March 21, 2025 • 60 mins
From groundbreaking research on seal oxygen perception to heart-stopping surgical techniques, we explore medical frontiers that sound like science fiction but save lives daily with cardiothoracic anesthesiologist Dr. Ashley Gabrielsen.
• Gray seals can perceive blood oxygen levels rather than CO2, allowing them to adjust dive durations accordingly
• Therapy dogs in ERs significantly reduce pediatric anxiety – dropping scores almost twice as much as standard care alone
Then an amazing chat with Dr. G!
• During cardiac surgery, the heart can be completely stopped while a bypass machine takes over circulation
• In extreme procedures, patients can be cooled to 20°C and circulation stopped briefly – being "clinically dead" before resuscitation
• The brain lacks pain receptors, enabling awake brain surgeries where patients can play instruments during the procedure
• Modern anesthesia techniques allow joint replacements with minimal medication and same-day mobility
Dr. G's Instagram Handle @ashleesi306
https://www.instagram.com/ashleesi306/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
And I'm Chris Zukoski, we'rethe pet parents of Bunsen,
beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
If you love science.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And you love pets.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot, so put on your
safety glasses and hold on toyour tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hello everybody and welcomeback to the Science Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is Episode 7 of Season 6.
Nothing major to report withthe dogs or the cat this week
(00:45):
before we get into the sciencenews and our amazing guest.
I think the big developmentthat we're just so proud of is
how good Beaker is doing atDoggy Daycare.
We're getting reports thatshe's playing happily with all
of the dogs and her andBernoulli are becoming best
buddies and definitely there'sbeen a change in how they
interact with each other at home.
Bernoulli still makes Beakercrazy and she tunes them up
(01:08):
sometimes, but we do hear thatthey play together all day,
which just you know, it's sosweet.
And then we also heard thatBeaker has a friend and oh my
God, it's like it's like she's.
You know there are kids and youhave like a kid that's
struggling socially and has madea friend in grade two.
It's pretty sweet.
(01:30):
Anyways, go beaker, all right.
Well, what's on the show thisweek?
In science news, we're talkingabout holding our breath, but if
you're a seal, and in petscience, a really heartwarming
study about reducing anxiety inkids during ER visits You'll
have to listen to figure outwhat's going on there.
Our guest in Ask an Expert isDr Ashley Gabrielson, who's
(01:51):
going to be talking to us aboutanesthesiology.
What a cool guest.
Okay, let's get on with theshow, everybody.
There's no time like ScienceTime.
This week in science news,let's talk about holding your
breath.
But specifically, if you're aseal, chris, how long can you
hold your breath for?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Not very long at all, probably a maximum of two
seconds.
You may recall teaching me howto swim, and I didn't want to
put my face in the water.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
No no.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And then I had to do the time swim doing the back
crawl because I was like I can'tdo it, I can't do front crawl
and coordinate and breathe andnot die.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Holding your breath is something you can train
though.
Holding your breath issomething you can train though I
, through competitive swimming.
I could hold my breath andwould do like peak physical
activity for a long time.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yes, Jason, you always surprised me and it was
so cool that you were able to dofull lengths under the pool.
You would be like watch this,and then you would just stay
under the water and go from endto end and not even come up for
air.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It's a fun party trick and occasionally I've been
at swimming pools with kids,either as a chaperone or when I
used to teach phys ed.
We would.
That was a long time ago andthat was the thing I'd always
bet the kids.
I was like, okay, if you canswim further than I can
underwater, no homework for therest of the year.
And the kids would always be sooverconfident and they'd be
(03:32):
like, yeah, we can take you,your old man, and then they
would go not very far and then Iwould wax them.
It's very satisfying.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I just think of how we used to play video games like
Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Icouldn't get through the level
where he had to swim underwaterbecause he his oxygen would run
out and he would die.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, rather graphically.
Some of those old games everyone of those old games, though
had a swimming level and, as yousaid, a fire or lava level, but
we're talking about holdingyour breath underwater, and the
creature we're talking about isthe gray seal, and, as new
research findings show, theymight have a specialized sense
(04:16):
that helps them survive deepunder the water.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
So how do they do that?
Why is that unusual?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
When we hold our breath, if you want to try it
right now, if you're listening,carbon dioxide builds up as your
body goes through some of therespiration.
That buildup of carbon dioxidedrives you to take a breath.
Now, for people who hold theirbreath, swimming or whatever you
can push that feeling backthrough training.
(04:46):
You're like, oh, I need tobreathe.
And you're like, no, I'm justfine.
You can go quite a ways withouttaking a breath, but it takes
practice because that feelingcan be terrifying.
To take a breath, but that'scarbon dioxide.
These gray seals may adjusttheir dive time side.
(05:07):
These gray seals may adjusttheir dive time not based on
carbon dioxide levels, butoxygen levels, and maybe they
can perceive their own bloodoxygen levels, which stops them
from drowning.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
The research findings were published on March 21st in
an issue of Science.
Like you were talking about,Jason, if oxygen levels drop too
much in humans, a person losesconsciousness, but marine
mammals can't afford to loseconsciousness underwater.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, especially if they're really deep, right.
They'll lose consciousness andthey'll just drown.
If they're really deep, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
If they're really deep, and so the study aimed to
identify what adaptation allowsthe gray seal to regulate their
oxygen levels so effectively.
Evolution obviously stronglyfavors adaptations that prevent
seals from drowning.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Now here's the experiment.
It's a fun one.
I love seals.
They kind of look like waterdogs.
They look like they're havingfun.
They kind of look like waterdogs they look like they're
having fun.
They kind of look like Beakerif Beaker didn't have fur and
had fins like the dogs of theocean.
They had six juvenile gray sealsfrom a wild population.
(06:19):
They were studied in acontrolled experiment.
Each seal swam in a 60 meterlong pool, traveling back and
forth.
That would be fun to watch.
There was an underwater feedingstation and a breathing chamber
with controlled gascontraptions, and they had four
different air compositions.
There was ambient air, which iswhat we're breathing right now,
which was roughly 21% oxygen.
There was high oxygen air,that's double the normal oxygen
(06:42):
concentration.
Low oxygen air, which is half,and high CO2 air, that's double
the normal oxygen concentration.
Low oxygen air, which is half,and high CO2 air, which is
normal oxygen, but 200 times theCO2 level, and if you were to
breathe that as a human, youwould immediately feel bad,
breathing that much CO2.
And 510 dives were recordedacross the seals.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
And what they found is that the dive duration of a
seal was directly linked tooxygen availability.
So if there was more oxygen,the seals dove for longer.
Less oxygen, it's obviousshorter diving time, but
interestingly, carbon dioxidelevels had no effect on dive
(07:23):
duration.
Interestingly, carbon dioxidelevels had no effect on dive
duration, so the seals were ableto independently adjust their
behavior, which suggested thatthey were aware of their blood
oxygen levels.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
And that kind of makes sense, because if you're a
marine mammal, you probablyknow that.
What I was talking aboutearlier, chris, where you can
blunt your response to CO2rising.
You can feel that gross feelingthat you get when you hold your
breath, and if you train enough, you can push that to the side.
Obviously, marine mammalsprobably have evolved an
extremely good response to bluntthat, because that would just
(07:59):
naturally build up in them asthey dive.
That same sensory system usedby us and other mammals to track
how much CO2 they have may infact detect oxygen levels
instead, and maybe that's howtheir brains process the blood
oxygen content.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
You know how they are different.
Whereas in humans we detect theCO2, and their key difference
might be in how their brainsprocess oxygen as opposed to CO2
, the levels of oxygen in a seal.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Awesome, right, the low O2 levels in a seal may
bring on those same feelings ashigh CO2 levels in us, which is
really cool.
And, of course, other marinemammals may have the same
physiology and that's what theywant to study in further studies
.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Because it could have potential medical applications
and it's a unique physiologicaladaptation.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
The more we know about our natural environment.
I think that's cool.
It answers a question and whoknows where that question may go
.
But I think we can all agreethat the need to breathe is
probably the most important needthat you have.
It doesn't matter how muchmoney you have.
I told my kids that today I waslike what's the most important
thing?
And some kid was like money andI was like you can have $5
(09:14):
million but you have to holdyour breath for 20 minutes.
And the kids that's impossible.
I'm like, see, it doesn'tmatter how much you want the
money, you got to breathe, justbreathe, all right, that's
science news for this week.
This week in pet science we'regoing to the ER and talking
about therapy dogs.
Now, of our two sons, duncan andAdam.
Duncan is quite a bit older.
He doesn't live at home and hehasn't for a while.
(09:36):
Adam was really healthy.
I don't think Adam ever went tothe ER.
He's been super lucky to nothave any injury or any real bad
illness, but Duncan's been acouple times when he was a
little guy.
He was very little.
This is back when we were ayoung couple.
Adam wasn't born, obviously, atmy parents' house.
He was pushing a baby carriageand he tripped and he broke his
(09:59):
arm in half and, yes, we had togo to the ER because of that.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
He was two.
Yeah, he was just a little guyjust a little guy and his arm
because he was a toddler hisbones were a little bit bendy,
so it wasn't really broken inhalf.
It definitely had a nice curveto it, though yeah, what did
they call it?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
A green stick break or something like that.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Something like that, but it still was ridiculous that
had happened.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, and I guess, luckily with a broken arm, once
you get it stabilized, I didn'tthink.
I didn't think Duncan was intoo much pain, honestly, but he
was in a ton of pain until wefigured out what it was and then
, once we got his arm stabilized, he was OK.
I'm not super thrilled withlife being a two yearyear-old,
but it was a lot better, evengoing to the ER.
(10:48):
Young kids there must be a lotof anxiety there.
I think I was more anxious thanyou and Duncan.
I think I almost passed out.
Anyways, this comes fromRiley's Children's Hospital in
Indianapolis and they took thedata from early 2023 to 2024 and
it was just published in JAMAin March.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
And what they found is that kids who spent more time
with a therapy dog reportedsignificantly greater reductions
in anxiety compared to thosewho did not, and also parents
perceived a more noticeabledecrease in their child's
anxiety when therapy dogs wereinvolved.
And this tracks with theresearch that we have been
(11:30):
talking about and having dogs inthe classroom and the positive
impact that they have on people,specifically children.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, of course this is not the ER, but the day
before Christmas I broughtBernoulli and Beaker into my
school and I have that time inthe first semester I had these
grade nine students or youngstudents.
They're good kids first off,but they're grade nines, they
have a lot of energy and it'sthe day before Christmas is.
(12:02):
It was amazing what those dogsdid.
Just having them in thatclassroom it just sucked.
They took on all of thatnervous energy that the kids had
.
The kids were just completelydifferent and again, I'm not
saying that my kids that I teachwere bad.
They just had a different typeof energy around the dogs.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
They just had a different type of energy around
the dogs, so that's key.
I guess we could talk aboutmanaging pediatric anxiety in
the actual ER.
So the American Academy ofPediatrics highlights the
importance of managing anxietyand pain in children who are
(12:46):
receiving medical care, inchildren who are receiving
medical care, and the emergencydepartments often employ child
life specialists to help youngpatients cope, through play
therapy and age-appropriateexplanations, with what is going
on with their condition.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, if they have something way more serious than
a slightly broken arm, likeDuncan did, this becomes
something that's really hard tocommunicate to a kid if you're
not trained.
I can't imagine having to tella kid about their bleeding or
maybe they have to be on afeeding tube or something like
that.
So it's just heartbreaking, andthere's obviously people
trained in the hospitals forthat, and managing child anxiety
(13:21):
leads to better outcomes childanxiety leads to better outcomes
.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
80 children ages 5 through 17 participated in the
trial and all of the patientsreceived support from the child
life specialist that I spoke upbefore Now.
