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April 13, 2025 • 40 mins
Tonight Dr. Galati separates his segments where he spends time talking about four different topics. These include GLP-1 drugs, cancer screening, meal prepping, and how to be a good patient.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Initialize sequence.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home to the
world's largest medical center.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Bunch Phase Everything Looking two.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is your Health First, the most beneficial health program
on radio with doctor Joe Bellotti. During the next hour,
you'll learn about health, wellness and the prevention of disease.
Now here's your host, doctor Joe Bellotti.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Well a good Sunday evening to everybody. Doctor Joe Galotti,
I appreciate you tuning in to spend an hour of
your weekend with us. The name of the program is
Your Held First. We're here every Sunday between seven and
a pm. And to follow along, you'll know the drill.
Our website is doctor Joegalotti dot com, d R j

(01:23):
O E G A L A t I dot com.
All the information you need to know about me and
our program and our team is there. SONA for our
newsletter which goes out every weekend, you could send me
a message. All of our social media links are there,
and so that is our one stop shop to find
out about the program. It is at doctor Joeglotti dot com.

(01:46):
So you know, for this Sunday evening, I decided to
break it up into four different segments. I want to
really cover four separate topic with you during each segment.
The first one is I want to give a quick
little overview about the GLP one drugs that are on

(02:09):
the market for weight loss. You really can't open up
a newspaper, magazine, or listen to the radio or TV
without hearing about ozempicg V manjaro, all of these agents.
So we're going to touch on that. Second part, I
want to talk about cancer screening. This is something that
all of you really need to be up to speed of.

(02:30):
Third part, we're going to talk, you know, really give
you a little bit of my spin on meal prepping.
A lot of people talk about how they meal prep,
but others really don't have a very good sense of
how to do that. And then the fourth part really
is how to be a good patient, how to be
a good consumer when you are getting healthcare for yourself

(02:53):
or for your family. So I would say to make
this a really good actionable radio program for tonight. Those
are the four agents we you know, really the four
topics we want to talk about. So to start off,
these GLP one drugs, and they are probably one of

(03:18):
the hottest topics in the news with regard to health
and wellness and weight loss and looking good, and it's
the cool prescription to have. But you all have to
proceed with caution. And I have been saying this nearly
from the beginning. Now let me let me just sort
of tell you where I'm coming from. Yes, indeed, there

(03:40):
is no denial we are facing as a country a
massive obesity crisis. This is a tsunami of a health crisis.
Now you would say, okay, there are these drugs, these
GLP one agents. It's ozempic, wagovi, rebealsis, Victosa, Munjaro, zep bound, trulicity.

(04:09):
These are medications that will indeed work and make you
lose weight. So on one hand of the argument, you say, well, gee,
you're telling us this is a tsunami of a problem
and we have a fix in a sense, so what's
your beef? Well, I think we have to ticket one
step further and look at this a little bit more clearly.

(04:33):
First of all, these medications are not without side effects,
ranging from mild to moderate to severe side effects. Now
at the absolute worst conceivable side effect, there has been
talked for a long time that these GLP one agents

(04:55):
can cause thyroid cancer. That's something you certainly don't want
to deal with. But I must say there have been
some recent reports that indicate that thyroid cancer is less
of a problem and may not be associated with these drugs.
Now I am in the next couple of weeks, I'm
going to be reaching out to my thyroid expert, my

(05:19):
diabetes expert and see what she thinks about this. But
the medical literature would make you think that the risk
of thyroid cancer is much less. The other serious side
effect is the development of pancreatitis, which is inflammation of
the pancreas. Again, this is a complication that could be mild, moderate,

(05:41):
or severe. The monerit to severe cases of pancreatitis can
really take you down and take you out, so you
have to be careful. The majority of the other adverse
events or side effects are related to a lot of
gi disturbance, nausea, vomiting, constipation, just feeling sick to your stomach.

