April 30, 2025 • 16 mins
Urologist and president of the Duval County Medical Society Dr. Ali Kasraeian joins Dr. Michael Koren to update us on recent advances in Urology. In Part 1 of this series, Dr. Kasraeian talks about his journey, from growing up in a medical family to becoming a urologist and healthcare advocate with a passion for innovative approaches to prostate cancer treatment. Part 1 highlights how mentorship, family influence, and opportunities in healthcare policy shaped his career path and commitment to physician leadership.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:00):
Welcome to MedEvidence! where we help you
navigate the truth behindmedical research with unbiased,
evidence-proven facts, hosted bycardiologist and top medical
researcher, Dr.
Michael Koren.
Hello, I'm Dr Michael Koren,the executive editor of
MedEvidence!, and I have areally neat guest today, Dr.
Ali Kasraeian.
Ali and I have known each otherfor a long time, working as
(00:22):
physicians in the community herein Northeast Florida, and we've
actually done some media stufftogether.
But this is a fascinating guyand I want to really introduce
him to our MedEvidence! audienceand talk about his inspiration
to get him involved in clinicalmedicine, in media, in public
health discussions, inscientific research and helping
(00:46):
organized medicine stayorganized.
So, Ali, welcome to MedEvidenc!e and thank you for being here.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (00:50):
Thank you for having me.
It's an honor to be here andcongratulations Such a wonderful
, wonderful things that youalways do and make us all be
better at everything that we do.
So thank you
Dr. Michael Koren (00:59):
Well again, thank you for being here.
So tell the audience a littlebit about your path.
Where'd you grow up, where'dyou go to school and then how
you got interested in Urologyand all these public health
issues that you address.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (01:10):
So I grew up here in Jacksonville, Florida.
My parents are actually bothoriginally from Iran and they
came here and both trained mymom's a world-renowned breast
pathologist, and my dad's aurologist, who I have the real
amazing pleasure of working withand operating with.
So that's been the greatest.
Dr. Michael Koren (01:24):
It's pretty good genes there.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (01:25):
Yeah, I mean it's been an amazing highlight
of my life and, interestingly,our parents never pushed us to
go into medicine.
But you watch how, what they did, you know, especially when the
times of health care were notplagued with all the things that
we deal with now, that we talkabout in terms of health policy
and those things, but youwatched how they impacted
(01:48):
people's lives, especially inthat when I was younger you had
no idea what they did, but yousaw the appreciation that they
had, and my brother and I onlyknew that my dad took kidney
stones out of people and tookkidneys out and did things of
that nature.
So there's all these things thatmy parents joke around.
There are pictures of mybrother and I drawing kidneys or
(02:08):
walking around, cutting ourdolls open and throwing things
into them and taking them out,and then, as we got older, we
kind of always had that in yourback of mind as something
profound to do, and anytime wehad some kind of moment and
opportunity to be a part ofhealthcare, it stuck.
And so you know both my brotherand I my brother's an
(02:32):
orthopedic surgeon we both wentin there and you know I went to
become a pediatric surgeon.
I didn't get the rotation, I goturology and you found that it
was impactful and I went toParis, did a robotic surgery,
laparoscopic fellowship, andthat's where a lot of things
we'll talk about today inspiredme in terms of a better way of
looking at managing prostatecancer.
Dr. Michael Koren (02:50):
So very strong family ties to medicine,
which was clearly an inspirationfor you.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (02:55):
Yeah, I mean it's the impact that you have on
people's life at the time thatthey need it most, and that's
one thing that I still remember.
My parents always said if youcan find something else to do
that can make you happy, do that.
If you can't, then medicine isa wonderful track to go into,
although be prepared, it's longand hard.
And they don't tell you thatwhen you finish one thing, you
(03:16):
expect that it gets easier thenext time.
It just seems like it getsharder at every step.
but in a wonderful way,
Dr. Michael Koren (03:22):
Neat.