Half of the children so 40children spent about 10 minutes
with a therapy dog and itshandler.
Now, children with dogallergies or fear of dogs were
excluded from the study.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Which is important, right?
Not every kid grows up seeing adog as a friendly thing, and I
was.
I am allergic to cats, so ifsomebody's hey, you're at the ER
and here's a cat, I'd be like,are you serious?
I'm already super sick, I'm atthe ER, and then you're throwing
a cat at me.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
It's going to make me even worse Now.
It's important to note that theRiley Children's Hospital
already had an establishedtherapy dog program in place and
they vetted their therapy dogsand they were fully vaccinated.
They undergo an annualveterinary checkup and they are
actually certified as therapyanimals.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
So this is not throwing Bernoulli, his
guberness, into the ER, or evenas good as Beaker is, because
Beaker is our good girl.
She's our steady girl in toughsituations.
This is their train to be there.
They've gone through all ofthat and they had all of those
participants you mentioned, the40 do an anxiety measurement
method.
They needed a baseline, so theytook them.
(14:53):
Researchers used the FACESscale, which visually represents
the stress from zero to 10.
Of course, the people, the kidsin the study, were probably old
enough to talk about theiranxiety, but this is something
they could also use with kidsthat were unable to like have a
conversation about how anxiousthey were if they were little,
and the results were nothingshort of amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So the average self-reported score was 5.4
across all participants.
What they found was thatanxiety reduced after 45 minutes
.
So patients with standard carewith a child life specialist
only demonstrated a 1.5 drop onaverage, but the patients who
(15:37):
also had a therapy dog visitdropped 2.7 points on average.
So that's how they split it up.
They had the 80 participants,40 got the dog and 40 just had
the standard care, and thistrend was consistent with
parents' assessments of theirchild's anxiety.
(15:57):
So parents self-reported howanxious their children were
feeling.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, that's pretty amazing.
If you're about a five, you'reanxious, like five is not no
anxiety, and you drop 2.7.
That's a huge dropping downalmost to about a two and a half
, which is just a little bitscared or something like I don't
know what low anxiety would be.
(16:23):
Obviously, the ER is not aplace you want to be, but it's
not 10 severe anxiety.
So these findings reallysuggest that therapy dog visits
are super effective for reducingstress and anxiety in young
patients.
And really we've talked aboutthis before, Chris.
The only thing holdingeverything back from having
(16:44):
therapy dogs everywhere is it'sexpensive and these dogs don't
grow on trees.
Not every dog can be a goodtherapy dog and you also need a
handler to bring the dog intothe hospital and it's either
through volunteerism or you haveto pay them and it's expensive.
It's expensive to train the dog, it's expensive to get the dog
there, but perhaps the costbenefit is better for the
(17:06):
patient than not having them atall.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
So they could explore using therapy dogs as a
valuable complement to existingchild life specialist programs
that are already in place tosupport pediatric patients and
their families.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Maybe you don't have them everyday, but they come in and among
the most anxious of the youngpeople, the therapy dog makes a
visit there.
That just warms my heart.
I bet you most of those therapydogs are golden retrievers or
labs.
It would be interesting to findout.
They're just so affable.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
My anxiety and stress levels are reduced just talking
about it.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You got to be home with the dogs today.
How's your anxiety right now?
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Jason, I had a beautiful day with the dogs.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I told you my best days, not that I don't love
everybody, and not that I don'tlove my job or the students or
my colleagues, but nothing makesme happier than doing nothing
with dogs.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I know.
So I had parent teacherinterviews for the last two
nights, and then we get a day inlieu for the after hours that
we spent at the school.
And then today it was relaxing.
I hung out with all the dogsand Ginger and you can't ask for
a better day.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Do you think you had a 2.7 drop in your average
anxiety on the FACES scale?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
I think I did.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
All right, that's Pet Science for this week.
Hello everybody, here's someways you can keep the Science
Podcast free.
Number one in our show notessign up to be a member of our
Paw Pack Plus community.
It's an amazing community offolks who love pets and folks
who love science.
We have tons of bonus Bunsenand Beaker content there and we
(18:49):
have live streams every Sundaywith our community.
It's tons of fun.
Also, think about checking outour merch store.
We've got the Bunsen stuffy,the Beaker stuffy and now the
ginger stuffy.
That's right, ginger thescience cat has a little replica
.
It's right, ginger the sciencecat has a little replica.
It's adorable.
It's so soft, with the giantfluffy tail, safety glasses and
a lab coat.
(19:10):
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place that rates podcasts, giveus a great rating and tell your
family and friends to listen to.
Okay, on with the show.
Back to the interviews.
Back to the interviews.
Time for Ask an Expert on theScience Podcast, and I am
thrilled to have Dr AshleyGabrielson with us today.
Doc, how are you doing?
(19:31):
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm so good?
Where are you calling into theshow from?
Where are you in the world?
Speaker 3 (19:37):
I am in Southern Oregon.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Oh, Oregon is so beautiful.
I love Oregon.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
It is really gorgeous here.
I'm blessed to be here, forsure.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I've been down through Idaho, oregon, montana,
that whole area south of us inAlberta, really pretty area of
the United States.
Yeah, have you lived in Oregonmost of your life or have you
moved around?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
No, moved around, mainly actually due to training.
I was born and raised inIndiana and then I've been all
over the country with training.
I did my medical school inIllinois and residency in
Massachusetts and thenfellowship in Ohio and then out
to Oregon for a job.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Okay, so you've seen lots of places getting your
training to be a doctor.
That's a lot of work, so myhat's off to you.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Not a short path, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
No.
People frequently ask me oh,how long have you, how long did
you have to be in school forthis?
And when I stop and think aboutit and total it up, it was 26
years.
It's a long path.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Oh my goodness, that's a little longer than the
six I took to be a scienceteacher, so just a titch.
But as we get into it,generally, people's life isn't
in the palms of my hands.
As I'm doing my job, I justhave to get the kids to stay
awake to listen to somechemistry.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
So you still have lives in your hand, it's just in
a different form.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
In a different form.
That's right.
So when you were young, wereyou the kid that wanted to be a
doctor when they were older, orwas this something that happened
to you later in life?
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I was a little kid with a Fisher-Price doctor bag I
was, with the little bloodpressure cuff and the faith
thermometer and all that.
I went through a brief stintwhere I think we had just eaten
at the pizza hut and it was backin the day when they had
windows where you could standthere and watch them make the
pizzas.
(21:39):
So I went through a brief stintwhere I told my parents I
wanted to be a pizza maker.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
It does look fun.
They're still prettydisappointed, but that's okay.
Have you thrown dough beforeDoc?
Is that something you've done?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Oh, no, not at all.
Oh, you've got to try it.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
That's why you wanted it.
You missed your calling as apizza thrower.
The dough, people chuck it inthe air.
That's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I think the dogs would love that.
I think they'd love me to givethat a try.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
but yeah, I've dropped a few when I've done it
before.
Yes, and right now, currently,you specialize in anesthesia.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Okay, and specifically during heart
surgery.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yeah, yes, so my actual title is I'm a
cardiothoracic anesthesiologist.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Wow, can you?
Okay, like I have in my head ageneral path to be a general
practitioner doctor, right,somebody that's in a clinic.
Something's wrong with you.
You go see a thing.
They talk to you, they make youcough, I don't know, maybe
that's just me.
They write you a prescription,maybe, and then you're on your
(22:44):
merry way.
What did you have to do?
That kind of specific medicaltraining?
Speaker 3 (22:51):
After medical school actually I should backtrack In
your third and fourth year ofmedical school.
Here in the US you do rotations.
They're usually anywhere from amonth to two months long, and
you go through a lot ofdifferent specialties, the core
specialties, generalpractitioner surgery, obstetrics
, pediatrics, psychiatry allthose different fields just to
(23:16):
get a well-rounded education,but also to see what you like.
And I was fortunate enough thatmy surgical subspecialty
rotation just happened to beanesthesia and I fell in love
with it.
So after medical school, I didfour years of anesthesia
residency, which is justtraining in anesthesia for all
(23:40):
different types of surgery, andone of the types of surgeries
that you do is cardiacanesthesia, and it was a very
similar sort of thing.
My first day in what we calledthe heart room, I fell in love.
It was an instant yeah, this ismy calling, this is where I
belong.
So after anesthesia residency,I did a one-year fellowship in
(24:01):
cardiac anesthesia at Ohio StateUniversity and that is a year
where you only do anesthesia forheart and lung surgery.
So it's a whole focus on thatand that was the most intense
year of my life, to be sure.
But yeah, after that then I waslet loose upon the world.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Go do your anesthesia .
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Okay, I am fascinated by surgery.
I am a little squeamish so Idon't know if I could be in the
room.
I like watching videos of it orlike the computer simulations.
I think our audience would justbe in awe if you could walk us
through like what happens duringa typical heart surgery.
(24:50):
And where do you come in withyour role with anesthesia?
Speaker 3 (24:55):
yeah, let me just preface that tv is really
inaccurate.
Youtube videos actually.
Yeah, youtube videos areprobably actually more accurate
than tv, gotcha yeah, I meantlike the, the computer
animations of like procedures.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
I think they showed a med school.
I'm like sometimes I go down arabbit hole and I just watch a
million of them.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
But anyways, so essentially what happens on the
day of surgery, a patient willcome in and before they even
come into the hospital they havehad an extensive workup.
So they've had lots of bloodtests, x-rays, ekgs which is an
electrocardiogram that measuresthe electrical rhythms that go
(25:40):
through the heart, that tell theheart exactly what part needs
to beat and when, and imaging oftheir heart, so ultrasounds,
cts I'm sorry CAT scans andsometimes even MRI.
So they've had all this donebefore they get to me.
So we know exactly what theproblem that we need to fix is.
And when they come in, we dothe usual say hi, they get
(26:03):
changed into a gown and I startputting in my special types of
IVs.
What I do I will give.
Typically I'll give the patientsome sedation, because nobody
likes being stuck with needles.
It's not fun and when you'reabout to have heart surgery your
nerves are already just throughthe roof Can't imagine.
(26:24):
Yeah, so I give them somesedation so that they're
comfortable.
They don't really care what'shappening, and I put the first
thing I'll do is I'll put inwhat's called an arterial line.
What's happening, and I put thefirst thing I'll do is I'll put
in what's called an arterialline.
It's very similar to an IV,typically goes on the inside of
the wrist into the radial artery, and what this does is it
measures the blood pressure withevery heartbeat, instead of a
(26:44):
blood pressure cough you mayhave had at your GP's office.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah, the OOPA thing.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Yep, this is.
Every single time the heartbeats I get a special waveform
that tells me exactly what theblood pressure is, and this
gives me more real-time data sothat I can respond quicker.
Once that's in, then I will puta large IV in the side of the
patient's neck, into theinternal jugular vein.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Whoa really.
I just thought it was on thearm.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
They do have one in the arm, but for heart surgery
specifically, we do have abigger one in the neck.
Wow, this one is.
I don't know the exact internaldiameter it's less than a
centimeter, but over half acentimeter big.
And what this does is if I needto give the patient something
(27:34):
very quickly, so if they needlots of IV fluids or lots of
blood products, or if they needstrong blood pressure
medications, I can do all thatthrough this big IV in the neck
and it's a direct path to theheart.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Okay, that makes sense actually because that's
like straight to the heart.
Okay, that makes sense actually, because that's like straight
to the heart.
