say,hi, what's your name? But

(15:06):
they're very quiet

Speaker 3 (15:07):
. Yes, yes.
They're very quiet. And , uh, Iactually have had people come
up to me who are formerscribes. In fact, one of them
was named Jonathan . And , um,so I, I have heard from actual
scribes named Jonathan . Uh ,they have told me that , that I
have changed their life.
now for the better, forthe worse . I don't know , they

(15:30):
kinda left it at that, but ,um, I'll just assume it's for
the better .

Speaker 2 (15:33):
So do any of the specialties just, are they mad
at you? Like , uh, like haveyou, have you offended anybody
sufficiently yet ?

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah , sufficient.
Uh , uh, a little, a littlebit. Um, every specialty's a
little bit different with howthey react to being made fun
of. I never really like gosuper hard at a particular
specialty, you know, it's all,I try to make sure I don't
leave people feeling like Itook advantage of them or, or
just like really denigratedtheir, their specialty or their

(16:04):
purpose as physicians in aparticular specialty. That
being said, there's somespecialties that do handle it
better than others. Primarycare, family medicine in
particular. I , I get the mostnegative feedback on that
characterization, and I kind ofget it, you know, they're, they
, they are, I think, takenadvantage of just by the

(16:27):
healthcare system. Uh, andthey, I think feel like they're
looked down upon by other areasof medicine as less worthy, or
I don't even know it . It's,and so basically they just,
they're, they have this, thissense that they're that kind

Speaker 4 (16:44):
Of an underdog.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
They're the underdog of medicine. Yeah. And so, yeah
. Yeah , yeah. Go ahead. Ithink they're a little, they ,
they just , uh, so it's alittle bit , um, difficult I
think for them to see somebodylike me who's, who's a surgeon
and you know, as a surgicalfield, you know, making fun of
them. And so I I, I never likeget mad that they're mad at me
, uh, because in the end Itrust the characterization.

(17:07):
Like it's, there's truth to allof these characters, right? And

Speaker 4 (17:10):
It's meant to be a sympathetic character,

Speaker 3 (17:11):
Meant to be a sympathetic,

Speaker 4 (17:12):
They're working really hard and are very
competent. And the system isjust making it nearly
impossible for them or anyoneto do a job like that.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
That's the idea. And so it's, and as long as I come
across that way , uh, I , youknow, I, I stand by the
character, but I, I, and it'snot, it's not everybody, it's
just, I always get, it'snoticeable. I , I get a few
more comments, but it happenswith other characters as well.
You know, there are some neuroneurologists that are maybe
aren't too happy. Yeah , that's

Speaker 2 (17:38):
A neural one I was wondering about that . That
makes sense. You know, I, I'minternal medicine and maybe
it's because I simply lackenough , uh, as an internist
enough emotional intelligenceto know if I'm being made fun
of, you know, I don't know , but , uh, I actually
think you're just shining alight on a , and I do primary
care , uh, as , as well ashospital work. And I think you
just nail it. But I could seewhy some might take a little

(17:58):
offense, but you're not really,you're doing satire on a
profession. Right. It doesn'tstrike

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Me as particularly

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Judgmental .

Speaker 3 (18:05):
Exactly. Yeah . And , uh, and yeah , I'll tell you,
one of my favorite personalfavorite videos , uh, um, was
one of the , uh, internalmedicine rounding videos where
you're, you know , talkingabout , um, ordering Lasix and
, uh, you know, there's, youknow, a , a non-zero percent
probability that that couldhelp, you know, we have to, and

(18:25):
they're going back and forth.
And , uh, I love, I love makingfun of internal medicine
rounding. It's just, well ,

Speaker 2 (18:31):
We , we do , we do round for about four hours, you
know, and I go on thatwhiteboard and I start
scribbling out hyponatremia.
I've got all these, you know,20 years worth of wonderful
knowledge, and we're gonna talkabout that hyponatremia until
the, the med students are overhere drooling. They're asleep,
they're drooling. And then theresidents are giving me this
eye roll . They're orderingstuff on somebody else. And I'm

(18:52):
still droning on abouthyponatremia. So you and it

Speaker 3 (18:56):
Hours , you just come alive. You come alive. You
, it's , it's ,

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah . You know , that you lived for that .
There's nothing sexier thanhyponatremia. I mean, come on.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
So, what's next for , um, for both of you in terms
of the, the social media andthe, the, the speaking of the
publishing, you've, you are thehosts of Knock-Knock Kai , and
I'd like you to talk aboutthat, how that started up the,
your newer podcast. Yeah . Andthen what's, what's next for
the Glock Flecking cast ofcharacters? Do you have a
Netflix video coming up? Do youhave a a movie? You

(19:28):
know , talk about those if youcould,

Speaker 3 (19:30):
Man . Well, right now we're spending a lot of
time, you know, with the , thepodcast , uh, you know, getting
that off the ground. It's now,we're about 15 episodes into
it. Been doing it for, I think, since January been published
together . And it's, it's beena lot of fun doing that
together. Uh , the purpose ofthe podcast is called Knock,
knock High with the GlockFlecking . And it's a way for,