So you went to Paris, you didsome special training there and
then you came back to work withyour dad in practice
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (03:28):
Yep
Dr. Michael Koren (03:29):
Excellent.
And so why don't you just fallinto the pattern of being a
great urologist helping peoplehere in Northeast Florida?
Clearly that wasn't enough foryou.
You needed to do some otherthings.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (03:41):
Well, some people say it's an attention
span thing, but I mean, you lookat other things that you can do
.
For me, innovation is veryinteresting and in urology, one
thing that's really interestingwith urology is we're always you
know it's a very cutting edgespecialty.
You know robotics, endourology,and for me, when I was in Paris
, you know I saw some thingsthat in the United States
(04:01):
weren't being done the MRI scan.
We partnered with a team inLondon when I was there, with a
lot of research collaborationsof using the MRI scan to look
within the prostate and thenlook at targeted biopsies.
And that blew my mindHigh-intensity, focus,
ultrasound and cryotherapy to dotargeted biopsies.
So that was reallyinspirational to me and brought
me back to what my mom's careerpath was with breast cancer.
(04:23):
And then I went back and reallylooked at something I never
thought about and realized howinstrumental my mom's career
path was with that fundamentalswitch from the lumpectomy or
the segmental mastectomy to thebig, you know, halstead
mastectomy.
Dr. Michael Koren (04:41):
Sure.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (04:41):
Where they removed everything, the big
lymph node dissections,
much more targeted treatment
yeah.
And one of my mentors at theUniversity of Florida was a guy
named.
Our chairman, was a big breastcancer surgeon who was part of
that process as well.
So you kind of looked at thesimilarities between that and
(05:03):
where we were at the time withprostate cancer.
Where could you beover-treating a lot of disease?
And that really inspired me topotentially bring that into a
process of my practice.
And the wall for that wasalways, you know, it wasn't done
in the United States how do youget it covered?
(05:23):
You know, how do you do theresearch?
To be a part of the research asa community physician, to be a
part of that.
And then I operated on a TVchef, had the opportunity to be
part of media and opportunity tohave a radio show for some
years.
Dr. Michael Koren (05:38):
So you said a TV chef.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (05:39):
Yeah, I had no idea.
He was a TV chef.
We're about a week or twobefore his operation.
He was like can you come on myshow to talk about prostate
cancer?
I was like I have no idea whatyou're talking about, but I'll
be happy to, so he cooked someeggs.
And next thing, you know we'retalking about prostate cancer
Dr. Michael Koren (05:55):
That was a local show, yeah, in Northeast
Florida.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (05:57):
Yeah, channel 12.
And then they asked me to comeback and talk about other stuff.
And then WOKV asked me to do aradio show and then that kind of
stuck and I saw it as anopportunity to not only learn
about things that weren'turology but to be able to talk
about things, and there's a funway to talk about healthcare in
(06:17):
a different capacity.
And then the Affordable CareAct.
Dr. Michael Koren (06:20):
So you did that regular radio show, yeah,
and I was a guest a couple oftimes and we talked about some
really neat things in healthpolicy.
And then, of course, covid wassomething that we talked about
and I think you really serve thecommunity by getting good
information out there.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (06:33):
I appreciate that it was fun and, for me,
where it shaped another part ofmy career was when I was doing
that.
The Affordable Care Act was abig part of what's going on and
(06:57):
several of my mentors - whichfor me mentorship seems to have
been an underlying theme to alot of things in terms of my
path, where I saw things.
I was interested, and I had theright mentors and the hand push
me for opportunities.
And Joe Tepas who was aprolific pediatric and trauma
surgeon at UF, was a right very,very wonderful and strong
leader at the American Collegeof Surgeons in many capacities
for quality, for health policy,would talk to me and guide me in
terms of the positives andnegatives of what was going on
there.
And Carolyn McClanahan, who's aclose, dear friend, is very,
(07:20):
very knowledgeable about the insand outs of the Affordable Care
Act, and you yourself.
