Dr. Glaucomflecken

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Hi everybody and welcome to the podcast. This is Generations md. My name is Stephanie and I'm joined here by my colleague Dr. Sarah Davis, who's also my mother. And today we have a very special guest.

He is a board certified ophthalmologist, but better known to his millions of social media followers as Dr. Glockenflocken. Please welcome to the podcast, Dr. Will Flannery.

Hi everybody. Good to be here.

Well, we are so happy to have you. I mean, both me and my mom have followed you for such a long time and I'm sure a lot of our listeners have too. So we really appreciate you being here and we're excited to chat with you.

Oh yeah, this is great. I love this. So you just got. Got me at the right time. I just finished operating all morning, so now I just get to relax and just have a conversation. It's good.

Perfect. Love it. Well, kind of backing up. I really want to hear about your kind of early life and getting into medicine. I always ask all of our guests this. When was the first time you thought about being a doctor?

Oh, man. The first time I can remember was after a summer camp I did at one of the. Because I grew up in Texas and so I did a summer camp with a friend of mine. I want to say it was at like the Texas A M, like their med school campus. And it was like, you go, you stay for like, like a month or so. And, and they. What they. What I remember from this, this camp, we were staying in the dorm and they would, we'd have lectures from different doctors. I do remember the, the neurologist being extremely boring. But I also remember some like, you know, gross pathologist. Not the pet. The pathologist wasn't gross, but the things they were showing was gross. And I almost had a vasovagal episode, I think, during that lecture. But it was somewhere during that camp that I was like, this is cool. It probably wasn't either of those two, which were the ones that stuck out in my mind the most. The neurologist and the pathologist. But somewhere else along the line I was like, okay, this is interesting. And I was like eighth grade. And so, and from there, you know, in high school, I, I did. I took like AP Biology. And, and I really enjoyed that. And so I, I was always kind of on the path to, to, you know, biology, anatomy and med school. And then, you know, comedy tried to knock me off my path a little bit, but. But it ended up not being Successful. And I at school, wow, how lucky.

We are that you want to.

Well, I found a way to do both, so.

Yes.

Well, I want to hear about that a little bit. Did you try, Were you a performance art, performance art person? Did you go down that path?

I, I, I just like, I was always kind of funny, you know, I was the class clown. I got in trouble all the time and loved making my friends laugh. And when I was a senior in high school, a good friend of mine was, started doing stand up, going to open mics in Houston. And, and so I was like, oh, I'll go. That sounds fun. And first time I went up on stage is like, it. I was like 17 years old. I, I actually couldn't be in the comedy club past a certain time because I was only 17, so they kicked me out at like 9 o'. Clock. And, and so basically the point is there, there weren't that many people in the audience at the time. Whenever I went up and told my, my first five minutes worth of jokes, my first joke went great, everybody laughed at it. And then I bombed the rest of the set and, but it was like that one big laugh I got. I was like, oh, I want to keep doing this. This is, this is really cool. And so I just, I kept it, I kept it going, I kept writing material, but I always saw it as a hobby. And, and so I, I never really seriously thought, you know, I'll just, I'll just do this for my job. It, maybe it's because I'm just, you know, the classic risk averse physician, you know, who, who just wants a sure thing, which to me was, you know, becoming a doctor. So even though that's not a sure thing either, but you know, compared to, compared to trying to make it big in stand up comedy, I think it maybe is.

Yeah.

No. Yeah. Well, also. Did you grow up in Houston?

Yeah, I grew up in Deer Park, Texas.

Okay. I'm go to McGovern or UT Health in Houston. So that's where I am right now.

So, so that's where I was actually going to go to. I almost went there.

Okay.

I was accepted. That was where I was going to go in Texas. But my wife, who we were just dating at the time, she applied to grad school like all over the country or really it was like six, six places. One of them was Dartmouth. She's like, I really want to go to Dartmouth. And I was already accepted. It was like late in the admission cycle for med school and so I was already accepted to UT Houston. I Loved it there. I was like, I'm going to go home. You know, I'll be around all my friends and everything. And then she dropped this on me. It was like, hey, hey, why don't you apply to Dartmouth? I was like, oh, yeah, it sounds easy to get into. Sure, let's do that. And. But I was very dedicated to not breaking up with her and her not breaking up with me, so. So I applied, and eventually I wrote them a bunch of letters. Eventually, they let me in, so off the wait list, like, two weeks before classes were supposed to start. So it. It all worked out. But, yeah, I was really close to. To being a ut Houston Med school.