(19:51):
for people who wanna listen to,to me talk for like, longer
than 90 seconds. And , uh, I

Speaker 4 (19:58):
Don't imagine there are many of those,

Speaker 3 (19:59):
But okay . Maybe not . Um, and so, but it's
a way we, we bring on , uh,physicians and other people in
healthcare , uh, and it reallyjust shows like a more human
side to, to practicingmedicine. And so we have people
bring stories from their ,usually it's from their
training, cuz that's when allthe great stories happen is
from like, residency and medschool. And , um, and we, you

(20:21):
know, play, do activities, playlittle games, and just in
general just show a fun side ofthe profession occasionally
touching .

Speaker 2 (20:29):
So where do you find your people? Because I just, I
looked through some recentepisodes of Knock Knock Eye ,
and here, here we have anepisode about naked patients in
the emergency department.
Mm-hmm . , wehave an episode about ruptured
spleens. Mm-hmm . , we have an episode about the
rural medicine. Who does your,do you just, how do you find
your topics? Because that's a ,that's a bunch of good topics.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
Well , by virtue of what I do on social media, I,
I've, I've developed a lot ofconnections with lots of
people. And so , um, I'm goingthrough and just, you know,
people I think would be fun totalk to and , uh, have some
interesting things to say,interesting stories. And a lot
of them I'll reach out to, wehave , uh, a team of, of
producers also that, that help.

(21:12):
And they're looking on socialmedia seeing, you know, who we
could bring on to , to talkabout , uh, yeah , we're
looking for someone to talkexclusively about hyponatremia.
If you're, you know , we coulddo , could do a solid two
hours, if that's enough. Oh ,

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Well if I cut it back, if I cut it back, we
could get it down to two hours.
I think I need , but you knowwhat ? You might need the
intersection of barcoding inmedicine.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
There you go. Oh yeah. Oh , you know, it's
funny, I have done a videoabout barcodes. You know, I ,
it was, it was , uh, bill hadto take a specimen down to the
lab and there was a lot of ,uh, 2D barcode related humor in
that one. Wasn't one of my ,did

Speaker 2 (21:47):
You agree with that ? Was there any humor involved
in the barcode video?

Speaker 3 (21:50):
, I gotta say, it wasn't one of my more
popular videos , so,you know, sorry to say. But ,
uh, yeah, so the, the podcastis , um, and, and it's awesome
doing it with Kristen toobecause , uh, Kristen brings a
non-medical,

Speaker 4 (22:05):
Non-medical, yeah. I kind of have a , an inside out
view of it. Like, I've beenalong the whole ride since we
met in college. So I've beenthere through med school and
residency and the whole thing.
Um, and so I've obviouslypicked up a lot along the way,
but I'm not actually inmedicine. And so , um, you
know, I, I think bodies aregross. So I'm pretty, pretty
squeamish about it. It's true .

(22:26):
Uh , and also I, I kind ofbring that non-medical
perspective of like, you , youguys know, this is a very weird
job, right? Just, just wannamake sure everyone doesn't lose
sight of that.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
You actually put needles in people's eyes, which
is warped. I just wanna saythat's what to know . Everybody
should do that.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
Well, she's got an eye thing. Like it's, I

Speaker 4 (22:42):
Hate, it just makes me sound squeamish. Yeah .

Speaker 3 (22:45):
So I , I can't, I can't talk about eyeballs, so
you

Speaker 4 (22:47):
Can't, yeah. In residency, he'd always have his
textbooks open and it would bethese horrible pictures. I
can't scroll through his phone,even if I wanted to. Maybe

Speaker 3 (22:55):
Subconsciously

Speaker 4 (22:57):
Disgusting eyes.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Maybe that's why I do all these different
characters, because I can't bemyself. I can't talk about
eyeball. That's

Speaker 2 (23:03):
Right. You can't, you know , you know, if you
guys want to talk about it, wecould talk about this, but
about the marital harmony here,you know, if that would be
helpful,

Speaker 4 (23:10):
He finds a way to sneak it in. Don't worry about
that . I'm listening .