We'd have these amazingconversations on the show, so
I'd always try to read as muchas I could to be at least on par
with the conversation with myguests, who are world-renowned
experts, who are often on theconversations.
Dr. Michael Koren (07:38):
And you frequently refer to the world's
greatest literature, whether itbe Lancet or the New England
Journal of Medicine andliterally pulled it out during
the radio broadcast and look atthe data and make comments on it
, which was fabulous, but it didit in a way that was very
approachable even for theaverage listener.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (07:55):
I mean, I think, simplifying the
importance of data to ourdecision-making, especially as
we see, as that past really 20years have gone.
Data is really impactful forwhat we do and it's worrisome
when it's lost and you makedecisions without data, and
prostate cancer is somethingthat we've learned over the past
20 years.
The importance of data has madeus better.
(08:17):
Health policy, That becomesvery important because a lot of
decisions may or may not be madewith the total amount of data
and you can see how impactfulthat could potentially be and
how dangerous it can be as well.
So that got me involved.
I got on a lot of legislativeaffairs committees with the AUA
and American College of Surgeonsand it's a wonderful way to
potentially serve and beinvolved.
(08:38):
You know the frustrations ofwhat everyone feels, you see
firsthand and you know hopefullyit's a way to give back and
help, although it is a veryfrustrating process because the
solutions are not fast.
But physicians, you know, doneed to get more involved and we
need to be there because we'reall working, we're taking care
(08:58):
of patients and the people thatare involved and get more wins
seem to be there a lot more withdeeper pockets, and when we're
not there, it impacts ourcolleagues and, most importantly
, it impacts our patients.
Dr. Michael Koren (09:13):
Right, and this is a good segue to the fact
that you're now the presidentof the Duval County Medical
Society.
So tell us a little bit how yougot involved in that and why
you decided to take thatposition, and how's it going so
far.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (09:26):
It's great.
Duval County Medical Society isa wonderful organization and
for the physicians listening, Iwould urge you to be involved.
You know my big thing this yearis to encourage people to think
of the Duval County MedicalSociety as family.
You know, I'm a big family guythree kids, I have a wonderful
wife, I have wonderful parentsand an amazing brother and his
(09:47):
family and we as physicianshistorically acted like family
our colleagues, our nurses, ourpatients.
It was like family and we'rekind of at a danger point where
that relationship may besegmented by the way that the
way medicine is practiced thesedays is moving towards
(10:09):
potentially a more shift workermentality.
We're having teams that are alittle bit more segmented and I
think you know the team approachto health care is wonderful.
I think it needs to be withphysician leadership and I think
we need to embrace that becauseI think it's a better way of
taking care of patients.
But it needs to be with thisconcept of family where we all
(10:29):
take care of each other and thenthat's a better way of taking
care of our patients.
And I think the Duval CountyMedical Society is a great way
to potentially do that, both interms of the networking but also
the resources that we can haveand the advocacy at first is one
of the biggest county medicalsocieties with the Florida
Medical Associations.
We have a lot of passionate,wonderful people that work in
(10:51):
that and our staff is amazingand we do a lot of fun things we
give back to the medicalstudents.
We do a lot of things of thatnature and I feel very blessed
to be a part of it and honestly,frankly, it's been so many
years that I've been involved Idon't even know how I got
started.
My parents have been involved.
My mom was in leadership for along time and there's some
really amazing history ofprofound things that have
(11:12):
happened.
A lot of you know big, bigmoves in mass casualty and
things like that, where we'reinspired by people at UF and
trauma surgeons over there.
Over the historical time, a lotof amazing other things have
been done with surgeons andphysicians here in Duval County.
We need to celebrate the powerof the physician leadership here
(11:33):
in Duval County and this is agreat organization to help us be
great physician leaders for ourpatients.
Dr. Michael Koren (11:39):
Sounds terrific, very inspiring.