They would have loved to claim you.

Well, it was great. I. That was because I interviewed, like, all the. The. The med schools and. And I think it. Back then. Back then, I. I was like. I started med school in, like, 2008. There was a. It was a match. Like a separate match.

Yeah, it's the same. Yeah, right?

Yeah, for like. For, like, med school match. So it's the same thing. They still do that that way.

Yeah.

Well, Utah. Houston was, like, top of my list, so I was. I was all. I was ready.

Well, yeah, yeah, we would have loved to. Love to claim you're.

So you're done with your first year now?

Yes, I am. A second year just started.

What are you learning? What are you. What are you. What are you learning about?

I'm in GI right now, so lots of gut stuff. Yeah. So it's fun. I mean.

Yeah, kind of perfect because you just got back from India and so you really had experienced a. Of GI difficulties.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Just came.

No.

Thanks for outing me on the podcast.

Please tell us. Tell us all about your diarrhea.

Campobacter is what I got going on.

Is that what it was? Yeah. Campylobacter. That's not good. How far. How long into your trip before it hit you?

Well, I came back, had to go through the.

All.

All the testing stuff, and, yeah, that popped up on my labs, and then actually, we have a lecture on it or I'm gonna watch the sketchy on it in two days. So I was like, I'm working ahead.

Well done.

Are you. Are you at the point in med school where, like, you. You learn something and you start thinking maybe you have that thing.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, she's there.

That happens all the time. Like, I was like, one point, I was, like, convinced I had ALS because I had, like a. Like a. A leg muscle twitch that wouldn't go away. I was like, oh, but I just happened to be learning about als. It's just like the. It's. I don't know what that is, what kind of, like, disorder that is, to have that as a med student, but I think it's pretty universal.

Oh, yeah. I feel like. I mean, my mom was saying people seem to latch on to certain things like that. Like, mom, wasn't your schizophrenia or something?

Yeah, I was really worried I had schizophrenia. I was like, I think I might be hearing voices.

Well, just talking about going through med school. So you go through college, you decide that you're gonna go to medical school. What, like, was your experience, like, in medical school and kind of, how did you lead to choosing the specialty that you chose?

Yeah, I, I. So Dartmouth was a. We had a very small class, so we had, like, 70 students. I know, like, UT Houston's like, 250 or something outrageous. So it felt really small and everything. The place, it's like rural New Hampshire. And I just happened to be assigned a faculty advisor who was an ophthalmologist. That is probably the reason why I ended up choosing ophthalmology, because she. I remember vividly, like, the first time I had a conversation with her, I asked her, I was like. She said, I'm an ophthalmologist. Like, oh, that's eyes.

Right?

Like, I had no idea. I didn't even know what it was, what it was. And. And so after talking with her a few times, like, right at the beginning of med school, you know, she knew that I had no idea, like, what I want. I just. I didn't know what. What kind of doctor I wanted to be. And. And so she. She told me, she's like, you're going to go away for a while. You're going to think you want to do all these other things, but eventually you'll decide ophthalmology is the best thing out there. It's like.

So she's a psychic, too?

I don't know. It's, like, so confident about it. It's like, how do you. How do you know this? How do know that? I don't. Well, she knew. I guess she just knew me. And we had gotten to know each other, and I did. I. I thought about all these different things that were never going to happen. You know, at one point, I thought about cardiology, and I even had a wonderful OBGYN rotation. I was like, oh, this would be really cool to deliver babies and stuff. And then, like, radiology was probably the, the second, My second, you know, most Likely specialty. And then eventually I was like, you know what? That's it is ophthalmology. I get to sit down in the operating room surgeries. I like being in the operating room, but it's, I didn't want to stand for like five or six hours at a time wearing lead or, or you know, talking about compression stockings. And so I was like, let me don't do ophthalmology. It's like, you know, 10 minute surgeries. It's great. It's great. Don't have to be in the hospital. I'm allergic to hospitals.

Yeah.

So anyway, that was, that was it. It was, it was actually very, very. I came to the decision late. You know, I was, it wasn't until like the beginning of my fourth year really that I knew I wanted to do ophthalmology. But, you know, so it was just nothing else seemed to fit. And then I just kind of like, well, I guess we'll do eyes.