Okay, I got it.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yeah, and it's a quicker acting thing than a
peripheral IV which has to gothrough all the veins, get back
to the heart and then do itsthing.
This just goes right to where Ineed it to be and with certain
types of heart surgery I put inwhat is called a pulmonary
artery catheter.
So this actually goes throughthat IV in the neck and rests
(28:19):
inside certain chambers of theheart and the pulmonary artery,
which is the artery that comesoff of the right side of the
heart that goes out to the lungs.
So this artery takesdeoxygenated blood out to the
lungs where it gets oxygen andthen comes back.
But this catheter can measuredifferent types of pressure in
(28:40):
the chambers and in that artery.
So I have an idea how certainparts of the heart are working
and if I need to do anything tohelp them work.
So that's all that's beforesurgery.
Yeah, once all that's done, thenthe patient goes back to the
operating room and I give them aselection of medications
(29:02):
depending on how old they are,what type of procedure we are
doing, what their pathology is,so what's wrong with their heart
and how it's affecting the restof their body.
But either way, everybody endsup going to sleep.
Once they're asleep, I put abreathing tube in and this is
(29:25):
how I breathe for the patientduring surgery and once surgery
is over actually after heartsurgery patients typically stay
asleep and then we'll go to anIC or coronary care unit to have
some time to rest before theywake up and start breathing on
their own again.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
So I did Google your job description before and I was
I apologize, doc, I wasignorant.
I just thought you were the putto sleep of the person doctor.
But there's way, way, way morethan that and I apologize that.
I even thought that before ourtalk.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Oh no, don't, no worries at all.
That's actually a really commonmisconception.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, this is so good .
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Oh, yeah.
So once the patient's asleepand they're intubated, I put an
ultrasound probe so it's calleda transesophageal echocardiogram
a fancy name for an ultrasoundprobe that goes into the
esophagus, which is the.
When you eat, that's where andswallow, that's where your food
goes.
And this ultrasound probe takespictures of the heart both
(30:28):
inside and outside, while thesurgeon is working and before
and after they're working, sothat I can make sure that
everything looks okay beforesurgery is done.
So let's say the surgeon isreplacing one of the heart
valves.
Once they put in the new valve,I need to make sure that it's
in the right position, that it'sfunctioning well, that the
valve is opening and closinglike it should and they haven't
(30:51):
left any pieces of plasticbehind that sort of thing.
Yeah, so that essentially is myrole in the beginning, and then
the surgeon and their team willdo what they need to do.
Sometimes, if we are doingwhat's called a coronary artery
bypass graft or we call call ita CABG, that's a common heart
(31:15):
surgery that we do and that'swhere you take veins from the
leg and sew them onto the aortaand onto the heart to provide
new blood flow, to take theplace of the arteries that have
been blocked for whatever reason.
Typically it's cholesterolplaque, that sort of thing.
(31:37):
So the surgeon will do that,they'll get their veins ready
and then they will open thechest and that can be a bit
gruesome.
It involves a saw and a big ribretractor that almost looks
like a I'm blanking on the termbut something you would crack
(32:03):
crab legs with.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Basically, oh my goodness, like a nutcracker
almost.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Yeah, yeah.
And then the surgeon will put inwhat's called the aortic
cannula, so that's a really bigIV that they stick directly into
the aorta, and then they willput another big IV into the
right atrium of the heart.
And what these cannula doessentially?
(32:29):
The aortic cannula will giveblood to the body and the venous
cannula will take blood fromthe body.
And what it does is it takesblood from the body to a special
machine called thecardiopulmonary bypass machine,
and this machine will provideoxygen to the blood and filter
(32:53):
out any waste products.
It will maintain the pH of theblood, keep the blood in a state
that it would normally be in ahealthy body, and then it spins
it all around and usescentrifugal force to pump that
(33:13):
blood through the aortic cannulaout to the body.
So essentially what this getsto is that the body can survive
without the heart for a certainamount of time.
So we use special medicinesthen to stop the heart.
Wow, that's so wild, isn't itjust science fiction sounding
(33:38):
stuff?
It really is.
So we use special medicines tostop the heart so that the
surgeon has a stationary fieldto work on.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Yeah, it's not quivering.
And going like crazy, right,exactly.
And going like crazy, right,exactly.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
And because this machine also provides oxygen to
the blood, I can turn off theventilator so that the patient
is also not breathing.
They're not breathing.
Their heart's not beating.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Was that insane.
The first time you saw that inreal life, like there.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
It was, and the fact that the people doing it it
didn't think anything of it.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
it's oh yeah, another day at the office yeah, we do
this multiple times a day.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
This is it's just what we do.
Yeah, the first time I saw it,I was just flabbergasted.
I thought it was the coolestthing ever that is bananas.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yes and sorry, I don't mean to derail, I'm just.
I'm sitting here like a stunnedbanana listening to you talk
about this.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
And the amazing part is, when the surgeon's all done,
we can essentially reverse allthis stuff and the medicine that
stopped the heart.
We can give other medicines tocounteract that and I can start
breathing for the patient againand we've switched back from
that bypass machine to thepatient's own heart.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Once it starts going again, the machine goes off.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Yes, and it's.
Unfortunately, it's not alwaysas simple as that.
Sometimes patients need a lotof help in terms of medications
and this is where I come backinto play is starting
medications that help increasethe function of the heart,
(35:29):
whether it's the heart rate orthe pumping function, what we
call the ejection fraction ofthe heart, and I have
medications that can affect alldifferent aspects of the heart
how it functions, the pressuresin certain chambers, the
pressures in the body, thepressures in the pulmonary
artery just lots of differentoperate or lots of different
(35:52):
cocktails that I can use to makesure that patient is ready to
transition to life on their own.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Essentially, that is, that's bananas, and, and you're
obviously there for the wholesurgery, right like you, don't
take off to go have a coffee.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Correct, correct.
I'm there watching what'shappening, working with the
perfusionist, which is theperson who runs the
cardiopulmonary bypass machine.
I'm there working with them tomake sure that labs and blood
sugar and all the things that weneed to keep the patient
(36:32):
healthy and in as tip-top shapeas we can get them to come off
the bypass machine, as we can.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
So I feel like in every medical show I've seen
they gloss over your job.
Do you ever watch a medicalshow and you're like, hey,
that's what I do in the showsomewhere?
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Not really.
I stopped watching medicalshows in medical school.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Oh, okay, I'm so sorry.
It's like bad science fictionand I'm talking to a cosmologist
and they're like everything inthose shows are wrong.
I don't like to watch them.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
And yeah, typically if they show an anesthesiologist
, they're playing Sudoku or,like you said, they're in the
lounge drinking coffee while thepatient's in surgery, and it's
one of those where you just getso frustrated it's ah, that's
not how it works, I promise.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
They definitely show the surgeons as like the only
things that are involved inanything in surgery.
At least some of the shows I'veseen.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Very much a team effort.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Oh for sure.
And it's also not just me orthe surgeon, it's the nursing
crew and the surgicaltechnologists, and there are
lots of people involved.
So I definitely don't want todiminish anyone else's role.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
No, that's what.
It's just so impressive that,like we have the technology and
the personnel to do something asinsane as stop someone's heart
and have a machine.
Basically, we do that what theheart and lungs do.
It's operated on and then magicdrugs are given to them to make
(38:15):
them alive again.
Like it's just so.
Bananas, Like wow.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
It is, and that's not even the craziest stuff we do.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
That's not the craziest stuff you do.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Oh my God, I know.
So some of my favorite types ofheart surgeries that we do
involve when we have to work onthe aorta so that's the main
artery that goes from the heartto the body and all sorts of bad
stuff can happen to the aorta.
Unfortunately, it's amulti-layered tube, essentially,
(38:48):
and if one of those layers whatwe call dissects, essentially,
and if one of those layers whatwe call dissects, so if one of
those layers breaks, obviouslythat can lead to bad stuff and
your body not getting the bloodit needs.
So if a patient has an aorticdissection, there are times when
(39:18):
we have to do what we call deephypothermic circulatory arrest,
and that involves the samething I was mentioning before
with the cardiopulmonary bypassmachine, but we actually cool
these patients down, typicallyto about 20 to 22 degrees
Celsius, we pack their heads andtheir hearts in ice and then
for a brief while typicallyunder 30 minutes, depending on
(39:38):
what exactly is wrong weactually turn off the bypass
machine.
There is a period of time wherethere's no blood flowing.
The patient is clinically deadfor a little bit while we fix
things up and then we warm themback up, we start the bypass
machine again and bring themback to life.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Is the cold just to stop metabolic things?
Speaker 3 (40:05):
It is Okay.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Being hypothermic decreases the amount of oxygen
that the tissues need.
So that's one way we canprotect the brain and can
protect the body from that brieftime where there's no new
oxygen.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
So freaky that is, so wild it is.
I don't even know what to askyou now, doc.
This is not my.
I've got questions to ask you.
I'm like what?
The?
This is bananas.
Okay, so, aside from heartstuff, and thank you for talking
about this type of surgery, ohyeah, Happy to.
This is wild.
(40:47):
Is there some of the?
Are there other procedures thatyou're in on, or is it
specifically just heart stuff?
Speaker 3 (40:54):
So with my type of job and there are jobs at other
facilities across the countrywhere people will only do heart
stuff or only do other types ofsurgeries but I do everything.
So I am in on C-sections orwhen babies are born surgically,
I do labor, epidurals.
So helping laboring patientswith their pain, general surgery
(41:17):
, trauma surgery, jointreplacements I do it all and
honestly, it's all fascinatingand rewarding in such different
ways.
That's cool.
I remember my first C-sectionthat I did after I had graduated
(41:37):
.
During a C-section, typicallythe mother is awake and I'm
standing up at the head with themother and their support person
and the obstetrician is veryvocal letting us know what's
going on again because there'scertain medicines that need to
be timed certain ways.
But that very first one, whenthe obstetrician said it
(42:02):
honestly I don't remember if itwas a male or female baby, but
they held it up and said hereyou go, and I just started
crying right along with theparents.
It was just such a beautifulmoment and it's really amazing
(42:23):
that I get to share that withpeople I don't know and it can
be one of the most profoundmoments of their life.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, it's a new little person.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
Yeah, it's just beautiful.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
That's so sweet, were the.
Did you get any looks from theparents?
They're like why is she crying?
She's the doctor.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
No, the parents were too absorbed in the baby.
Oh, they didn't see, yeah, theobstetrician was giving me a
little bit of a look and I wasjust like this is beautiful,
yeah, so that's another reallyamazing part of my job that I
enjoy Some of the things that wecan now do with modern
(43:11):
technology and modern medicine.
It blows me away, even whenit's something I see on a
regular basis.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
You're the expert and you're like this is pretty
weird what we do, this is prettyamazing.
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
It is when we replace knee or hip joints.
Oh that's wild, isn't it?
Yeah, and we typically dowhat's called spinal anesthesia,
so that's where we injectmedicine into the fluid around
the spinal cord and it numbs thepatient from the waist down for
a few hours, and then wetypically we give them some
(43:49):
sedation during surgery becauseno one wants to hear that.
But to think that we can cutout someone's joint only using
two to three cc's of medicinejust blows my mind.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I was my dad's support person for his hip stuff
.
He has got both of his hipsdone and we watched a video
about what's going to happen andI was like holy hell, like
that's banana it's prettygruesome, not gonna lie the
drill comes in and like drillsinto the socket to put a new
thing in there, and I was like,oh my god, my dad's, maybe we
(44:30):
shouldn't, maybe they shouldn'tshow that video, maybe we don't
need to know this.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
The orthopedic surgeons really do essentially
use sterile power tools.