Now I know you've also beeninvolved in leadership positions
and in committees on a nationalbasis, so why don't you let the
audience know a little bitabout that work?
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (11:49):
So I've been very fortunate and it seems like
all these things happen at thesame time and I kind of joke
around with my wife I recentlygot an MHA at UNF.
Dr. Michael Koren (11:59):
Wow.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (11:59):
And it was really done.
Because you go into C-suiteswith the hospitals to try to
bring new technologies andthings of that nature and it
seems like you and your industrypartners think this is the
greatest thing since slicedbread and makes money for the
hospital.
It's great for the patients andthey look at you like you've
grown horns on and and.
So I was like you know,obviously the people on the
(12:20):
other side of the fence aren'tmalintended people, so maybe the
conversation is different.
So I thought this would be agood way to do it.
It took a lot of effort and withkids it's difficult to do and
you know I thank my wife for hersupport and patience for doing
that.
But along doing that, you know,everything seems to kind of
work in terms of the ascensionswith a lot of organizations.
I'm the Legislative AffairsCommittee, now called the
(12:43):
Federal Advocacy Committee,which we're all chagrined by the
anagram for that committee'sname at the AUA, at the American
Urological Association, asimilar legislative committee
for the American College ofSurgeons.
And what's great about that?
It allows us to triangulatethings locally and with the
Florida Urologic Society so thatwe can potentially make efforts
(13:05):
that physicians have a unitedvoice for the things that matter
to us, which ultimately helpour patients, and I feel very
blessed to be in those rooms tosee how things are shaped
locally, regionally andnationally.
Dr. Michael Koren (13:16):
Yeah Well, that's amazing.
Wow, you've done a lot ofthings and congratulations and
thank you on behalf of thephysician community for all the
stuff you do.
I appreciate the opportunity.
So we're going to take a break here, but
urologists are very famous forhaving a good sense of humor.
I remember doing surgery andworking with urologists and they
were cracking each other up.
(13:37):
I heard this one recently andyou probably heard it, but I'll
share it with the rest of theaudience is what did the
director of the urology programsay to the star resident at the
time of his acceptance into theurology program?
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (13:52):
I can only imagine.
Dr. Michael Koren (13:55):
He said you're in
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (13:57):
Now urology.
It's interesting.
Besides the amazing, amazingcomedy of this show, one of the
things that actually drew me tourology was, in fact, that I
actually, like I was sayingbefore I went to be a pediatric
surgeon, I would always ask mydad I was like, of all the
things you could possibly do,this is what you chose to do,
and he'd be like you know,everyone's great the sense of
(14:17):
humor.
People are all wonderfulsurgeons and they have great
sense of humor.
It's a great lifestyle.
You treat people or yourpatients get better.
And at the University of Florida, when I was there, our third
year clerkships where you gofrom the classroom to seeing
patients was on a lottery systemand you want the chairman's
(14:39):
service so you can get theletter of recommendation for
your residency applications, andthen I put in to do pediatric
surgery.
I had a middle of the lotlottery said by the time I got
there, all those spots weretaking except one chairman spot,
so I got that and then the onlything that was left was a
urology and some other servicethat no one wanted.
And I'm like, of all the things, it was this and I loved it.
Everyone had a great sense ofhumor.
(15:02):
Our chief resident at that timewas, and still is, probably one
of the funniest people I evermet.
Every night, you know, back thenyou could go to drug rep
dinners every night.
We got all the pens we wanted.
You could get pens at that timeand our patients did better.
We did big surgeries, we didlittle surgeries, you could
shape you know all sorts foryour day and it was like a nice
mix of clinic and the operatingroom and everyone was happy.
(15:26):
Back then I went to the generalsurgery side of things.
It was a little bit of adifferent scenario.
So I always kept it in the backof my mind.
And here we are a million yearslater and I'm a urologist and
couldn't be happier.
Dr. Michael Koren (15:37):
Beautiful.