How do you feel? Like I just am kind of just getting a picture of like your life and who you are a little bit. You know, I've, people know you online as this, as this comic and as this personality. How do you feel like those aspects of yourself have fit into you choosing the specialty and then you actually like practicing?

Oh, I mean, not at all. None of it. I don't know if you've ever interacted with an ophthalmologist before. Maybe not. We are not known for our humor. It's very humorless specialty. It's. And so that did not factor in at all. If, if, if I was going to choose a specialty based on like how much comedy I could get out of it, I absolutely would have been a urologist. Like, there's like, that's by like by far the, the most, you know, the content you can mine from a specialty is in urology. So, so that didn't really factor in for me. But I, when I was in med school, I, I, I eventually I stopped doing stand up performing just because, you know, life got busy and you know, I was up in New Hampshire, which there wasn't a lot of opportunity to do stand up. So I started writing for this, this publication called Gomer Blog, which is, it's probably sad now that that med students now don't really know what that is, but it was actually, it was like the onion for medical folks. Right. So we, you know, just every day they publish, you know, these satire articles and I was writing, I wrote like 100 articles for them over like a couple years and I Loved it. It was so much fun. And that's what the first opportunity I really had to, like, exercise my. My humor, you know, comedy, creativity, and medicine, because I was, like, I would sit there and just try to brainstorm about different specialties, what I can make fun of, you know, what kind of jokes I could tell about vascular surgery or radiology or dermatology, whatever it was. Even things I wasn't that interested in. And so. So I already had, like, a. And I did that, like, throughout most of med school. And. And so by the time I just got into ophthalmology and then glock and fleck and really started to take off, I had already had all this. This foundation built of. Of. Of approaching comedy through the lens of all these different specialties. So when people ask me, like, how do you know so much about, you know, pediatrics? You're not a pediatrician. Or, you know, I get asked that all the time. Like, you're an ophthalmologist. You're not supposed to know anything about orthopedic surgery. It's like. Well, I. I just. You have no idea. People don't realize, like, how many hours I have, like, scoured the Internet, like, actually learning about the personalities and. And paying attention to the people that I meet and just the observational skills and putting all that together to be able to, like, tell jokes about it and make this content. So it's. It's. You know, it took a lot of legwork, and I wasn't, like, trying to turn it into what it is now. At the time, it was just fun, you know, but with any hobby, just the more you do it, the more I did comedy writing and stand up when I could, you know, the better I got at it. And then. And then you see the result of it, you know, now, years later.

Well, there's no question that you nail it. I mean, it's just.

I try. I try to be as accurate as possible. It's getting harder and harder, though, the further I get into my career as an ophthalmologist, because we're very separate from the rest of medicine. So challenging.

Yeah, I think it's so interesting. I. As you know, I'm listening to you talk and also just reflecting on other people we've talked to on this podcast, people who have these creative backgrounds and then come into medicine and end up finding some way to make them mesh. But, like, before that, before you found that. That. That route, to be able to kind of express your creative side and your comedy and all of that through your Writing. Did you ever struggle, you know, in college and through med school kind of feeling like you had to separate these two parts of yourself? Did you find yourself kind of like struggling with parts of yourself through kind of college and med school?

I mostly, I mostly struggled with just how people would take it as me being a med student and then as a resident, you know, how people would take to me telling jokes. It's, it was a lot different. I mean it doesn't, it doesn't seem that long ago, but you know, when Glock and started like 2016, I was this, I was a first year resident when I started, like when I started, when I made my, my account on Twitter and started, you know, telling jokes a lot as Glock and flecking and I was very careful. It's like it has to be anonymous because the, the landscape for medical comedy at that time was like almost non existent.

Right.

This was pre TikTok and you had funny people out there. You had like the Z dogs of the world that were making, you know, comedy, you know, parody song videos and stuff. So it was out there. But. And then the Gomer block thing. But it wasn't as pervasive as it is now because you go on Tik Tok now you see so many people, they're cracking jokes and making their content creators and it's. And so I think it was, the challenge for me was like, how do I do this without getting in trouble? How do I do this without getting fired? I kind of need this career because I haven't got a lot of student loans to pay back. And so that was the biggest challenge I, I felt and I was afraid to, that people would find out who I was. Looking back on it from a, from the perspective of like someone who's trying to, you know, attract patients to my practice and, and you know, from the patient perspective, it was nothing to. I shouldn't have been worried because all my patients, when they come and talk with me, they always bring up Glock and flicking like, oh, I love the video you posted it. They love was the, the older generation of physicians.