They have drills and saws andhammers and chisels and all the
things you'd find in your garage.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
It's wild, wow.
And that's true Cause my dadagain, I was my dad's support
person and they knocked him outwith that Right and then his the
feeling started to come backand he was up on his leg that
day.
I think that's part of it,right, they want to get you up
as long as the patient ishealthy enough, which most of
(45:15):
them are if they're having ajoint replaced.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
They go home that day and they're up and walking that
day.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Yeah.
Yeah, he was in some pain, butit wasn't.
After seeing that video, I wasexpecting him to be in
excruciating pain for weeks.
It wasn't fun, but it wasn't asbad as we thought, yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
And one of the other aspects of my job is we do what
are called nerve blocks, andthat's similar to what I was
describing with the spinalanesthesia, except we inject
medicine around peripheralnerves.
About a little less than twomonths ago I had my ankle.
(45:54):
I broke my ankle and I had itfixed and I had a nerve block
before surgery and similar sortof thing.
It was just a little bit ofnumbing medicine, so like the
lidocaine that you get at adentist office, but longer
acting.
I had two shots of that inspecific parts of my leg and I
(46:15):
didn't have pain for almost twodays after surgery and it's that
similar sort of thing.
Wow, look at what we can dowith so little.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
That's yeah, doesn't take much to knock out a human
hey, is that what we're saying?
Doesn't take much to knock outa human hey, is that what?
Speaker 3 (46:32):
we're saying Exactly.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
You can.
So like Dexter Morgan's wascorrect.
If you've seen that show, isthat true, correct?
Yes, oh my God, really, oh geez, okay.
So one of my students dressedup as Dexter Morgan for
Halloween oh nice.
It was when my Chem 20 studentsshe had.
I got it right away because shehad like his.
(46:56):
I don't know if you've seenDexter, but she had a syringe in
his gloves and I was like areyou Dexter?
She's like yes, and she hadlittle blood slides that she was
carrying around.
I was like that is amazing andalso borderline inappropriate
for high school.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
But she's going places.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
That sounds amazing yeah, she's a pretty good
student.
Before we wrap up this section,doc, a tough question maybe for
you, but one I'm.
I have goosebumps and I startedshivering when you were talking
to me.
Like do you have nerves ofsteel?
Do all of the people that dothis just have nerves of steel?
Do you ever get scared orworried, or do you just go into
(47:34):
work mode or focus mode?
I'm sure some things go bad orare unexpected.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Do you know what I'm getting at without being yeah,
okay, I'd like to think we alldo have a little bit of nerves
of steel, and I think there is acertain level of hardness that
has to come with this field andanyone in medicine who does
procedurally based things,because you don't ever want to
hurt anybody, but we sometimeshave to do things that are
(48:03):
painful.
You learn fairly early on todistance yourself in a certain
way, so it's not necessarilythat Mr So-and-so is having
surgery.
It's oh, this is a 62-year-oldman and it helps you to focus on
(48:27):
the physiology as opposed tothe humanity of it, if that
makes sense.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Yeah, because I can imagine if you focused on the
humanity you would burn out.
I don't know how you would.
Yeah, like my job is as ateacher.
I'm so focused on the humanityof these kids and if I started
to treat them like a number, Ithink that's where I would lose
the skill as being a teacher.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
But it might be different for you and your
profession maybe, I don't know alittle too close to home for me
(49:17):
and I haven't been able todistance myself.
It was a few years ago where Ihad a patient who was the same
age as me and she had the samefirst name and it was a really
awful emergency life or deathcase and it was really hard for
me to set my emotions aside andjust focus.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
I can't imagine.
I can't imagine.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
She ended up doing fine and survived her injury and
went home.
But it was got me in the gutthere for a little bit.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yeah, just like the work that you, the healthcare
professionals, do.
I've said this before, but justthank you so much as a lay
person, like saving lives anddoing that day in and day out.
Just thank you for the workthat you do.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
I don't know what to say, except you're welcome and
honestly I think your job as ateacher is much more challenging
than what I do, for sure, andthere is no way I could do what
you do.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Oh, I think I would fail the first day at yours, so
they'd kick me out.
I don't have the same level oftraining though, so I don't know
who knows I do.
A funny, fun fact, doc, youmight.
I've told this before on theshow I cannot stop myself from
passing out when I get a needle.
I'm not scared of them, I couldcare less if I get them but as
(50:38):
soon as I get an IV or needle Ifaint like a vasovagal syncope
or something like that.
Yeah, so I tell my studentsthat and they think it's
hilarious.
But if I have to give blood orif I have to go in for a minor
procedure, I just warn everybody.
I'm like, hey, just let youknow, I'm going to pass out when
you give me the needle, and thenurses are always like, hey,
(50:58):
just let you know, I'm going topass out when you give me the
needle, and the nurses arealways like, oh, you'll be fine,
you look great, and I'm likenope.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
And then I pass out.
That is one thing you learnthat patients do know their
bodies best.
So it is very important, whenpeople tell you that, to listen,
because that's exactly what'sgoing to happen.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Doc, thank you for sharing a little bit about your
fascinating job, oh yeah, mypleasure.
We love to hear from our guestsabout their pets and I was
wondering if you could share alittle bit about them or a
special pet story from your lifeokay.
Speaker 3 (51:30):
Yeah, my husband and I, we have three dogs soon.
We have grizz, who's 10 yearsold and.
Tuna, who is six, and Yogi, whois four, and Yogi is a black
lab.
He is my husband's service dog,and we also have a two-year-old
(51:53):
cat named Scully.
I'm not sure if you were anX-Files fan, but her formal name
is Agent Scully I am a huge,you have no idea.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
That is why I became a scientist.
I had a crush on Dr Dana Scullyin high school and I thought
Mulder was an idiot and I wantedto be a scientist.
And I met Gillian Anderson at aComic-Con.
Oh, wow.
I know, anyway, sorry.
Yes, I absolutely know whoScully is.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
That's awesome.
I've been trying to talk myhusband into a friend for Scully
and so far I've told him we canname it Mulder, and that's how
I'm gaining traction, yep, andin terms of a good pet story.
So when we first moved out toOregon, we are about one and a
(52:46):
half to two hours from CraterLake National Park, which is, if
you ever have a chance, youshould absolutely go there.
It's breathtakingly gorgeous.
It's an old volcano thatexploded I think it was about
7,500 years ago and the craterfrom the volcano is now a lake.
(53:07):
It's a crater lake and it'sactually the deepest lake in the
US and all of the water is justthis absolutely beautiful
glacial blue because it's allsnow melt, because the elevation
is very high, and so it's justthis pristine, amazingly
(53:28):
beautiful lake.
And I don't recall the exactelevation, but this park has
snow almost year I think there'smaybe a month in the summer
where the snow finally all meltsand they get something crazy
like 50 feet of snow a year.
I was at work and my husband,toby, took Grizz which at the
(53:50):
time he he was our only dog tookhim up to Crater Lake to play
in the snow, and Toby called meand was like, hey, I can't find
my car keys.
I know I had them in my pocket,but they're gone now so it's
towards the end of the day andshoot, okay, I'll get off work,
I'll find your spare keys andthen drive for two hours and
(54:13):
hopefully it's not dark andfreezing and you guys will be
okay.
And so him and Grizz roamedaround a little bit and Toby
said he kept telling Grizz, hey,buddy, where are the keys,
where are the keys?
And Grizz actually was able tofind the keys.
No, he led him around and tothis certain spot that he kept
(54:35):
going to, and Toby dug a littlebit and there were his car keys.
What a good dog, I know, and Idon't think newfoundlands are
particularly known for scentwork or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
I think I just say he's a smart boy oh, my goodness
, I love the story and can Ijust tell you I'm so jealous.
You have newfoundlands.
I've been trying to convince,I've tried to convince my wife
to get one.
We have Bernoulli.
So I, bernoulli is just a joy.
But I actually made apowerpoint presentation for her
(55:08):
about why we would need aNewfoundland but she said no,
it's their drool.
The drool was a deal breakerunderstandable.
Speaker 3 (55:15):
There there's a lot of drool at my house.
I have read, or at least seenin in, like breeder websites and
things, that there there issuch a thing as a quote-unquote
dry mouth, new feet, but I Idon't know that.
I don't know how much of athing that really is how big are
(55:36):
your new fees?
Speaker 1 (55:37):
are they huge?
Speaker 3 (55:39):
yes, so grizz is 150 pounds.
Nah, yeah, yeah, and tuna isabout 160, 165 oh my god, I love
that so much they're the best,they're my heart and my joy and
my love god, I just love thosedogs so much.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
What a cool story, though, doc.
Thanks for sharing.
Oh yeah, very cool.
As we come to the end of ourchat, one of the things we
challenge all of our guests isto leave us with a super fact.
It's something that you know,that when you tell people, it
blows their mind.
Now I'm saying this and I feellike I'm an idiot because this
entire talk my mind has beenblown out of my face.
(56:24):
I was wondering if you have onefor us as we wrap up.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
I do and you might want to hold on to your mind and
your face.
It's, of course, medicalrelated, so the human brain
actually does not have painreceptors, and what this means
is that brain surgery can bedone awake sometimes.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
You feel nothing.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
When they go through the skull, there are pain
receptors in the skin and theskull, but yeah, when they're
actually working on the brainitself, you feel nothing.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
Oh my God, that's so weird.
Speaker 3 (57:02):
There's a famous photo and I don't recall the
exact location or when or whereit's from, but there's a famous
photo of a violinist havingawake brain surgery with their
violin in hand, and that's oneof the ways the surgeon can tell
what part of the brain is what,and what the patient needs is
(57:25):
how the patient interacts duringsurgery.
So this patient is playing theviolin while they're operating
on their brain During brainsurgery playing a video game.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
What am I good at besides teaching?
I don't know, not playing theviolin.
That is a cool super fact.
Speaker 3 (57:40):
Yeah, it still baffles me.
I just can't believe we can dothat.
Speaker 1 (57:47):
That's wild, Ashley.
Are you on social mediaanywhere that people could
follow?
Is that something somebodycould do to connect with you?
Speaker 3 (57:56):
Yeah, I am on Instagram.
Yeah, what's your handle toconnect with you?
Yeah, I am on.
Instagram yeah what's yourhandle it is?
This is a little embarrassing.
I was very into Game of Thrones.
It is ashleesee306.
Ashleesee yes, it was a play onmy first name and Khaleesi 306.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
Okay, so we'll, I'll make sure there's, we'll try to
find, we'll find you and thenwe'll put that in the show notes
for people to follow.
Speaker 3 (58:24):
Okay, and then there's lots of pictures of my
dogs.
It's mainly just my dogs.
Speaker 1 (58:30):
We'll make sure that your handle is in the.
Yeah, we'll make sure yourhandles in the show notes.
This has been a treat and adelight to have you on the show.
Speedy recovery with your ankleinjury.
Speaker 3 (58:42):
Oh, thank you.
Yeah, this is has been amazing.
I love sharing my passion withpeople, and especially other
people who are just as crazyabout their dogs as I am.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back tolisten to the science podcast.
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to the
Science Podcast.
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to us and
special shout out to our toptiers on the Paw Pack.
They support us, as do manyothers.
But a perk of being in the toptier is you get your name
shouted out and if you want tohave that perk too, check out in
(59:15):
our show notes and sign up onthe Paw Pack.
