March 16, 2026 • 30 mins
You can do everything “right” in healthcare and still feel like you’re missing the point. That’s the tension we discuss with Dr John Oberg, a clinician, entrepreneur, and behavioral science thinker who has worked across medicine, business, and AI. We talk about the trap of chasing knowledge and productivity without building the skills that matter: clear thinking, real connection, and the ability to meet people where they are.
Dr Oberg shares the story behind Priscina Health and why chronic disease outcomes improve when you redesign care around behavior, access, and agency. We examine AI in healthcare. AI agents can take on repetitive work and information-heavy tasks, but tools still require critical thinking, judgment, and empathy. We connect that to longevity and burnout, including the idea of eustress vs distress and the importance of exercising your brain and emotions the way you exercise muscle. And finally, we wrap with tangible ways to build community through mentorship and LinkedIn, because isolation is not a career strategy.
If you want a career in medicine that’s effective, human, and resilient, hit subscribe, share this with a friend who’s in training, and leave a review with the skill you’re working on most right now.
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Ashley Love (00:00):
What if the thing you've been told will make you a
better clinician is not thething that will actually sustain
you?
Dr.
John Oberg has worked acrossmedicine, business, behavior,
and AI.
And what he's learned is thisif you keep chasing knowledge
without learning how to think,connect, and meet people where
they are, you may looksuccessful and still miss what
(00:22):
matters most.
If you're a pre-health studentor early clinician, you've
probably been told to focus ongrades, research, productivity,
and the next step.
You've done that.
But here's a different, deeperskill set.
No one is really teaching you.
And in this episode, we willunpack what that actually looks
like and how it leads tomeaningful success in medicine.
(00:44):
Welcome to Shadow Me Next, apodcast where I take you into
and behind the scenes of themedical world to provide you
with a deeper understanding ofthe human side of medicine.
I'm Ashley, a physicianassistant, medical editor,
clinical preceptor, and thecreator of Shadow Me Next.
I invite you to join me as wetake a conversational and
(01:04):
personal look into the lives andminds of leaders in medicine.
Dr.
Oberg, thank you so much forjoining us on Shadow Me Next
today.
You have created thisabsolutely incredible resource
specifically for people withchronic disease.
And we are going to talk aboutthat, but we are also going to
talk about so many other thingsthat are really interesting hot
topics.
Real interesting hot topics, alittle bit that you shared with
(01:26):
me so far.
So thanks for being here andthank you for joining us.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (01:29):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I can't, I can't I have no ideawhere we're going, but I'm
excited to go.
Ashley Love (01:34):
It's a blind drive, but I'm driving.
So don't you worry, you're ingood hands.
Um, let's first talk about yourjourney into medicine.
I would love to hear about whatfirst drew you to the
profession, how you decided onyour role in medicine.
Yeah.
Um, maybe start there for us.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (01:51):
So I think I joke though.
I started in medicine when Iwas eight years old.
My mom was running a medicalpractice.
My grandfather was a surgeon,and I got sick and had to stay
home from school, and I had togo to the office and file
charts.
And so, like, I was like, oh,getting sick and staying home
from school sucks.
So I don't want to do thatanymore.
And like by the time I waslike, when I was 12, there was
no HIPAA.
I was like processing x-raysand like watching the film dry.
(02:15):
My hand was in chemicals thatprobably would like today be so
against the law.
And I'm like looking atpeople's x-rays with the
doctors, like, like there's noHIPAA at all, right?
So that was my start inmedicine.
I don't think that was probablythe best start to medicine.
Uh, but I was pre-med incollege and I got pretty turned
off.
Uh I was I was a on the benchbiologist at uh I was working in
(02:36):
an HIV lab and had a pretty badexperience, the lab director,
the where um there's thingsgoing in the lab where somebody
else was messing with somebodyelse's experiment, and I called
it out and they were like, sowhat?
And I was like, you know, I'mnot gonna do that anymore.
So I went I went into businessand decided like I'll I study
biology for a bit.
I really wanted to go and Itook so I took a detour into the
business world and I startedrunning companies and I started
(02:58):
starting companies as a serialentrepreneur, and uh and then I
got into a place where I wasconsulting back into the
healthcare world on the businessside of things.
And then all of this was basedin like psychology and you know,
how do you go through changemanagement and all these types
of things?
So I was I was pretty deep intolike um organizational
psychology, and then then mymother-in-law got sick and with
(03:20):
type 2 diabetes and had a reallybad experience with a really
good doctor, frankly.
So the doctor wasn't the badexperience, the system was the
bad experience.
And so the doctor wasfrustrated.
You've probably experiencedthis.
The patient, my mother-in-law,was was pretty unhappy.
And so I said, okay, I'm gonnago back and get my doctorate at
USC and I'm gonna solve thistype 2 diabetes problem.
And everyone's like, that'scute.
Type 2 diabetes has been aproblem for a while.
(03:41):
You can come try to get adoctorate that, you know, just
so you're aware, we've beenworking on this for a long time.
And then in our first pilotstudy, we reversed diabetes in
49 out of 50 patients in 12weeks.
And in our second study, that'snot yet published.
We're in the process ofpublishing now, we took uh 79
patients with an average A1C of11, a minimum A1C of nine, and
(04:02):
reduced that into the low sevenswithin less than six months.
Took 30% of our patients off ofinsulin within six months.
Like just ridiculous results.
Ashley Love (04:11):
That's amazing.
I want to I want to tap intothose numbers real quick too,
because most people, well, firstpeople might say, What's an
A1C?
Right.
And then second, they mightsay, well, what's a normal A1C?
So define those values for usreal quick.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (04:23):
Hemoglobin A1C is measuring how much um
glycation is happening for yourred blood cells in your body.
And so in a normal healthybody, it's below 6.5 for most
adults.
If it's above 6.5, you havediabetes, right?
And so it's generally trackingyour average blood sugar over
the last 90 days close enough,right?
And so if you're above 6.5, youhave diabetes.
If you're you know under 6.5,you might have prediabetes.
(04:45):
If you're under six, you'repretty healthy.
And so uh, you know, whenyou've got a seven or an eight,
you're in pretty bad shape.
And so in our first study, wehad an average A1C of 9.6.
And then if you can drop thatA1PC percentage from like 9.6 to
8.6 or from 6.5 to 5.5, onepercentage point in a year,
you've got a billion-dollardrug.
We generally drop A1C by oneand a half points per month.
Ashley Love (05:08):
Outrageous.
Outrage.
And this is not this is notnecessarily with drugs.
I mean, people are gonna say,yeah, they must be on GLP1s or
GIPs or any of that stuff.
You're not using necessarilyusing that.
You're using something intotally, totally different,
which we'll dive into.
I don't want to tease it toomuch.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (05:23):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, yeah.
Ashley Love (05:24):
Yes, and yes, and before we get too far though, um
uh filing charts.
This is this is gonna beanother great segue, right?
So once upon a time when wewere dipping our hands into you
know actual chemicals to processactual film of x-rays, once
upon a time we had paper chartsand we had to file them.
And it's a great conversation Ijust had recently with one of
(05:46):
my medical assistants.
And he said, Ash, what did youdo before you guys just had
electronic health records, EHRsor EMRs, electronic medical
records?
And I said, Well, we had stacksand stacks and stacks of filing
cabinets, and you'd have to goand pull the charts.
Um, and it's just sointeresting because I think it
really highlights your career inmedicine from when you started.
(06:07):
Now we're we're, you know,we're joking about it.
You're you were eight yearsold.
I was a medical assistantmyself when I was filing charts,
not a practicing clinician, butto something we're gonna talk
about, which is AI healthcaresolutions.
And this is brand new, right?
So we have you've traversedthis incredible journey really
in healthcare to to see someimpressive advancements, and I'm
(06:29):
sure some um some prettymiserable fails as well along
the way, right?
Um it'll be a reallyinteresting conversation.