Yeah.

People like me. Well, yeah, but you know, as you said it, not me, but, but you know, it's, it's that generation that grew up with the mindset and were taught the mindset that physicians are stoic. They are, they don't, they don't show their emotions. You know, they, they keep a straight face. You know, that's, it's, it's a sign of weakness to, to be sad about things and show that side of yourself. And you certainly didn't tell jokes. Like, that's not professional at all. And so, and that, that, that line of thinking just, that's just what it was for, for decades. And so what I was doing and what a few other people were doing out there was very much like throwing that in back in people's faces and be like, no, that's not what we're going to do. Like, because I'm, you know, before I'm a physician, like, I'm just a human being and I still have like all these emotions and all these funny things that happen. We've got incredibly hilarious things that happen in the hospital. And you know, as a, as a trainee, as a student is like, why would I not want to talk about these things? And so, you know, it's been interesting to see over the past, even just five, six years, how the pendulum is swinging a little bit more away from that line of thinking. That like, you know, straight face, you know, you can't be emotional to, to what it is now. And you have. Seems like every med school class probably has one or two students in it that are our content creators are, are gaining a platform and using it. And so it's. But that was the biggest, I'd say, challenge that I faced, which is, what do I, what, how separate do I need to keep this from my, my actual face and putting my name to it. And, and I was anonymous for like five years, you know, before, Before I actually like made my first tick tock where I had to show my face.

Wow.

And then at that point, the cat's out of the bag. Right? It's like people can like, figure out who I am. So I, I wasn't keeping it a secret anymore. But at that point I was a, I was a owner in my practice, so I had the security, like I didn't have to answer to anybody at that point.

Right.

So it was just much easier.

Yeah.

Well, just kind of, you know, talking about that because in your content, especially some of your more recent content, you do criticize insurance companies and private equity, all of that. Well, I'm just wondering what kind of pushback that you get in your doctor life from some of your.

I don't, I don't. I usually don't get any pushback. I believe it or not, I have not been given a cease and desist from any insurance company. So.

Amazing.

And like all my patient then my patients love it. I've never had a bad interaction with somebody about my content. And I think. And part of that is. And this is something I always talk to students, and pretty much any physician audience I talk to is like, is that you. You do have to. There's a level of professionalism you do have to maintain just by virtue of what we do. Like, it's kind of a unique job, right? Like, people are very vulnerable in our presence. And so you can make fun of certain things, but certain things, like patience, like, you, you don't want to be making fun of because that's, That's. You're going to get yourself into trouble. You're going to piss people off for good reason, right? Like, you can't. That's just not something that you should be doing. So there's limits to what I think we can do as content creators, as physicians, as medical professionals. And so as long as you don't, like, kind of violate those lines, you don't cross those lines, you're going to be fine. And they're not hard lines to figure out.

Right?

Like, you know, like, what's disrespectful to patients and what's not. And that's why all my content is just specialty to specialty.

Right.

This is cardiology making fun of nephrology and vice versa. So.

Yeah, well, I. I think I saw something, you know, so I'm a family medicine doctor, and so I should put on my, like, my glasses like this. Yeah. And I think I saw something that.

You said very well rested, by the way, for.

Well, he does concierge medicine.

Yes, I do concierge. Concierge medicine. So it's really kind of a. A whole different thing, so.

It is a whole different thing. I don't think I have a concierge character, so. Well, I have a quick question for Stephanie.

What?

I'm curious what. You're at your school, what's the social media? Do you have, like, a code of conduct? Is there other expectations that are set for social media? Because there wasn't. Whenever I. Because I was. This is 2008, like, Facebook had, like, just launched, like, two years prior, so it had not gotten to that point. But I'm. So I'm curious what. How your administrator. How do your school handle social media?

It's so vague. And I know that you. You have something that is a. A code of conduct that, like, you are offering to give to school. Yeah, yeah, I was reading about that, which I think is great because, yeah, right now it's like, okay, don't post. But they can't really say that. You know, everyone has an Instagram. Everybody has Social media. So then it's kind of like, okay, just be smart about it. But then, okay, what does that mean exactly? You know, where are the rules? So really the only rule is, you know, obviously nothing. Hipaa don't post any patients or anything like that.

