Podcast appearances and mentions of Orlando Health

News Whip: US Issues Mexico Travel Warning for Spring Breakers, New burger spot Neighborly opens in Thousand Oaks, the best travel destination for 2025, and Careers not affected by Artificial Intelligence #Travel #Crime #TravelWarning #Burgers #Careers #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Mexico // Gwyneth Paltrow Tells Goop Vagina Candle Critics/ If you snooze you lose- Why you should wakeup on your first alarm #Goop #Vagina #Snooze #Sleeping #Alarm #GwynethPaltrow / Man quits corporate job to set sail around the world with his cat #cat #corporatejob #sail #quit // $1000+ fine for using speakerphone on the train/ Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt, a urologist from Orlando Health, explains the possible treatment options for the former president #TrainFees #fees #speakerphone #ProstateCancer #Cancer  

News Whip: US Issues Mexico Travel Warning for Spring Breakers, New burger spot Neighborly opens in Thousand Oaks, the best travel destination for 2025, and Careers not affected by Artificial Intelligence #Travel #Crime #TravelWarning #Burgers #Careers #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Mexico // Gwyneth Paltrow Tells Goop Vagina Candle Critics/ If you snooze you lose- Why you should wakeup on your first alarm #Goop #Vagina #Snooze #Sleeping #Alarm #GwynethPaltrow //Man quits corporate job to set sail around the world with his cat #cat #corporatejob #sail #quit // $1000+ fine for using speakerphone on the train/ Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt, a urologist from Orlando Health, explains the possible treatment options for the former president #TrainFees #fees #speakerphone #ProstateCancer #Cancer  

On episode 226, we welcome Thibaut van Marke and Amy Allen of Orlando Health, an award-winning network of community and specialty hospitals that recently expanded into Alabama. Thibaut and Amy discuss Orlando Health's acquisition of Baptist Health, and how this move benefits both patients and providers in Alabama. We also explore Orlando Health's pioneering research in pediatrics and adult trauma, as well as their use of AI and emerging technologies as we look to the future of healthcare. Tune in now!

In this episode, Scott Becker highlights seven major healthcare stories, including Orlando Health's hospital closure, leadership changes at Penn State and Jefferson Health, workforce challenges leading to a UC healthcare worker strike, and growing cybersecurity concerns in health systems.

In this episode of "In the Rhythm," we welcome Drs. Hawkins Gay from Northwestern Medicine and Mohamed Elshazly of Orlando Health to explore the transformative role of artificial intelligence in Electrophysiology. Join us as they delve into the innovative ways AI is reshaping the diagnosis, prediction, and treatment of arrhythmias, from enhancing patient outcomes to streamlining clinical workflows.

Episode 129: Redefining Patient Care with Virtual Nursing Dr. Joni Watson sits down with Dr. Darius Love, Assistant Vice President of Workforce Optimization and Redesign at Orlando Health, to explore the groundbreaking world of virtual nursing. Dr. Love shares his visionary approach to healthcare delivery, highlighting how virtual care models serve as an extension of in-person teams, allowing nurses to focus more on high-touch aspects of patient care. He delves into the strategies for overcoming resistance to change, the crucial role of nursing informatics in streamlining workflows, and the impact of positive leadership on advancing the future of healthcare. Join us as we discuss how moments matter, the power of virtual teams, and why adaptive leadership is key in this new era of nursing. Find all of our network podcasts on your favorite podcast platforms and be sure to subscribe and like us. Learn more at www.healthcarenowradio.com/listen

In this episode, Alyssia Crews, Assistant Vice President at Orlando Health, shares her perspective on the rapid growth of the health system, advancements in oncology care, and the role of AI in improving patient care and clinical efficiency. She also offers advice for emerging leaders in healthcare.

In this episode, April Ernst, Chief Operating Officer at Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute, shares insights into the challenges and opportunities driving orthopedic and spine care. She discusses growth strategies in Central Florida, advancements in robotic surgery and telemedicine, and the shift toward outpatient care, all while keeping patient-centered, value-based care at the forefront.

In this episode, April Ernst, Chief Operating Officer at Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute, shares insights into the challenges and opportunities driving orthopedic and spine care. She discusses growth strategies in Central Florida, advancements in robotic surgery and telemedicine, and the shift toward outpatient care, all while keeping patient-centered, value-based care at the forefront.

In this episode, April Ernst, Chief Operating Officer at Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute, shares insights into the challenges and opportunities driving orthopedic and spine care. She discusses growth strategies in Central Florida, advancements in robotic surgery and telemedicine, and the shift toward outpatient care, all while keeping patient-centered, value-based care at the forefront.

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma e Biotech world. This week's commercialization news includes Dupixent's success in a chronic hives study, Lilly's development of a weekly insulin shot, and BioMarin's plans for growth. The House backs a bill restricting China's role in US biotech, while Lykos CEO is set to depart after FDA rejection and layoffs. The newsletter also discusses key developments in cell therapy and offers insights on utilizing a direct-to-patient model in the healthcare industry. Various resources and upcoming events in the biopharma industry are also highlighted. Biopharma Dive provides in-depth journalism and insights into the latest news and trends shaping the biotech and pharma industries.BridgeBio has reduced its gene therapy budget after data from a trial on an adrenal gland medicine did not meet the company's investment threshold. GlaxoSmithKline has discontinued a herpes vaccine after it did not meet efficacy goals in a phase 2 study. Roivant has launched a new 'vant' focused on a hypertension drug. Centessa's sleepiness drug has shown promising results in early studies, leading to a rise in the company's shares. Additionally, Dupixent has succeeded in a chronic hives study, giving Sanofi and Regeneron a chance to resubmit their application for approval. Investors are also paying attention to Centessa's sleepiness drug. This news comes alongside updates on other pharmaceutical developments, such as Saxenda's effectiveness for children as young as 6 and Roche's expansion of R&D labs. Additionally, the newsletter covers upcoming events and resources for biopharma professionals. Biopharma Dive provides in-depth coverage of news and trends in the biotech and pharma industries, including clinical trials, FDA approvals, gene therapy, drug pricing, and research partnerships.Iowa has awarded Centene's subsidiary, Iowa Total Care, a Medicaid managed care contract worth $2.8 billion. Telehealth groups are urging Congress and the White House to extend controlled substance virtual prescribing before pandemic-era flexibilities expire. The Biden administration has finalized a rule raising mental health coverage standards for private plans. Steward Health Care received court approval to sell its three most valuable hospitals to Orlando Health for $439 million. The importance of data quality in realizing value from medical imaging data is emphasized by Enlitic. Payers are encouraged to optimize quality and grow revenue through key strategies in an upcoming webinar. Healthcare Dive provides in-depth journalism and insight into the most impactful news and trends shaping healthcare across various sectors like health IT, policy & regulation, insurance, digital health, payer-provider partnerships, and value-based care.Novo Nordisk showcased its investigational GLP-1 pill that resulted in a remarkable 13% weight loss. This comes after positive Phase I results for the pill, which analysts compared to weight loss pills being developed by Lilly and Pfizer. Expanded coverage for cardiovascular disease under Medicare could have significant implications for Novo's obesity drug, Wegovy. Analysts estimate that the expansion of Wegovy's label beyond obesity could lead to an annual Medicare spending of $145 billion. Meanwhile, GSK has abandoned the development of its herpes vaccine after disappointing Phase I/II results, and Crispr Therapeutics and Vertex Pharmaceuticals are facing challenges in making their sickle cell gene therapy profitable. Novo's other drug, Saxenda, was found to effectively and safely lower BMI in children, according to a study published in NEJM. Additionally, Lilly continues to make progress with its once-weekly insulin, while Bain has raised $3 billion for a fund supporting life sciences companies. The biopharmaceutical industry continues to see changes, with Biomarin facing challenges and Terns moving forward in the obesity spac

The Pride were off this weekend, but that doesn't mean there wasn't news out of the club. Orlando signed Head Coach Seb Hines to a new contract through the 2026 NWSL season with an option year for 2027. That's great news after the turnaround the club has experienced under Hines' stewardship. We discuss Hines' beginnings with the club, his rise to success, and what the deal means moving forward. We also discuss the many smiles of Seb Hines, which are numerous and each has its own purpose Our mailbagbox asked us how long we think some of the Pride's brightest stars will hang around. Remember, you can ask us anything by hitting us up on Twitter at either @TheManeLand or @SkoPurpSoccer and using the hashtag #AskSkoPurp. Or you can visit our show page, scroll down, and fill out the handy form. We'd also appreciate any ratings or reviews you can leave wherever you get your podcasts, and if you do that on Apple Podcasts, we'll find them easily and read them on the show. After the mailbagbox, we discuss Kerry Abello's great month of July, taking a brief side trip to again enjoy the weirdness of her Orlando Health commercial. Finally, we discuss the 2024 Olympic gold medal match between the United States and Brazil, which featured four Pride players on the pitch and another who got a gold medal. We are ultimately happy the team we support won the gold, but we can't help but feel a bit sad for Marta not winning the championship. What was with Brazil not starting her, anyway? Here's how Episode 56 went down: 0:15 – The Pride extended Seb Hines' stay in Orlando with a new contract. 15:58 – The mailbagbox is worried good players will leave the Pride. 26:28 – Kerry Abello wins monthly NWSL accolades and several Orlando players win Olympic medals.