Speaker 3 (23:15):
But what do we have?
Let's see. Uh , you know, we ,we have lots of ideas of things
that we, places we want to takeall of this. And

Speaker 4 (23:22):
Yeah, I just started full-time. Um, you know, we, we
made an official business outof Glock m plucking , and now
I'm doing that full-time. Anduntil we're kind of getting a
lot of things tidied up behindthe scenes and, and in place
for some exciting futuredirections. But , um, yeah,
right now the podcast is a bigfocus. Um, we wanna keep

(23:43):
creating videos. We'll see, youknow, we've, we've thrown
around some ideas about , um,making some longer form videos
that involve the charactersand, and see where that might
go. Um ,

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Do you have a connection at Netflix? Is that
Oh, yeah. Yeah . Is thatsomething that type with a CEO
of

Speaker 4 (23:58):
, they have a barcode guy over there that
you could connect us. Yeah,exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Exactly. That's what you need. You need Atu , you
need the Netflix special . I bet you've already
thought of that, but if not, II only take like a 10% cut if
that happens , you know , for ,for the finder's fee . For that
listeners, we are talking withDr. Will Flannery and Kristen
Flannery, a k a Dr. Gleen andLady Gleen . And we are, are

(24:23):
gonna take a short break andwhen we come back we're gonna
shift gears and we are gonnatalk about a medical situation
that happened in their familyKristen's lifesaving role and
what you might be able to learnfrom it. Stay with us. We'll be
right back.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
You are listening to the Healthy Matters podcast
with Dr . David Hedon . Got aquestion or comment for the
doc. Email us at HealthyMatters hc m e d.org or give us
a call at six one two eightseven three talk. That's 6 1 2
8 7 3 8 2 5 5. And now let'sget back to more healthy

(24:58):
conversation.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
We've talked about your medical career. We've
talked about your comedy careerand how the two of you have
launched on this enterprise ,uh, about the gleans . Let's
turn to your personal life tothe degree you want to. And
Kristen , maybe you could tellthe tale of what happened to
Will both in his , he had acancer diagnosis as well as a

(25:24):
cardiac arrest that happenedjust a few years ago. Could you
tell us about it?

Speaker 4 (25:28):
Yeah, so , um, every time we had a child, we have
two children. And every timeone of them turned, you know,
was about one year old, hethought it would be fun to
celebrate with , um, cancer . So he got tested as
can do cancer ? Yes. A yearafter our first child was born
while he was in medical school.

(25:48):
And then a year after oursecond child was born, while he
was in residency, he gottesticular cancer in the other
testicle. Not related, not aresponse to treatment the first
time. None of that. Just thatlucky, I guess. And then to top
it all off, the day afterMother's Day, he's got a thing
about like holidays, I think.
Yeah . Uh , the day afterMother's Day in 2020 during a

(26:10):
global pandemic, he thoughtit'd be fun to die. And so he
had a , a sudden cardiac arrestin his sleep. Uh, and I woke
up, it was about 4 45 in themorning. Um, so I was in a
pretty deep sleep at the time,but he started making really
loud noises that, again, I amnot in the medical profession
in any way. Um, and so I just,I was coming out of a deep

(26:33):
sleep , I was groggy and itsounded kind of like snoring.
So I just kind of like pushedhim over to try to get him to
stop, you know, . Butit continued and, and just some
other things were a, a littlebit off from what might be
normal. So , um, eventually Ifigured out eventually it was
probably like 15 seconds orsomething, but it felt longer.
I figured out that this was anemergency situation. I didn't

(26:54):
know what was going on exactly,but I knew I needed to call 9 1
1. And so I did. And they toldme to start chest compressions.
Um, and so I did C P R for 10minutes. Wow. Um , I couldn't
move him off the bed, so I justhad to do it there on the bed.
Thankfully I have a bad back.
So we have a firm mattress.

(27:14):
.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah . Cause we put boards behind people. Mm-hmm .
.

Speaker 4 (27:17):
Exactly. Yeah. So I did 10 minutes of C P R before
the, the paramedics arrived andthen they took him off. You
know, they shocked him I thinkfive times before , um, they
got his heartbeat back and thenthey took him off to the
hospital. Yeah. So that was,that was not so fun. But I was
glad I was there. Sometimes Ihad to travel, you know, I had
a job at the time thatsometimes I had to travel for

(27:38):
work. So I was really happythat I was not traveling
on that day andotherwise

Speaker 3 (27:45):
I'd have to do it myself. That's right.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah , exactly . You would've been doing it
yourself. I would've

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Worked out. Well be hard to

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Tell Jonathan. A lot of us unconscious that
Kristen , that's anexceptional, an exceptional
tale. So I personally in thishospital have done cpr, I don't
know , 20, 30 times it. Um,usually I'm surrounded by 20
people. Mm-hmm . , who are highly skilled
professionals. There's arespiratory therapist and maybe
an anesthesiologist, some guyin a bike helmet who's doing an

(28:12):
in intubation. That's right .
And I'm doing cpr and often thepatients do okay, but sometimes
they don't, even in thatsetting mm-hmm .
often the patients literallydon't survive. Mm-hmm.
, especially with10 minutes of C P R . And I'm
looking at a guy who looksmostly neurologically intact,
almost

Speaker 4 (28:31):
Like's debatable, like

Speaker 2 (28:33):
95% . Yeah . Yeah.
, you know, but that isan incredible outcome cuz now
you're really in internalmedicine territory with cardiac
arrest. So I assume he had somekind of ventricular
fibrillation or some cardiacarrest, but you maybe didn't
know that at the time. How didyou ,

Speaker 4 (28:49):
You know,

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Do that? How did you know to do cpr? I