And maybe even rules isn't even the way to approach it, right? It, it really needs to be like, just like guidelines, right? Like let's, let's think through like this type of content versus this type of content and showing examples of, and I mean, geez, I have examples of things that I said on social media like five years ago that I would never say today because I've learned through, mostly through like backlash of people getting mad at me what not to do. And that's part of why I, you know, the glockenfelken team, you know, we've, we've put together a guide, you know, for which people can find on our website, glockenflocken.com just trying to help people like understand, you know, how do you do this, like safely as a medical professional without getting yourself into trouble, without getting yourself fired. And so I think it really should be something that all med, med schools like have a dedicated. Doesn't have to be a lot of time, but just some time because it's just going to get more common for students to come in with social, with a social media platform already that they're, that they're using as a med student and then as a future physician. And so telling people like what, what you really should not, you know, areas you shouldn't venture or if you do this is how you can do it safely. And you know, that that's really something that should be a focus by this point.

I think, yeah, 100%. I think guidelines is the right term. But it's so hard to have that conversation with somebody who doesn't use social media or doesn't kind of understand. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's difficult to kind of just explain posting and also explain like the purpose of posting. Tick tocks. And it just gets really messy when someone's not literate in social media.

How do you communicate with memes? Now you can't. Like to a certain, a certain age it becomes more difficult.

Right.

So it's, it's. I, I totally get it. It's challenging.

I do want to touch on, I want, on where you were at in your career and how you transitioned from being a resident to then I, you went straight into private practice, if I was reading that correctly. I want to Talk about just that independently. Just kind of how that gave you the room and space to be able to kind of show your face online and do that.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I chose private practice ophthalmology. So ophthalmology is one of those fields where it is just more prevalent to join to go into private practice. Although that's becoming less and less. Feeling like less and less of an option for a lot of graduates now. It almost feels like private practice is dying a little bit. And that's mainly in ophthalmology. Private equity is playing a huge role in that. And so I knew when I came out of residency, first of all, I was like, I'm not doing a fellowship. I'm like, I'm done. Like, this is enough years of this. Like, let me go and like, actually start seeing patients and like, you know, practicing on my own. And so I knew I wasn't gonna do a fellowship. I was done after residency and I chose private practice because I hated research. That was, I was like, I. Research is not my thing. I'm not good at it. I, I don't like journal club. Makes me want to rip my hair out. It's that kind of thing. So I'll, I'll read a study, but, man, I don't want to, like, talk about it for an hour. I'll just, just, just let me just read it and I'm good. So anyway, that I, when you, when you, when you realize that academics is not really the best choice for you, so I was like, let's just do, let's do private practice. So I, I found a great practice. I was looking for something that was already established. I didn't want to start my own and I didn't want to join, like a very small project. I wanted a kind of a larger project. So there wasn't a lot of great options. But I found a fantastic one out in Portland I Health Northwest. And it was, it's physician owned. It still is physician owned. And so just sometimes you get lucky. You know, the vast majority of, of. I would say I forgot what the statistics are at this point, but for ophthalmology graduates, the vast majority of graduates, they, they don't stick with their first job. Like they end up on second or third job. Once, Once you kind of, you're out there, you figure out what you like, what you don't like, what type of environment you want to practice in. And oftentimes that leads to people leaving their first job to find what they really want after they have a few years of experience. Under their belt. But for me, I've always known I landed exactly where I needed to be. And the social media stuff is part of that because I was very fortunate to have a supportive group of partners who also very much value work life balance. You know, we all work four days a week, which is technically full time for an ophthalmologist. And it's. But I've, I've, I've never received any pushback on, like, you know, why are you spending all this time doing social media or going, you know, speaking. You know, I take lots of speaking trips and, you know, I, I do have to work a certain amount to as a partner because it's a partnership.

Right.

I, I have to pull my weight. And plus, I still actually like seeing patients. It's like a thing I enjoy. So. But this, this practice environment in particular has been a great way for me to find that balance. And like, if I was in a different specialty, there's no way I'd. I probably would not be able to do a lot of the things that I do, as with glock and flecking.

Well, did you know that you wanted to set your life up this way? Going through medical school and early in your career and did you have anybody that you were looking to. There was. That was like, okay, this person.

Yeah.