We're going to take a quickbreak here and then, when we
come back, I want to focus onthis controversy about
prostate-specific antigen, PSAs.
Certainly, I know that you'vebeen keenly interested in this
and have some views about it,and we'll jump into that
discussion in just a moment.
Welcome to MedEvidence! where we help you
navigate the truth behindmedical research with unbiased,
evidence-proven facts, hosted bycardiologist and top medical
researcher, Dr.
Michael Koren.
Hello, I'm Dr Michael Koren,the executive editor of
MedEvidence!, and I have areally neat guest today, Dr.
Ali Kasraeian.
Ali and I have known each otherfor a long time, working as
(00:22):
physicians in the community herein Northeast Florida, and we've
actually done some media stufftogether.
But this is a fascinating guyand I want to really introduce
him to our MedEvidence! audienceand talk about his inspiration
to get him involved in clinicalmedicine, in media, in public
health discussions, inscientific research and helping
(00:46):
organized medicine stayorganized.
So, Ali, welcome to MedEvidenc!e and thank you for being here.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (00:50):
Thank you for having me.
It's an honor to be here andcongratulations Such a wonderful
, wonderful things that youalways do and make us all be
better at everything that we do.
So thank you
Dr. Michael Koren (00:59):
Well again, thank you for being here.
So tell the audience a littlebit about your path.
Where'd you grow up, where'dyou go to school and then how
you got interested in Urologyand all these public health
issues that you address.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (01:10):
So I grew up here in Jacksonville, Florida.
My parents are actually bothoriginally from Iran and they
came here and both trained mymom's a world-renowned breast
pathologist, and my dad's aurologist, who I have the real
amazing pleasure of working withand operating with.
So that's been the greatest.
Dr. Michael Koren (01:24):
It's pretty good genes there.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (01:25):
Yeah, I mean it's been an amazing highlight
of my life and, interestingly,our parents never pushed us to
go into medicine.
But you watch how, what they did, you know, especially when the
times of health care were notplagued with all the things that
we deal with now, that we talkabout in terms of health policy
and those things, but youwatched how they impacted
(01:48):
people's lives, especially inthat when I was younger you had
no idea what they did, but yousaw the appreciation that they
had, and my brother and I onlyknew that my dad took kidney
stones out of people and tookkidneys out and did things of
that nature.
So there's all these things thatmy parents joke around.
There are pictures of mybrother and I drawing kidneys or
(02:08):
walking around, cutting ourdolls open and throwing things
into them and taking them out,and then, as we got older, we
kind of always had that in yourback of mind as something
profound to do, and anytime wehad some kind of moment and
opportunity to be a part ofhealthcare, it stuck.
And so you know both my brotherand I my brother's an
(02:32):
orthopedic surgeon we both wentin there and you know I went to
become a pediatric surgeon.
I didn't get the rotation, I goturology and you found that it
was impactful and I went toParis, did a robotic surgery,
laparoscopic fellowship, andthat's where a lot of things
we'll talk about today inspiredme in terms of a better way of
looking at managing prostatecancer.
Dr. Michael Koren (02:50):
So very strong family ties to medicine,
which was clearly an inspirationfor you.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (02:55):
Yeah, I mean it's the impact that you have on
people's life at the time thatthey need it most, and that's
one thing that I still remember.
My parents always said if youcan find something else to do
that can make you happy, do that.
If you can't, then medicine isa wonderful track to go into,
although be prepared, it's longand hard.
And they don't tell you thatwhen you finish one thing, you
(03:16):
expect that it gets easier thenext time.
It just seems like it getsharder at every step.
but in a wonderful way,
Dr. Michael Koren (03:22):
Neat.
So you went to Paris, you didsome special training there and
then you came back to work withyour dad in practice
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (03:28):
Yep
Dr. Michael Koren (03:29):
Excellent.
And so why don't you just fallinto the pattern of being a
great urologist helping peoplehere in Northeast Florida?