All right, Chris, take it away.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
Amelia Fetig Rhi, oda Carol Hainel, jennifer Challen,
linnea Janik Karen Chronister,vicky Otero, christy Walker,
sarah Bram, wendy, diane Masonand Luke Helen Chin, elizabeth
Bourgeois, marianne McNally,catherine Jordan, shelley Smith,
laura Steffensen, tracyLeinbach, anne Uchida, heather
(59:43):
Burback, kelly Tracy Halbert,ben Rather, debbie Anderson,
sandy Brimer, mary Rader, biancaHyde, andrew Lin, brenda Clark,
brianne Hawes, peggy McKeel,holly Burge, kathy Zerker, susan
Wagner and Liz Button.
Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
For science, empathy and cuteness.
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
And I'm Chris Zukoski, we'rethe pet parents of Bunsen,
beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
If you love science.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And you love pets.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot, so put on your
safety glasses and hold on toyour tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hello everybody and welcomeback to the Science Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is Episode 7 of Season 6.
Nothing major to report withthe dogs or the cat this week
(00:45):
before we get into the sciencenews and our amazing guest.
I think the big developmentthat we're just so proud of is
how good Beaker is doing atDoggy Daycare.
We're getting reports thatshe's playing happily with all
of the dogs and her andBernoulli are becoming best
buddies and definitely there'sbeen a change in how they
interact with each other at home.
Bernoulli still makes Beakercrazy and she tunes them up
(01:08):
sometimes, but we do hear thatthey play together all day,
which just you know, it's sosweet.
And then we also heard thatBeaker has a friend and oh my
God, it's like it's like she's.
You know there are kids and youhave like a kid that's
struggling socially and has madea friend in grade two.
It's pretty sweet.
(01:30):
Anyways, go beaker, all right.
Well, what's on the show thisweek?
In science news, we're talkingabout holding our breath, but if
you're a seal, and in petscience, a really heartwarming
study about reducing anxiety inkids during ER visits You'll
have to listen to figure outwhat's going on there.
Our guest in Ask an Expert isDr Ashley Gabrielson, who's
(01:51):
going to be talking to us aboutanesthesiology.
What a cool guest.
Okay, let's get on with theshow, everybody.
There's no time like ScienceTime.
This week in science news,let's talk about holding your
breath.
But specifically, if you're aseal, chris, how long can you
hold your breath for?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Not very long at all, probably a maximum of two
seconds.
You may recall teaching me howto swim, and I didn't want to
put my face in the water.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
No no.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And then I had to do the time swim doing the back
crawl because I was like I can'tdo it, I can't do front crawl
and coordinate and breathe andnot die.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Holding your breath is something you can train
though.
Holding your breath issomething you can train though I
, through competitive swimming.
I could hold my breath andwould do like peak physical
activity for a long time.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yes, Jason, you always surprised me and it was
so cool that you were able to dofull lengths under the pool.
You would be like watch this,and then you would just stay
under the water and go from endto end and not even come up for
air.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It's a fun party trick and occasionally I've been
at swimming pools with kids,either as a chaperone or when I
used to teach phys ed.
We would.
That was a long time ago andthat was the thing I'd always
bet the kids.
I was like, okay, if you canswim further than I can
underwater, no homework for therest of the year.
And the kids would always be sooverconfident and they'd be
(03:32):
like, yeah, we can take you,your old man, and then they
would go not very far and then Iwould wax them.
It's very satisfying.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I just think of how we used to play video games like
Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Icouldn't get through the level
where he had to swim underwaterbecause he his oxygen would run
out and he would die.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, rather graphically.
Some of those old games everyone of those old games, though
had a swimming level and, as yousaid, a fire or lava level, but
we're talking about holdingyour breath underwater, and the
creature we're talking about isthe gray seal, and, as new
research findings show, theymight have a specialized sense
(04:16):
that helps them survive deepunder the water.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
So how do they do that?
Why is that unusual?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
When we hold our breath, if you want to try it
right now, if you're listening,carbon dioxide builds up as your
body goes through some of therespiration.
That buildup of carbon dioxidedrives you to take a breath.
Now, for people who hold theirbreath, swimming or whatever you
can push that feeling backthrough training.
(04:46):
You're like, oh, I need tobreathe.
And you're like, no, I'm justfine.
You can go quite a ways withouttaking a breath, but it takes
practice because that feelingcan be terrifying.
To take a breath, but that'scarbon dioxide.
These gray seals may adjusttheir dive time side.
(05:07):
These gray seals may adjusttheir dive time not based on
carbon dioxide levels, butoxygen levels, and maybe they
can perceive their own bloodoxygen levels, which stops them
from drowning.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
The research findings were published on March 21st in
an issue of Science.
Like you were talking about,Jason, if oxygen levels drop too
much in humans, a person losesconsciousness, but marine
mammals can't afford to loseconsciousness underwater.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, especially if they're really deep, right.
They'll lose consciousness andthey'll just drown.
If they're really deep, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
If they're really deep, and so the study aimed to
identify what adaptation allowsthe gray seal to regulate their
oxygen levels so effectively.
Evolution obviously stronglyfavors adaptations that prevent
seals from drowning.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Now here's the experiment.
It's a fun one.
I love seals.
They kind of look like waterdogs.
They look like they're havingfun.
They kind of look like waterdogs they look like they're
having fun.
They kind of look like Beakerif Beaker didn't have fur and
had fins like the dogs of theocean.
They had six juvenile gray sealsfrom a wild population.
(06:19):
They were studied in acontrolled experiment.
Each seal swam in a 60 meterlong pool, traveling back and
forth.
That would be fun to watch.
There was an underwater feedingstation and a breathing chamber
with controlled gascontraptions, and they had four
different air compositions.
There was ambient air, which iswhat we're breathing right now,
which was roughly 21% oxygen.
There was high oxygen air,that's double the normal oxygen
(06:42):
concentration.
Low oxygen air, which is half,and high CO2 air, that's double
the normal oxygen concentration.
Low oxygen air, which is half,and high CO2 air, which is
normal oxygen, but 200 times theCO2 level, and if you were to
breathe that as a human, youwould immediately feel bad,
breathing that much CO2.
And 510 dives were recordedacross the seals.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
And what they found is that the dive duration of a
seal was directly linked tooxygen availability.
So if there was more oxygen,the seals dove for longer.
Less oxygen, it's obviousshorter diving time, but
interestingly, carbon dioxidelevels had no effect on dive
(07:23):
duration.
Interestingly, carbon dioxidelevels had no effect on dive
duration, so the seals were ableto independently adjust their
behavior, which suggested thatthey were aware of their blood
oxygen levels.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
And that kind of makes sense, because if you're a
marine mammal, you probablyknow that.
What I was talking aboutearlier, chris, where you can
blunt your response to CO2rising.
You can feel that gross feelingthat you get when you hold your
breath, and if you train enough, you can push that to the side.
Obviously, marine mammalsprobably have evolved an
extremely good response to bluntthat, because that would just
(07:59):
naturally build up in them asthey dive.
That same sensory system usedby us and other mammals to track
how much CO2 they have may infact detect oxygen levels
instead, and maybe that's howtheir brains process the blood
oxygen content.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
You know how they are different.
Whereas in humans we detect theCO2, and their key difference
might be in how their brainsprocess oxygen as opposed to CO2
, the levels of oxygen in a seal.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Awesome, right, the low O2 levels in a seal may
bring on those same feelings ashigh CO2 levels in us, which is
really cool.
And, of course, other marinemammals may have the same
physiology and that's what theywant to study in further studies
.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Because it could have potential medical applications
and it's a unique physiologicaladaptation.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
The more we know about our natural environment.
I think that's cool.
It answers a question and whoknows where that question may go
.
But I think we can all agreethat the need to breathe is
probably the most important needthat you have.
It doesn't matter how muchmoney you have.
I told my kids that today I waslike what's the most important
thing?
And some kid was like money andI was like you can have $5
(09:14):
million but you have to holdyour breath for 20 minutes.
And the kids that's impossible.
I'm like, see, it doesn'tmatter how much you want the
money, you got to breathe, justbreathe, all right, that's
science news for this week.
This week in pet science we'regoing to the ER and talking
about therapy dogs.
Now, of our two sons, duncan andAdam.
Duncan is quite a bit older.
He doesn't live at home and hehasn't for a while.
(09:36):
Adam was really healthy.
I don't think Adam ever went tothe ER.
He's been super lucky to nothave any injury or any real bad
illness, but Duncan's been acouple times when he was a
little guy.
He was very little.
This is back when we were ayoung couple.
Adam wasn't born, obviously, atmy parents' house.
He was pushing a baby carriageand he tripped and he broke his
(09:59):
arm in half and, yes, we had togo to the ER because of that.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
He was two.
Yeah, he was just a little guyjust a little guy and his arm
because he was a toddler hisbones were a little bit bendy,
so it wasn't really broken inhalf.
It definitely had a nice curveto it, though yeah, what did
they call it?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
A green stick break or something like that.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Something like that, but it still was ridiculous that
had happened.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, and I guess, luckily with a broken arm, once
you get it stabilized, I didn'tthink.
I didn't think Duncan was intoo much pain, honestly, but he
was in a ton of pain until wefigured out what it was and then
, once we got his arm stabilized, he was OK.
I'm not super thrilled withlife being a two yearyear-old,
but it was a lot better, evengoing to the ER.
(10:48):
Young kids there must be a lotof anxiety there.
I think I was more anxious thanyou and Duncan.
I think I almost passed out.
Anyways, this comes fromRiley's Children's Hospital in
Indianapolis and they took thedata from early 2023 to 2024 and
it was just published in JAMAin March.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
And what they found is that kids who spent more time
with a therapy dog reportedsignificantly greater reductions
in anxiety compared to thosewho did not, and also parents
perceived a more noticeabledecrease in their child's
anxiety when therapy dogs wereinvolved.
And this tracks with theresearch that we have been
(11:30):
talking about and having dogs inthe classroom and the positive
impact that they have on people,specifically children.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, of course this is not the ER, but the day
before Christmas I broughtBernoulli and Beaker into my
school and I have that time inthe first semester I had these
grade nine students or youngstudents.
They're good kids first off,but they're grade nines, they
have a lot of energy and it'sthe day before Christmas is.
(12:02):
It was amazing what those dogsdid.
Just having them in thatclassroom it just sucked.
They took on all of thatnervous energy that the kids had
.
The kids were just completelydifferent and again, I'm not
saying that my kids that I teachwere bad.
They just had a different typeof energy around the dogs.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
They just had a different type of energy around
the dogs, so that's key.
I guess we could talk aboutmanaging pediatric anxiety in
the actual ER.
So the American Academy ofPediatrics highlights the
importance of managing anxietyand pain in children who are
(12:46):
receiving medical care, inchildren who are receiving
medical care, and the emergencydepartments often employ child
life specialists to help youngpatients cope, through play
therapy and age-appropriateexplanations, with what is going
on with their condition.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, if they have something way more serious than
a slightly broken arm, likeDuncan did, this becomes
something that's really hard tocommunicate to a kid if you're
not trained.
I can't imagine having to tella kid about their bleeding or
maybe they have to be on afeeding tube or something like
that.
So it's just heartbreaking, andthere's obviously people
trained in the hospitals forthat, and managing child anxiety
(13:21):
leads to better outcomes childanxiety leads to better outcomes
.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
80 children ages 5 through 17 participated in the
trial and all of the patientsreceived support from the child
life specialist that I spoke upbefore Now.
Half of the children so 40children spent about 10 minutes
with a therapy dog and itshandler.
Now, children with dogallergies or fear of dogs were
excluded from the study.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Which is important, right?
Not every kid grows up seeing adog as a friendly thing, and I
was.
I am allergic to cats, so ifsomebody's hey, you're at the ER
and here's a cat, I'd be like,are you serious?