Isn't just only a doctor and only is in the hospital all the time and has these kind of different parts of their career. Did you know that that's what you wanted?

I wish I could tell you that, like, I had it all planned out. Like, it never works that way. I mean, for God's sake, I got, I got cancer in med school and, and cancer again in residency. And those, those episodes actually did probably shape me a little bit more than maybe I give. Give it credit for in. In that, you know, made me realize, like, anything could happen.

Right.

And. And if you don't just try to enjoy life and it's okay. It made me okay viewing ophthalmology as a job, and I feel like that's kind of like, at least for a while, it's kind of frowned upon. Like, no, this is not. This is. This is a calling, whatever you want to call it. This is your. This is what you. And that it is that way for some people. But it's okay if it's, if you don't, if you don't feel like there's some higher purpose you're serving being a physician, it's okay to call it a job and you want. That doesn't mean you're not good at taking care of patients, and you're not empathetic, and you don't have all the wonderful qualities that it takes to be a physician. But, but maybe thinking about it as a, as it, as a 9 to 5 or whatever your hours are. 9 to 9, 9 to 24 hours for some of you out there, then it, it just gives you the real estate to, to be able to bring in other things in your life that, that you also want to focus on, that you also enjoy doing. And you know, again, it depends on so much on your specialty, on your practice environment. But I, I hope that people feel like they can find ways to incorporate those things outside of medicine that you love to do. I think it's so important. It helped me get through my cancer diagnoses, my cardiac arrest. I leaned on not only family and friends, but my love of comedy. And, and I, even though I've mixed up comedy and medicine, I still feel like it's separate.

Right.

It does feel still like that's, it's not my, it's not my job as Dr. Flannery ophthalmologist. It feels different. And it, it, it's, it's been important for me to get through some of the more difficult parts of my life and just lets me exercise that creativity which medicine tries to beat out of you. It really does. Right? I mean, and I gave a commencement address a couple years ago to the University of Michigan, and that's one of the things I talked about was like, don't let medicine destroy your creativity because it tries to without protocols and, and smart phrases. And it's like, it's like you don't, it's. And now AI scribing and like all this. There's so many things that we're trying to automate medicine the best we can.

Right.

Part of that's just trying to increase efficiency. We have too many patients to see, not enough hours. But I think in the end, it does kind of take away our ability to exercise our own creativity. And so we need to find that in other ways.

Yeah.

I think that the younger generation, Stephanie's generation, I think, does see medicine as a little bit more of a job rather than a calling, which I see as a positive thing. I mean, having work life balance, I think you're just much less likely to experience burnout and all the other bad stuff that happens to a lot of physicians of my generation. I also think whenever somebody tries to call it a calling, that just gives them a reason to kind of take advantage of you. And underpay you, like, overwork you because, you know.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's, that's, that's the playbook from private equity and, and, and certainly health insurance companies.

Right.

Like, they'll.

What.

They'll, they'll just do the surgery anyway, and even if they don't get paid for it because it's the right thing to do. Well, I mean, so, yeah, you're absolutely right. They weaponize that against us, for sure.

Just talking to people like you, who, Whose career is so much more than just what you do in the operating room, in the office, I think is really inspiring. And as I've talked to different people who just have different, different parts of themselves that either, yeah, they're making into their bigger career or, you know, outside hobbies and all of that stuff is inspiring to see and very refreshing because again, kind of what we were talking about at the beginning on these rotations and as we're studying medicine and seeing these attendings on our rotations who, it just looks like, you know, this is their career, this is what they're working for, is, is this one thing that they're doing. You know, they're a cardiologist, they're an internal medicine doctor, you know, whatever that is. It's hard to kind of like, picture your life as anything else but talking to people like you. And, and that's kind of why I asked, like, did you see your career as something more than just medicine and. Because that's what you've made it.