Clearly that wasn't enough foryou.
You needed to do some otherthings.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (03:41):
Well, some people say it's an attention
span thing, but I mean, you lookat other things that you can do
.
For me, innovation is veryinteresting and in urology, one
thing that's really interestingwith urology is we're always you
know it's a very cutting edgespecialty.
You know robotics, endourology,and for me, when I was in Paris
, you know I saw some thingsthat in the United States
(04:01):
weren't being done the MRI scan.
We partnered with a team inLondon when I was there, with a
lot of research collaborationsof using the MRI scan to look
within the prostate and thenlook at targeted biopsies.
And that blew my mindHigh-intensity, focus,
ultrasound and cryotherapy to dotargeted biopsies.
So that was reallyinspirational to me and brought
me back to what my mom's careerpath was with breast cancer.
(04:23):
And then I went back and reallylooked at something I never
thought about and realized howinstrumental my mom's career
path was with that fundamentalswitch from the lumpectomy or
the segmental mastectomy to thebig, you know, halstead
mastectomy.
Dr. Michael Koren (04:41):
Sure.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (04:41):
Where they removed everything, the big
lymph node dissections,
much more targeted treatment
yeah.
And one of my mentors at theUniversity of Florida was a guy
named.
Our chairman, was a big breastcancer surgeon who was part of
that process as well.
So you kind of looked at thesimilarities between that and
(05:03):
where we were at the time withprostate cancer.
Where could you beover-treating a lot of disease?
And that really inspired me topotentially bring that into a
process of my practice.
And the wall for that wasalways, you know, it wasn't done
in the United States how do youget it covered?
(05:23):
You know, how do you do theresearch?
To be a part of the research asa community physician, to be a
part of that.
And then I operated on a TVchef, had the opportunity to be
part of media and opportunity tohave a radio show for some
years.
Dr. Michael Koren (05:38):
So you said a TV chef.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (05:39):
Yeah, I had no idea.
He was a TV chef.
We're about a week or twobefore his operation.
He was like can you come on myshow to talk about prostate
cancer?
I was like I have no idea whatyou're talking about, but I'll
be happy to, so he cooked someeggs.
And next thing, you know we'retalking about prostate cancer
Dr. Michael Koren (05:55):
That was a local show, yeah, in Northeast
Florida.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (05:57):
Yeah, channel 12.
And then they asked me to comeback and talk about other stuff.
And then WOKV asked me to do aradio show and then that kind of
stuck and I saw it as anopportunity to not only learn
about things that weren'turology but to be able to talk
about things, and there's a funway to talk about healthcare in
(06:17):
a different capacity.
And then the Affordable CareAct.
Dr. Michael Koren (06:20):
So you did that regular radio show, yeah,
and I was a guest a couple oftimes and we talked about some
really neat things in healthpolicy.
And then, of course, covid wassomething that we talked about
and I think you really serve thecommunity by getting good
information out there.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (06:33):
I appreciate that it was fun and, for me,
where it shaped another part ofmy career was when I was doing
that.
The Affordable Care Act was abig part of what's going on and
(06:57):
several of my mentors - whichfor me mentorship seems to have
been an underlying theme to alot of things in terms of my
path, where I saw things.
I was interested, and I had theright mentors and the hand push
me for opportunities.
And Joe Tepas who was aprolific pediatric and trauma
surgeon at UF, was a right very,very wonderful and strong
leader at the American Collegeof Surgeons in many capacities
for quality, for health policy,would talk to me and guide me in
terms of the positives andnegatives of what was going on
there.
And Carolyn McClanahan, who's aclose, dear friend, is very,
(07:20):
very knowledgeable about the insand outs of the Affordable Care
Act, and you yourself.
We'd have these amazingconversations on the show, so
I'd always try to read as muchas I could to be at least on par
with the conversation with myguests, who are world-renowned
experts, who are often on theconversations.