Welcome to this Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast, a series of conversations about aphasia, the LPAA model, and aphasia programs that follow this model. My name is Janet Patterson. I am a Research Speech-Language Pathologist at the VA Northern California Healthcare System in Martinez, California, and a member of the Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their efforts in engaging with persons with aphasia and their families through a variety of educational materials and resources. I am the host for our episode that will feature Lauren Bislick, in which you will hear about friendship, yoga, mental imagery and aphasia. These Show Notes accompany the conversation with Lauren but are not a verbatim transcript.   In today's episode you will hear about: the value of friendship in our lives and Mission SPEAK, ideas for creating an accessible yoga program for person with aphasia, and the value of mental imagery.  Dr. Janet Patterson: Welcome to this edition of Aphasia Access Conversations, a series of conversations about the LPAA model and aphasia programs that follow this model. My name is Janet Patterson, and I'm a research speech language pathologist at the VA Northern California Healthcare System in Martinez, California. Today I am delighted to be speaking with Dr. Lauren Bislick, a newly minted Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida, in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Lauren is also the director of the UCF Aphasia House, and the director of the Aphasia and Related Conditions Research Lab. Across her work efforts, Lauren investigates the diagnosis and treatment of acquired apraxia of speech and aphasia, the value of mindful body practices such as yoga, friendship development, and interprofessional education and practice.    In 2023, Lauren was named a Distinguished Scholar USA by the Tavistock Trust for Aphasia UK. The Tavistock Trust aims to help improve the quality of life for those with aphasia, their families and care partners by addressing research capacity related to quality-of-life issues in aphasia. Congratulations on receiving this honor, Lauren. Aphasia Access collaborates with the Tavistock Trust for Aphasia in selecting the awardees and is pleased to have the opportunity to discuss their work and the influence of the Tavistock award.    Welcome Lauren, to Aphasia Access Conversations.   Dr. Lauren Bislick: Thank you, Janet, and thank you Aphasia Access for having me. Also thank you to the Tavistock Trust for the review team for nominating me and for selecting me. I'm truly very honored to be a recipient of this award.   Janet: It's a well-deserved award. Lauren, as we said, you were named a Tavistock Trust, Distinguished Scholar USA for 2023. You join a talented and dedicated group of individuals in this award. How does receiving the Tavistock award influence your clinical and research efforts in aphasia?    Lauren: First, I'll say again, I was truly honored to receive this award and was definitely surprised. The nomination announcement occurred at the Clinical Aphasiology Conference, and they didn't give us a heads up that the announcement was coming through, so I was very surprised. I think in terms of how this has influenced my clinical and research efforts as an academic, and as a clinician. I think a lot of people can relate to that feeling of imposter syndrome, and so receiving this award has helped me push that feeling to the side a little bit in some aspects of my work and of what I do. It's also allowed me to feel very proud about what I've been able to do. but more so through my collaborations and my students and the community that we have at UCF. It's allowed me to grow connection. Since receiving this award, people have reached out to me to talk about collaboration or wanting my help in terms of more of a consultant role. It's allowed myself and my lab to reach a larger group of people and has definitely supported that emphasis on quality-of-life work, which is not necessarily the training that I focused on when I was in my doctoral program. That's been something that I've come into in my time as an assistant faculty member or a junior researcher. It feels very good to be acknowledged for that and for these lines of work being supported.   Janet: And well deserved, for certain. Lauren, I would like to begin by asking you about your recent work investigating the role of friendship for persons with aphasia. I believe in the power of friendship and community during joyful times, and also during sad times in one's life. One of the unfortunate consequences of aphasia can be the loss or diminishing of friendships, or the communication skills important to developing and sustaining friendship and community. How did you become interested in this aspect of aphasia? And what conclusions have you drawn from your research?   Lauren: Thank you for this question. One of the things that I talk about frequently in both my aphasia course and the motor speech disorders for our graduate students, is how individuals with acquired communication disorders, whether it be linguistic, or motor based, is that their social circles get smaller, and we know that's a problem in life. Friendship is an essential component of quality of life, and as you said, whether celebrating the good things or you're going through a hard time you need those friends. This is an important area that I believe gets overlooked although now we have a couple of different groups looking at friendship and aphasia, which is wonderful. I actually have to thank Dr. Elizabeth Brookshire Madden for pulling me into this work. She is at Florida State University, and I like to call us aphasia sisters. We went through the same doctoral program, and she was one year behind me. We became very close during that time, both as friends, but also in the work that we do. [Aphasia Access note: Elizabeth Madden was selected as a Tavistock Distinguished Scholar USA in 2024.]   One of the other faculty members at Florida State University, Michelle Therrien, does work on friendship, but in the pediatric world. This grew out of conversations between Liz and Michelle, where they started talking about how we can look at friendship and aphasia. Clearly, we all believe it's an issue, but it hasn't been well investigated. That was shortly before the team Project Bridge Conference, which is really what helped initiate this kind of area of research for our group. Liz and I met at the 2018 Project Bridge conference and started facilitating a friendship group; she took the lead in this area. I got pulled to the yoga group, which we'll talk about later. Liz talked with a number of care partners of individuals with aphasia, and started discussing their social groups, and then friendship. Leaving that conference, she had some really great ideas about where to go next and what was needed in the area of friendship. From there grew her team of myself, Michelle Therrien, Sarah Wallace, at the University of Pittsburgh and Rachel Albritton, who's also at FSU.    In our first study, we did a survey with SLPs trying to ask if SLPs see friendship as being an issue? You know, is this us projecting, or is this something that clinical speech-language pathologists are seeing as an issue? If so, are we addressing it in the field? What that initial study showed us was that, yes, SLPs report that their clients are experiencing loss or difficulty with friendships. They also reported that there are barriers, there aren't assessments that ask about friendships, and there aren't interventions. So, while they see this as an important thing, and something that SLPs believe that this was within our scope of practice, they need a little more guidance as to how to support people with aphasia in terms of maintaining friendships, and then also developing friendships.    Following that study, we then spoke to people with aphasia and also spoke to caregivers of people with aphasia to get their perspectives and their lived experiences. What happens to friendship, immediately after a stroke? In that acute phase? What happens to friendship during that chronic phase? And then where are they now? What we found through these conversations is that many individuals reported that their friendships had changed after they acquired aphasia, both in the acute phase and the chronic stages. The same could be said for caregivers as they are navigating this world as caregivers. They are experiencing changes in their friendships. With aphasia being a chronic condition, this is something that people are living with for the rest of their lives. Friends can kind of be there in the beginning, and that acute care phase where they send messages or come by to say hello and show their support. As they realize that the communication impairment isn't going away, they don't know what to do and may get a little uncomfortable, feeling bad that they don't understand their friend with aphasia, or they don't know how to support them in their communication, or this problem isn't disappearing. This is me projecting, but I believe that's what's happening and what we're seeing is that people with aphasia, and their caregivers are reporting this loss. They also are reporting gaining new friends as they become ingrained in social groups. They meet other people with aphasia or care partners of other individuals with aphasia and develop friendships that way. They are also reporting smaller social groups, smaller groups of friends from their pre-aphasia life, dwindling for a lot of people. We think from our research what we're finding is that we really need interventions that target friendship maintenance and development. Some of that may be as simple as providing education, inviting friends into the therapy room. We do this with care partners, we can also offer this to friends to see how we are interacting with your loved one with aphasia. We can provide key tools to support communication; I really think a big piece of it is education. We've got to find the best way to navigate this in the clinical world. I think that's the next step not only for our group, but for the other groups that are looking at Friendship.    Janet: Lauren, you make some very good points in those comments. I wonder, do you have some brief thoughts or very specific ideas about how as clinicians, we can act in ways to optimize the friendship activities of our clients, or their care partners, recognizing though, that everyone has different styles and needs for friendship? It's like you say, we should not be projecting our desires and our styles and our needs onto our patients, but rather listen to them and figure out what their needs and desires are?   Lauren: Number one, right there, is listening to our clients, listening to their loved ones, what do they need? As I mentioned before, I think education is a really big piece of this. That may mean just having some materials as a speech-language pathologist that you can send home with family members that they can give to friends, right, so not just materials for that care partner, or the person with aphasia, but materials for friends. Here's something that will educate you a little bit on what aphasia is, there are some ways that you can successfully communicate with your friend with aphasia, here's what to expect. I think some of it is people just don't understand. They don't live in our world clinically, working with people with aphasia, working with people with communication disorders. For some, it's that they've never been exposed to, and so there's a discomfort with the unknown. I think education is huge. Also inviting friends. If you're going to have a counseling session with a care partner, and a person with aphasia, and their loved one, would they like friends to be at that table? Ask them. They may not, they may want it just for them and to be quiet and personal, but they may have some really close friends that they know they're going to lean on and want to be there. Opening the opportunity to invite other individuals and also inviting friends to support groups. Bringing friends to support groups, I think, would also be a space where friends then can observe interactions among people with aphasia, as well as their loved ones, and can have an opportunity to interact with other people with aphasia. So those are a few things that I think we can do right now. There are through many of the different resources like ARC [Aphasia Recovery Connection], for example, there are opportunities for education, communication partner training, and those are things that we can also plug friends into   Janet: Those are some very good ideas, Lauren, very good ideas. You have also worked to address the isolation felt by people with aphasia, and severe acquired communication impairment through your lab's Mission SPEAK program. Can you tell us more about this program, please?   Lauren: Absolutely. Mission SPEAK stands for Mission to Promote Socialization, Participation, Engagement, Advocacy and Kindness, for people with severe acquired communication disorders. This grew out of a lack of participation among some of our community members who had more severe communication impairments. They felt that they were just unable to be successful in a group setting, and tried some of the aphasia support groups, but didn't feel like they were being heard, or that they had equal opportunity, or were just frustrated by it. It didn't feel right for them. And so, I started thinking about, well, how can we provide an opportunity for individuals who feel this way, or maybe they're just more introverted which could be another piece to why they don't want that large group. How can we provide opportunities where they're still getting to practice communication in a safe space, develop friendships, and just be able to interact to combat those feelings of isolation that people with aphasia and other acquired communication disorders report. Mission SPEAK is a program where the students in my lab, both undergraduate and graduate students, some are CSD, some pre-med, some in their med programs, where they have the opportunity to meet with an individual with aphasia or another acquired communication disorder on a weekly basis to have a conversation. It's all via Zoom. These meetings can take any shape that the person with aphasia or the communication impairment and the student want to go with it. We have some individuals that meet to actually practice what they're learning in therapy and so the clinician has connected with my students to say ‘Hey, can you go over this homework with them or allow them opportunities to practice' and sometimes the clinician will hop on to Zoom as well. We also have opportunities such as one of my students and one of our friends with aphasia are reading a book together and so they do shared reading. In another pair we have a young man who really just needs interaction, so he meets with two different students, and they just have conversations over shared interests. Sometimes his mom is there to help support communication. We see as time goes on that as the individuals are getting more comfortable with each other, and the students are getting more comfortable, there are emerging areas where there are overlapping interests, or maybe the student is learning from the person with aphasia say, about sports, for example. We have one group where our friend with aphasia is a huge sports fanatic. He was meeting with two young women in our undergraduate program who knew very little about some of these sports and so he's taught them. It's really fun. Again, they meet at least once a week. We have one individual that at one point was meeting with three separate students three times a week. The friendships that form from these smaller groups are something special. For some of these folks it's intergenerational, for others they are peers. What you see is that the students don't want to give up this opportunity. I have some students who have been meeting with their friend with aphasia for over two years now. They've gone from their undergraduate programs through their graduate programs, and they've just developed a friendship and don't want to let go of it, which I think is phenomenal. This is something that I would like to see open up as chapters across different universities. Students want these interactions so badly and there are so many people with acquired communication disorders that need an outlet, and that would benefit from this safe space to work on their skills to just have fun. It really can be whatever they want it to be.   Janet: What a great idea. You've got my brain spinning. And I've been making notes about some clients I've been thinking about who would benefit from exactly what you're saying, just the opportunity to have an interaction and conversation. Wonderful.    Lauren, another avenue that you've been interested in is the practice of mindfulness, especially yoga practice. How do you see yoga practice supporting the LPAA philosophy of living well, with aphasia?   Lauren: Love this question. I have to backpedal just a little bit to answer it to say, I was never a yogi until I started my doctoral program. If you know me, I'm 5'11”. I'm tall and I grew up playing all the tall-person sports and pretty much was of the mindset that if you're not huffing and puffing and soaked in sweat, then it wasn't exercise or it wasn't beneficial. Well, I was wrong. In my doctoral program, I was dealing with imposter syndrome. I'm also a first-generation college student. Being at that level, and with all the different hurdles that a doctoral program offers, I was really feeling that imposter syndrome and anxiety that surrounds it. Somebody suggested starting yoga, and it's what got me out of bed in the morning, and really grounded me to face my day and feel as confident as I could in my skin during that time. After doing it for a few years, I just had this aha moment of, wow, I would love to bring this to the aphasia community. It's helped me with my anxieties and my areas of self-doubt and has just allowed me to also be present. I can only imagine for some folks with aphasia the anxiety that they may have surrounding communication, or just feeling okay with where they are in this part of their journey and that acceptance piece. Then I pushed it off. I said, well, I can't do that now I have to wait until I get tenure, I've got to focus on this very systematic treatment development program. I can't do more things.    