Like I said, I do, I do want totease it just a little bit.
But um but I'd like to I'd liketo first talk about your
transition in college fromworking in that HIV lab, having
a bad experience, and decidingthat it would be an appropriate
time to pivot.
And then you did find hugesuccess as a businessman as
(06:51):
well.
Let's speak directly to ourstudents right now who are maybe
in a similar boat, right?
They have this dream ofhealthcare and they think um
something has happened.
I'm having to make a big pivot.
I'm really scared.
Was it hard for you to makethat change?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (07:06):
For me, I've always tried to like keep
the right doors open.
And so it's like, what and Inever try to like make decisions
that will close lots of doors.
So it's like, I think to my andearly in my career, I had some
mentors who are like, whatskills do you need to build to
open doors?
And so those skills could be,you know, clinical skills, they
could be business skills, theycould be people skills, which
(07:27):
are really underrated in today'sworld with AI happening.
Those people skills I think aregonna be more important as we
go forward.
So I think, you know, if so,what I try to do is, and I take
my kids through an exercisethat, like my my children, like
in 10 years, what do you thinkyou want to be doing?
Okay, I promise you're wrong,no big deal.
What are the skills that yougenerally have to develop to go
in that direction?
(07:48):
And let's pick one or two,right?
And let's just pick one or twoskills.
And so sometimes it's about,you know, I like to talk to them
about learning how to learn.
Like, do you know how to be agood learner?
And then learning how toconnect with people, because
those two skills I think aregonna be the most valuable in
the next 10 years for people, islearning how to be a good
learner and then learning how tobe a connector, like how to
(08:10):
connect with people at a humanlevel.
I think those are gonna be twoof the most valuable personal
and professional skills goingforward.
That's my social workertalking.
Ashley Love (08:17):
I thank you, social worker talking, because that's
exactly what we need to hearright now, especially people
going into medicine.
You know, we're already havingconversations about what
elements, and I'm just talkingabout the medical world here
right now.
What elements of medicine is AIgoing to replace?
You know, these are realconversations.
I'd imagine, as a student rightnow, going, well, you know, is
am I gonna have a job?
Am I gonna have a job when Iget out of school?
(08:39):
You know, is this somethingthat I should even be
considering?
So these people's skills, youknow, I think they they call
them soft skills um now, butit's just they're going to
become very, very not softskills here pretty soon.
They're gonna be distinguishingskills for certain people.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (08:53):
So funny story about that.
Hard skills and soft skillswere defined by the military a
long time ago.
And finance used to beconsidered a soft skill because
you couldn't touch it.
Ashley Love (09:03):
Are you serious?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (09:04):
Yeah.
I did not know.
No, hold on.
I read that on the internet.
I didn't fact check it with allof my scientific libraries, but
it makes sense, right?
And so I think I think softskills, you know, one of my
favorite stories to tell peopleis not a true story.
It's a fictional story that Imade up, but it's a good story.
I tell people that if I wantedto give my wife an iPhone for
Christmas because she wantsthat, and my daughter wants the
(09:26):
same iPhone, if it were true,which it's not, that my daughter
wanted me to wrap a present andtie the bow myself, and my wife
felt like the wrapping paperwas bad for the environment,
don't use it at all.
And I gave them each other'spresent, bad soft skills, they'd
both be angry at me for givingthem exactly what they wanted.
Right.
Right?
That's so and so it's like,yeah, so so it's like I've got
(09:47):
to be like soft skills are theability to package a message in
a way that someone's able toreceive it, right?
Like that's so anyway, I can gogeek and geek out about that
forever.
Ashley Love (09:58):
Oh, well, I love that.
I think that's fantastic.
And we could do a whole TEDtalk, which you have done
before, but we can do a wholeTED talk on that exact topic.
And you know, maybe we will,maybe we'll have to circle back
and do that one day.
But um HIV lab in college, youknow, there is um, there's a lot
of questions right now aboutresearch.
And if we want to go to medschool, a lot of times you need
(10:19):
research.
If you want to go to PA school,you may not necessarily need
research.
Did you find in yourexperience, aside from the bad
experience, was research reallyformative for you?
I mean, was it, did you did youfeel like it was necessary,
necessary step for you to take?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (10:35):
Here's what I think is great about
research.
And I think the same thing canbe true for like engineering.
It taught me problem solving.
It gave me some early mentalmodels about how to approach a
problem objectively and then umhow to challenge assumptions and
be okay with bad assumptions.
I think sometimes today, uh,when people get things wrong,
they sometimes is um this senseof shame or blame or guilt along
(10:58):
with a bad decision versus,hey, the way we move the
scientific world forward is wemake a null hypothesis and then
we test it to try to disproveit.
And so failure is a part of theprocess.
It's like, and so you get this,it's you don't tie up the
outcome with your identitypsychologically, which is
really, really important.
So I think that you can getthat in the hard sciences.
I think you can get that inengineering.
(11:18):
I think you can get that insome of the liberal arts too, if
it's done and taught very well.
I do think that it's probablysystemically harder to get in
those other disciplines than itis to get in the hard sciences
because you can iterate soquickly or in engineering where
you iterate so quickly.
So I had to take classes inphysics and in calculus and then
you know, all these classesthat everyone who's listening
(11:40):
has to take too.
And you guys are all takenthose same classes and probably
liked them as much as I did.
But I learned a lot from it.
And I think that learning isthe important part.
Ashley Love (11:51):
You are dropping so many incredible, just gold
nuggets here.
Failure is a part of theprocess.
You are absolutely right.
And, you know, to walk aroundall day and say, well, I haven't
made a single mistake, itprobably means, well, you
haven't tried a single thingthat was new, right?
I mean, you haven't tested it.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (12:06):
Well, that is a mistake.
Like that's the mistake.
Like, like, what have youlearned?
Like, like, and and and thekey, you know, my mom, my mom
passed away, but she was sogreat in so many ways.
And she said to me at onepoint, she said, you know, I
tried to make sure as you gotolder that I kept you away from
the cliffs, but I let you takeon more and more of the larger
potholes.
And so I think that's such agreat way of letting people
learn.
(12:27):
And so when I instruct peoplein the college classroom, what I
try to do is keep them awayfrom the cliffs and learn how to
identify the cliffs, but letthem navigate the potholes
through experiences so they canlearn experientially.
Ashley Love (12:37):
And that builds resilience, right?
I mean, there's no better wayto be tested than to experience
those potholes, to experiencethose, those major kind of
upheavals where you say, whoa,that didn't feel good.
That wasn't right.
We need to go ahead andnavigate around that next time.
Absolutely incredible.
Okay, let's talk about AI andhealthcare because I'm very,
very excited to chat about thiswith you.
(12:58):
Can you give us a snapshot forour for our pre-health students
and our clinicians and ourclinicians?
Can you give us a snapshot ofwhat AI healthcare solutions,
what does that even mean?
And why do we need to beinterested in that?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (13:13):
We're using AI in lots of places.
In fact, there's a largecompany called Salesforce.com
that has 135,000 companies usingtheir platform.
We were the first company inthe entire world to roll out two
of their specific AI agentsbecause of the way that we
handle AI.
And we were really fortunate tobe able to work with them as a
partner and do that.
And so I think, you know, so weuse AI a little bit on the
(13:36):
patient-facing side, a lot onthe clinician-facing side, a lot
on the administrator side.
AI is really great for takinghighly repetitive tasks and um
helping them, or tasks thatrequire massive amounts of
information and making themhappen better, faster, or
cheaper.
And so I tell CEOs oforganizations like, if you're
not thinking about AI agents asa part of your organizational
(13:57):
chart going forward, that'sprobably not a good idea.
And if you're an executive in acompany who doesn't understand
how to deploy AI onto yourorganizational chart, you're
probably going to be at acompetitive disadvantage.
In the same way that people whodidn't adopt personal computers
were at a disadvantage topeople who did.