I'm already super sick, I'm atthe ER, and then you're throwing
a cat at me.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
It's going to make me even worse Now.
It's important to note that theRiley Children's Hospital
already had an establishedtherapy dog program in place and
they vetted their therapy dogsand they were fully vaccinated.
They undergo an annualveterinary checkup and they are
actually certified as therapyanimals.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
So this is not throwing Bernoulli, his
guberness, into the ER, or evenas good as Beaker is, because
Beaker is our good girl.
She's our steady girl in toughsituations.
This is their train to be there.
They've gone through all ofthat and they had all of those
participants you mentioned, the40 do an anxiety measurement
method.
They needed a baseline, so theytook them.
(14:53):
Researchers used the FACESscale, which visually represents
the stress from zero to 10.
Of course, the people, the kidsin the study, were probably old
enough to talk about theiranxiety, but this is something
they could also use with kidsthat were unable to like have a
conversation about how anxiousthey were if they were little,
and the results were nothingshort of amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So the average self-reported score was 5.4
across all participants.
What they found was thatanxiety reduced after 45 minutes
.
So patients with standard carewith a child life specialist
only demonstrated a 1.5 drop onaverage, but the patients who
(15:37):
also had a therapy dog visitdropped 2.7 points on average.
So that's how they split it up.
They had the 80 participants,40 got the dog and 40 just had
the standard care, and thistrend was consistent with
parents' assessments of theirchild's anxiety.
(15:57):
So parents self-reported howanxious their children were
feeling.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, that's pretty amazing.
If you're about a five, you'reanxious, like five is not no
anxiety, and you drop 2.7.
That's a huge dropping downalmost to about a two and a half
, which is just a little bitscared or something like I don't
know what low anxiety would be.
(16:23):
Obviously, the ER is not aplace you want to be, but it's
not 10 severe anxiety.
So these findings reallysuggest that therapy dog visits
are super effective for reducingstress and anxiety in young
patients.
And really we've talked aboutthis before, Chris.
The only thing holdingeverything back from having
(16:44):
therapy dogs everywhere is it'sexpensive and these dogs don't
grow on trees.
Not every dog can be a goodtherapy dog and you also need a
handler to bring the dog intothe hospital and it's either
through volunteerism or you haveto pay them and it's expensive.
It's expensive to train the dog, it's expensive to get the dog
there, but perhaps the costbenefit is better for the
(17:06):
patient than not having them atall.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
So they could explore using therapy dogs as a
valuable complement to existingchild life specialist programs
that are already in place tosupport pediatric patients and
their families.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Maybe you don't have them everyday, but they come in and among
the most anxious of the youngpeople, the therapy dog makes a
visit there.
That just warms my heart.
I bet you most of those therapydogs are golden retrievers or
labs.
It would be interesting to findout.
They're just so affable.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
My anxiety and stress levels are reduced just talking
about it.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You got to be home with the dogs today.
How's your anxiety right now?
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Jason, I had a beautiful day with the dogs.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I told you my best days, not that I don't love
everybody, and not that I don'tlove my job or the students or
my colleagues, but nothing makesme happier than doing nothing
with dogs.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I know.
So I had parent teacherinterviews for the last two
nights, and then we get a day inlieu for the after hours that
we spent at the school.
And then today it was relaxing.
I hung out with all the dogsand Ginger and you can't ask for
a better day.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Do you think you had a 2.7 drop in your average
anxiety on the FACES scale?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
I think I did.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
All right, that's Pet Science for this week.
Hello everybody, here's someways you can keep the Science
Podcast free.
Number one in our show notessign up to be a member of our
Paw Pack Plus community.
It's an amazing community offolks who love pets and folks
who love science.
We have tons of bonus Bunsenand Beaker content there and we
(18:49):
have live streams every Sundaywith our community.
It's tons of fun.
Also, think about checking outour merch store.
We've got the Bunsen stuffy,the Beaker stuffy and now the
ginger stuffy.
That's right, ginger thescience cat has a little replica
.
It's right, ginger the sciencecat has a little replica.
It's adorable.
It's so soft, with the giantfluffy tail, safety glasses and
a lab coat.
(19:10):
And number three, if you'relistening to the podcast on any
place that rates podcasts, giveus a great rating and tell your
family and friends to listen to.
Okay, on with the show.
Back to the interviews.
Back to the interviews.
Time for Ask an Expert on theScience Podcast, and I am
thrilled to have Dr AshleyGabrielson with us today.
Doc, how are you doing?
(19:31):
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm so good?
Where are you calling into theshow from?
Where are you in the world?
Speaker 3 (19:37):
I am in Southern Oregon.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Oh, Oregon is so beautiful.
I love Oregon.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
It is really gorgeous here.
I'm blessed to be here, forsure.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I've been down through Idaho, oregon, montana,
that whole area south of us inAlberta, really pretty area of
the United States.
Yeah, have you lived in Oregonmost of your life or have you
moved around?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
No, moved around, mainly actually due to training.
I was born and raised inIndiana and then I've been all
over the country with training.
I did my medical school inIllinois and residency in
Massachusetts and thenfellowship in Ohio and then out
to Oregon for a job.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Okay, so you've seen lots of places getting your
training to be a doctor.
That's a lot of work, so myhat's off to you.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Not a short path, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
No.
People frequently ask me oh,how long have you, how long did
you have to be in school forthis?
And when I stop and think aboutit and total it up, it was 26
years.
It's a long path.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Oh my goodness, that's a little longer than the
six I took to be a scienceteacher, so just a titch.
But as we get into it,generally, people's life isn't
in the palms of my hands.
As I'm doing my job, I justhave to get the kids to stay
awake to listen to somechemistry.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
So you still have lives in your hand, it's just in
a different form.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
In a different form.
That's right.
So when you were young, wereyou the kid that wanted to be a
doctor when they were older, orwas this something that happened
to you later in life?
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I was a little kid with a Fisher-Price doctor bag I
was, with the little bloodpressure cuff and the faith
thermometer and all that.
I went through a brief stintwhere I think we had just eaten
at the pizza hut and it was backin the day when they had
windows where you could standthere and watch them make the
pizzas.
(21:39):
So I went through a brief stintwhere I told my parents I
wanted to be a pizza maker.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
It does look fun.
They're still prettydisappointed, but that's okay.
Have you thrown dough beforeDoc?
Is that something you've done?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Oh, no, not at all.
Oh, you've got to try it.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
That's why you wanted it.
You missed your calling as apizza thrower.
The dough, people chuck it inthe air.
That's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I think the dogs would love that.
I think they'd love me to givethat a try.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
but yeah, I've dropped a few when I've done it
before.
Yes, and right now, currently,you specialize in anesthesia.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Okay, and specifically during heart
surgery.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yeah, yes, so my actual title is I'm a
cardiothoracic anesthesiologist.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Wow, can you?
Okay, like I have in my head ageneral path to be a general
practitioner doctor, right,somebody that's in a clinic.
Something's wrong with you.
You go see a thing.
They talk to you, they make youcough, I don't know, maybe
that's just me.
They write you a prescription,maybe, and then you're on your
(22:44):
merry way.
What did you have to do?
That kind of specific medicaltraining?
Speaker 3 (22:51):
After medical school actually I should backtrack In
your third and fourth year ofmedical school.
Here in the US you do rotations.
They're usually anywhere from amonth to two months long, and
you go through a lot ofdifferent specialties, the core
specialties, generalpractitioner surgery, obstetrics
, pediatrics, psychiatry allthose different fields just to
(23:16):
get a well-rounded education,but also to see what you like.
And I was fortunate enough thatmy surgical subspecialty
rotation just happened to beanesthesia and I fell in love
with it.
So after medical school, I didfour years of anesthesia
residency, which is justtraining in anesthesia for all
(23:40):
different types of surgery, andone of the types of surgeries
that you do is cardiacanesthesia, and it was a very
similar sort of thing.
My first day in what we calledthe heart room, I fell in love.
It was an instant yeah, this ismy calling, this is where I
belong.
So after anesthesia residency,I did a one-year fellowship in
(24:01):
cardiac anesthesia at Ohio StateUniversity and that is a year
where you only do anesthesia forheart and lung surgery.
So it's a whole focus on thatand that was the most intense
year of my life, to be sure.
But yeah, after that then I waslet loose upon the world.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Go do your anesthesia .
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Okay, I am fascinated by surgery.
I am a little squeamish so Idon't know if I could be in the
room.
I like watching videos of it orlike the computer simulations.
I think our audience would justbe in awe if you could walk us
through like what happens duringa typical heart surgery.
(24:50):
And where do you come in withyour role with anesthesia?
Speaker 3 (24:55):
yeah, let me just preface that tv is really
inaccurate.
Youtube videos actually.
Yeah, youtube videos areprobably actually more accurate
than tv, gotcha yeah, I meantlike the, the computer
animations of like procedures.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
I think they showed a med school.
I'm like sometimes I go down arabbit hole and I just watch a
million of them.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
But anyways, so essentially what happens on the
day of surgery, a patient willcome in and before they even
come into the hospital they havehad an extensive workup.
So they've had lots of bloodtests, x-rays, ekgs which is an
electrocardiogram that measuresthe electrical rhythms that go
(25:40):
through the heart, that tell theheart exactly what part needs
to beat and when, and imaging oftheir heart, so ultrasounds,
cts I'm sorry CAT scans andsometimes even MRI.
So they've had all this donebefore they get to me.
So we know exactly what theproblem that we need to fix is.
And when they come in, we dothe usual say hi, they get
(26:03):
changed into a gown and I startputting in my special types of
IVs.
What I do I will give.
Typically I'll give the patientsome sedation, because nobody
likes being stuck with needles.
It's not fun and when you'reabout to have heart surgery your
nerves are already just throughthe roof Can't imagine.
(26:24):
Yeah, so I give them somesedation so that they're
comfortable.
They don't really care what'shappening, and I put the first
thing I'll do is I'll put inwhat's called an arterial line.
What's happening, and I put thefirst thing I'll do is I'll put
in what's called an arterialline.
It's very similar to an IV,typically goes on the inside of
the wrist into the radial artery, and what this does is it
measures the blood pressure withevery heartbeat, instead of a
(26:44):
blood pressure cough you mayhave had at your GP's office.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah, the OOPA thing.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Yep, this is.
Every single time the heartbeats I get a special waveform
that tells me exactly what theblood pressure is, and this
gives me more real-time data sothat I can respond quicker.
Once that's in, then I will puta large IV in the side of the
patient's neck, into theinternal jugular vein.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Whoa really.
I just thought it was on thearm.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
They do have one in the arm, but for heart surgery
specifically, we do have abigger one in the neck.
Wow, this one is.
I don't know the exact internaldiameter it's less than a
centimeter, but over half acentimeter big.
And what this does is if I needto give the patient something
(27:34):
very quickly, so if they needlots of IV fluids or lots of
blood products, or if they needstrong blood pressure
medications, I can do all thatthrough this big IV in the neck
and it's a direct path to theheart.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Okay, that makes sense actually because that's
like straight to the heart.
Okay, that makes sense actually, because that's like straight
to the heart.
Okay, I got it.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yeah, and it's a quicker acting thing than a
peripheral IV which has to gothrough all the veins, get back
to the heart and then do itsthing.
This just goes right to where Ineed it to be and with certain
types of heart surgery I put inwhat is called a pulmonary
artery catheter.
So this actually goes throughthat IV in the neck and rests
(28:19):
inside certain chambers of theheart and the pulmonary artery,
which is the artery that comesoff of the right side of the
heart that goes out to the lungs.
So this artery takesdeoxygenated blood out to the
lungs where it gets oxygen andthen comes back.