Then in 2019 when I was an assistant professor, just my first year at UCF, I went to Project Bridge again thank you, Jackie Hinkley. While I was there, there was a small group that consisted of Dr. Amy Dietz and her friend with aphasia, Terry, who were at a table, and they were promoting yoga for aphasia. I was walking around, and I saw that table and I thought it was amazing. I went over there to have a conversation with them. Amy Dietz had just finished a small pilot project looking at methodology of how we make yoga accessible. And so I talked with Amy and I talked with her friend with aphasia, Terry, about their experience, and then more people started coming to that table; Susan Duncan, who is aphasiologist and a speech-language pathologist and a yoga practitioner, and then also a person with aphasia, Chase Rushlow and his mom, Deanna Rushlow. All the whole rest of that conference, we hung together, and started planning out the trajectory of how to bring accessible yoga to people with aphasia and to the aphasia community. Chase had experienced yoga, post stroke, and as a person living with aphasia with his mom, they shared their story about how it brought them together, and how it grounded him, how he found Zen. It was so fruitful being able to have these conversations with people with aphasia, and also their care partners, and them telling us what yoga has done for them. Not only did we all have our own experiences with yoga from myself, Amy and Susan, but then we also were getting this feedback from the rights holders, right from our patient stakeholders. And so this group moved forward.    Sorry, I had to backpedal there a little bit. Since that time, I'm so proud of what we have done as a team and what has unfolded. I was very fortunate to meet a yoga therapist named Karen Cornelius here in the Orlando area and together, we've been able to build an accessible adapted virtual yoga program for people with aphasia. It started as kind of this feasibility study with our own aphasia community group here in Orlando, getting feedback from them, figuring out how to make the language accessible, what visuals are helpful? What do people with aphasia want from a yoga practice, were there things that they liked, or things that they didn't like. We've had this really long but very informative process of delivering yoga from a yoga therapy perspective, caring experience, and then figuring out what to spend more time on and how to present things verbally and visually. Now I feel like we have this ongoing, strong, adapted yoga community that we're able to offer. We offer it every Friday at 11am. And we have participants from all over the US. We still have a strong group from Florida, from the Orlando area, but we've got people that participate from California, we've got folks from in the middle of the state, we've got people from Kentucky, we've got people from Pittsburgh, we have people from up north. And we also have a participant from Bermuda. It's amazing to see all of these individuals who would have never met each other otherwise come together so that they can have a yoga practice. For some of these folks, they participated in yoga before their stroke, and then had a really hard time getting back into it afterwards because of the language impairment, the language barrier really. Yoga is a very language heavy practice. The modifications that we've made have been really helpful in making it accessible. But then we've also brought in others that never looked at yoga before and experienced it for the first time and have heard their report that they reap the benefits of it. What we're seeing in both our qualitative research, and also in our quantitative research is that people are reporting reduced stress after participating in at least eight weeks of yoga, better sleep quality, and increased resilience. Some have discussed better pain management, so they feel like their pain, although it's not gone away, that they are able to go about their daily life without pain taking as much in terms of resources from them as it did prior. The biggest thing to I mean that sticks out is people are talking about self-acceptance. Yoga has helped them accept where they are right now in their journey. The last thing I'll say along these lines is there is something so powerful about having individuals come together in this group and there's conversation that happens at the beginning and at the end, just like you would if you walked into a yoga studio. I think it's that they're all working on a common goal, in this hour, and very little of what's being done is focused on communication, the effort is taken away. They're really just sharing a space with each other, enjoying that space, doing something that's making them feel good. And they're not having to think about their impairment. There's something really special with this group.    This work has now been funded by Orlando Health, which is our one of our big hospitals in the area. We're working with an interprofessional team and actually bringing yoga therapy into the inpatient rehabilitation program. This has been really neat, because Karen, the yoga therapist, and I are working with an interdisciplinary team of speech-language pathologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and recreational therapists. We'll have a group of individuals and all of these different professionals in the same room, and we're getting feedback from the professionals about what they like, what's facilitating this program for them, and what are the barriers. At the end, they will be the ones running this program, and they are very committed to keeping it up and running. We're also of course, getting the feedback from the people with aphasia and other brain injury survivors in this group, as well as their caregivers that are coming in and participating. I think now I can say I've done a good chunk of research in my life, and this area is the most fun and the least amount of work. Everything has happened organically. There has not been a moment where it feels like this really is work, or I don't want to do this. It's all just unfolded so beautifully. I feel so fortunate to be a part of this, I'm so thankful that Project Bridge pushed me into this, in a sense, when I thought I had to put it off for years and years to come. It's been a lot of fun. For our listeners, we have an ongoing yoga program on Friday mornings at 11 am EST, that is run by a yoga therapist who is amazing, and well versed in aphasia. I welcome people to join us.   Janet: I am moved by your story, Lauren, both your individual journey through your doctoral program and finding yoga to help your own self, and then taking that into the aphasia community. Several times you've used the phrase, ‘your journey through life' or ‘your journey of life'. And isn't that true? We're all on a journey, and it changes year to year, or decade to decade, if you will. It's exciting to know that you're finding a way to connect people with aphasia to a larger community that focuses on yoga, for example, rather than focusing on the impairment that they have living with their aphasia. Thank you for that. It sounds like it's a great success, and I hope it will continue to be so good for you.   Lauren: Thank you.   Janet: Lauren, another area of investigation, you're examining the benefit of motor imagery and home practice, for enhancing treatment outcomes in persons with apraxia of speech. This is a little bit different from yoga and mindfulness. But yet at the same time, it's about what people can do in their own selves, I think to improve their communications and improve their interactions with others. Will you describe this work and your current findings, please?    Lauren: Absolutely. And you really did hit the nail on the head because it does overlap a lot. It's different in that we are working on the impairment here, but the motor imagery piece grew out of what I was seeing with yoga. Many of our participants have hemiparesis, for example, or they might have apraxia of speech or more severe aphasia. When they are unable to produce a certain movement, or unable to say a certain mantra, we tell them just to visualize. If you can't move that arm that is fine, or if you can't move it to the extent that you want to that is okay, just imagine that arm moving. Just imagine or hear yourself saying this affirmation.    Based on what we were doing with the yoga I started digging a little deeper into the research on motor imagery and mental imagery, and that's where this idea arose. Surprisingly, there hasn't been a whole lot of work using motor imagery for rehabilitation of apraxia of speech. There's been a little bit of work in the area of stuttering, and motor imagery is used significantly in sports medicine, athletic training for professional sports, and musical training, and also rehabilitation of limb and gait, but really very little about speech. And so, I found a hole. My thought was maybe this motor imagery piece is a start, it's something that people can do at home without much support, and maybe it will impact their performance, either that day or in a therapy session a few days later. I wrote a grant and it was funded through the National Institutes of Health. The grant focused on looking at the impact that motor imagery has when combined with behavioral speech treatment. My thought moving forward was that I got my Ph.D. not only because I wanted to know more and wanted to create treatment programs, but I wanted to prove to insurance that healing the brain post stroke, or rehabilitation of speech and language post stroke, is not the same as healing a broken bone. It takes a lot more time. It's ongoing. In my time, I have not seen a change in insurance. In fact, I think it's gotten worse. So my thought into this is we've got to give clinicians and people with communication impairments the opportunity to work more from home. What can they do on their own to bolster the impact of those few treatment settings that they actually are getting, if they are treatment seeking individuals. The idea is, the hope is, that through motor imagery, what we're doing is priming the neural network. Patients can go home with targeted stimuli that they're working on, for example, and just imagine themselves saying it accurately, thinking about how the articulators are moving, visualizing themselves being successful. Hopefully, we're priming those networks. Then when they go into that treatment session, those networks are primed and perhaps we see a boost in performance. The hope, the long-term goal, of this is to build a home practice program that can be accessible to people in the comfort of their homes, easily and free of charge. The speech-language pathologist can also interface with the program to put stimuli into it, for example, so that it can support what they're working on in therapy. We're still in the early phases, but we just completed our first qualitative interview after somebody has completed the whole program, and they really liked it. I thought people were going to be bored with motor imagery because we're not yet allowing them to say anything. In the motor imagery piece, we really want to focus on what does imagery add, but they really enjoyed it. Our first participant, what he said was that at first he didn't like it, he thought it was weird. After we went through practice for a few weeks, he would come into the therapy session and we would do a probe and afterwards if I commented that he did really well on that today, or in the treatment session itself, or if I was seeing a lot of success with certain targets, he would say ‘the homework, the homework'. My thought was that he felt like the homework is helping. He was encouraging and felt like it was helping. We've only run a few people through, so right now, it's preliminary findings, but what I'm seeing is a benefit when they are going home and having this opportunity to practice. Even though it's not verbal practice, it's motor imagery, I'm seeing a change when they come into the session. The study itself is funded for three years, and we have the opportunity to provide free therapy for 18 individuals with co-occurring apraxia of speech and aphasia. I'm excited to see what that group data look like, but right now, and with just the conversations that we're having with the folks that are coming through, I feel very optimistic about this program. It will definitely need to grow, I don't want it to be only motor imagery forever. It's a good first step.   Janet: That is very exciting to hear. I look forward to reading the results as you have more and more individuals with apraxia of speech move through your program.   Lauren, as we draw this interview to a close, I wonder if you have some lessons learned that you would share with our listeners, as well as some Monday morning practices, that is actions that we can take on Monday morning to improve our interactions with persons with the aphasia or apraxia of speech.    Lauren: So I think first, and this is reflecting on what I do, I know many individuals out there, whether you are clinically working with the population, or you're doing research, you're in an area where you are giving. We are giving to support a community. The same thing that I tell our caregivers is to do something for you first, that will allow you to continue to give to others. What is something can you identify, something every day. When there's a little bit of something that you can do for yourself that just fuels you to be the best clinician, the best researcher, the best partner, parent, the many hats that people wear, to your community. That may look different for everyone. For some people, maybe it is meditation, for others maybe it's yoga, maybe it's running, maybe it's baking, everybody has their thing, but identify that certain something that gives you the energy and maybe the groundedness to serve your community.    One thing we've touched on, and if you're listening to this podcast, you know this, but listen to our friends with aphasia. Their perspectives give us so much more than we could ever pretend to know. I've learned so much from my friends with aphasia, even moving forward and in my research - thinking that I know what people want, talk to them, and then the realization this actually isn't an issue, this other thing is. Seek better understanding, otherwise, we're going up the wrong ladder and putting our efforts in the wrong area.    Building community through shared interests, that's what I'm trying to do a bit, and also incorporate student involvement; use your resources. With Mission SPEAK we really are trying to build community through shared interests. It's really neat to see how this unfolds. Even when you have a person with a communication impairment or a person with aphasia, who is maybe 30 years older than the student that they're meeting with, there are shared interests. And it's so neat, what they learn from each other and how this partnership grows, and this friendship grows. Then you also have peers, folks who have acquired communication impairments that are close in age with our students, and that takes on a life of its own as well. Try to match people up based on shared interests, or at least having someone that is really eager to learn. Also being open. Building community through shared interests supports what we've done with yoga. Here are folks that are finding peace and community and enjoying this activity together. It could be anything doesn't have to be yoga.   One other is interdisciplinary practices. When we're thinking about our friends with aphasia, not just thinking about the aphasia or stroke, when we're working with our more acute care friends, or those that are still on that rehabilitation trajectory. Stroke Survivors are dealing with more than aphasia, and I think sometimes we can lose sight of that. Making sure that there is an interdisciplinary team or you're offering interdisciplinary supports, asking what else do they need. I find that I've learned so much from my colleagues in physical therapy and occupational therapy. I work closely with an assistive technology professional who has just unlocked for me the world of supports that are out there that help people live well with aphasia, and also with hemiparesis. Supports such as for cooking with hemiparesis, supports for a computer adapted need, supports many things, such as positioning, seating, getting out there and playing sports, again, in an adaptive community. There are so many things that have happened, I think, over the last decade to make things more accessible for people post stroke. Educate yourself on what's out there.   Janet: Those are great ideas. Thank you so very much. And thank you, Lauren, again for taking the time to speak with me today about the Tavistock Distinguished Scholar Award, and about your work in aphasia.   Lauren: Thank you very much for having me.   Janet: You are so welcome.    I would also like to thank our listeners for supporting Aphasia Access Conversations by listening to our podcasts. For references and resources mentioned in today's show, please see our show notes. They are available on our website, www.aphasiaaccess.org. There, you can also become a member of our organization, browse our growing library of materials and find out about the Aphasia Access Academy. If you have an idea for a future podcast episode, please email us at info@aphasiaaccess.org. For Aphasia Access Conversations, I am Janet Patterson, and thank you again for your ongoing support of Aphasia Access.   Lauren, thank you for being with me today and congratulations on being named a Tavistock Distinguished Scholar on behalf of Aphasia Access and the Tavistock Trust. I look forward to learning about your future accomplishments, and seeing how you help people with aphasia and apraxia of speech on their journey of life. References   Madden, E. B., Therrien, M., Bislick, L., Wallace, S. E., Goff-Albritton, R., Vilfort-Garces, A., Constantino, C. & Graven, L. (2023). Caregiving and friendship: Perspectives from care partners of people with aphasia. Topics in Language Disorders, 43(1), 57-75. https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0000000000000301    Therrien, M.C., Madden, E.B., Bislick, L. & Wallace, S.E. (2021). Aphasia and friendship: The role and perspectives of Speech-Language Pathologists. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 30(5), 2228-2240. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_AJSLP-20-00370  Resources   Aphasia Recovery Connection (ARC)        https://aphasiarecoveryconnection.org  Aphasia and Related Conditions Research Lab and Mission SPEAK https://healthprofessions.ucf.edu/communication-sciences-disorders/aphasia-and-related-conditions-research-lab/  Project Bridge     Project Bridge - Research Community in Communication Disorders