Or people who didn't adopt theinternet were a disadvantage to
people who did.
(14:18):
Or before that, people whodidn't adopt calculators were to
disadvantage, right?
Like, so we go back to thatmedical practice where I was
filing charts.
There were people ontypewriters taking dictation
machines and like transcribingnotes from doctors' dictation
all day long.
That was their entire job.
So that job doesn't existanymore.
And so there are changes in howpeople, what jobs people do and
(14:40):
how they do it.
And that's just, I mean, if youlook at sociology over the
last, let's call it 10, 20,000years, change is a part of what
we're meant to do.
Like that's just theevolutionary nature of a
society.
And so we're in a place rightnow where we're gonna have some
inflection points.
And so again, what I try tohelp my family see is like, what
does the future look like andhow do we get ready for that?
And I think embracing AI in thesame way that you embrace a
(15:03):
calculator or a personalcomputer, but that means you
still have to learn how tocritically think.
Because if you just takeinformation from a calculator
and you don't recognize when youmissed a keystroke, your
calculator is gonna be wrongbecause you missed a keystroke,
right?
Or if you take a computer andjust start typing, like so.
I think there's like these aretools, not human replacements
today.
Ashley Love (15:22):
And honestly, I would love for you to kind of
reframe that a little bit inyour expertise, which is with
chronic disease, right?
So if we are not using ourbrain, if we're not using our
critical thinking for a longtime, chronically, oh what I
mean, reframe that for us.
What what's what is that gonnalook like?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (15:40):
Well, let's just take the the words youth
stress and distress.
Like those are two words thatdon't often get used on on two
sides of a coin, but youthstress, e-u-s-t-r-e-s-s, youth
stress is positive stress thatbuilds you.
Distress is something thatbreaks you down.
And so if you use that analogin the muscles, we know that we
have hypertrophy and atrophy,muscles that we build because
(16:00):
we've lifted weights and atrophythat goes away, or we can have
distress in muscles where wetear a muscle because we've
overused it.
Well, that same thing existsemotionally, that same thing
exists cognitively.
And I don't know that we haveall the same measures we do with
muscles in those areas, butwe're learning that the analogs
are pretty true.
And so, you know, if you stopworking cognitively, you tend to
(16:23):
decline.
And that's why people tend todie, give or take, five years
after retirement, broad scalegeneralization.
But if you stop working yourbrain, you tend to pass away,
and that's not a good thing.
And emotionally, the samething.
Like if you don't engageemotionally with youth stress
and distress, you're gonna losesome of your ability to engage
with things emotionally.
Physically, we know that'strue.
Like any of the functionalmedicine, and like you can look
(16:46):
at any of those parts of theworld, and we're just we're
showing that longevity has areally important physical
component to it and alsoemotional and cognitive.
So at the end of the day, youshould be lifting muscle,
lifting weights for yourmuscles, you should be lifting
weights emotionally,figuratively, you should be
lifting weights cognitively,like all those things matter.
Ashley Love (17:04):
Absolutely.
You know, I want to talk aboutsomething real quick, and that
is somebody listening might bethinking, this guy is just, he's
a cool, cool science nerd.
He worked in an HIV lab and hewas talking about all those
crazy A1C numbers, and he'susing all of these cool words
like eustress and distress.
But then you are framing thisin a very emotional personal
tone as well when you talk.
(17:26):
And that brings me to yourpodcast, which is Tales of
Abundance.
It was born out of a near-deathexperience.
You were talking about cliffsand potholes earlier, and I had
to bite my tongue.
But tell us a little bit aboutthis podcast, um, you know, how
it how it was created, and thenwhy our pre-health students
should be listening to this.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (17:46):
And it's super cool.
Like it's a place to go to feelgood.
Like, I think in this world,there's so many things that are
just like I look around and I'mlike, man, that's like, ooh, ah,
oh.
And how do I engage?
What do I do?
And I know I want to be a partof it.
Part of that is I just want toput some good stories into the
world.
And so we go and we talk aboutlike what's happening in AI,
what's happening in finance andcryptocurrency and medicine.
(18:07):
And but like, what are thecool, fun, like we we just talk
about stories.
Like, you know, one of the guysI work with is a former uh
Catholic priest, and he talksabout like, what is it, what
they're talking about, giants inthe Bible, what's that all
about?
Like just fun, cool, uplifting,like feel good.
Like, how do you find abundancein your life?
And whether that's abundancewith your family or abundance
(18:28):
with your fitness or abundancewith your finance or with your
friends or with fun, then we usefive Fs, right?
So we we just talk aboutabundance in all those five F
areas, right?
Because there's good F wordstoo.
Fun is a good F word, right?
It's a great F word.
So it's like we talk aboutabundance in all those places.
We talk about travel and andplaces we've been and and
(18:48):
mistakes that we've made.
And so it's just a fun place tocome and listen.
Uh, there's three differenthosts, most of us are there most
days, different, reallydifferent perspectives on like
we don't agree on everything,but you can see that discourse
happening like on the air.
And it's like we've beenfriends for a long time.
And so we get into it, andsometimes we're like, ooh, that
was maybe a little too much forthe listeners.
(19:10):
So you guys like you guys willbe fine, you know.
Ashley Love (19:14):
How fun.
And you know, I think it is soimportant.
Well, I I number one, I wantedto highlight your podcast
because it's an incrediblepodcast.
But number two, to reallyshowcase the fact that you are a
person, not just a clinician,right?
Not just a CEO business owner,not just an entrepreneur.
Um, you want to live abundantlyas well.
You know, your life is not allthose numbers that you rattled
(19:35):
off.
And it is so important tomaintain that because that is
how we preserve ourselves afterretirement, right?
Our life hopefully is not goingto be our jobs.
And if your life is your job, Iam so happy for you if that is
what makes you happy.
But for the majority of us, wealso need some type of a either
a creative outlet or a physicaloutlet to go to.
(19:57):
And then of course, the flipside of your coin is Priscina
Health.
I would love to talk about whatyou guys are doing there
because it is, as you mentionedalready, it is really truly
changing the face of how weapproach healthcare,
specifically chronic disease.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (20:12):
Yeah, I think for me that was that going
back and getting my doctorate,working with my partner, Dr.
Dustin Williams, who's aphysician.
And um, you know, he's themedical genius behind the
medical side.
I work on the behavioral healthside.
And what we found is that ifyou look at all of the medicine,
all of the behavioral health,all the administration, all the
social determinants of health,if you look at everything in a
new light, you actually canreverse type 2 diabetes with
(20:34):
great efficacy.
And we do it all the time.
And so uh, you know, we havepeople that are really sick and
have been sick for decades thatcome to us and they're like,
yeah, I've tried everything.
It's like, well, they haven'ttried us.
And so, and then 12 weekslater, they're in a really good
place.
And uh, and so, you know,people ask, like, what are you?
What kind of company?
We're a medical practice, we'reliterally a medical practice,
(20:56):
and we we are all telemedicine.
We help, you know, California,Texas, Florida, like we're in
like 10 states and we're growingby state by state as we go.
And um our thinking was like,how do you help the people that
have a hard time getting help?
So it was designed with likelow-income, rural, you know,
hard to access communities, washow we designed our entire
(21:18):
program.
And um, and you mentionedearlier like GLP ones, like
we'll use GLP ones, we'll useGIPs, we'll use any of that
stuff.
But our first study that reallyimpressed us 49 out of 50, all
we used was insulin andmetformin.
Wow.
So just you know, drugs thatwere only generic, right?
And that's how we got thatresult.
And so, like and and we talkedto doctors, like I, you know,
(21:42):
you we can geek out after theshow, and I'll tell you like
whatever the clinical, like wecan get into this.
And and doctors and PAs werelike, whoa.
Like, you know, I have medicalofficers of major payers who are
we explain the whole processfor like finally somebody who
gets it.