But this catheter can measuredifferent types of pressure in
(28:40):
the chambers and in that artery.
So I have an idea how certainparts of the heart are working
and if I need to do anything tohelp them work.
So that's all that's beforesurgery.
Yeah, once all that's done, thenthe patient goes back to the
operating room and I give them aselection of medications
(29:02):
depending on how old they are,what type of procedure we are
doing, what their pathology is,so what's wrong with their heart
and how it's affecting the restof their body.
But either way, everybody endsup going to sleep.
Once they're asleep, I put abreathing tube in and this is
(29:25):
how I breathe for the patientduring surgery and once surgery
is over actually after heartsurgery patients typically stay
asleep and then we'll go to anIC or coronary care unit to have
some time to rest before theywake up and start breathing on
their own again.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
So I did Google your job description before and I was
I apologize, doc, I wasignorant.
I just thought you were the putto sleep of the person doctor.
But there's way, way, way morethan that and I apologize that.
I even thought that before ourtalk.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Oh no, don't, no worries at all.
That's actually a really commonmisconception.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, this is so good .
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Oh, yeah.
So once the patient's asleepand they're intubated, I put an
ultrasound probe so it's calleda transesophageal echocardiogram
a fancy name for an ultrasoundprobe that goes into the
esophagus, which is the.
When you eat, that's where andswallow, that's where your food
goes.
And this ultrasound probe takespictures of the heart both
(30:28):
inside and outside, while thesurgeon is working and before
and after they're working, sothat I can make sure that
everything looks okay beforesurgery is done.
So let's say the surgeon isreplacing one of the heart
valves.
Once they put in the new valve,I need to make sure that it's
in the right position, that it'sfunctioning well, that the
valve is opening and closinglike it should and they haven't
(30:51):
left any pieces of plasticbehind that sort of thing.
Yeah, so that essentially is myrole in the beginning, and then
the surgeon and their team willdo what they need to do.
Sometimes, if we are doingwhat's called a coronary artery
bypass graft or we call call ita CABG, that's a common heart
(31:15):
surgery that we do and that'swhere you take veins from the
leg and sew them onto the aortaand onto the heart to provide
new blood flow, to take theplace of the arteries that have
been blocked for whatever reason.
Typically it's cholesterolplaque, that sort of thing.
(31:37):
So the surgeon will do that,they'll get their veins ready
and then they will open thechest and that can be a bit
gruesome.
It involves a saw and a big ribretractor that almost looks
like a I'm blanking on the termbut something you would crack
(32:03):
crab legs with.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Basically, oh my goodness, like a nutcracker
almost.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Yeah, yeah.
And then the surgeon will put inwhat's called the aortic
cannula, so that's a really bigIV that they stick directly into
the aorta, and then they willput another big IV into the
right atrium of the heart.
And what these cannula doessentially?
(32:29):
The aortic cannula will giveblood to the body and the venous
cannula will take blood fromthe body.
And what it does is it takesblood from the body to a special
machine called thecardiopulmonary bypass machine,
and this machine will provideoxygen to the blood and filter
(32:53):
out any waste products.
It will maintain the pH of theblood, keep the blood in a state
that it would normally be in ahealthy body, and then it spins
it all around and usescentrifugal force to pump that
(33:13):
blood through the aortic cannulaout to the body.
So essentially what this getsto is that the body can survive
without the heart for a certainamount of time.
So we use special medicinesthen to stop the heart.
Wow, that's so wild, isn't itjust science fiction sounding
(33:38):
stuff?
It really is.
So we use special medicines tostop the heart so that the
surgeon has a stationary fieldto work on.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Yeah, it's not quivering.
And going like crazy, right,exactly.
And going like crazy, right,exactly.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
And because this machine also provides oxygen to
the blood, I can turn off theventilator so that the patient
is also not breathing.
They're not breathing.
Their heart's not beating.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Was that insane.
The first time you saw that inreal life, like there.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
It was, and the fact that the people doing it it
didn't think anything of it.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
it's oh yeah, another day at the office yeah, we do
this multiple times a day.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
This is it's just what we do.
Yeah, the first time I saw it,I was just flabbergasted.
I thought it was the coolestthing ever that is bananas.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yes and sorry, I don't mean to derail, I'm just.
I'm sitting here like a stunnedbanana listening to you talk
about this.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
And the amazing part is, when the surgeon's all done,
we can essentially reverse allthis stuff and the medicine that
stopped the heart.
We can give other medicines tocounteract that and I can start
breathing for the patient againand we've switched back from
that bypass machine to thepatient's own heart.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Once it starts going again, the machine goes off.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Yes, and it's.
Unfortunately, it's not alwaysas simple as that.
Sometimes patients need a lotof help in terms of medications
and this is where I come backinto play is starting
medications that help increasethe function of the heart,
(35:29):
whether it's the heart rate orthe pumping function, what we
call the ejection fraction ofthe heart, and I have
medications that can affect alldifferent aspects of the heart
how it functions, the pressuresin certain chambers, the
pressures in the body, thepressures in the pulmonary
artery just lots of differentoperate or lots of different
(35:52):
cocktails that I can use to makesure that patient is ready to
transition to life on their own.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Essentially, that is, that's bananas, and, and you're
obviously there for the wholesurgery, right like you, don't
take off to go have a coffee.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Correct, correct.
I'm there watching what'shappening, working with the
perfusionist, which is theperson who runs the
cardiopulmonary bypass machine.
I'm there working with them tomake sure that labs and blood
sugar and all the things that weneed to keep the patient
(36:32):
healthy and in as tip-top shapeas we can get them to come off
the bypass machine, as we can.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
So I feel like in every medical show I've seen
they gloss over your job.
Do you ever watch a medicalshow and you're like, hey,
that's what I do in the showsomewhere?
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Not really.
I stopped watching medicalshows in medical school.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Oh, okay, I'm so sorry.
It's like bad science fictionand I'm talking to a cosmologist
and they're like everything inthose shows are wrong.
I don't like to watch them.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
And yeah, typically if they show an anesthesiologist
, they're playing Sudoku or,like you said, they're in the
lounge drinking coffee while thepatient's in surgery, and it's
one of those where you just getso frustrated it's ah, that's
not how it works, I promise.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
They definitely show the surgeons as like the only
things that are involved inanything in surgery.
At least some of the shows I'veseen.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Very much a team effort.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Oh for sure.
And it's also not just me orthe surgeon, it's the nursing
crew and the surgicaltechnologists, and there are
lots of people involved.
So I definitely don't want todiminish anyone else's role.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
No, that's what.
It's just so impressive that,like we have the technology and
the personnel to do something asinsane as stop someone's heart
and have a machine.
Basically, we do that what theheart and lungs do.
It's operated on and then magicdrugs are given to them to make
(38:15):
them alive again.
Like it's just so.
Bananas, Like wow.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
It is, and that's not even the craziest stuff we do.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
That's not the craziest stuff you do.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Oh my God, I know.
So some of my favorite types ofheart surgeries that we do
involve when we have to work onthe aorta so that's the main
artery that goes from the heartto the body and all sorts of bad
stuff can happen to the aorta.
Unfortunately, it's amulti-layered tube, essentially,
(38:48):
and if one of those layers whatwe call dissects, essentially,
and if one of those layers whatwe call dissects, so if one of
those layers breaks, obviouslythat can lead to bad stuff and
your body not getting the bloodit needs.
So if a patient has an aorticdissection, there are times when
(39:18):
we have to do what we call deephypothermic circulatory arrest,
and that involves the samething I was mentioning before
with the cardiopulmonary bypassmachine, but we actually cool
these patients down, typicallyto about 20 to 22 degrees
Celsius, we pack their heads andtheir hearts in ice and then
for a brief while typicallyunder 30 minutes, depending on
(39:38):
what exactly is wrong weactually turn off the bypass
machine.
There is a period of time wherethere's no blood flowing.
The patient is clinically deadfor a little bit while we fix
things up and then we warm themback up, we start the bypass
machine again and bring themback to life.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Is the cold just to stop metabolic things?
Speaker 3 (40:05):
It is Okay.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Being hypothermic decreases the amount of oxygen
that the tissues need.
So that's one way we canprotect the brain and can
protect the body from that brieftime where there's no new
oxygen.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
So freaky that is, so wild it is.
I don't even know what to askyou now, doc.
This is not my.
I've got questions to ask you.
I'm like what?
The?
This is bananas.
Okay, so, aside from heartstuff, and thank you for talking
about this type of surgery, ohyeah, Happy to.
This is wild.
(40:47):
Is there some of the?
Are there other procedures thatyou're in on, or is it
specifically just heart stuff?
Speaker 3 (40:54):
So with my type of job and there are jobs at other
facilities across the countrywhere people will only do heart
stuff or only do other types ofsurgeries but I do everything.
So I am in on C-sections orwhen babies are born surgically,
I do labor, epidurals.
So helping laboring patientswith their pain, general surgery
(41:17):
, trauma surgery, jointreplacements I do it all and
honestly, it's all fascinatingand rewarding in such different
ways.
That's cool.
I remember my first C-sectionthat I did after I had graduated
(41:37):
.
During a C-section, typicallythe mother is awake and I'm
standing up at the head with themother and their support person
and the obstetrician is veryvocal letting us know what's
going on again because there'scertain medicines that need to
be timed certain ways.
But that very first one, whenthe obstetrician said it
(42:02):
honestly I don't remember if itwas a male or female baby, but
they held it up and said hereyou go, and I just started
crying right along with theparents.
It was just such a beautifulmoment and it's really amazing
(42:23):
that I get to share that withpeople I don't know and it can
be one of the most profoundmoments of their life.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, it's a new little person.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
Yeah, it's just beautiful.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
That's so sweet, were the.
Did you get any looks from theparents?
They're like why is she crying?
She's the doctor.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
No, the parents were too absorbed in the baby.
Oh, they didn't see, yeah, theobstetrician was giving me a
little bit of a look and I wasjust like this is beautiful,
yeah, so that's another reallyamazing part of my job that I
enjoy Some of the things that wecan now do with modern
(43:11):
technology and modern medicine.
It blows me away, even whenit's something I see on a
regular basis.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
You're the expert and you're like this is pretty
weird what we do, this is prettyamazing.
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
It is when we replace knee or hip joints.
Oh that's wild, isn't it?
Yeah, and we typically dowhat's called spinal anesthesia,
so that's where we injectmedicine into the fluid around
the spinal cord and it numbs thepatient from the waist down for
a few hours, and then wetypically we give them some
(43:49):
sedation during surgery becauseno one wants to hear that.
But to think that we can cutout someone's joint only using
two to three cc's of medicinejust blows my mind.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I was my dad's support person for his hip stuff
.
He has got both of his hipsdone and we watched a video
about what's going to happen andI was like holy hell, like
that's banana it's prettygruesome, not gonna lie the
drill comes in and like drillsinto the socket to put a new
thing in there, and I was like,oh my god, my dad's, maybe we
(44:30):
shouldn't, maybe they shouldn'tshow that video, maybe we don't
need to know this.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
The orthopedic surgeons really do essentially
use sterile power tools.
They have drills and saws andhammers and chisels and all the
things you'd find in your garage.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
It's wild, wow.
And that's true Cause my dadagain, I was my dad's support
person and they knocked him outwith that Right and then his the
feeling started to come backand he was up on his leg that
day.
I think that's part of it,right, they want to get you up
as long as the patient ishealthy enough, which most of
(45:15):
them are if they're having ajoint replaced.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
They go home that day and they're up and walking that
day.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Yeah.
Yeah, he was in some pain, butit wasn't.