About Novlet Mattis :Novlet Mattis, Senior Vice President, Chief Digital and Information Officer, As Orlando Health's chief digital and information officer, Novlet provides executive leadership for information technology, digital capability supply chain, and systems that advance clinical and business strategies, digitally engage patients, providers, and businesses, and optimize operational processes.Before joining Orlando Health in 2018, she was with Ascension Health in St. Louis, where she served as vice president of information technology, supporting more than 125 hospitals across the U.S. and international joint ventures.Novlet was also vice president of IT and chief information officer at UNC Rex Healthcare in Raleigh, North Carolina, and has held leadership positions at Dell Global Services, Lucent Technologies, and AT&T.She earned a bachelor's in business administration from Howard University and an MBA from George Washington University, both in Washington, D.C. She is a Certified Healthcare CIO through the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME).Things You'll Learn:Orlando Health strikes a crucial balance between managing finances and innovating, particularly by adopting a unified EMR system and ventures into AI to improve patient care.The organization is not just expanding its physical footprint but also investing in data and digital platforms for future growth. Orlando Health's response to COVID-19 and push towards digital innovations like virtual sitters demonstrate resilience and forward thinking. By centralizing their data, the organization is paving the way to monetize information while ensuring enhanced patient care.Orlando Health stands out because of physician loyalty, strong economies, and unparalleled patient care.Resources:Connect with and follow Novlet Mattis on LinkedIn.Learn more about Orlando Health on their LinkedIn and website.