And it's like, yeah, because Itook years breaking down
everything that doesn't work.
I said, What if it had to betrue that it worked for the
(22:02):
patient, it worked for theprovider, it was financially
sustainable for the society.
What if all of that had to betrue?
How would we do it?
And that's how we built it.
And it's been so much fun tohear the patients.
Like, I mean, I was somebody, Iwas working with a marketing
firm about Sumber Messaging, andthey said, send us some success
stories.
And my um my COO sent over alist of like 92.
(22:23):
They're like, this is our last90 case studies where patients
have said things about us.
Let us know if you want more.
Ashley Love (22:29):
It's incredible.
And you mentioned at thebeginning that your
mother-in-law really was notfailed by the clinician.
It was a really good, a really,really good physician, but
failed by the system.
And it sounds like that'sreally what at Pristina Health,
it's really what you're tryingto fix here.
Can you tell us what thatmeans?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (22:47):
Yeah, I mean, look, I think a lot of
people would say that ourhealthcare system is broken, and
I'm not going to disagree.
But as a social worker, we canlook at things like at the macro
level and say, yeah, thesystem's not good.
But we also look at the microlevel.
And so my answer is likethere's things you can do
individually, even inside of abroken system, to help you help
yourself and grab that agencyback to your own health.
And it's okay to do that.
(23:08):
It's it can both be true thatthe system's not built for you,
and you can succeed in a brokensystem.
And so we teach our patientshow to take agency back for
their health care so they cansucceed in a broken system.
I am working on fixing thebroken system.
I get that it's a problem.
I'm working on it.
It's going to take a long time.
It's going to take a long time.
And so we have a 50-year planfor that.
(23:28):
And we hope to get it fixed.
But for right now, we arefixing patients at the micro
level every single day byhelping them help themselves and
in the things they can control.
Right.
And so we do that by likesaying, okay, with all the
medicine, with all the mentalhealth issues, with all the
food.
And like, what's the one thingyou're willing to commit to
today?
And for like for one patient,it was like, I'll change my
(23:49):
coffee creamer.
It's like, great, let's dothat.
Super.
And we changed their coffeecreamer and their blood sugar
was measurably lower, theirfasting blood glucose, like four
days later, because we changedtheir cream coffee creamer.
Another patient with they hadearly stages of dementia.
They were only consuming icecream and chocolate milk.
That was their only caloricintake.
Their spouse was like, I can'tget in to eat or drink anything
(24:10):
else.
We're like, no problem.
Can we just change which icecream they're eating?
They're like, sure.
We changed the ice cream.
Fasting blood glucose was downa hundred points week over week.
Wow.
So it's little tiny things.
Ashley Love (24:24):
That's incredible.
It really is.
And you know, I what I love somuch about that story is that
you really have been trying tomeet people where they are.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (24:32):
Those are our words.
You found it.
Yes.
That's what we teach our team.
You found yes, that's it.
That's it.
Which is really I'm gonna dropmy microphone.
I was gonna, I'm gonna drop it.
Ashley Love (24:41):
That's it's I could actually drop my mic today.
I am actually holding it.
Um it's just, you know, and andand we're laughing because it
is really fun to reach thatrecognize to reach that
realization.
But I'll tell you, as aclinician, that is a lot harder
to do than it than it than wejust than we say it is, right?
I mean, we say meet peoplewhere they are, but we walk into
(25:04):
a room and we're just sofrustrated by the patient
situation.
I mean, who wouldn't befrustrated by a patient who is
only their whole diet onlyconsisted of those two things,
right?
But they we've got to startthere.
And uh it it requires a lot ofcreativity on your end, I would
imagine.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (25:20):
If I were gonna say, like there's one
message across all of people,whether they're students in
medicine or whatever, that meetpeople where they are.
It's so intuitive and obvious,but it's so hard to do.
Our society does not naturallyhelp people learn to empathize.
And so, like, if that like ourour clinicians, every member of
our team goes through an hour orso of continuing education
(25:43):
weekly with us.
So they get back and they getreminded over and over again
like, hey, I know you talked toso and so last month, but you
didn't talk to them this month,and something may have changed.
Something may have changed.
And so it's this constantempathy training, constant, and
so anyway, you know, as youbuild community, like there are
people that didn't have greatcommunity in the last 10 years,
(26:05):
and and 60 years ago, we hadgreat community.
So build your community foryour listeners, build your
community.
If you don't know how to do it,reach out to me, like call me,
find me on LinkedIn, find me atthe website, like we will get
you connected somewhere.
Like, we believe in that.
So, like, let's go.
Ashley Love (26:20):
Build your community.
I think that's great.
And you know, let's give thesestudents a couple tangible tips
for how to do that.
You mentioned LinkedIn.
I think LinkedIn is aabsolutely phenomenal place for
pre-health.
This is high school or collegeage or young clinicians to
really dive in and start beingpoured into by people.
I mean, people, people onLinkedIn, it's it's it's
(26:42):
incredible how they are they'rediscussing problems, but they're
discussing it in a solutionmindset, right?
Um, they're they'rehighlighting and celebrating
wins.
I think LinkedIn is a greatplace to start.
What else?
What do you think?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (26:54):
Here's what I would do.
I would say wherever you are inyour life, go find three people
to mentor who are 10 yearsyounger than you.
So if you're graduating fromcollege, go mentor three middle
school students.
If you're graduating frommedical school, go graduate, go,
go mentor three undergrads orhigh school students.
Like, but find three people tomentor, and you're gonna quickly
learn what it means to be agood mentee from their
(27:16):
perspective, and then startlooking for mentors.
Don't start looking for mentorsfirst.
Go be a mentor first.
And a mentor means you don'thave your agenda.
All you do is meet them wherethey are, ask them where they
want to go, and help them getwhere they want to go without
any bias about where that is, aslong as it's not illegal or
harmful or whatever the case maybe.
Um, sorry, I have to say thosethings these days, I guess.
(27:38):
But but help them go where theywant to help them go to some
healthy place they want to go,right?
And without bias.
And so, and then go find somementors.
When I when I started doingthis, like it took me a while to
find my mentors, but I really Idove in to find mentees very
quickly.
And I always try to keep two orthree people that I'm mentoring
uh at all times.
And it it's you know, I thegift is really for me.
(28:00):
I I gotta say, mentoringpeople, I'm the really the one
who gets the gift.
I I still remember I went uh totry to mentor some middle
schoolers in when I was amaster's student.
Uh, and um I thought I wasbeing this really pragmatic,
helpful MBA kind of guy.
And this school principal inthis middle school scheduled 30
minutes with me, spent four anda half hours with me, and
(28:23):
changed my view of the world inthis inner city, very low-income
school.
And I am forever grateful forthe time he spent with me to get
to really wring themisconceptions out of my brain
that I had.
Um, so I went to mentor peopleand I got mentored, and it was a
one-time deal.
And it was like, I remember thewalk through his school to this
(28:45):
day.
And that was more than 20 yearsago.
Ashley Love (28:48):
Amazing.
And you know, we're speakingdirectly to pre-health students
there, but clinicians, that isfor you two.
Get with some mentees, get withsome mentors.
We have to build community,like you said.
It is it is so important.
Guys, to learn more about abetter approach to complex
chronic disease, improvingquality and length of life for
(29:09):
everyone, please, please, pleasevisit droberg at prissina.com.
That's P-R-E-C-I-N-A.
And he mentioned his LinkedIn,and that's John Oberg.
You can find him there.
Dr.
Oberg, it has been incredible.
Thank you so much for whatyou're doing.
And thank you so much for theamazing little gems that you
have scattered throughout thatentire conversation for our
(29:31):
students.
Really appreciate it.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (29:33):
Thanks, Ashley.
Ashley Love (29:35):
Thank you so very much for listening to this
episode of Shadow Me Next.
If you liked this episode or ifyou think it could be useful
for a friend, please subscribeand invite them to join us next
Monday.