(06:04):
Even more rare, developing something that would look like a
bowel obstruction. But many times these feed people, these patients
feel really horrible, and that is enough of a side
effect to make you stop taking it. Now, the other
real issue that I have is that for those that

(06:26):
get on these drugs and pick whatever variety you want,
whatever flavor of the month. It is ozembic, well go
v Victosa, manjaro, zep bound, etc. Yes, you take it.
You may or may not have side effects. You could
sort of tolerate it, You could sort of limp through
the side effects. But the key, the key issue that

(06:48):
I have is that people are not patients, are not
learning to eat better, They are not learning to take
care of themselves better. They are not learning about nutrition
and food. And what happens is, for whatever reason, you
have success, you lose weight on these medications. We've already

(07:12):
established that. But for some reason, either it's an insurance
issue you can't pay for it, or maybe you're having
some sort of side effect from it and you have
to stop. So the twenty thirty, forty or fifty pounds
that you've lost will come back right away, because you
have not made any conscious decision to change the way

(07:35):
you eat, the way you cook, the way you take
care of yourself, your different lifestyle issues. Because with all
of these medical therapies, there always is in it really
is sort of in this small print associated the use
of this drug associated with lifestyle modifications, and that is exercise,

(07:58):
taking better care of yourself, sleeping better, limiting or avoiding alcohol.
Eating a more nutritious diet. Now, eat a more nutritious
diet is not eating out. You're going to have to
bring the nutritious diet into your house, preparing meals, knowing

(08:20):
how to meal prep, which we're going to get to
a little bit later. And so if you do not
make this a priority to learn how to shop and
meal prep and decide which recipe or foods that you're
going to eat are better than one or the other,

(08:42):
you will not be successful long term. Will not be
successful long term. Now, there are many people that are
indeed overweight or in the early stages of obesity. They
have never never tried to exercise more, they have never
tried to adjust their lifestyle the decisions that make the

(09:05):
habits that they have. I have had so many patients
that have been in this situation, and typically they have
fatty liver disease, high cholesterol, and some early diabetes changes
and they take it upon themselves to eat better, learn
to cook, adjust their diet, exercise, stop alcohol, stop drinking

(09:28):
sugar sodas, get rid of the sugary cereals, all the
processed foods, and they come back in six, eight, twelve,
sixteen weeks later down fifteen twenty twenty five pounds and
they're feeling better, and their labs look better and their
diabetes markers, their blood sugar looks better. So it can

(09:49):
be done. But if you're in this pill mentality, which
I love to talk about, where I need the shot,
I need the shot to lose weight, but you haven't
done the hard work. And I really wouldn't look at
it this hard work. It is a conscious decision that
you're going to change your ways, because it really is

(10:13):
unsustainable to think that every overweight person, every obese person
is going to be on these medications for what the
rest of your life. That doesn't make any sense either.
So for those that have serious complications related to heart disease,
serious complications of diabetes or obesity, kidney disease, et cetera, yes,

(10:38):
these medications play a very very important life saving role.
But for many others, and I don't know what the
exact percentage is, is it fifty percent of the people
have to or could go through the lifestyle pathway. First,
eat better, exercise, stop drinking, don't you know, have a

(11:00):
leader of doctor Pepper every day. I don't know if
that's fifty percent or seventy percent of the people. I
just don't know. Maybe it's twenty percent, but that is
what we need to do. All right. So GOP agents
they're very effective. They will work, but you have to

(11:22):
realize that there are adverse events that can make you sick,
moderately sick, mildly sick, or severely sick with complications. But
at the bottom of it all, your greatest success is
going to be if you intervene yourself with these life
style changes. All right, all right, let's take a break.