Dr. Michael Koren (07:38):
And you frequently refer to the world's
greatest literature, whether itbe Lancet or the New England
Journal of Medicine andliterally pulled it out during
the radio broadcast and look atthe data and make comments on it
, which was fabulous, but it didit in a way that was very
approachable even for theaverage listener.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (07:55):
I mean, I think, simplifying the
importance of data to ourdecision-making, especially as
we see, as that past really 20years have gone.
Data is really impactful forwhat we do and it's worrisome
when it's lost and you makedecisions without data, and
prostate cancer is somethingthat we've learned over the past
20 years.
The importance of data has madeus better.
(08:17):
Health policy, That becomesvery important because a lot of
decisions may or may not be madewith the total amount of data
and you can see how impactfulthat could potentially be and
how dangerous it can be as well.
So that got me involved.
I got on a lot of legislativeaffairs committees with the AUA
and American College of Surgeonsand it's a wonderful way to
potentially serve and beinvolved.
(08:38):
You know the frustrations ofwhat everyone feels, you see
firsthand and you know hopefullyit's a way to give back and
help, although it is a veryfrustrating process because the
solutions are not fast.
But physicians, you know, doneed to get more involved and we
need to be there because we'reall working, we're taking care
(08:58):
of patients and the people thatare involved and get more wins
seem to be there a lot more withdeeper pockets, and when we're
not there, it impacts ourcolleagues and, most importantly
, it impacts our patients.
Dr. Michael Koren (09:13):
Right, and this is a good segue to the fact
that you're now the presidentof the Duval County Medical
Society.
So tell us a little bit how yougot involved in that and why
you decided to take thatposition, and how's it going so
far.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (09:26):
It's great.
Duval County Medical Society isa wonderful organization and
for the physicians listening, Iwould urge you to be involved.
You know my big thing this yearis to encourage people to think
of the Duval County MedicalSociety as family.
You know, I'm a big family guythree kids, I have a wonderful
wife, I have wonderful parentsand an amazing brother and his
(09:47):
family and we as physicianshistorically acted like family
our colleagues, our nurses, ourpatients.
It was like family and we'rekind of at a danger point where
that relationship may besegmented by the way that the
way medicine is practiced thesedays is moving towards
(10:09):
potentially a more shift workermentality.
We're having teams that are alittle bit more segmented and I
think you know the team approachto health care is wonderful.
I think it needs to be withphysician leadership and I think
we need to embrace that becauseI think it's a better way of
taking care of patients.
But it needs to be with thisconcept of family where we all
(10:29):
take care of each other and thenthat's a better way of taking
care of our patients.
And I think the Duval CountyMedical Society is a great way
to potentially do that, both interms of the networking but also
the resources that we can haveand the advocacy at first is one
of the biggest county medicalsocieties with the Florida
Medical Associations.
We have a lot of passionate,wonderful people that work in
(10:51):
that and our staff is amazingand we do a lot of fun things we
give back to the medicalstudents.
We do a lot of things of thatnature and I feel very blessed
to be a part of it and honestly,frankly, it's been so many
years that I've been involved Idon't even know how I got
started.
My parents have been involved.
My mom was in leadership for along time and there's some
really amazing history ofprofound things that have
(11:12):
happened.
A lot of you know big, bigmoves in mass casualty and
things like that, where we'reinspired by people at UF and
trauma surgeons over there.
Over the historical time, a lotof amazing other things have
been done with surgeons andphysicians here in Duval County.
We need to celebrate the powerof the physician leadership here
(11:33):
in Duval County and this is agreat organization to help us be
great physician leaders for ourpatients.
Dr. Michael Koren (11:39):
Sounds terrific, very inspiring.
Now I know you've also beeninvolved in leadership positions
and in committees on a nationalbasis, so why don't you let the
audience know a little bitabout that work?
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (11:49):
So I've been very fortunate and it seems like
all these things happen at thesame time and I kind of joke
around with my wife I recentlygot an MHA at UNF.