As always, if you have anyquestions, let me know on
Facebook or Instagram.
Access you want, stories youneed, you're always invited to
Shadow Me Next.
(29:55):
Please keep in mind that thecontent of this podcast is
intended for informational andentertainment purposes only, and
should not be considered asprofessional medical advice.
The views and opinionsexpressed in this podcast are
those of the host and guests,and do not necessarily reflect
the official policy or positionof any other agency,
(30:16):
organization, employer, orcompany.
What if the thing you've been told will make you a
better clinician is not thething that will actually sustain
you?
Dr.
John Oberg has worked acrossmedicine, business, behavior,
and AI.
And what he's learned is thisif you keep chasing knowledge
without learning how to think,connect, and meet people where
they are, you may looksuccessful and still miss what
(00:22):
matters most.
If you're a pre-health studentor early clinician, you've
probably been told to focus ongrades, research, productivity,
and the next step.
You've done that.
But here's a different, deeperskill set.
No one is really teaching you.
And in this episode, we willunpack what that actually looks
like and how it leads tomeaningful success in medicine.
(00:44):
Welcome to Shadow Me Next, apodcast where I take you into
and behind the scenes of themedical world to provide you
with a deeper understanding ofthe human side of medicine.
I'm Ashley, a physicianassistant, medical editor,
clinical preceptor, and thecreator of Shadow Me Next.
I invite you to join me as wetake a conversational and
(01:04):
personal look into the lives andminds of leaders in medicine.
Dr.
Oberg, thank you so much forjoining us on Shadow Me Next
today.
You have created thisabsolutely incredible resource
specifically for people withchronic disease.
And we are going to talk aboutthat, but we are also going to
talk about so many other thingsthat are really interesting hot
topics.
Real interesting hot topics, alittle bit that you shared with
(01:26):
me so far.
So thanks for being here andthank you for joining us.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (01:29):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I can't, I can't I have no ideawhere we're going, but I'm
excited to go.
Ashley Love (01:34):
It's a blind drive, but I'm driving.
So don't you worry, you're ingood hands.
Um, let's first talk about yourjourney into medicine.
I would love to hear about whatfirst drew you to the
profession, how you decided onyour role in medicine.
Yeah.
Um, maybe start there for us.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (01:51):
So I think I joke though.
I started in medicine when Iwas eight years old.
My mom was running a medicalpractice.
My grandfather was a surgeon,and I got sick and had to stay
home from school, and I had togo to the office and file
charts.
And so, like, I was like, oh,getting sick and staying home
from school sucks.
So I don't want to do thatanymore.
And like by the time I waslike, when I was 12, there was
no HIPAA.
I was like processing x-raysand like watching the film dry.
(02:15):
My hand was in chemicals thatprobably would like today be so
against the law.
And I'm like looking atpeople's x-rays with the
doctors, like, like there's noHIPAA at all, right?
So that was my start inmedicine.
I don't think that was probablythe best start to medicine.
Uh, but I was pre-med incollege and I got pretty turned
off.
Uh I was I was a on the benchbiologist at uh I was working in
(02:36):
an HIV lab and had a pretty badexperience, the lab director,
the where um there's thingsgoing in the lab where somebody
else was messing with somebodyelse's experiment, and I called
it out and they were like, sowhat?
And I was like, you know, I'mnot gonna do that anymore.
So I went I went into businessand decided like I'll I study
biology for a bit.
I really wanted to go and Itook so I took a detour into the
business world and I startedrunning companies and I started
(02:58):
starting companies as a serialentrepreneur, and uh and then I
got into a place where I wasconsulting back into the
healthcare world on the businessside of things.
And then all of this was basedin like psychology and you know,
how do you go through changemanagement and all these types
of things?
So I was I was pretty deep intolike um organizational
psychology, and then then mymother-in-law got sick and with
(03:20):
type 2 diabetes and had a reallybad experience with a really
good doctor, frankly.
So the doctor wasn't the badexperience, the system was the
bad experience.
And so the doctor wasfrustrated.
You've probably experiencedthis.
The patient, my mother-in-law,was was pretty unhappy.
And so I said, okay, I'm gonnago back and get my doctorate at
USC and I'm gonna solve thistype 2 diabetes problem.
And everyone's like, that'scute.
Type 2 diabetes has been aproblem for a while.
(03:41):
You can come try to get adoctorate that, you know, just
so you're aware, we've beenworking on this for a long time.
And then in our first pilotstudy, we reversed diabetes in
49 out of 50 patients in 12weeks.
And in our second study, that'snot yet published.
We're in the process ofpublishing now, we took uh 79
patients with an average A1C of11, a minimum A1C of nine, and
(04:02):
reduced that into the low sevenswithin less than six months.
Took 30% of our patients off ofinsulin within six months.
Like just ridiculous results.
Ashley Love (04:11):
That's amazing.
I want to I want to tap intothose numbers real quick too,
because most people, well, firstpeople might say, What's an
A1C?
Right.
And then second, they mightsay, well, what's a normal A1C?
So define those values for usreal quick.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (04:23):
Hemoglobin A1C is measuring how much um
glycation is happening for yourred blood cells in your body.
And so in a normal healthybody, it's below 6.5 for most
adults.
If it's above 6.5, you havediabetes, right?
And so it's generally trackingyour average blood sugar over
the last 90 days close enough,right?
And so if you're above 6.5, youhave diabetes.
If you're you know under 6.5,you might have prediabetes.
(04:45):
If you're under six, you'repretty healthy.
And so uh, you know, whenyou've got a seven or an eight,
you're in pretty bad shape.
And so in our first study, wehad an average A1C of 9.6.
And then if you can drop thatA1PC percentage from like 9.6 to
8.6 or from 6.5 to 5.5, onepercentage point in a year,
you've got a billion-dollardrug.
We generally drop A1C by oneand a half points per month.
Ashley Love (05:08):
Outrageous.
Outrage.
And this is not this is notnecessarily with drugs.
I mean, people are gonna say,yeah, they must be on GLP1s or
GIPs or any of that stuff.
You're not using necessarilyusing that.
You're using something intotally, totally different,
which we'll dive into.
I don't want to tease it toomuch.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (05:23):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, yeah.
Ashley Love (05:24):
Yes, and yes, and before we get too far though, um
uh filing charts.
This is this is gonna beanother great segue, right?
So once upon a time when wewere dipping our hands into you
know actual chemicals to processactual film of x-rays, once
upon a time we had paper chartsand we had to file them.
And it's a great conversation Ijust had recently with one of
(05:46):
my medical assistants.
And he said, Ash, what did youdo before you guys just had
electronic health records, EHRsor EMRs, electronic medical
records?
And I said, Well, we had stacksand stacks and stacks of filing
cabinets, and you'd have to goand pull the charts.
Um, and it's just sointeresting because I think it
really highlights your career inmedicine from when you started.
(06:07):
Now we're we're, you know,we're joking about it.
You're you were eight yearsold.
I was a medical assistantmyself when I was filing charts,
not a practicing clinician, butto something we're gonna talk
about, which is AI healthcaresolutions.
And this is brand new, right?
So we have you've traversedthis incredible journey really
in healthcare to to see someimpressive advancements, and I'm
(06:29):
sure some um some prettymiserable fails as well along
the way, right?
Um it'll be a reallyinteresting conversation.
Like I said, I do, I do want totease it just a little bit.
But um but I'd like to I'd liketo first talk about your
transition in college fromworking in that HIV lab, having
a bad experience, and decidingthat it would be an appropriate
time to pivot.
And then you did find hugesuccess as a businessman as
(06:51):
well.
Let's speak directly to ourstudents right now who are maybe
in a similar boat, right?
They have this dream ofhealthcare and they think um
something has happened.
I'm having to make a big pivot.
I'm really scared.
Was it hard for you to makethat change?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (07:06):
For me, I've always tried to like keep
the right doors open.