(11:45):
The next segment I want to come up on is
we're going to be talking about cancer streak, cancer screening
strategies for all of you. It's something that is always
worthwhile to talk about. Don't forget Doctor Joeglotti dot Com
is our website. Stay tuned. We're bright back raising your
Health IQ, one listener at a time. That is our

(12:09):
call to action for all of you. I'm doctor Joe Galotti.
Every Sunday, we're here between seven and a PM, and
I certainly do appreciate your giving us a little bit
of your weekend. To buff you up a little bit
and make you better consumers. That is it. Doctor Joglotti
dot com. Doctor Joegalotti dot com is our website on

(12:32):
a for our newsletter, send me a message. All of
our resources are there social media. Uh. If you want
to follow along and stay tuned with anything new that
we're doing, we do webinars and our podcasting is all there,
but you have to go to doctor Jogalotti dot com.
All right, So segment number two we finished on the

(12:53):
GOLP one agents sync in and think out all of that.
The next thing is cancer guidelines. What is it that
you need to do to reduce your chance of cancer.
I think people would rather hear that they're going to
be abducted by aliens and flung off to Pluto rather

(13:19):
than be told that they have cancer. It is really,
really a very feared thing, and for some reasons, yes
it is. But in no particular order. Here breast cancer,
and we've talked a lot about breast cancer. If you
go back on our website and our podcast. I have

(13:39):
had a number of interviews with women that have gone
through breast cancer and it's great to hear their story.
But from the American Cancer Society Breast Cancer. If you
are forty to forty forty years old, you should have
the choice to start annual breast cancer screening with a

(14:00):
mammogram if you wish to do that. Forty five to
fifty four you should get a mammogram every year. So
the forty to forty four is by the American Cancer
Society guidelines a little on the earlier side. If you want,
you can, but they're saying forty five to fifty four.

(14:22):
If you are fifty five and older, you should switch
to a mammogram every two years and continue to screen annually.
Screening should continue as long as a woman is in
good health and is expected to live ten years or longer. Now,
all women should be familiar with the known benefits, limitation,

(14:45):
and potential harms associated with breast cancer screening. Keep in
mind if you have a family history a genetic tendency,
you need to be more aggressive the style of screening
with more of a and I hate to say standard mammogram,

(15:05):
but you may need to get scanned with MRI of
the breast. But certainly you want to talk to your
healthcare provider, be your primary care or your GYN physician.
So you want to know your family history, your mom, grandmother, sisters, aunts,
cousins that have had breast cancer, or if you have

(15:29):
any other personal risk factors. One thing here I'll throw
in alcohol and obesity is associated with a higher risk
of breast cancer. So again, you can screen all you want,
but if you're not intervening with these risk factors, it
is you're not going to get as big of a

(15:50):
bang for your buck. All right, let's talk about colon
and rectal cancer. So as long as you don't have
a family history, you are sort of an average risk
type person. Screening for colon cancer starts at forty five
years old. It can be a colonoscope, it could be
some sort of a stool based test where you submit

(16:12):
a stool sample. Colon guard is probably what you're most
familiar with, which is an acceptable form of screening. But
it's forty five years old. Certainly it's going to be
younger if you have a family history of colon cancer,
or family history of colon polyps, or you have other

(16:32):
diseases that put you at risk for cancer, one of
which is ulcer of colliitis or Crohn's disease that is
inflammatory bowel disease. Now the key thing. The key thing here,
screening is for people that have no symptoms. You do
not see blood in your stool, you do not have

(16:53):
abdominal pain, you have not had unexplained weight loss, you
have not noticed that your stool caliber, the stool size
has changed. If that's going on, we're no longer in
a screening mode, but we're more in a diagnostic mode.
Why are you having blood in your stool, Why are

(17:16):
you constipated, Why are you having pain in your abdomen
or down in your rectum. Okay, so typically screening starts
at forty five obviously if you have symptoms earlier, but
if you're in good health, you should continue screening through
age seventy five. If you're seventy six to eighty five, again,
talk with your doctor and make these decisions. Cervical cancer, certainly,