So I think the answer, the, the short answer is yeah, I don't know what it was, what it would be. Yeah, I, I never, I can't say I ever thought. It's just gonna be. I'm just, just. I'm just gonna be practicing. I'm just gonna have that and not do anything else. And, and, you know, I'm not enough of a planner to know exactly what the, the else would be. Turned out to be this, you know, Glockenfelden. But what allowed me to. To get to this point was just not giving up on the elements that turned into this, because that's so easy to do. And there's, there's going to be times in your education, your training, where it is just going to be medicine because it has to be like, there's nothing else you can do. Like you're studying for step one or you're. You're going through intern year and you just eat, breathe and sleep medicine and, and that's going to suck for months at a time. But you Never totally give up on those other things and never totally stop doing comedy. It may have been four or five months in between when I would write something or perform, but it was always there and it was always in my mind somewhere thinking about it. I never just like, oh, I guess that part of my life is done now. And so that's what I would encourage people to do because it, yeah, there will be times when it's just medicine. It's going to be medicine for the foreseeable future, but always have whatever that thing is, you know, whether it's writing or singing, dancing, whatever, whatever it is. I don't know, basket weaving. I don't know that you're just. There's. You have it and you can, you can go back to, you can go back to that. Well, and then if you just keep doing it because you're passionate about it, then first of all, then you're always going to have something in your life you're passionate about.

Right.

Because it's not always going to be medicine. You'll have something in your life that you're passionate about and, and then you keep doing it, then you never know where it's going to take you.

And I think that has been a theme with some other guests as well, is that these things don't take away from your ability to be a good doctor. They actually make you a better doctor because other parts of your life.

Absolutely, yeah, it's, it's, yeah, those different life experiences, they certainly, they add up to make you the physician you are, you know, and, and that's true for any life experience. So absolutely, I agree with that.

Well, one thing, you know, I wanted to ask about your social media because you've developed this huge following and I feel like I've seen sort of a shift in your, in your tiktoks of, you know, kind of using your platform really as a voice to explain the healthcare system to people outside of medicine, which I think is fantastic. And I guess I just kind of want to know, like, what. Where are you, where are you going to go from here?

Or. No, you know, I kind of, I've got, like, ideas of things I want to do. I am enjoying doing the. You know, I started doing it in part because it was a challenge, like how, you know, I've, I've explored all the stereotypes and all the specialties and I got the personalities down. I could do that, you know, for days on and years on. I have. So, like, what else is there? What else could I do with comedy? And so I wanted to, to try to just take things that aren't, are obviously not funny things, you know, that sometimes they're awful things like prior authorizations. How do I make those things funny? Like, can you make them funny? And then lately I've been like, just choosing random topics in first aid and just like trying to make it, make a video about it as a way to, to not only educate, but also just make it funny. Like lysosomal storage diseases. Like, can I, Is it possible to, in 90 seconds? These are questions I ask myself. Is it possible to teach people something about lysosomal storage diseases in 90 seconds and like, make it funny? Is that even, is that even doable? And so I like, I kind of set about like trying to do that with, with just anything, any medical topic. Because what I've, what I've learned is that like when you, when you add humor to something, like, obviously more people are going to be interested in it. You know, I joke that I trick people into learning things about the healthcare system, about medicine, because otherwise, like, who's going to sit there and listen to me, you know, lecture them about amyloidosis? Like, that's, that's boring as hell, you know, so, but if I can add some jokes to it, if I can create a little story behind it with these characters and then just squeeze in some of that, some of those clinical pearls and knowledge, then I think of, you know, I've done something that I don't think a lot of people are doing.

Yeah, that's a challenge, right?

Like, that's, and that's part of what drew me to doing this type of content is like, it's kind of challenging and, and it's, it's, it's making me, it's pushing me forward in terms of my creativity and just making it towards not so stagnant. And because it, you know, even, I mean, at this point, the com, the content creation is a job. Like I make money doing it, so it is a second job and it feels that way sometimes. And so I, I, I think it's really important. Just like any job, it's important to try to figure out ways to like, reignite your passion around it. And this is just one of those ways to do it, I think.

Yeah, well, I'm excited to see, you know, where your content goes and how it continues to grow.

Well, I've got like 700 pages of first aid to get through, so I've got, I've got my work cut out for me. But yeah, we got, we got other fun things that we're we're talking about.

Doing so I also have.

Stephanie's studying for step one or will be studying this year for step one, so that'll help her.

I also probably have about 700 pages of first aid to get through. And I know that you're a proponent of students going into private practice. How were you able to do that in your career? Coming out of medical school and going straight into that as far as having loans and.