And so it's like, what and Inever try to like make decisions
that will close lots of doors.
So it's like, I think to my andearly in my career, I had some
mentors who are like, whatskills do you need to build to
open doors?
And so those skills could be,you know, clinical skills, they
could be business skills, theycould be people skills, which
(07:27):
are really underrated in today'sworld with AI happening.
Those people skills I think aregonna be more important as we
go forward.
So I think, you know, if so,what I try to do is, and I take
my kids through an exercisethat, like my my children, like
in 10 years, what do you thinkyou want to be doing?
Okay, I promise you're wrong,no big deal.
What are the skills that yougenerally have to develop to go
in that direction?
(07:48):
And let's pick one or two,right?
And let's just pick one or twoskills.
And so sometimes it's about,you know, I like to talk to them
about learning how to learn.
Like, do you know how to be agood learner?
And then learning how toconnect with people, because
those two skills I think aregonna be the most valuable in
the next 10 years for people, islearning how to be a good
learner and then learning how tobe a connector, like how to
(08:10):
connect with people at a humanlevel.
I think those are gonna be twoof the most valuable personal
and professional skills goingforward.
That's my social workertalking.
Ashley Love (08:17):
I thank you, social worker talking, because that's
exactly what we need to hearright now, especially people
going into medicine.
You know, we're already havingconversations about what
elements, and I'm just talkingabout the medical world here
right now.
What elements of medicine is AIgoing to replace?
You know, these are realconversations.
I'd imagine, as a student rightnow, going, well, you know, is
am I gonna have a job?
Am I gonna have a job when Iget out of school?
(08:39):
You know, is this somethingthat I should even be
considering?
So these people's skills, youknow, I think they they call
them soft skills um now, butit's just they're going to
become very, very not softskills here pretty soon.
They're gonna be distinguishingskills for certain people.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (08:53):
So funny story about that.
Hard skills and soft skillswere defined by the military a
long time ago.
And finance used to beconsidered a soft skill because
you couldn't touch it.
Ashley Love (09:03):
Are you serious?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (09:04):
Yeah.
I did not know.
No, hold on.
I read that on the internet.
I didn't fact check it with allof my scientific libraries, but
it makes sense, right?
And so I think I think softskills, you know, one of my
favorite stories to tell peopleis not a true story.
It's a fictional story that Imade up, but it's a good story.
I tell people that if I wantedto give my wife an iPhone for
Christmas because she wantsthat, and my daughter wants the
(09:26):
same iPhone, if it were true,which it's not, that my daughter
wanted me to wrap a present andtie the bow myself, and my wife
felt like the wrapping paperwas bad for the environment,
don't use it at all.
And I gave them each other'spresent, bad soft skills, they'd
both be angry at me for givingthem exactly what they wanted.
Right.
Right?
That's so and so it's like,yeah, so so it's like I've got
(09:47):
to be like soft skills are theability to package a message in
a way that someone's able toreceive it, right?
Like that's so anyway, I can gogeek and geek out about that
forever.
Ashley Love (09:58):
Oh, well, I love that.
I think that's fantastic.
And we could do a whole TEDtalk, which you have done
before, but we can do a wholeTED talk on that exact topic.
And you know, maybe we will,maybe we'll have to circle back
and do that one day.
But um HIV lab in college, youknow, there is um, there's a lot
of questions right now aboutresearch.
And if we want to go to medschool, a lot of times you need
(10:19):
research.
If you want to go to PA school,you may not necessarily need
research.
Did you find in yourexperience, aside from the bad
experience, was research reallyformative for you?
I mean, was it, did you did youfeel like it was necessary,
necessary step for you to take?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (10:35):
Here's what I think is great about
research.
And I think the same thing canbe true for like engineering.
It taught me problem solving.
It gave me some early mentalmodels about how to approach a
problem objectively and then umhow to challenge assumptions and
be okay with bad assumptions.
I think sometimes today, uh,when people get things wrong,
they sometimes is um this senseof shame or blame or guilt along
(10:58):
with a bad decision versus,hey, the way we move the
scientific world forward is wemake a null hypothesis and then
we test it to try to disproveit.
And so failure is a part of theprocess.
It's like, and so you get this,it's you don't tie up the
outcome with your identitypsychologically, which is
really, really important.
So I think that you can getthat in the hard sciences.
I think you can get that inengineering.
(11:18):
I think you can get that insome of the liberal arts too, if
it's done and taught very well.
I do think that it's probablysystemically harder to get in
those other disciplines than itis to get in the hard sciences
because you can iterate soquickly or in engineering where
you iterate so quickly.
So I had to take classes inphysics and in calculus and then
you know, all these classesthat everyone who's listening
(11:40):
has to take too.
And you guys are all takenthose same classes and probably
liked them as much as I did.
But I learned a lot from it.
And I think that learning isthe important part.
Ashley Love (11:51):
You are dropping so many incredible, just gold
nuggets here.
Failure is a part of theprocess.
You are absolutely right.
And, you know, to walk aroundall day and say, well, I haven't
made a single mistake, itprobably means, well, you
haven't tried a single thingthat was new, right?
I mean, you haven't tested it.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (12:06):
Well, that is a mistake.
Like that's the mistake.
Like, like, what have youlearned?
Like, like, and and and thekey, you know, my mom, my mom
passed away, but she was sogreat in so many ways.
And she said to me at onepoint, she said, you know, I
tried to make sure as you gotolder that I kept you away from
the cliffs, but I let you takeon more and more of the larger
potholes.
And so I think that's such agreat way of letting people
learn.
(12:27):
And so when I instruct peoplein the college classroom, what I
try to do is keep them awayfrom the cliffs and learn how to
identify the cliffs, but letthem navigate the potholes
through experiences so they canlearn experientially.
Ashley Love (12:37):
And that builds resilience, right?
I mean, there's no better wayto be tested than to experience
those potholes, to experiencethose, those major kind of
upheavals where you say, whoa,that didn't feel good.
That wasn't right.
We need to go ahead andnavigate around that next time.
Absolutely incredible.
Okay, let's talk about AI andhealthcare because I'm very,
very excited to chat about thiswith you.
(12:58):
Can you give us a snapshot forour for our pre-health students
and our clinicians and ourclinicians?
Can you give us a snapshot ofwhat AI healthcare solutions,
what does that even mean?
And why do we need to beinterested in that?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (13:13):
We're using AI in lots of places.
In fact, there's a largecompany called Salesforce.com
that has 135,000 companies usingtheir platform.
We were the first company inthe entire world to roll out two
of their specific AI agentsbecause of the way that we
handle AI.
And we were really fortunate tobe able to work with them as a
partner and do that.
And so I think, you know, so weuse AI a little bit on the
(13:36):
patient-facing side, a lot onthe clinician-facing side, a lot
on the administrator side.
AI is really great for takinghighly repetitive tasks and um
helping them, or tasks thatrequire massive amounts of
information and making themhappen better, faster, or
cheaper.
And so I tell CEOs oforganizations like, if you're
not thinking about AI agents asa part of your organizational
(13:57):
chart going forward, that'sprobably not a good idea.
And if you're an executive in acompany who doesn't understand
how to deploy AI onto yourorganizational chart, you're
probably going to be at acompetitive disadvantage.
In the same way that people whodidn't adopt personal computers
were at a disadvantage topeople who did.
Or people who didn't adopt theinternet were a disadvantage to
people who did.
(14:18):
Or before that, people whodidn't adopt calculators were to
disadvantage, right?
Like, so we go back to thatmedical practice where I was
filing charts.
There were people ontypewriters taking dictation
machines and like transcribingnotes from doctors' dictation
all day long.
That was their entire job.
So that job doesn't existanymore.
And so there are changes in howpeople, what jobs people do and
(14:40):
how they do it.