(17:41):
this is something that's going to be discussed with your gynecologist.
It should start at age twenty five for women. And
of course we have the human papaloma virus vaccine, which
is something that both men and women should think about
getting to lower the risk. And then we have endometrial cancer. Again,

(18:06):
this is something that you want to check in with
your gyn to see what specific screening needs to take place.
The last thing before we take a break is lung cancer,
so with people that are smokers or have quit smoking,
so it's really current smokers or people that used to smoke,

(18:28):
and or if you have at least a twenty pack
year history of smoking. So a pack year is if
you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day for a year,
that is a one pack year smoke. If you smoke
it half a package a day for a year, that
is a half pack year exposure. But anyway, if you

(18:51):
are a smoker between fifty and eighty, the screening strategy
is low dosed CT of the chest annually. All right,
so that is another strategy. And then prostate cancer, certainly
this is in flux. Again, talk with your doctor about

(19:11):
getting screened, getting a PSA test, to digital rector exam.
Uh and uh again talk with your doctor. The other
thing I'm going to post on our Facebook page is
a website from the American Cancer Society that talks about
it's a little online five minute quiz that you could

(19:32):
take about knowing your cancer risks. All Right, I'm doctor
Joe Galotti. News weather, traffic coming up, Stay tuned, We'll
bright back doctor Joe Galotti back. Thank you for tuning
in the Needy program with your help. Kurst for Jervis
Sunday between seven and eight pm and our website Doctor
Joegalotti dot com, Doctor Joe Galotti dot com. You know

(19:53):
the you know last segment, we were talking about cancer
and I wanted to make sure we didn't gloss over
the issues related to prostate cancer. So over the last
ten fifteen years, there has been controversy or I would
say lively discussion about screening for prostate cancer. One of
the issues was that a lot of men were going

(20:15):
for unnecessary prostate biopsies and this lent led to not
only discomfort and cost, there could be some issues related
to infection or bleeding or other issues. So the American
Cancer Society, which is really one organization, it is not
the ultimate voice. There are others that are going to

(20:38):
comment on prostate cancer. But their issue is that they
recommend men make an informed decision with a healthcare provider
about when to be tested for prostate cancer. So starting
at age fifty, men should talk to a healthcare provider
about the pros and cons of test that they can

(21:01):
decide to make the right decision. Now. If you're African
American or have a father or brother who had prostate
cancer before sixty five, you should have this talk with
your healthcare team. Starting at age forty five, if you
are going to go ahead and get tested, you should
get a PSA prostate specific antigen blood test with or

(21:24):
without a rectal exam starting at that time. How often
you get tested will depend on what your PSA level is.
But the overwhelming part we've talked about screening for cancer.
How do you take control of your health and reduce
your cancer risk? That is the whole issue here. Stay

(21:47):
away from tobacco, limit alcohol, if not avoid it altogether.
Try to get to and stay at a healthy way.
More exercise, eat healthy, as I will tell everybody, plant based,

(22:08):
whole food diet, plenty of fruits and vegetables, the idea
of eliminating alcohol, protect your skin, and most importantly is
know your family history. Okay, know what mom or dad
died from. So many patients coming to me and they
have no idea what their parents died from. Yeah, they

(22:30):
had some sort of tumor cancer, they went for surgery, chemo, radiation,
and hell if I know what it was you know what,
you're not doing yourself a favor or your children or
your siblings, so you really want to know about your family. Okay,
for the third section here, we're going to be talking
about meal prepping, and everybody talks about meal prepping. Do

(22:55):
you meal prep? I meal prep ME and my boyfriend
meal prep. I meal prep on myself. I meal prep
on meal prep on Friday? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
yeah yay. So by definition, in a sense, meal prepping
is that process of planning and preparing meals in advance

(23:16):
to save time number one and really reduce stress. So
many people get really a bit whacked out when they
start thinking about preparing their meals. But the third thing
is also to ensure healthy eating so that you're not
doing it on the fly and look, I am as
guilty as anybody could be. You're starving. The last thing