Conversamos con Héctor Eli –periodista musical– nos habla sobre Don Omar, el cantante urbano puertorriqueño de 46 años, reveló este lunes que tiene cáncer y se mostró confiado en su pronta recuperación.  “Hoy sí, pero mañana no tendré cáncer. Las buenas intenciones son bien recibidas. Nos vemos pronto”,escribió el artista puertorriqueño en su cuenta oficial de Instagram, donde acumula 11,6 millones de seguidores, junto al hashtag #fuckcancer. En la imagen que acompaña su mensaje, Don Omar muestra su mano con el puño cerrado y en su muñeca tiene atado un brazalete que identifica su admisión en un hospital de la red Orlando Health, en Florida (EE UU). Programa transmitido 18 junio de 2024. Escucha Esto no es un noticiero con Nacho Lozano, en vivo de lunes a viernes de 1:00 p.m. a 2:00 p.m. por el 105.3 de FM. Esta es una producción de Radio Chilango.

There is a new proven process of pairing compelling stories with data-driven analytics to drive your business goals with media relations. Lisa Arledge Powell, CEO and founder of MediaSource, and Kena Lewis, AVP, public affairs & media relations at Orlando Health, share their vast wisdom on this topic from which all communicators can greatly benefit. They introduce new methods and tactics to drive business using media relations. They underscore the why and how of being truly strategic in your media outreach. And they share concrete examples of all this in action. And better still, you can click here for a free download of the associated white paper entitled Effectively Quantifying the Business Value of Media Relations at Orlando Health. This report truly breaks down a test-and-learn approach to data analysis that is commonly used in industries from retail to telecommunications and shares how communicators can now apply this to PR measurement. Follow us: @PRWeekUSReceive the latest industry news, insights, and special reports. Start Your Free 1-Month Trial Subscription To PRWeek

In this episode, Joseph Carr, Assistant Vice President, Supply Chain Administration at Orlando Health shares insights into his career journey, healthcare supply chain trends he is keeping an eye on today, AI solutions in supply chain, and more.

Michael Schmidt is the Vice President, Strategic Innovations at Orlando Health, Orlando Health is a not-for-profit healthcare organization with a long tradition of serving its many and varied communities in the southeastern United States. In this episode KJ and Michael emphasize the importance of involving the entire organization in the innovation process, leading to meaningful impacts on employee retention and culture.    Key Takeaways: 05:39 The Power of Frontline Healthcare Workers in Innovation 08:58 The Journey of the Arthur App: A Case Study 10:57 The Impact of User-Centered Design in Healthcare 20:44 Creating Brand Ambassadors in Healthcare 31:36 The Long-Term Vision of Orlando Health's Innovation Program 35:10 The Power of 'Yes, And' in Creative Problem Solving   Quote of the Show (10:00): “We spend time trying to walk in the shoes of the patients and the caregivers and trying to make sure we get enough data points to fully understand the problem.” – Michael Schmidt   Join our Anti-PR newsletter where we're keeping a watchful and clever eye on PR trends, PR fails, and interesting news in tech so you don't have to. You're welcome.   Want PR that actually matters? Get 30 minutes of expert advice in a fast-paced, zero-nonsense session from Karla Jo Helms, a veteran Crisis PR and Anti-PR Strategist who knows how to tell your story in the best possible light and get the exposure you need to disrupt your industry. Click here to book your call: https://info.jotopr.com/free-anti-pr-eval   Ways to connect with Michael Schmidt: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljamesschmidt/ Company Website: https://www.orlandohealth.com/      How to get more Disruption/Interruption:  Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/eccda84d-4d5b-4c52-ba54-7fd8af3cbe87/disruption-interruption Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disruption-interruption/id1581985755 Google Play - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cub21ueWNvbnRlbnQuY29tL2QvcGxheWxpc3QvODE5NjRmY2EtYTQ5OC00NTAyLThjZjktYWI3YzAwMmRiZTM2LzNiZTZiNzJhLWEzODItNDhhNS04MDc5LWFmYTAwMTI2M2FiNi9kZDYzMGE4Mi04ZGI4LTQyMGUtOGNmYi1hZmEwMDEyNjNhZDkvcG9kY2FzdC5yc3M= Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6yGSwcSp8J354awJkCmJlDSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

El Dr. Cristian Del Carpio, cardiólogo de Orlando Health, nos habla sobre los factores de riesgo que favorecen el desarrollo de estas enfermedades entre nuestra comunidad, así como de algunas recomendaciones para cuidar nuestra salud. Javier Mascherano y todo el mundo del fútbol sueñan con la participación de Leo Messi en los Juegos de París del próximo verano.

This episode features Lance Sewell, President of South Lake Hospital. Here he discusses challenges and priorities that have defined the healthcare landscape in 2023, the critical priorities and goals for South Lake Hospital as they approach 2024, the recent partnership between Walmart and Orlando Health, and more.

December 13, 2023: Dennis Joseph, Sr. Director - Product Management & Healthcare Practice Lead at Digital Scientists, joins Bill for the news. How can healthcare organizations effectively address the issue of doctors leaving their organizations, given the increasing intent to leave, especially among young and mid-career physicians?cIs the use of technology in healthcare truly evolving and improving, or are we facing a proliferation of technology solutions that may not necessarily enhance patient care? In light of Sam Walton's early stance on healthcare costs, how has Walmart's recent partnership with healthcare providers like Orlando Health impacted the healthcare landscape, particularly in rural areas? How can Walmart's extensive real estate footprint in rural areas address the challenge of healthcare access and make basic health services more readily available to communities? What metrics should CIOs use to measure the success of their IT strategies and technology investments in improving patient care, clinician satisfaction, and operational efficiency?Key Points:Physician Retention ChallengesTransparency in AI SystemsWalmart's Healthcare Initiatives and PartnershipsMetrics for Evaluating IT StrategiesBuild vs. Buy Technology DecisionsNews articles:IT issues affecting health system financialsWalmart: Friend or foe to hospitals?40% of doctors eye exits. What can organizations do to keep them? This Week Health SubscribeThis Week Health TwitterThis Week Health LinkedinAlex's Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer Donate

The healthcare news cycle is heating up. In this 5-minute newsflash, we'll share what Walmart Health's first hospital partnership with Orlando Health means for disruptors and health systems alike. And, we'll dig into the ever-changing world of AI with Salesforce and Accenture's first foray into life sciences AI, and discuss AI's future impact on knowledge work.