And that's just, I mean, if youlook at sociology over the
last, let's call it 10, 20,000years, change is a part of what
we're meant to do.
Like that's just theevolutionary nature of a
society.
And so we're in a place rightnow where we're gonna have some
inflection points.
And so again, what I try tohelp my family see is like, what
does the future look like andhow do we get ready for that?
And I think embracing AI in thesame way that you embrace a
(15:03):
calculator or a personalcomputer, but that means you
still have to learn how tocritically think.
Because if you just takeinformation from a calculator
and you don't recognize when youmissed a keystroke, your
calculator is gonna be wrongbecause you missed a keystroke,
right?
Or if you take a computer andjust start typing, like so.
I think there's like these aretools, not human replacements
today.
Ashley Love (15:22):
And honestly, I would love for you to kind of
reframe that a little bit inyour expertise, which is with
chronic disease, right?
So if we are not using ourbrain, if we're not using our
critical thinking for a longtime, chronically, oh what I
mean, reframe that for us.
What what's what is that gonnalook like?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (15:40):
Well, let's just take the the words youth
stress and distress.
Like those are two words thatdon't often get used on on two
sides of a coin, but youthstress, e-u-s-t-r-e-s-s, youth
stress is positive stress thatbuilds you.
Distress is something thatbreaks you down.
And so if you use that analogin the muscles, we know that we
have hypertrophy and atrophy,muscles that we build because
(16:00):
we've lifted weights and atrophythat goes away, or we can have
distress in muscles where wetear a muscle because we've
overused it.
Well, that same thing existsemotionally, that same thing
exists cognitively.
And I don't know that we haveall the same measures we do with
muscles in those areas, butwe're learning that the analogs
are pretty true.
And so, you know, if you stopworking cognitively, you tend to
(16:23):
decline.
And that's why people tend todie, give or take, five years
after retirement, broad scalegeneralization.
But if you stop working yourbrain, you tend to pass away,
and that's not a good thing.
And emotionally, the samething.
Like if you don't engageemotionally with youth stress
and distress, you're gonna losesome of your ability to engage
with things emotionally.
Physically, we know that'strue.
Like any of the functionalmedicine, and like you can look
(16:46):
at any of those parts of theworld, and we're just we're
showing that longevity has areally important physical
component to it and alsoemotional and cognitive.
So at the end of the day, youshould be lifting muscle,
lifting weights for yourmuscles, you should be lifting
weights emotionally,figuratively, you should be
lifting weights cognitively,like all those things matter.
Ashley Love (17:04):
Absolutely.
You know, I want to talk aboutsomething real quick, and that
is somebody listening might bethinking, this guy is just, he's
a cool, cool science nerd.
He worked in an HIV lab and hewas talking about all those
crazy A1C numbers, and he'susing all of these cool words
like eustress and distress.
But then you are framing thisin a very emotional personal
tone as well when you talk.
(17:26):
And that brings me to yourpodcast, which is Tales of
Abundance.
It was born out of a near-deathexperience.
You were talking about cliffsand potholes earlier, and I had
to bite my tongue.
But tell us a little bit aboutthis podcast, um, you know, how
it how it was created, and thenwhy our pre-health students
should be listening to this.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (17:46):
And it's super cool.
Like it's a place to go to feelgood.
Like, I think in this world,there's so many things that are
just like I look around and I'mlike, man, that's like, ooh, ah,
oh.
And how do I engage?
What do I do?
And I know I want to be a partof it.
Part of that is I just want toput some good stories into the
world.
And so we go and we talk aboutlike what's happening in AI,
what's happening in finance andcryptocurrency and medicine.
(18:07):
And but like, what are thecool, fun, like we we just talk
about stories.
Like, you know, one of the guysI work with is a former uh
Catholic priest, and he talksabout like, what is it, what
they're talking about, giants inthe Bible, what's that all
about?
Like just fun, cool, uplifting,like feel good.
Like, how do you find abundancein your life?
And whether that's abundancewith your family or abundance
(18:28):
with your fitness or abundancewith your finance or with your
friends or with fun, then we usefive Fs, right?
So we we just talk aboutabundance in all those five F
areas, right?
Because there's good F wordstoo.
Fun is a good F word, right?
It's a great F word.
So it's like we talk aboutabundance in all those places.
We talk about travel and andplaces we've been and and
(18:48):
mistakes that we've made.
And so it's just a fun place tocome and listen.
Uh, there's three differenthosts, most of us are there most
days, different, reallydifferent perspectives on like
we don't agree on everything,but you can see that discourse
happening like on the air.
And it's like we've beenfriends for a long time.
And so we get into it, andsometimes we're like, ooh, that
was maybe a little too much forthe listeners.
(19:10):
So you guys like you guys willbe fine, you know.
Ashley Love (19:14):
How fun.
And you know, I think it is soimportant.
Well, I I number one, I wantedto highlight your podcast
because it's an incrediblepodcast.
But number two, to reallyshowcase the fact that you are a
person, not just a clinician,right?
Not just a CEO business owner,not just an entrepreneur.
Um, you want to live abundantlyas well.
You know, your life is not allthose numbers that you rattled
(19:35):
off.
And it is so important tomaintain that because that is
how we preserve ourselves afterretirement, right?
Our life hopefully is not goingto be our jobs.
And if your life is your job, Iam so happy for you if that is
what makes you happy.
But for the majority of us, wealso need some type of a either
a creative outlet or a physicaloutlet to go to.
(19:57):
And then of course, the flipside of your coin is Priscina
Health.
I would love to talk about whatyou guys are doing there
because it is, as you mentionedalready, it is really truly
changing the face of how weapproach healthcare,
specifically chronic disease.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (20:12):
Yeah, I think for me that was that going
back and getting my doctorate,working with my partner, Dr.
Dustin Williams, who's aphysician.
And um, you know, he's themedical genius behind the
medical side.
I work on the behavioral healthside.
And what we found is that ifyou look at all of the medicine,
all of the behavioral health,all the administration, all the
social determinants of health,if you look at everything in a
new light, you actually canreverse type 2 diabetes with
(20:34):
great efficacy.
And we do it all the time.
And so uh, you know, we havepeople that are really sick and
have been sick for decades thatcome to us and they're like,
yeah, I've tried everything.
It's like, well, they haven'ttried us.
And so, and then 12 weekslater, they're in a really good
place.
And uh, and so, you know,people ask, like, what are you?
What kind of company?
We're a medical practice, we'reliterally a medical practice,
(20:56):
and we we are all telemedicine.
We help, you know, California,Texas, Florida, like we're in
like 10 states and we're growingby state by state as we go.
And um our thinking was like,how do you help the people that
have a hard time getting help?
So it was designed with likelow-income, rural, you know,
hard to access communities, washow we designed our entire
(21:18):
program.
And um, and you mentionedearlier like GLP ones, like
we'll use GLP ones, we'll useGIPs, we'll use any of that
stuff.
But our first study that reallyimpressed us 49 out of 50, all
we used was insulin andmetformin.
Wow.
So just you know, drugs thatwere only generic, right?
And that's how we got thatresult.
And so, like and and we talkedto doctors, like I, you know,
(21:42):
you we can geek out after theshow, and I'll tell you like
whatever the clinical, like wecan get into this.
And and doctors and PAs werelike, whoa.
Like, you know, I have medicalofficers of major payers who are
we explain the whole processfor like finally somebody who
gets it.
And it's like, yeah, because Itook years breaking down
everything that doesn't work.
I said, What if it had to betrue that it worked for the
(22:02):
patient, it worked for theprovider, it was financially
sustainable for the society.
What if all of that had to betrue?
How would we do it?
And that's how we built it.
And it's been so much fun tohear the patients.
Like, I mean, I was somebody, Iwas working with a marketing
firm about Sumber Messaging, andthey said, send us some success
stories.
And my um my COO sent over alist of like 92.
(22:23):
They're like, this is our last90 case studies where patients
have said things about us.