(23:40):
you may want to do is start making a meal
when you're about to pass out because you haven't eaten.
But if you have things prepped already most of the
way done, it's going to ensure healthy eating and prevent
you from going to the drive through. Okay, so now

(24:01):
this practice of meal planning really at its simplest forum
will involve cooking or portioning meals ahead time so that
you're ready to eat through the week. It is preparation
meal prepping. Okay, So the various components here. Number one

(24:21):
the planning, So you have to decide on the meals
for the week, what the heck you're going to do.
You're going to have to make some sort of a menu,
consider your nutritional needs and preferences. Do you want more fish,
you want to go more high fiber, do you want
to go more vegetarian without any meat? And you have

(24:43):
to create a shopping list based on this meal plan. Okay,
so that's planning. The second thing really is what we
would call batch cooking, so as best you can prepare
large quantities of ingredients or fo meals at once. This
will save time and ensure you have healthy options available.

(25:05):
So you plan out what you're going to eat, you
go shop, you've got all the raw materials, no pun involved,
and then you just prepare a whole bunch of grilled chicken,
a whole bunch of fish, a whole bunch of various
vegetables that are ready to go. Again, saves time to me.
Saving time cuts down on anxiety, and you're going to

(25:29):
have healthy options available at all times. The third part
is portioning. You have to portion this stuff out. You
got to divide meals into individual portions. Now, if you
are very good at eyeballing, it good for you. But
get a scale. You can buy a scale on Amazon

(25:50):
for fifteen dollars and that way you can make sure
you've got three or four ounces of a vegetable, of
a protein, et ceterac. So by portioning it out both
in size right, that's sort of a portion, it makes
it easier to grab a meal on the goal and

(26:11):
helps again control portion size. For the last year, I've
been a big fan of these vacuum sealers. So we
will make certain vegetables, fish, chicken, and vacuum seal it
so that I know, if I'm home alone, nobody's here.
I have a portion of chicken that's already cooked or

(26:33):
vegetables that are already cooked. And the last thing is
storage air tight containers to keep these meals fresh. You
don't want it to go bad and spoil. And then
label the containers with the date so that you don't
find something that's like two years old and then you
get sick. From that. So it's planning, batch cooking, portioning,

(26:54):
and then storage. And the key philosophy here is not
to make it difficult. Keep it simple. What was it,
Bill Clinton? Keep it simple? Stupid? You want to choose
simple recipes. Now, simple recipes do not mean that you're

(27:17):
eating a lousy diet. You want to look at recipes
that have minimal ingredients and preparation time. There's a lot
of different meals that you can make by stir frying.
You could, you know, chop up shrimp, chop up chicken
fish and just sort of pan cook it. Salads, grain

(27:43):
bowls or what a lot of people are having. So
you get some brown rice, you could have quinoa, various
nutritious grains, and you put it all together in a bowl,
very nutritious, good portion size. The other thing is looking
in bulk certainly, you know large pot baking sheets, prepare

(28:05):
multiple servings at once, roast a whole bunch of vegetables
at one time, and it makes it all the more easier.
Now that the technology is here at our fingertips, A
crock pot, slow cooker, insta pot certainly is very popular.
A lot of my patients, a lot of friends and

(28:26):
neighbors have these. These will allow you to basically set
up the meal and come back when it's completed. You
don't have to sweat over a stove or an oven,
so think about getting an insta pot or some sort
of crock pot. Prep the ingredients separately. You want to
chop the vegetables, marinate the protein, measure out things ahead

(28:48):
of time so that it's all ready for you. You
could freeze the food. But the main issue is you
have to create a schedule. You have to sit down
once or twice a week and make a menu. And
it's not just for dinner. You want to say what
am I having for breakfast? And again I've said this many,

(29:10):
many times. Research has been done that shows the people
that have the more mundane foods through the week. Every
week they have oatmeal. Every week they have some sort
of Greek yogurt and fruit, or throw some sort of