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. So when I graduated med school, I had at the time like 275,000 and then by the end of residency I ballooned up to 320. I think what, what a lot of people don't realize with private practice, and it can only obviously speak to, to my experience in ophthalmology, but the, the potential upside is so much higher in private practice than it is in if you're an employee in an academic center or just like a Kaiser type system where you're an employee like you, you make your salary. And, and so I interviewed at Kaiser actually, I was like, because maybe it seems like a good job and, and they offered a, the highest starting salary that I, you know, this was 2017, I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood, about 300,000 to start, which is higher than any of the private practices that I had was looking at. But I had several people in my life, some mentors. I was like, you got to think long term here and understand what the potential that you could make. And there's just no comparison when it comes to owning your own practice. For if, if you're willing to, you know, work hard and, and you know, put the time in, especially up front to, you know, you can go. The heights you can reach are really going to be higher than, than any like employed position that you can find. Now that's not for everyone. Like, I, I find it incredibly rewarding to like build something yourself. Like you, you have put the work in and you can see the fruit of that labor. And in my mind, you know, if I was an employee physician, it's like, okay, I'm putting that work in and I'm getting paid. But you know, a lot of this is also benefiting this. The, the nameless administration. And what are they doing and are they making my life easier? Are they just going to make it harder? Are they going to take more of, you know, more of a percentage of the money? And there's just, there's so many things that, that kind of go into it, but that's like a kind of a, a business owner Mindset.

Right.

And I, I wouldn't say I had that right away. I just, I, I had a interest in it and. But I talked to a lot of people, I got a lot of great advice about it. And so I was never worried about not being able to repay my student loans. And now I say that I'm an ophthalmology. It's a higher paying specialty.

Right.

And so, and I understand that for everybody listening. And so it's, people in other specialties are going to have a tougher time. And I think especially in primary care, like, it's, it's, it's not, our system is not set up to pay primary care physicians, family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, set up to pay you what you're worth. That's a whole other issue.

Right.

And that's something that we need to keep advocating for change and a way to get out from underneath the thumb of insurance and so many other things that are kind of keeping wages low for those specialties because the cost of education is only getting higher.

Right.

And so every specialty has different pressures. I was, I was fortunate. I really like the specialty. I'm a weirdo. I like eyeballs. And it's, it's a higher paying specialty. And so I felt very secure in my decision and just was not interested in being an employee. I just wanted to see where I, where I could go with it, you know, and so that was kind of my decision making process.

Yeah. Well, I think, you know, everything we just talked about and what you do on your social media is so important and not only just like advocating for everything you just said, but then also just giving people like me the space to be able to be creative and funny online. That really didn't exist before you. So I just want to say thank you for like allowing us to do that and carving the path for us as we're kind of wrapping up. I won't, we won't take up too much more of your time. I always ask all of our guests this at the end of the episode, but as somebody who's early on in my career, second year medical student, what advice would you have for somebody like me as I start on this long journey towards being a doctor?

Always check vision prior to consulting ophthalmology. Just please, please make sure you check that vision. Some practical advice there. We've already I, you know, some of the bigger picture advice, you know, as we've talked about.

Right.

Like maintaining a connection to your creative side. Oh, I would say wherever you go along the way, particularly as you when you become a resident, join your state medical society and your, your big specialty society and stay clued into the advocacy efforts that are ongoing. There's a lot about the healthcare system that you're going to learn about the further you get into your career. Right now you're just trying to figure out what bicarb does, right? It's like you're just like, that's where you're at and that's where you should be. Like, you gotta, you gotta learn the medicine. And I learned so much once I got out and started actually seeing patients and doing, and billing for things and, and realizing where the money's coming from and what middlemen are taking the money away and making life harder for physicians. Aim for patients. You'll learn all these things as you go. And if you're, if you're a member of your state medical society and your specialty society, you'll, you'll know what's going on in your state legislator and your, in federal legislation that's going on that can try to make things better. But you gotta, you gotta seek that out. And so get, get used to advocating, advocating early and often because it just becomes a habit. You're just like clued in like you know what's happening and, and then you can use that social media platform to talk about it.

That's great.

I love that. Well, thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you and anything.

Else that in case they've been under a rock.

Yeah.

Search glockenflekken anywhere.

Yeah, yeah.

You can find a summary. The things that either like live shows we got coming up or we just did made a, an animated series that I posted on our YouTube channels and I'm just anything Glock and flecking on our website. Glock and fleckin.com.

Awesome. And you guys know where to find us @Generations MD on Instagram and Tik Tok. And if you have any questions, you can email us ataskgenerations MD gmail.com and we will talk to you next week. Bye guys. Thanks.

Bye.