Speaker 4 (28:52):
Give all credit there to the dispatcher. Um, I
had no idea, you know, it wasMay of 2020, so my mind
immediately went to Covid . Hewas making these respiratory
sounds that, you know, Ilearned later. Were obviously
agonal respirations, but, butit just sounded like a
breathing thing to me. So Iwent to Covid , but she was the
one even, you know, I , I didput my head on his chest just,

(29:14):
I don't know , at a reflex orsomething, just to see like
what's going on in there. And Ididn't hear anything. Um, and I
couldn't see any movement ofhis chest to show, you know,
respiration. But even like apart of my brain registered
that, but a different part ofmy brain didn't know what to do
with that information. Like ,that doesn't make any sense.
You know, it didn't click. Um,and so the dispatcher is the
one who really, who knew whatto do and what was going on

(29:36):
and, and she walked me through,you know, instructions and all
of that. And so I, I reallycredit her with, with saving
his life. Cuz if it had justbeen me and she had not been
there, I wouldn't have known todo that.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
So did you have like the cell phone right next to
you on the bed on speaker? Orhow did you do

Speaker 4 (29:51):
That ? Yeah, she told me to put it on speaker
and put it nearby and, and soI, I just put it on, I think, I
don't know, the pillow orsomething next to his head and,
and was doing chestcompressions and the paramedics
later we met up with them for alittle reunion afterward. And ,
uh, one of them said that Iwas, I don't remember doing
this, but I must have gottendown, put my feet on the floor,

(30:12):
basically over the bed, youknow. Um, and he said that my,
I was pushing so hard with thechest compressions that my feet
were coming off the floor. So Iwas basically just jumping on
him, trying to get him

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Give like the talk on how to do it . You
know , we have all these tricksto tell people, you know, do
Staying Alive the BG song, doit . Yeah .

Speaker 4 (30:29):
And that doing that was going through my mind. I'd
heard that before, so I

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Had You heard that.
Yeah . Whatever you're doing,you're probably not doing it
fast enough or hard enough. Andit sounds like you were like
jumping on a trampoline. Well,we

Speaker 4 (30:38):
Had just signed a mortgage the month before, so
there was no way I was lettinghim out of there. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Exactly. .
Yeah . I'm glad that was goingthrough your head and actually
putting your ear to the chest.
You know , it was a coupleyears before my time, but
that's why the guy invented thestethoscope, so they didn't
have to do that anymore.
.

Speaker 4 (30:57):
Yeah. But I should have come into the prop closet
and grabbed one, but I That'sright.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
Hate got it . That's right .

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Does he even have one? Will you even have a
stethoscope? Just , just as a

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Prop, just strictly for skits. Yeah , that's,
that's all I use . It's a toy

Speaker 4 (31:09):
. That's

Speaker 2 (31:09):
One of the Fisher Price ones that they have at
the nurses' stations that youliterally couldn't hear a jet
airplane and you're supposed tolisten to, you know , that's,
that's right . So Will , do youremember any of this? What do
you remember, what's the lastthing you remember going to
bed?

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Uh, last thing I remember was earlier that
afternoon. Nope . Taking my kidon a drive already . Drive
around. Wasn't that the sameday to try to get her to calm
down? Uh ,

Speaker 4 (31:33):
Well I guess that was Sunday. Yeah. Yeah. And
this was,

Speaker 3 (31:35):
I remember. So yeah, she had some kind of meltdown
that day, I don't know. And soI , and

Speaker 4 (31:40):
It was Mother's Day.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
It was Mother's Day.
So I had, I put her in the carjust to drive her, just to get
her out of the house basically.
And , uh, that I remember wherewe drove Oh , okay. That day.
And that's, it was a

Speaker 2 (31:51):
Lovely Mother's Day gesture.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah. It really was.
I think so that

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Was , most mothers on Mother's Day say , what can
you get, get me for Mother'sDays ? They take these kids
outta here.

Speaker 3 (31:59):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (32:00):
That started, we have a tradition in our house
of Mother's Day and Father'sDay are the high holy days of
our house, because on thosedays you don't have to do any
parenting. And so if thechildren start just
misbehaving, you remove them.
Perfect . Yep .

Speaker 3 (32:13):
But to anybody listening, parenting is great.
Yeah . It's love it . It'sfantastic. .
Absolutely. There's no downsideto it. Uh , there's

Speaker 2 (32:21):
None whatsoever. You know, what you can do is your
kids are little. We used tojust Velcro our kids to the
wall, you know, you put 'em ina Velcro vest, that's so , and
then you just so smart stickthem up there and they cut
great . And they think

Speaker 4 (32:30):
It's fun and Yeah .

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Oh yeah. It's perfect. Win-win. It's

Speaker 4 (32:32):
Perfect.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Do you , so then did you have any, you know , maybe
you don't wanna tell us allabout your personal medical
history, but did you have haveany warning whatsoever? You
just went to bed normally thatnight?