After seeing that video, I wasexpecting him to be in
excruciating pain for weeks.
It wasn't fun, but it wasn't asbad as we thought, yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
And one of the other aspects of my job is we do what
are called nerve blocks, andthat's similar to what I was
describing with the spinalanesthesia, except we inject
medicine around peripheralnerves.
About a little less than twomonths ago I had my ankle.
(45:54):
I broke my ankle and I had itfixed and I had a nerve block
before surgery and similar sortof thing.
It was just a little bit ofnumbing medicine, so like the
lidocaine that you get at adentist office, but longer
acting.
I had two shots of that inspecific parts of my leg and I
(46:15):
didn't have pain for almost twodays after surgery and it's that
similar sort of thing.
Wow, look at what we can dowith so little.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
That's yeah, doesn't take much to knock out a human
hey, is that what we're saying?
Doesn't take much to knock outa human hey, is that what?
Speaker 3 (46:32):
we're saying Exactly.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
You can.
So like Dexter Morgan's wascorrect.
If you've seen that show, isthat true, correct?
Yes, oh my God, really, oh geez, okay.
So one of my students dressedup as Dexter Morgan for
Halloween oh nice.
It was when my Chem 20 studentsshe had.
I got it right away because shehad like his.
(46:56):
I don't know if you've seenDexter, but she had a syringe in
his gloves and I was like areyou Dexter?
She's like yes, and she hadlittle blood slides that she was
carrying around.
I was like that is amazing andalso borderline inappropriate
for high school.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
But she's going places.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
That sounds amazing yeah, she's a pretty good
student.
Before we wrap up this section,doc, a tough question maybe for
you, but one I'm.
I have goosebumps and I startedshivering when you were talking
to me.
Like do you have nerves ofsteel?
Do all of the people that dothis just have nerves of steel?
Do you ever get scared orworried, or do you just go into
(47:34):
work mode or focus mode?
I'm sure some things go bad orare unexpected.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Do you know what I'm getting at without being yeah,
okay, I'd like to think we alldo have a little bit of nerves
of steel, and I think there is acertain level of hardness that
has to come with this field andanyone in medicine who does
procedurally based things,because you don't ever want to
hurt anybody, but we sometimeshave to do things that are
(48:03):
painful.
You learn fairly early on todistance yourself in a certain
way, so it's not necessarilythat Mr So-and-so is having
surgery.
It's oh, this is a 62-year-oldman and it helps you to focus on
(48:27):
the physiology as opposed tothe humanity of it, if that
makes sense.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Yeah, because I can imagine if you focused on the
humanity you would burn out.
I don't know how you would.
Yeah, like my job is as ateacher.
I'm so focused on the humanityof these kids and if I started
to treat them like a number, Ithink that's where I would lose
the skill as being a teacher.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
But it might be different for you and your
profession maybe, I don't know alittle too close to home for me
(49:17):
and I haven't been able todistance myself.
It was a few years ago where Ihad a patient who was the same
age as me and she had the samefirst name and it was a really
awful emergency life or deathcase and it was really hard for
me to set my emotions aside andjust focus.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
I can't imagine.
I can't imagine.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
She ended up doing fine and survived her injury and
went home.
But it was got me in the gutthere for a little bit.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yeah, just like the work that you, the healthcare
professionals, do.
I've said this before, but justthank you so much as a lay
person, like saving lives anddoing that day in and day out.
Just thank you for the workthat you do.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
I don't know what to say, except you're welcome and
honestly I think your job as ateacher is much more challenging
than what I do, for sure, andthere is no way I could do what
you do.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Oh, I think I would fail the first day at yours, so
they'd kick me out.
I don't have the same level oftraining though, so I don't know
who knows I do.
A funny, fun fact, doc, youmight.
I've told this before on theshow I cannot stop myself from
passing out when I get a needle.
I'm not scared of them, I couldcare less if I get them but as
(50:38):
soon as I get an IV or needle Ifaint like a vasovagal syncope
or something like that.
Yeah, so I tell my studentsthat and they think it's
hilarious.
But if I have to give blood orif I have to go in for a minor
procedure, I just warn everybody.
I'm like, hey, just let youknow, I'm going to pass out when
you give me the needle, and thenurses are always like, hey,
(50:58):
just let you know, I'm going topass out when you give me the
needle, and the nurses arealways like, oh, you'll be fine,
you look great, and I'm likenope.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
And then I pass out.
That is one thing you learnthat patients do know their
bodies best.
So it is very important, whenpeople tell you that, to listen,
because that's exactly what'sgoing to happen.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Doc, thank you for sharing a little bit about your
fascinating job, oh yeah, mypleasure.
We love to hear from our guestsabout their pets and I was
wondering if you could share alittle bit about them or a
special pet story from your lifeokay.
Speaker 3 (51:30):
Yeah, my husband and I, we have three dogs soon.
We have grizz, who's 10 yearsold and.
Tuna, who is six, and Yogi, whois four, and Yogi is a black
lab.
He is my husband's service dog,and we also have a two-year-old
(51:53):
cat named Scully.
I'm not sure if you were anX-Files fan, but her formal name
is Agent Scully I am a huge,you have no idea.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
That is why I became a scientist.
I had a crush on Dr Dana Scullyin high school and I thought
Mulder was an idiot and I wantedto be a scientist.
And I met Gillian Anderson at aComic-Con.
Oh, wow.
I know, anyway, sorry.
Yes, I absolutely know whoScully is.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
That's awesome.
I've been trying to talk myhusband into a friend for Scully
and so far I've told him we canname it Mulder, and that's how
I'm gaining traction, yep, andin terms of a good pet story.
So when we first moved out toOregon, we are about one and a
(52:46):
half to two hours from CraterLake National Park, which is, if
you ever have a chance, youshould absolutely go there.
It's breathtakingly gorgeous.
It's an old volcano thatexploded I think it was about
7,500 years ago and the craterfrom the volcano is now a lake.
(53:07):
It's a crater lake and it'sactually the deepest lake in the
US and all of the water is justthis absolutely beautiful
glacial blue because it's allsnow melt, because the elevation
is very high, and so it's justthis pristine, amazingly
(53:28):
beautiful lake.
And I don't recall the exactelevation, but this park has
snow almost year I think there'smaybe a month in the summer
where the snow finally all meltsand they get something crazy
like 50 feet of snow a year.
I was at work and my husband,toby, took Grizz which at the
(53:50):
time he he was our only dog tookhim up to Crater Lake to play
in the snow, and Toby called meand was like, hey, I can't find
my car keys.
I know I had them in my pocket,but they're gone now so it's
towards the end of the day andshoot, okay, I'll get off work,
I'll find your spare keys andthen drive for two hours and
(54:13):
hopefully it's not dark andfreezing and you guys will be
okay.
And so him and Grizz roamedaround a little bit and Toby
said he kept telling Grizz, hey,buddy, where are the keys,
where are the keys?
And Grizz actually was able tofind the keys.
No, he led him around and tothis certain spot that he kept
(54:35):
going to, and Toby dug a littlebit and there were his car keys.
What a good dog, I know, and Idon't think newfoundlands are
particularly known for scentwork or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
I think I just say he's a smart boy oh, my goodness
, I love the story and can Ijust tell you I'm so jealous.
You have newfoundlands.
I've been trying to convince,I've tried to convince my wife
to get one.
We have Bernoulli.
So I, bernoulli is just a joy.
But I actually made apowerpoint presentation for her
(55:08):
about why we would need aNewfoundland but she said no,
it's their drool.
The drool was a deal breakerunderstandable.
Speaker 3 (55:15):
There there's a lot of drool at my house.
I have read, or at least seenin in, like breeder websites and
things, that there there issuch a thing as a quote-unquote
dry mouth, new feet, but I Idon't know that.
I don't know how much of athing that really is how big are
(55:36):
your new fees?
Speaker 1 (55:37):
are they huge?
Speaker 3 (55:39):
yes, so grizz is 150 pounds.
Nah, yeah, yeah, and tuna isabout 160, 165 oh my god, I love
that so much they're the best,they're my heart and my joy and
my love god, I just love thosedogs so much.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
What a cool story, though, doc.
Thanks for sharing.
Oh yeah, very cool.
As we come to the end of ourchat, one of the things we
challenge all of our guests isto leave us with a super fact.
It's something that you know,that when you tell people, it
blows their mind.
Now I'm saying this and I feellike I'm an idiot because this
entire talk my mind has beenblown out of my face.
(56:24):
I was wondering if you have onefor us as we wrap up.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
I do and you might want to hold on to your mind and
your face.
It's, of course, medicalrelated, so the human brain
actually does not have painreceptors, and what this means
is that brain surgery can bedone awake sometimes.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
You feel nothing.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
When they go through the skull, there are pain
receptors in the skin and theskull, but yeah, when they're
actually working on the brainitself, you feel nothing.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
Oh my God, that's so weird.
Speaker 3 (57:02):
There's a famous photo and I don't recall the
exact location or when or whereit's from, but there's a famous
photo of a violinist havingawake brain surgery with their
violin in hand, and that's oneof the ways the surgeon can tell
what part of the brain is what,and what the patient needs is
(57:25):
how the patient interacts duringsurgery.
So this patient is playing theviolin while they're operating
on their brain During brainsurgery playing a video game.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
What am I good at besides teaching?
I don't know, not playing theviolin.
That is a cool super fact.
Speaker 3 (57:40):
Yeah, it still baffles me.
I just can't believe we can dothat.
Speaker 1 (57:47):
That's wild, Ashley.
Are you on social mediaanywhere that people could
follow?
Is that something somebodycould do to connect with you?
Speaker 3 (57:56):
Yeah, I am on Instagram.
Yeah, what's your handle toconnect with you?
Yeah, I am on.
Instagram yeah what's yourhandle it is?
This is a little embarrassing.
I was very into Game of Thrones.
It is ashleesee306.
Ashleesee yes, it was a play onmy first name and Khaleesi 306.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
Okay, so we'll, I'll make sure there's, we'll try to
find, we'll find you and thenwe'll put that in the show notes
for people to follow.
Speaker 3 (58:24):
Okay, and then there's lots of pictures of my
dogs.
It's mainly just my dogs.
Speaker 1 (58:30):
We'll make sure that your handle is in the.
Yeah, we'll make sure yourhandles in the show notes.
This has been a treat and adelight to have you on the show.
Speedy recovery with your ankleinjury.
Speaker 3 (58:42):
Oh, thank you.
Yeah, this is has been amazing.
I love sharing my passion withpeople, and especially other
people who are just as crazyabout their dogs as I am.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back tolisten to the science podcast.
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to the
Science Podcast.
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to us and
special shout out to our toptiers on the Paw Pack.
They support us, as do manyothers.
But a perk of being in the toptier is you get your name
shouted out and if you want tohave that perk too, check out in
(59:15):
our show notes and sign up onthe Paw Pack.
All right, Chris, take it away.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
Amelia Fetig Rhi, oda Carol Hainel, jennifer Challen,
linnea Janik Karen Chronister,vicky Otero, christy Walker,
sarah Bram, wendy, diane Masonand Luke Helen Chin, elizabeth
Bourgeois, marianne McNally,catherine Jordan, shelley Smith,
laura Steffensen, tracyLeinbach, anne Uchida, heather
(59:43):
Burback, kelly Tracy Halbert,ben Rather, debbie Anderson,
sandy Brimer, mary Rader, biancaHyde, andrew Lin, brenda Clark,
brianne Hawes, peggy McKeel,holly Burge, kathy Zerker, susan
Wagner and Liz Button.
Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
For science, empathy and cuteness.
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