Walmart strikes a deal with Orlando Health, its first health system partnership. CMS backtracks on proposed home health Medicare payment cuts. And, infant mortality in the United States rose for the first time in two decades, according to a new report. That's coming up on today's episode of Gist Healthcare Daily. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laura Dyrda, Vice President, Editor-in-Chief, Becker's Healthcare joins the podcast to discuss Kaufman Hall's report stating that hospital margins improved in September, but stressed the importance of addressing labor pressures, Walmart Health naming Orlando Health as their first partner, and General Catalyst's recently launched Health Assurance Transformation Corp. planning to purchase a health system in the "$1 billion to $3 billion range".

Children who suffer traumatic brain injuries usually receive two treatments when they arrive at a hospital: an IV to prevent brain swelling and anti-seizure medication. But one central Florida county is as much as 45 minutes or more away from Level I trauma centers when thunderstorms shut down rescue helicopters. Orlando Health's Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital and Tampa General Hospital are training Polk County paramedics to administer those meds while they're en route, thus saving critical time and making a recovery without long-term neurological issues more likely. We speak with Dr. Donald Plumley, head of pediatric surgery at Arnold Palmer about the initiative.

Navigating the hospital as a newly injured burn survivor can be overwhelming, and frightening, and leave many feeling like they have an extreme loss of control. The role a burn nurse plays in this journey is a critical component of a survivor's healing—both mentally and physically. The burn nurse often spends great lengths with survivors, spending time in countless dressing changes, helping them navigate pain management and much more. In this episode, we speak with Joey Lavallee, Family Nurse Practitioner, at the Warden Burn Center in Orlando, Florida, and former Trauma Burn Stepdown Unit nurse at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Joey shares his passion for caring for burn patients—that Amber, Girls with Grafts host, has witnessed first-hand as his patient during her 2020 hospital stay after her burn injury in Orlando, Florida. Girls with Grafts chats with Joey about his experience in the role that physical activity plays in burn recovery and asks for his advice for caregivers, fellow burn nurses, and survivors.About Joey Lavallee, APRNJoey Lavallee is a Family Nurse Practitioner working in the outpatient clinic at the Warden Burn Center at Orlando Health, in Orlando, FL with close to a decade of burn experience. He began his nursing career as a bedside nurse first in Orthopedics and then in the Trauma Burn Stepdown Unit at Orlando Regional Medical Center where his passion for burns flourished. He graduated with his BSN from the University of Texas at Arlington, then completed his MSN at the University of South Florida. As a nurse practitioner, he contributed to the development of a preoperative medicine clinic to improve the clinical outcomes of surgical patients. Recently he was able to fulfill his dream of caring for burn patients again, now on an outpatient basis. He is particularly interested in the long-term care of burns and getting patients back to an active lifestyle, promoting mental and physical wellness through rehab, exercise, and physical fitness. He is an Advanced Burn Life Support instructor (certified by the American Burn Association). When not at work he enjoys going on adventures with his wife and two young children, CrossFit, and cooking.Resources from the Show Resources for Physical Healing After a Burn InjuryWatch Phoenix Society and Orlando Health ‘Ask the Experts' Itching & Scar Management VideoChair Yoga Exercises for Burn SurvivorsLearn more about Phoenix Society for Burn Survivor's SOAR ProgramAccess Our FREE Online Burn Survivor ToolkitAbout LimbitlessAbout Orlando Health Warden Burn CenterFor more resources, visit us here.About The Bert Martin FoundationThe Bert Martin Foundation was established to assist those who help others and provide financial support for nonprofit organizations. We're honored to have the Bert Martin Foundation as a long-standing Phoenix Society Partner. Learn more at: https://bertmartinfoundation.org/ Sponsor Girls with Grafts Interested in becoming a sponsor of the show? Email us at info@phoenix-society.org. Enjoyed the show? Tell us on social media using hashtag #GirlswithGrafts and tagging Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors! 

To be an effective leader you have to have a vision and be willing to implement changes that disrupt the status quo. But you also have to involve your team, and use diplomacy to obtain buy-in. In short, be a team player with a little bit of swagger. It's a delicate dance, but it describes the tightrope Sheri Blanchard, Senior Director of Clinical Documentation Excellence and Revenue Management, had to walk. And she did so skillfully. After taking over the Clinical Documentation Excellence program at Orlando Health in 2018 as a new leader Blanchard put her own unique stamp on the program--all the while recognizing her team is everything, and involving them at each step. On this show we cover: • The Clinical Documentation Excellence (CDE) program at Orlando Health. • Arriving at the organization as a new face in 2018, seeking to make change • A day in the life of a busy senior CDI director covering 11 facilities • Orlando Health's unique DRG reconciliation process, which includes a dedicated resource and final assignment authority given to CDI • Out of the box CDI work including monitoring long LOS patients and patients that flip to observation • Advice for new CDI leaders • The most metal entries on the OTR playlist to date (Sheri likes AC/DC, GNR, etc., which automatically makes her cool in my book)

I strongly believe that sharing your story transforms not only your audience, but also yourself. You and your audience discover that you're not alone and that change is possible. From the consciousness-raising circles of the women's movement in the 1970s to present-day campaigns for policy and legislative changes, our stories can make a profound difference. My guest today is Karen Keene, who is a pillar of the Orlando, Florida, community. I've known Karen since 2016 when I went through one of the women's leadership programs, Athena NextGen, that she runs. Karen recently graduated from our Thought Leader Academy, where we worked together to create her keynote so she can share her story of courage and resilience to her audiences. In this episode, Karen and I talk about: The tragic event that happened to Karen in March 2020 Finding her purpose and calling Making the decision to share her story through speaking engagements The framework we developed for her keynote Karen's experience in the VIP Day and what she learned going through the Thought Leader Academy About My Guest: Karen Keene's life was blown apart when she was nearly killed in a home invasion on March 8, 2020. But after 23 life-saving surgeries by Orlando Health's Dr. Michael Cheatham, who leads the only Level One Trauma Center in Central Florida, Karen is well on her way to recovery, and plans to work to end gun violence in the U.S. Karen's harrowing experience and the daily struggles she fought to keep moving forward thrust her into finding her true calling. Each of us experiences personal setbacks that can shatter our world and test our endurance. But these tragedies, while agonizing, can be our greatest teachers, the catalysts for transformation. Karen's professional experience spans more than 28 years as the senior marketing executive and public policy expert for international and regional law firms. She has led multi-faceted teams in client development, strategic planning, branding, external affairs, and media relations. Karen is the Founder and Chief Strategic Advisor of ATHENA Orlando Women's Leadership, Inc. To date, 400 women are alumni of the ATHENA NextGen masterclass series and they're rising to the top of Orlando's businesses and non-profit organizations. It's changing the course for how women lead. About Us: The Speaking Your Brand podcast is hosted by Carol Cox. At Speaking Your Brand, we help women entrepreneurs and professionals clarify their brand message and story, create their signature talks, and develop their thought leadership platforms. Our mission is to get more women in positions of influence and power because it's through women's stories, voices, and visibility that we challenge the status quo and change existing systems. Check out our coaching programs at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com.  Links: Show notes at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/337/  Discover your Speaker Archetype by taking our free quiz at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/quiz/ Enroll in our Thought Leader Academy: https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/academy/    Connect on LinkedIn: Carol Cox = https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolcox Karen Keene = https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-keene-profile2023/  Related Podcast Episodes: Episode 297: Integrating Your Story Into Your Talks with Carol Cox, Diane Diaz, and Joy Spencer Episode 263: Finding the Emotional Heart of Your Message with Carol Cox Episode 230: Use Your Story for an Inspirational Talk with Tanea Smith Episode 137: The Missing Ingredients in Your Stories with Carol Cox  

This week, Russ Branzell is joined on the Trailblazers podcast by three esteemed female healthcare leaders: Novlet P. Mattis, Senior Vice President and CDIO, Orlando Health, Sarah Richardson, Senior Vice President and CDIO, Tivity Health, and Anika Gardenhire, Chief Digital Officer, Centene Corporation. They talk women at work with a focus on gender equity, the lack of women in healthcare leadership roles, and the importance of networking. Additionally, each guest shares the most important leadership lesson they learned over their career. Tune in now for their perspectives on women at work!

Joann talks to Orlando Healths John Moore President of Bayfront Health and Blake Bard SVP of Bayfront Health St. Petersburg Foundation.