Speaker 3 (32:41):
Just went to bed and then , um, I woke up in the ICU
like two days later Yep .
Without any underwear on, soYeah .

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yeah. As , as happens, you know, and it was ,
as you know what it was,

Speaker 3 (32:54):
I didn't know what was going on.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
It was probably Jonathan who cut off your
underwear in the emergencydepartment. I'm

Speaker 3 (32:59):
Sure it was. Yeah .
Yes. No , I

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Or a guy in a bike helmet.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
That's right. And the first thing I remember is
just feeling confused. Uh , I ,and honestly, the first thing I
remember was talking to, toKristen , uh, I think on the
phone at that point, later onin the iPad, we had a
conversation, but I rememberthe sound of her voice and
like, the tone of her voice,kind of like just talking very

(33:22):
matter-of-factly.

Speaker 4 (33:24):
Like very measured, careful.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
Yeah . Like you're in the hospital, they're taking
good care of you. That , andthat was, you know, and slowly
I, I learned what had happenedto me. I still have a lot of
patchy memory around that timethough, so there's , there's
still a lot. I don't, I get thetimeline wrong all the

Speaker 4 (33:40):
Time. Yeah . That's my pet peeve when people ask
him about all that. Cause I'mlike, he doesn't know he had
amnesia. Yeah .

Speaker 2 (33:46):
Don't remember any of that . Maybe that's the
body's natural reaction to haveamnesia. You , you don't need
to remember in that. Yeah . I

Speaker 3 (33:51):
Mean, she lived through every second of it, and
so I Yeah , I

Speaker 4 (33:55):
Remember.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah. So in , you know, in a lot of ways it's the
, that story, I'm glad you hadKristen tell it because it's,
it's her story more, you know,in a lot of ways. Um,
especially that the actualtrauma itself, the event.

Speaker 4 (34:08):
Yeah. And that's something I talk about a lot. I
mean, he , he of course has hisown side of the story , uh,
what it's like to be a survivorof sudden cardiac arrest. But ,
um, the event itself, he didnot experience, you know, he
was unconscious. Um, his bodyexperienced it, of course, but
his, he doesn't have any memoryof that. He didn't, he wasn't

(34:28):
conscious during it. He didn't,he didn't encode any of that in
his, you know, neural activity.
So , uh, for me though, thatwas, I'll never forget, you
know, that was the mosttraumatic experience of my
life. And , um, you know, Iwatched him turn blue and
purple and gray and I listenedto his body thump really hard

(34:49):
on the floor with the firstshock. And then I couldn't
stand to be down there anymore.
So I went upstairs and Ichecked on the kids and I was
just, you know, hoping thatthey were not gonna be coming
out of their room with all thenoise going on. Um, you know,
all those things. I packed thehospital bag. I , I did all the
things and, and I remember allof that. And a lot of times the

(35:11):
people who respond to out ofhospital cardiac arrests or, or
any other, you know, criticalillness, the family members,
the people who witness it,there's nothing in the system
to account for them or to helpthem. Um, and so I really try
to speak out about , um, youknow, these co patients or co
survivors of these really bigmedical events because in many
ways it affects them just asmuch, if not more than the, the

(35:34):
actual patient who it happenedto.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
I, I have one other experience in our hospital
where we had a , a , a nurse, aregistered nurse training for a
triathlon and had a cardiacarrest in a Wisconsin lake
while she was swimming. Herfather was in the boat and
mm-hmm . andpulled her in there and did C P
R . So that is the only othercase that I'm that familiar
with, where a person has to dothat act on a loved one. And
it's not , uh, for listeners,this is a serious message that

(36:00):
I think you all should learn.
And I'm gonna ask Kristen toprobably say a similar message,
you need to learn how to do C PR , you need to learn
bystander, c p r . It's no moreof the mouth to mouth stuff.
It's not all that stuff. Youjust need to push on the chest.
What is your message, Kristen ,to people about , uh, about
knowing what to do because youdidn't know, but you just

(36:21):
acted? What would you like totell people? Yeah .

Speaker 4 (36:24):
Um, I, first of all, I would say, you know, don't be
scared. You can't hurt thembecause they're already dead.
And if they are not, and youdon't need to be doing CPR on
them, they will let you know.
So there's no, you know,there's no need to be afraid
of, of actually, you know,hurting them because you might
break a rib or two , but abroken rib is better than being

(36:44):
dead. So there's that. And thenalso, you know, you don't have
to, getting certified is great,and if you can do that,
definitely do , uh, but youdon't have to. Even if you're
not certified, you know, youcan watch a YouTube video. It's
not a complicated maneuver.
Just watch something to learnhow to do it. Everybody should
know how to do it. Um, and thenI also always want to point out

(37:06):
that bystanders make a hugedifference in the survival rate
for people who have a cardiacarrest outside of the hospital.
It's, it's like ridiculousstatistics. They, they
basically oversimplifying it.
They just, they don't surviveif there's no one there to do
cpr. And if they do cpr r a lotof them do do survive. So you
can make a big difference. Butif we are going to ask people