Dr. Michael Koren (11:59):
Wow.
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (11:59):
And it was really done.
Because you go into C-suiteswith the hospitals to try to
bring new technologies andthings of that nature and it
seems like you and your industrypartners think this is the
greatest thing since slicedbread and makes money for the
hospital.
It's great for the patients andthey look at you like you've
grown horns on and and.
So I was like you know,obviously the people on the
(12:20):
other side of the fence aren'tmalintended people, so maybe the
conversation is different.
So I thought this would be agood way to do it.
It took a lot of effort and withkids it's difficult to do and
you know I thank my wife for hersupport and patience for doing
that.
But along doing that, you know,everything seems to kind of
work in terms of the ascensionswith a lot of organizations.
I'm the Legislative AffairsCommittee, now called the
(12:43):
Federal Advocacy Committee,which we're all chagrined by the
anagram for that committee'sname at the AUA, at the American
Urological Association, asimilar legislative committee
for the American College ofSurgeons.
And what's great about that?
It allows us to triangulatethings locally and with the
Florida Urologic Society so thatwe can potentially make efforts
(13:05):
that physicians have a unitedvoice for the things that matter
to us, which ultimately helpour patients, and I feel very
blessed to be in those rooms tosee how things are shaped
locally, regionally andnationally.
Dr. Michael Koren (13:16):
Yeah Well, that's amazing.
Wow, you've done a lot ofthings and congratulations and
thank you on behalf of thephysician community for all the
stuff you do.
I appreciate the opportunity.
So we're going to take a break here, but
urologists are very famous forhaving a good sense of humor.
I remember doing surgery andworking with urologists and they
were cracking each other up.
(13:37):
I heard this one recently andyou probably heard it, but I'll
share it with the rest of theaudience is what did the
director of the urology programsay to the star resident at the
time of his acceptance into theurology program?
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (13:52):
I can only imagine.
Dr. Michael Koren (13:55):
He said you're in
Dr. Ali Kasraeian (13:57):
Now urology.
It's interesting.
Besides the amazing, amazingcomedy of this show, one of the
things that actually drew me tourology was, in fact, that I
actually, like I was sayingbefore I went to be a pediatric
surgeon, I would always ask mydad I was like, of all the
things you could possibly do,this is what you chose to do,
and he'd be like you know,everyone's great the sense of
(14:17):
humor.
People are all wonderfulsurgeons and they have great
sense of humor.
It's a great lifestyle.
You treat people or yourpatients get better.
And at the University of Florida, when I was there, our third
year clerkships where you gofrom the classroom to seeing
patients was on a lottery systemand you want the chairman's
(14:39):
service so you can get theletter of recommendation for
your residency applications, andthen I put in to do pediatric
surgery.
I had a middle of the lotlottery said by the time I got
there, all those spots weretaking except one chairman spot,
so I got that and then the onlything that was left was a
urology and some other servicethat no one wanted.
And I'm like, of all the things, it was this and I loved it.
Everyone had a great sense ofhumor.
(15:02):
Our chief resident at that timewas, and still is, probably one
of the funniest people I evermet.
Every night, you know, back thenyou could go to drug rep
dinners every night.
We got all the pens we wanted.
You could get pens at that timeand our patients did better.
We did big surgeries, we didlittle surgeries, you could
shape you know all sorts foryour day and it was like a nice
mix of clinic and the operatingroom and everyone was happy.
(15:26):
Back then I went to the generalsurgery side of things.
It was a little bit of adifferent scenario.
So I always kept it in the backof my mind.
And here we are a million yearslater and I'm a urologist and
couldn't be happier.
Dr. Michael Koren (15:37):
Beautiful.
We're going to take a quickbreak here and then, when we
come back, I want to focus onthis controversy about
prostate-specific antigen, PSAs.
Certainly, I know that you'vebeen keenly interested in this
and have some views about it,and we'll jump into that
discussion in just a moment.
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