(29:30):
chia seeds in it, overnight oats. That's okay to keep
it simple as long as you know it takes a
lot of the anxiety out of it. What am I
going to have for breakfast today? What am I going
to have for lunch? It's okay to say I'm gonna
have a garden fresh salad plus minus throwing a little

(29:52):
protein in it, or are you going to throw a
little keen one into it or a little bit of
brown rice? Or instead of just having vegetable, you could
slice up an apple, you could put slices of a banana,
some peaches, some grapes, cherries, et cetera. And keep in mind,
frozen vegetables are as good as fresh and same with

(30:14):
the fruit frozen. There's a ton of frozen fruit options
that you can buy. But it's setting up that schedule
and so that you don't get too bored, have some variety. Okay,
it's you know, just tweaking a recipe a little bit
is beneficial. So that is you know, the big the

(30:39):
big take on meal prepping and all that it goes
into it. And really the under pinning value of this
is that number one, you're going to have control over
the ingredients. Because when you go out and you go
to a restaurant, I don't care how much you pay
for a meal is going to be too big. It's

(31:01):
going to have too much salt, too much fat, and
thus too many calories. Okay, so if you're trying to
reduce your weight. Going out is going to sabotage it totally, okay,
and having control and by meal prepping, it's going to
take the hassle. And I listen to patients all day long,

(31:24):
people that are in their twenties, people are in their
sixties and seventies. They find it such a burden, such
a burden to cook and prepare meals. Me I'm the
happy idiot. I love to cook, I love to prepare,
I love to shop an experiment and it makes me

(31:45):
feel good. So I think if we can inspire you,
motivate you to do this, it is it is you know,
our mission is accomplished to make you find the joy
in not only creating these meals for yourself, but having
meals with your family and your children, the people you love,

(32:08):
the people that are in your community and friends and
breaking bread together. All right, all right, final segment is
coming up, and according to my schedule, we're going to
be talking about how to be a better patient. That's
very key, Doctor Joe Galotti every Sunday, and from the

(32:28):
bottom of my heart, it is a great pleasure to
be here sharing some of the weekend with you. Whether
you hear the whole hour you just hear for a segment.
Don't forget. This is all going to be available on
our podcast for replay and all the other social media
is at Doctorjogalotti dot com. Stay tuned. Final segment coming up.

(32:51):
We'll be right back here, all right, final segment of
this week's Your Health First, Doctor Joe Galotti. And just
a reminder our website, Doctor Joe Glotti dot com, Doctor
Joeglotti dot com. Sign up for our newsletter. There's a
tab write on the homepage. And certainly you can send
me a message. And we always love to hear from
our listeners and followers to give us ideas on what

(33:14):
they may want to hear topics experts. Where very much
game to hear from everybody, Doctor Joegalotti dot com. While
you're at it, certainly you can pick up a copy
of my book, Eating Yourself Sick in the next few weeks.
It's going to be coming out as a paperback. Right now,
it's still in the hardcover version, but Eating Yourself Sick

(33:36):
is available on the website with a link to Amazon.
You know, I have a you know, my fingertips all
kinds of music being in the radio industry here and
this song here. I don't know if anybody realizes what

(33:56):
TV show this came from, but it was The honeymoon
Owners back one of the earliest sort of sitcom shows
in the nineteen fifties, Jackie Gleeson, R. Carney. It was
the benchmark for a sitcom show. But hearing this music,
this orchestration when I was a kid, it was already

(34:18):
well into syndication and reruns. But such fantastic music that
the Honeymooners started off with, just great to listen to.