This panel will discuss the health impacts of climate change, with a focus on the effects of extreme heat.  It will be moderated by Bonnie Schneider, Founder of Weather & Wellness LLC and author of the book "Taking the Heat: How Climate Change is Affecting Your Mind, Body & Spirit, and What You Can Do About It." (Simon & Schuster). Bonnie's expert panelists are Shauna Junco, Pharm.D., BCPS, a Clinical Pharmacist specializing in adult infectious diseases, and Dr. Martin Derrow, MD FACP, a retired internal medicine specialist and member of Florida Clinicians for Climate Action. The discussion will shed light on the vulnerability of low-income and minority communities to heat-related illnesses and the potential for increased infectious disease outbreaks. Plus, it will address the importance of taking action to mitigate the mental and physical health impacts of climate change and share the panelists' perspective on the role of local and federal policy in reducing climate-related health hazards. Gain valuable insights and knowledge from these renowned experts and learn how we can work towards protecting our personal health and build more resilient and sustainable communities.  Speakers: Bonnie Schneider, Author, Simon and Schuster  Bonnie Schneider is a meteorologist and author of the new book, Taking the Heat: How Climate Change is Affecting Your Mind, Body & Spirit, and What You Can Do About It, (Simon & Schuster ). Bonnie founded Weather & Wellness©, successfully launching its original video content focusing on climate change and health. Nationally recognized as an on-camera television meteorologist, Bonnie's shared her insight and expertise on everything from hurricanes to snowstorms for MSNBC, CNN, HLN, Bloomberg TV, and The Weather Channel. Following her recent move from NYC to Florida, Bonnie is a Sustainability and Climate Tech Contributor for Techstrong.tv, a media platform featuring thought leaders in technology and digital transformation. Bonnie has over 260k followers on her social platforms.  Martin Derrow, Florida Clinicians for Climate Action  Dr. Derrow practiced Internal Medicine in Central Florida from 1986 until his retirement from active practice at the end of 2020. A graduate of The Ohio State University and The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Dr. Derrow held leadership positions with Physician Associates and Orlando Health with an interest in population health. Since retirement, Dr. Derrow has been active with Florida Clinicians for Climate Action and believes climate change is the greatest public health challenge we face today.  Shauna Junco, Advocacy Committee Co-Chair, Florida Clinicians for Climate Action  Shauna Junco is a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist in Adult Infectious Diseases and Antimicrobial Stewardship. She earned both her Bachelor of Arts in English and her PharmD from the University of Florida. After completing her PGY-1 residency in Hospital Practice at Grady Health System and her PGY-2 in Infectious Diseases from West Virginia University Hospital she moved to Orlando, where she has spent the last 10 years in clinical practice at Orlando Regional Medical Center/Orlando Health, which has earned and maintained recognition as a Center of Excellence for Antimicrobial Stewardship from the Infectious Diseases Society of America. She currently serves as the Florida Clinicians for Climate Action Advocacy Committee Co-Chair, ORMC's Mitigation and Resiliency Committee Co-Chair, and as a member of the East Central Florida Regional Resilience Collaborative Heat & Health Task Force.           

This week on the podcast Mikki speaks to Dr Charles (Chad) Price about bone health. An orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Price was driven to find solutions when both his wife and his sister were diagnosed with osteoporosis. This led him down the path of researching nutrition compounds beyond calcium that allow the bone to be resilient and dynamic.  The structure of bone that provides flexibility, resilience, and toughness Mikki and Dr Price talk about these compounds and discuss the utility of DEXA for determining bone health., He is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and faculty member of the orthopedic residency program at Orlando Health. He is a Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Florida State University, College of Medicine. Dr. Price has authored or co-authored over 60 scientific research papers. Dr. Price is also a Certified Sports Nutritionist by the American Sports and Fitness Association.Dr Price book: https://www.amazon.com/Doctors-Uncovered-Benefits-Silicon-Paperback/dp/B00ZT1WIRIDr Price: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-price-46699659/  Contact Mikki:https://mikkiwilliden.com/https://www.facebook.com/mikkiwillidennutritionhttps://www.instagram.com/mikkiwilliden/https://linktr.ee/mikkiwillidenSave 20% on all NuZest Products with the code MIKKI20 at www.nuzest.co.nzCurranz supplement: MIKKI saves you 25% at www.curranz.co.nz

In this episode we interview Robert “Bob” Melia! Bob sustained a Complete Spinal cord injury at level C6 at age 19. He shares so much valuable insight on his journey from initial injury to leading the happy and successful life he does today. Bob is the Spinal Cord Injury Network Coordinator for Orlando Health , president of the Greater Orlando sci network which is a chapter of the untied spinal cord association, advisory council member for the department of health for brain and sci, and so so much more ! This episode is a must listen!

Tune in for today's industry updates.

1. Reacciona presidenta del FEI, Nydia Cotto Vives, a investigación de En Blanco y Negro con Sandra sobre contratos en esa agencia. 2. La secretaria de Energía de Estados Unidos, Jennifer Granholm vino a Puerto Rico. por encomienda del presidente Joe Biden, para impulsar la modernización de la red eléctrica. 3. Mientras, sigue LUMA llevándose la luz y FEMA brindará apoyo a LUMA y la AEE en la estabilización del sistema eléctrico, tras una petición del gobernador Pedro Pierluisi. 4. Confirmado En Blanco y Negro con Sandra: Vendieron el hospital Sabanera de Dorado a Orlando Health. 5. Hermana de Ricky Martin dio parte de la prueba que el cantante presentó en el tribunal contra su sobrino. A través de una declaración jurada y textos, que mostraban cómo supuestamente, Dennis Sánchez Martin, estaba planificando cómo perjudicar a su tío. 6. Finalmente hablan en Puerto Rico de la crisis humanitaria en Haití, tras los inmigrantes que siguen llegando. Este es un tema que hemos traído consistentemente hace mas de seis meses y aquí nadie decía nada. 7. Presidente de Colombia Gustavo Petro arremete contra los Estados Unidos por el daño que le hace a todas las economías del mundo ante una inminente recesión económica global, la guerra en Ucrania y tensiones con China. 8. Altos cargos militares chinos prometen estar "preparados para la guerra" en medio de las tensiones con EE.UU. 9. Putin redobla la apuesta al declarar la ley marcial en las 4 regiones ucranianas anexadas por Rusia Éstas y otras noticias, hoy En Blanco y Negro con Sandra. - - - Este programa se transmite por las siguientes emisoras, y por sus respectivas plataformas digitales, y aplicaciones para dispositivos Apple y Android: 1. Cadena WIAC - WYAC 930 AM: Cabo Rojo-Mayagüez 2. Cadena WIAC – WISA 1390 AM Isabela 3. Cadena WIAC - WIAC 740 AM: Área metropolitana 4. WLRP 1460 AM Radio Raíces: La voz del Pepino en San Sebastián 5. X61 610 AM: Patillas y toda la zona sureste 6. X61 94.3 FM: Patillas-Guayama 7. Mi Podcast: Anchor, SoundCloud y demás. https://anchor.fm/sandrarodriguezcotto Redes Sociales: FACEBOOK, TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, LINKEDIN · E-mail: Enblancoynegroconsandra@gmail.com BLOG: http://enblancoynegromedia.blogspot.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sandrarodriguezcotto/support

Kena Lewis APR, Fellow PRSA, the Senior Director of Public Affairs and Media Relations at Orlando Health. discusses several important ethics issues, including: 1) What to do ethically when your boss is the problem 2) The ethical challenges of online identity 3) The most important ethics priority for healthcare communicators 4) How do you balance safeguarding confidences with transparency and honesty?

Welcome to Protecting Your Nest with Dr. Tony Hampton. Erika Bell (aka. Beautiful Girl Gone Keto) is the founder and creator of the Orlando Health and Wellness Summit. Since discovering the keto diet in 2018, she has been able to drop 106 pounds and put her medical conditions into remission. She was able to achieve all of this not only through dietary changes, but through mental and spiritual changes as well. She offers a consultation service focused on coaching those on the keto path to stay on track with their health-related goals. In this discussion, Dr. Tony and Erika talk about: (02:57) Erika's history as an entrepreneur (05:56) Erika's past health struggles (08:30) The death of Erika's niece from complications related to diabetes (11:56) The positive changes that have come about in Erika's life since starting keto (14:38) The paleo diet (21:51) Switching to a better mode of self-talk and a more positive way of thinking about yourself (25:54) Changing your relationship with food (28:54) Carb addiction and how to become free from it (36:51) Overcoming hunger (42:46) Gastric Bypass surgery (51:24) Celebrating one's own beauty (56:56) Maintaining feminine curves on a keto diet Thank you for listening to Protecting Your Nest. For additional resources and information, please see the links below.    Links:   Erika Bell: Bronze Diamonds Keto Orlando Summit Beautiful Girl Gone Keto Instagram   Dr. Tony Hampton: Linktree Instagram Account LinkedIn Account Ritmos Negros Podcast Q Med Dr. Keith Runyan's Book Joan Ifland (Processed Food Addiction Video)