(37:26):
to be bystanders and, and layresponders to , um, sudden
cardiac arrest, then we also, Ithink it's incumbent on , um,
the medical profession to alsomake sure that there are
supports in place for thepeople that do that. Because
most of the people in thatsituation are not gonna be
medically trained. They're notgonna be prepared for what
they've seen. They're not gonnabe used to seeing things like

(37:47):
that. And often it's gonna beon someone that they know. And
it's an incredibly traumaticexperience to witness it, let
alone to be the one doing it.
Um, so, so definitely I thinkwe need both. We need people to
learn C P R and we needsupports in place for people
once they have performed c p

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Your message alone is a gift to our listeners
about that. Thanks . Thatmessage alone. Now, what have
you told your daughters? Arethey aware of what happened?

Speaker 4 (38:15):
They are, yeah.
Yeah. Doing CPR on him was thehardest thing that I had to do
up until, you know, I don'tknow , an hour later when I had
to go in my kids' room and tellthem what had happened. And,
you know, they were eight andfive at the time, so I had to
think of a way to do that in anage appropriate way. At that
point, we didn't know if he wasgoing to live, live. And even

(38:35):
if he did live, we didn't knowif he was going to have, you
know, neurological function orremember us or remember himself
or any of that. Uh, so I , Ididn't have a lot of good
concrete information to givethem other than I said, you
know, dad got sick and heneeded some equipment that we
don't have here to help him.
And so they took him to thehospital and they're gonna help
him. And that's, that's all Iknew for sure. . So

(38:58):
that's what I told them. And,and you know, as we got more
information over the next dayor two , um, I, I tried to
share it with them in ageappropriate ways, but of course
they grow and they, they, theirbrain develops, you know, as
they grow and they understandmore and more as that happens.
Um, and so it's not reallylike, it wasn't this discreet
event of we told them and nowthat's done. Now we keep

(39:19):
telling them , um, theyunderstand more about it as
they get older and then theyhave different questions. And
so then we address thosequestions and so they do know
what happened. Um, I thinkthere's still more realizations
that will occur for them formany years, but , uh, but
they're handling it reallywell. Um , I think this sounds

(39:40):
weird, but I think it helpedthat he had cancer twice when
they were very, very little.
Right. They're just used to dadhaving these weird things
happening. Hopefully

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Third time's a charm though. You're done . I sure
hope so. Well enough. Okay .
Dude, you know, you've had yourthree things.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
Yeah . I mean, there are other ways to get
attention. Come on. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (39:59):
It's true. There

Speaker 2 (40:01):
Are other , you know , and, and seriously may of
2020, I was wearing the same n95 mask for like the , my third
month. It had fungus growing init, I'm sure. But we had one ,
we treated it like gold. Andso, you know, this Were you ,
were you trying to get out ofthe pandemic? That's what I
want to know. ,

Speaker 4 (40:18):
, you know , he's that afraid of heading to
the hospital as an

Speaker 3 (40:22):
Ophthalmologist man . Yeah. I'm , I'm , my utility
during a respiratory pandemicis somewhat limited as an
ophthalmologist. So

Speaker 2 (40:30):
Did you learn about the healthcare system from the
other side? Now are , are you aOh yeah. Are you a , a big
proponent of our healthcaresystem and our payers and all
that?

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Oh. Uh , what do you think? Uh , it's , uh, uh, oh ,

Speaker 2 (40:40):
I bet it Wait , I bet it went swimmingly well,

Speaker 3 (40:42):
It went great. Yeah.
No, it was , uh, because ofwhat I had to go through, what
we all had to go through. Youknow, everyone's so happy
right. When you come home fromthe hospital. Right. And we
were, we were, it was, it wasawesome. You know, I had to got
to hug my family again whocouldn't be in the hospital
with me during covid . And ,um, and then the medical bills
start coming and it's neverjust like one bill, right?

(41:04):
It's, it's like you get a billevery like two weeks and, but
sometimes it's an explanationof benefits from your insurance
company. It looks kind of likea bill, but they say it's not a
bill and then you get anotherbill. Is that reflected in your
explanation of benefits or isit not ? Because

Speaker 4 (41:18):
None of it says what it's for. It's not like it's
itemized. So it's , do I

Speaker 2 (41:21):
Have to send this amount in or something

Speaker 3 (41:23):
Else ? Hang , wait, have I already paid this one?
But this one looks like adifferent bill, but it kind of
looks the same as the others.
It's so needlessly complicated.
Yep . And it's, it was hard forme as a physician to, to
navigate this. And so what ittaught me was just exactly what
our patients go through. And itreally resulted in a sea change

(41:47):
in my, in my content and mycomedy. Uh, that's when I
started doing more satirerelated to our health insurance
, uh, the health insuranceindustry or just healthcare in
general. And so, and I've beendoing that now for a couple
years , uh, really going afterthese health insurance
companies really hard becauseit's a, a huge problem in so

(42:10):
many different ways. And I'vehave this never-ending supply
of content that I could minefrom our healthcare system. Uh,
because there's just so manyproblems that make it
challenging for physicians andpatients.