Let us know if you want more.
Ashley Love (22:29):
It's incredible.
And you mentioned at thebeginning that your
mother-in-law really was notfailed by the clinician.
It was a really good, a really,really good physician, but
failed by the system.
And it sounds like that'sreally what at Pristina Health,
it's really what you're tryingto fix here.
Can you tell us what thatmeans?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (22:47):
Yeah, I mean, look, I think a lot of
people would say that ourhealthcare system is broken, and
I'm not going to disagree.
But as a social worker, we canlook at things like at the macro
level and say, yeah, thesystem's not good.
But we also look at the microlevel.
And so my answer is likethere's things you can do
individually, even inside of abroken system, to help you help
yourself and grab that agencyback to your own health.
And it's okay to do that.
(23:08):
It's it can both be true thatthe system's not built for you,
and you can succeed in a brokensystem.
And so we teach our patientshow to take agency back for
their health care so they cansucceed in a broken system.
I am working on fixing thebroken system.
I get that it's a problem.
I'm working on it.
It's going to take a long time.
It's going to take a long time.
And so we have a 50-year planfor that.
(23:28):
And we hope to get it fixed.
But for right now, we arefixing patients at the micro
level every single day byhelping them help themselves and
in the things they can control.
Right.
And so we do that by likesaying, okay, with all the
medicine, with all the mentalhealth issues, with all the
food.
And like, what's the one thingyou're willing to commit to
today?
And for like for one patient,it was like, I'll change my
(23:49):
coffee creamer.
It's like, great, let's dothat.
Super.
And we changed their coffeecreamer and their blood sugar
was measurably lower, theirfasting blood glucose, like four
days later, because we changedtheir cream coffee creamer.
Another patient with they hadearly stages of dementia.
They were only consuming icecream and chocolate milk.
That was their only caloricintake.
Their spouse was like, I can'tget in to eat or drink anything
(24:10):
else.
We're like, no problem.
Can we just change which icecream they're eating?
They're like, sure.
We changed the ice cream.
Fasting blood glucose was downa hundred points week over week.
Wow.
So it's little tiny things.
Ashley Love (24:24):
That's incredible.
It really is.
And you know, I what I love somuch about that story is that
you really have been trying tomeet people where they are.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (24:32):
Those are our words.
You found it.
Yes.
That's what we teach our team.
You found yes, that's it.
That's it.
Which is really I'm gonna dropmy microphone.
I was gonna, I'm gonna drop it.
Ashley Love (24:41):
That's it's I could actually drop my mic today.
I am actually holding it.
Um it's just, you know, and andand we're laughing because it
is really fun to reach thatrecognize to reach that
realization.
But I'll tell you, as aclinician, that is a lot harder
to do than it than it than wejust than we say it is, right?
I mean, we say meet peoplewhere they are, but we walk into
(25:04):
a room and we're just sofrustrated by the patient
situation.
I mean, who wouldn't befrustrated by a patient who is
only their whole diet onlyconsisted of those two things,
right?
But they we've got to startthere.
And uh it it requires a lot ofcreativity on your end, I would
imagine.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (25:20):
If I were gonna say, like there's one
message across all of people,whether they're students in
medicine or whatever, that meetpeople where they are.
It's so intuitive and obvious,but it's so hard to do.
Our society does not naturallyhelp people learn to empathize.
And so, like, if that like ourour clinicians, every member of
our team goes through an hour orso of continuing education
(25:43):
weekly with us.
So they get back and they getreminded over and over again
like, hey, I know you talked toso and so last month, but you
didn't talk to them this month,and something may have changed.
Something may have changed.
And so it's this constantempathy training, constant, and
so anyway, you know, as youbuild community, like there are
people that didn't have greatcommunity in the last 10 years,
(26:05):
and and 60 years ago, we hadgreat community.
So build your community foryour listeners, build your
community.
If you don't know how to do it,reach out to me, like call me,
find me on LinkedIn, find me atthe website, like we will get
you connected somewhere.
Like, we believe in that.
So, like, let's go.
Ashley Love (26:20):
Build your community.
I think that's great.
And you know, let's give thesestudents a couple tangible tips
for how to do that.
You mentioned LinkedIn.
I think LinkedIn is aabsolutely phenomenal place for
pre-health.
This is high school or collegeage or young clinicians to
really dive in and start beingpoured into by people.
I mean, people, people onLinkedIn, it's it's it's
(26:42):
incredible how they are they'rediscussing problems, but they're
discussing it in a solutionmindset, right?
Um, they're they'rehighlighting and celebrating
wins.
I think LinkedIn is a greatplace to start.
What else?
What do you think?
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (26:54):
Here's what I would do.
I would say wherever you are inyour life, go find three people
to mentor who are 10 yearsyounger than you.
So if you're graduating fromcollege, go mentor three middle
school students.
If you're graduating frommedical school, go graduate, go,
go mentor three undergrads orhigh school students.
Like, but find three people tomentor, and you're gonna quickly
learn what it means to be agood mentee from their
(27:16):
perspective, and then startlooking for mentors.
Don't start looking for mentorsfirst.
Go be a mentor first.
And a mentor means you don'thave your agenda.
All you do is meet them wherethey are, ask them where they
want to go, and help them getwhere they want to go without
any bias about where that is, aslong as it's not illegal or
harmful or whatever the case maybe.
Um, sorry, I have to say thosethings these days, I guess.
(27:38):
But but help them go where theywant to help them go to some
healthy place they want to go,right?
And without bias.
And so, and then go find somementors.
When I when I started doingthis, like it took me a while to
find my mentors, but I really Idove in to find mentees very
quickly.
And I always try to keep two orthree people that I'm mentoring
uh at all times.
And it it's you know, I thegift is really for me.
(28:00):
I I gotta say, mentoringpeople, I'm the really the one
who gets the gift.
I I still remember I went uh totry to mentor some middle
schoolers in when I was amaster's student.
Uh, and um I thought I wasbeing this really pragmatic,
helpful MBA kind of guy.
And this school principal inthis middle school scheduled 30
minutes with me, spent four anda half hours with me, and
(28:23):
changed my view of the world inthis inner city, very low-income
school.
And I am forever grateful forthe time he spent with me to get
to really wring themisconceptions out of my brain
that I had.
Um, so I went to mentor peopleand I got mentored, and it was a
one-time deal.
And it was like, I remember thewalk through his school to this
(28:45):
day.
And that was more than 20 yearsago.
Ashley Love (28:48):
Amazing.
And you know, we're speakingdirectly to pre-health students
there, but clinicians, that isfor you two.
Get with some mentees, get withsome mentors.
We have to build community,like you said.
It is it is so important.
Guys, to learn more about abetter approach to complex
chronic disease, improvingquality and length of life for
(29:09):
everyone, please, please, pleasevisit droberg at prissina.com.
That's P-R-E-C-I-N-A.
And he mentioned his LinkedIn,and that's John Oberg.
You can find him there.
Dr.
Oberg, it has been incredible.
Thank you so much for whatyou're doing.
And thank you so much for theamazing little gems that you
have scattered throughout thatentire conversation for our
(29:31):
students.
Really appreciate it.
Dr. John Oberg, DSW (29:33):
Thanks, Ashley.
Ashley Love (29:35):
Thank you so very much for listening to this
episode of Shadow Me Next.
If you liked this episode or ifyou think it could be useful
for a friend, please subscribeand invite them to join us next
Monday.
As always, if you have anyquestions, let me know on
Facebook or Instagram.
Access you want, stories youneed, you're always invited to
Shadow Me Next.
(29:55):
Please keep in mind that thecontent of this podcast is
intended for informational andentertainment purposes only, and
should not be considered asprofessional medical advice.
The views and opinionsexpressed in this podcast are
those of the host and guests,and do not necessarily reflect
the official policy or positionof any other agency,
(30:16):
organization, employer, orcompany.
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