(34:39):
All right, So the last segment of the four topics,
we talked about the GLP one agents and weight loss
and or complications. We talked about cancer screening, we talked
about meal prepping. Now on being a patient. So, how
is it that you're supposed to behave How are you
to make the most of your visit an interaction with

(35:02):
your physician? Well, I would say the best way, and
this is not so much act good or act bad.
This is not a behavior sort of lecture here, but really,
how do you get the most out of your healthcare provider,
your healthcare team so that you are ensured good health? Well,

(35:26):
what I would say is, first of all, understand your
health insurance, your policy. What are the limits of the policies?
Do you understand the copay strategy? Do you understand your deductibles? Okay, now,
how are you supposed to know about this? Well? Number

(35:47):
one on your insurance card, it should lay out your
copay and or your deductible. Is it somebody in network
or out of the network of the insurance. Is it
a primary care? Is it a preventive visit that you're

(36:08):
having or is it a specialist? Is it an emergency room?
Is it an urgent care? What about labs, other testing,
X rays and prescription You need to be a student.
You cannot show up at the doctor's office. And when
they say, missus Johnson, your co pay is forty dollars

(36:32):
and you have a deductible that you have to pay
one hundred and thirty dollars today, and that creates, you know,
big anks. At the end of the day. It is
your responsibility as a patient to know your insurance and
what all offices will say, we will verify your insurance

(36:54):
as a courtesy to you. Nobody is obligated to do this.
You are supposed to know how this all works. If
you are If it's not all spelled out on your
insurance card. Then there is probably some sort of toll
free number for you to call for customer service and

(37:18):
ask say, I'm going to a specialist, I'm seeing a
cardiologist in two weeks. How is this going to work?
And they'll say, what's the name of the doctor and
they'll say, well, doctor Johnson, and they look it up.
They're like, doctor Johnson is in network in your Blue
Cross Blue Shield network or ETNA or whatever it may be.
And you will have to pay a ten dollar copay,

(37:41):
a twenty five dollars for your deductible that is still due,
and after that you're fine, okay, but you have to
find out. So that is a very big part of
how to behave as a patient. Number two, you have
to do a little bit of your homework. If you're
going to your primary care doctor or a specialist or

(38:03):
somebody new, you want to know a little bit about
why you're going to see them. If you're referred to
a specialist because of a spot on your lung, a
spot on your lung, it could be an old infection,
it could be cancer, maybe it's nothing. You want to

(38:24):
have a little bit of an idea talk with your doctor,
talk with the nurse practitioner, talk with their staff to
say why am I being referred to a lung specialist
instead of just showing up? And when we sit with
you and say, okay, missus Murphy, why are you here?
I don't know my doctor just told me to come.

(38:45):
That really is making it all the more difficult for
the team to figure out why you're there. We can guess,
we can speculate, but you want to take all the
all the guessing away. The other thing is I always
always recommend that you go to the doctor with somebody else.

(39:05):
You need a wingman or a wing woman or wing person,
somebody that is writing shotgun for you, somebody that could listen,
somebody that may not be as emotionally charged about a
diagnosis or a condition or a fear. And make sure
you bring a notebook, bring some index cards, questions, and

(39:27):
always go with at least two or three questions that
are written out, not fourteen, not thirty. Don't bring a
whole binder of questions and articles to look at. Go
with three well thought out questions for you that'll make
your visit all the more valuable. And the last thing,

(39:47):
as we close up this Sunday evening. You want to
get to know the people in the doctor's office. Who
is his assistant. Is it a medical assistant, is it
some other illustrative secretarial support person? Does he have a nurse?
Is there a nurse practitioner a PA that works with

(40:07):
your doctor? But you want to befriend as many people
as you can so that you have really clear communication
with the office and the physician. And how do you
get questions answered? Do they have a portal, do they
use email, texting, et cetera. So hopefully that is a

(40:28):
few tips on being a better patient. Again, our goal
with all of this is to really keep you healthy
and just lead a healthier life and have fun. That's
what it's all about.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
All right.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
I am doctor Joe Glotti. We are closing down now
until next Sunday evening at seven o'clock. Be well, eat right, exercise,
get your sleep, and really be committed to putting your
health first. Take care. We'll see you next Sunday.
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