Speaker 4 (42:22):
I think our first taste of it was when they , you
know, the shenanigans that theyget up to was , uh, he of
course was unconscious and inan ambulance and we didn't have
a choice about where he went.
They just took him to theclosest hospital. Oh, that was
your first mistake. Thehospital was covered. It was in
network, but the internist, amI using that word Right? The

(42:45):
doctor in the icu , several ofdoctors he treated him was not
in-network Yeah . Within thein-network hospital. And
meanwhile he's unconscious andI'm not allowed in. So how are
we supposed to have any controlover any of that ? I

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Didn't check. I didn't check before. You didn't
check before you went. I didn'tcheck before I went.
Unfortunately, they

Speaker 4 (43:04):
Didn't cover his bills . And

Speaker 3 (43:05):
That was didn't design

Speaker 2 (43:06):
The healthcare system. This is exactly what
you wouldn't design, in myopinion. You know, and I work
at a county safety and ahospital where half the
patients are non-Englishspeaking or they, or they're ,
uh, from another culture orthey're poor or they're,
they're not, they don't have aplace to live. And , uh, I
can't imagine navigating thatwhen hearing what your
experience was and two highlyeducated people.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
Yeah. And, and so, you know, I, I had a lot of
surprise bills and since then,now surprise billing is
technically outlawed. You know,you're, you're not allowed to
balance bill . Well , theystill have surprise Bill. Yeah.
You know, but that's just onething, right. And there's so
many different , uh, of , ofaspects of our healthcare

(43:47):
system that need a massiveoverhaul, especially when you
see the perpetually risingprofits and revenue of, of
UnitedHealthcare and Aetna andCigna and all these things. Uh,
and so , um, it's a line ofcontent that I really enjoy
making and I'm gonna keep doingit because, you know, I don't
know if it helps. I , I thinkit maybe , hopefully it has

(44:10):
some kind of impact at least tojust inform people like, this
is, this is what this problemis. Cuz people outside of
medicine, you know, these arelike kind of shadow
organizations in a lot of ways.
Like all these pharmacy benefitmanagers and, you know, these
are, these are things that Ithink are, these large
corporations are purposelytrying to obscure from the

(44:33):
general public. And so we knowa little bit about it as
medical professionals, but bymaking these videos, I I'm ,
I'm trying to make itaccessible to a larger general
audience so that everybody canunderstand, oh, that's, that's
going on and wow, that's aproblem. And oh man, this is
really funny. That's, thoselike the three things I've

(44:55):
tried to up ,

Speaker 2 (44:55):
I can't tell you

Speaker 4 (44:57):
Rely on that obscurity, you know? So I think
it does help just, justeducating people that these
things happen and in such apalatable way. And I think the
more people share theirstories, the less these
companies will be able to dothese tactics in the ways that
they do.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
I hope you keep doing that. Um, I couldn't
agree with you more, and I'llbet you are in demand for the
healthcare payers and insurancecompanies for their annual
meetings , to be likethe speaker

Speaker 3 (45:23):
. Oh yeah. I get a lot of speaking re
requests and I've neverreceived one from a health
insurance company, so Yeah ,I'm sure

Speaker 2 (45:30):
I'm , I'm sure they're coming any minute now.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
,

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Do you have , do you have time for a couple
questions that we have receivedfrom people in our
organization? Let's , let's doit , just a couple questions
and then , then we'll wrap itup. So you've made a name for
yourself by being goofy, . Are you that way at
home? Will and Kristen , is hereally such a goofball

Speaker 3 (45:52):
Sometimes? Am I a goofball?

Speaker 4 (45:54):
Um, , his, his real persona is at home, is
very different than, than thecharacters. Um, he's actually
very introverted and very quietand , um, lives in his own mind
a lot. Like it's hard to gethis attention sometimes cuz
he's, you can only do onethought at a time or one.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
I'm not, I'm not a great multitasker. No,

Speaker 4 (46:19):
Well , no. Yeah, no, he's, and he's , you know, kind
of grouchies

Speaker 3 (46:23):
Sometimes.

Speaker 4 (46:25):
So they say people are, especially with the kids,
he can be more of the, the gogoofball. Yeah. What

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Would your daughters answer that question? Would
they say their dad

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Is a goofball?

Speaker 4 (46:35):
Yeah, I think so.
Absolut and one of the thingsthat you are, anyway, yeah, I
think that would be on thelist.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
I hope so. .
So next question is this,comedy is healing, but in
medicine there is a li a fineline between poking fun at the
profession and offending peopleparticularly patience . Yeah .
How do you balance that?

Speaker 3 (46:55):
Well, I have, I have certain rules that I don't
violate whenever I'm makingcomedy. Uh , because this is a
, a unique space to be acomedian in medicine because ,
uh, a lot of aspects of ourjobs are very serious. We're
dealing with patients lives orexcept in my case, it's just
their eyes. But , um, and so Iam very careful, if you notice

(47:20):
in my content , I never have apatient character or very
rarely have like a, a , adepiction of a patient. And I
do that purposefully becauseit's, I, I am not gonna do
anything that will underminethe trust that patients or the
general public has inphysicians. I , I don't want to
damage that in any way. It'salready being damaged enough in

(47:42):
other ways. Uh , um, and so, sothat's why I I stay away from
comedy directed toward or evenabout patients. So it's all
specialty to specialtyinteractions, you know, doctor
to doctor interactions ormaking fun of, when I really
ratchet up the ridicule is whenI'm talking about these, you

(48:04):
know , large organizations thatare taking advantage of people,
right? Mm-hmm . ,because that's still punching
up. I'm punching up at thesepublishing companies or
administration or, you know,insurance, insurance or
whatever it is , privateequity. Uh, and so directing
the ridicule in the right wayis, is really key when you're
trying to incorporate humorinto the medical field. And I

(48:27):
think that's kept me out oftrouble for the most part. You
know, I, I've made mistakesevery , you know, you can't
really do this without like,you know, somebody off or , or
saying the wrong thing. AndI've deleted videos, I've
deleted tweets, and , uh,because it, it didn't, it just
didn't land correctly. Or maybeI shouldn't have taken a shot
at somebody that I did take ashot at, and, you know, that's

(48:51):
being human, you know, it's,it's , uh, it's part of it. And
I think as long as you'rewilling to own up to your
mistakes and recognize thatit's okay, it's all right .

Speaker 4 (49:02):
And we know what it's like to be the patient,
you know, and there is nothingfunny about , um, being the
patient. They're having, youknow, the worst day of their
life, potentially on a day.
That's just another Tuesdayfor, for the physicians, you
know? So that's kind of, Ithink we both see that as a
very sacred thing to be as apatient. And so even if you
weren't a physician, even if hedidn't have to consider the

(49:24):
patient physician relationship,you know, I think making fun of
patients and what they're goingthrough is just not something
that we would ever

Speaker 3 (49:31):
Wanted

Speaker 4 (49:31):
Do.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
Don't do it. It's

Speaker 2 (49:33):
Not like , last question from me. Do you need a
job in Minneapolis? You know,because here's the thing , we
have an ophthalmologydepartment. Kristen , you could
practically run our place, youknow , and, and you could be an
ophthalmologist. It's a traumacenter. So I'm sorry, but he
would have to take call.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
Um ,

Speaker 4 (49:48):
That's a deal breaker .

Speaker 3 (49:50):
I, I, yeah . You know, let me check in. Let me
look in on that. .
Yeah. Would

Speaker 2 (49:53):
You do that? You know, the weather is fantastic
here . It doesn't rain nearlyas much as Portland in
Minneapolis.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
I hear it's nice for at least like four weeks out of
the year . Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
We're coming on those four weeks now, .
It's good . So we listeners, wehave been talking with Dr. Will
Flannery and Kristen Flannery,also known as, and maybe better
known as Dr. Gleen and LadyGleen , will and Kristen , I
just wanna say a couple things.
You've given us a few giftsboth today and over the past
few years. So many people havebeen affected by your work in a

(50:28):
positive way. So the gift ofcomedy is the first thing I
want to say. Thank you for, youhave me personally, for these
years. I've been watching andlistening to you and so many
other people I, you maybe knowthat. But thank you for your
gift of comedy. And Kristen ,you are an inspiration and a
public speaker who is such agood educator and you've given

(50:48):
us the gift of thatinspiration. And so I wanna
thank you for being on our showtoday. It's been great to have
you. Aw ,

Speaker 4 (50:56):
It's , yeah. Thank you for having us. Absolutely.
It's fun.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
It's been great.
Thank you to our guests. Thankyou for listening. I hope
you'll join us next time. Andin the meantime, be healthy and
be well .

Speaker 1 (51:07):
Thanks for listening to the Healthy Matters podcast
with Dr . David Hilden . Tofind out more about the Healthy
Matters podcast or browse thearchive, visit healthy
matters.org. You got a questionor a comment for the show?
Email us at Healthy Matters hcm e d.org , or call 6 1 2 8 7 3
talk. There's also a link inthe show notes. And finally, if

(51:30):
you enjoy the show, pleaseleave us a review and share the
show with others. The HealthyMatters Podcast is made
possible by Hennepin Healthcarein Minneapolis, Minnesota, an
engineered and produced by JohnLucas at highball Executive
producers are Jonathan Comitoand Christine Hill. Please
remember, we can only givegeneral medical advice during
this program, and every case isunique. We urge you to consult

(51:51):
with your physician if you havea more serious or pressing
health concern. Until nexttime, be healthy and be well. L
.