Welcome to Difficult Conversations with Dr. Anthony Orsini.  This interview was recorded over a year ago and for reasons best not discussed were not been able to make it live. Well the big day is finally here. Today, you are in for a real treat because my special guest is a true legend and a local hero in the field of Neonatology here in Central Florida and in the country.  He is a hero not only because of his accomplishments, but because of the positive impact that he has left on so many lives and families. My guest today is Dr. Gregor Alexander, who is a friend, a former partner, and someone whom I've learned a great deal from.  He has treated more than 45,000 critically ill newborns and has touched the lives of countless other families and children through his work with Orlando Health and the Arnold Palmer Foundation.  He has been locally and nationally recognized by organizations such as March of Dimes, Children's Miracle Network, and the American Institute for Public Service, to name a few. His relationship with Arnold Palmer and the work they've done together is a story he will share today.  His story is so inspirational and interesting that Gregor is currently working on a book about his life as a Baby Doctor and what it means to truly live a  purposeful life. Gregor shares with us an incredible story about his family, living in Columbia, becoming a doctor, and how he ended up in the United States.  He tells us about coming to Central Florida, working in a tiny NICU, and becoming the director. He talks about the miracle that came to him in 1981, which was Arnold Palmer, who helped with making a dream come true in 1989 to open the Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children.  We also learn about the dream and planning of building the Winnie Palmer Hospital.  Gregor goes into detail about the relationship he formed with Arnold Palmer over the years and why he called him the “King of Hearts.” Dr. Orsini talks about meeting Arnold Palmer, how he changed the game of golf, and how humble he was. Gregor tells us about the survival rates of babies back in 1975 and how scary it was. We hear Gregor's philosophy on having that human connection with the families of premature babies, how he takes great pleasure and honor taking care of babies, and how he uses humor to start his relationships with the families.  Also, find out why he says we are becoming “emotional billionaires.” Dr. Orsini brings up the importance of finding commonality. Gregor shares with us what he's currently doing in his life, which includes mission trips, caring for babies, and writing a book about his life that he hopes will be an inspiration to people not only in the medical field, but for people that come to this country and have a dream and want to succeed like he did.  Check out Dr. Alexander's upcoming book "The Baby Doctor" Host: Dr. Anthony OrsiniGuest:Dr. Gregor AlexanderSponsor:The Finley ProjectFor More Information:The Orsini WayThe Orsini Way-FacebookThe Orsini Way-LinkedinThe Orsini Way-InstagramThe Orsini Way-TwitterIt's All In The Delivery: Improving Healthcare Starting With A Single Conversation by Dr. Anthony OrsiniResources Mentioned:gag.alexander@outlook.com

Now that bariatric surgery is behind you, have you been considering plastic surgery? Do you have a lot of questions before you take this next step? Stay right where you are because plastic surgeon Dr. Omar Beidas is in the house answering your questions.Visit Procarenow.com for all of your vitamin, calcium and protein needs. Use Code: Susan10 to save 10%Today's Guest: Omar Beidas, MD, FACSIG: @drbodycontouring (Omar E. Beidas, MD, FACS (@drbodycontouring) • Instagram photos and videos)Orlando Health: Omar E. Beidas, MD, FACS (orlandohealth.com)Facebook: Omar E. Beidas, MD | FacebookRealSelf: Omar E. Beidas, MD Reviews, Before and After Photos, Answers - RealSelfDr. Omar Beidas is a board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon with the Orlando Health Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery Institute. He specializes in breast surgery and body contouring after weight loss. He also founded Orlando Health's "surgery after weight loss" program, the first of its kind in the southeastern United States. Dr. Beidas also works with bariatric dietitian Gayle Smith who joins me regularly on the podcast.Questions we discuss in today's episode:When you see a potential plastic surgery patient for the first time, what are the most common questions you are asked and how do you respond?How long after weight loss surgery should you wait to do skin removal? Is there an ideal body fat percentage where you should be before surgery?What is the recovery time on a tummy tuck? How much benefit is working out regularly (building muscle) before having plastic surgery?If you have your stomach skin removed, do you always have to repair muscle?I've heard that your inner thighs are very difficult to heal. Is there any truth to that?What is the difference between all the abdominal surgeries? Tummy tuck vs mommy makeover vs pa-nnic'ulectomy vs fleur-dis-lis? I chose the FDL for my first surgery in January but don't really know what I'm choosing.How many skin removals can be done together (arms, legs, breasts)?How far apart should you schedule multiple surgeries?What takeaways do you want to leave us with that you always want your plastic surgery patients to know?Search to verify if your surgeon is certified by The American Board of Plastic Surgery (ABPS) https://www.abplasticsurgery.org/VerifyCert?section=SurgeonSearch

ShownotesDr. Jamin Brahmbhatt is a urologist and robotic surgeon who is an outspoken advocate for men's health and wellness. He currently works as the Director of the Personalized Urology & Robotics Clinic at Orlando Health and is a board member of the Florida Urological Society. Dr. Brahmbhatt wants to change the way men value their own health by making an impact on social norms and ideas that influence our perceptions of our health.In the second part of this two-part series with Dr. Brahmbhatt, we cover various topics, such as UTIs, kidneys and possible conditions, and depression. Thanks for tuning in to our two-part series on men's health with Dr. Brahmbhatt!Key TakeawaysUrinary tract infections and how rare it is in malesSupplements and natural remediesKidneys and how they get testedDepression in menHow to make scheduling appointments smootherFor more resources, check out our website.For Dr. Brahmbhatt's clinic website: https://purclinic.com/For Dr. Brahmbhatt's personal website: jaminbrahmbhatt.comFollow Dr. Brahmbhatt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjaminb/Transcript0:00:00.0 S1: Enjoy the second part of the two-part series with Dr. B. Our health is the most important thing that we have and as a married woman of almost 19 years to my dear husband, Andrew and mother of two boys and daughter of my dad, Bill, who's 81, I am acutely aware of the fact that men don't go into the doctor and they don't seek care. In fact, I have an uncle that saw the doctor once in his entire life and died at age 86 of a heart attack while he was climbing a mountain. Men typically have a hard time going into the doctor, and this podcast is for all of you women that care about the men in your life. Whether that's your sons, your dads, your husbands, your brothers, your spouse, your partner. We are covering everything with Dr. Brahmbhatt, a urologist at Orlando Health. We're covering everything from steroid use to infertility, to depression, to prostate exams, to identifying any kidney problems, and what's the best way to see a physician. We are covering the gamut. Doctor B is incredibly approachable, relatable, he makes things funny and the reason I had this podcast was for all of you ladies that are the caregivers of the men that we love, and it's good to recognize the symptoms, and it's good to be encouraging to our men that we love.0:01:35.2 S1: With that, let's get into the interview today, you're gonna learn lots, take some notes, I'm gonna have all the show notes with the links of the products that he recommends, and as well as a link to follow Dr. B on LinkedIn and TikTok. And I just hope that you leave with some new ideas on how to incorporate health and wellness into their lives. So with that, let's get into the episode.  0:02:06 S2: Welcome to the Wellness Essentials Podcast, where we invite you to join the conversation and get inspired to be in the driver's seat of your health and well-being. On this podcast, you'll get an all-access pass inside the minds of MDs, experts and thought leaders in the industry. No topic is off-limits, and we're asking the questions to get you the answers across the gamut of topics when it comes to optimizing your health. This is the WE Podcast.0:02:44 S1: So two things that I wanted to ask about, one was UTIs, that was really interesting on our last interview when you talked about UTIs and then supplements to prevent UTIs as well as recognizing any kidney dysfunction, and then the last thing I wanted to chat about was really prostate health and just some tips for wives to maybe suggest or just to know about, educate us on prostate health. So the first thing with UTIs.0:03:14.6 S2: Okay, so well, I'll give you pretty much a TikTok one minute version on all of these things, so urinary tract infections. Your man should not be getting a urinary tract infection. When men are younger, symptoms of urinary tract infections are usually sexual transmitted diseases, but if you're in a very strong relationship, it doesn't mean he has a sexually transmitted disease, but if they are having symptoms of urinary tract infection, whether it's burning when they pee, blood in the urine, abdominal or bladder pain or fevers, chills, you gotta get yourself checked out 'cause a dude again, should not be having symptoms of urinary tract infections. The reason women, regardless of age, are more prone to it is because your urethras are much shorter, so the bugs from the outside world can get in much quicker, especially if you're post-menopausal. Post-menopausal, that kind of first line army, that's your estrogen and the acidity to that area, is kind of, starts decaying, that's what makes you more prone to infection. Men have the same length urethra and it's longer than the female urethra and the bugs should not be getting in. Usually, the bugs are coming from something on the inside, so when a guy has a urinary tract infection, we do the work up, so is it a kidney stone, is it some blockage in his urethra, does he have scarring there, is he not peeing...0:04:26.3 S2: Or does he have prostatitis or just chronic inflammation. So there is a very extensive workup that is done to kind of sort through these things, 'cause we don't want him to be getting infections again, but the way you would know he has an infection is the symptoms that I mentioned, a rapid change in urinary symptoms, plus or minus, whole body symptoms as well. 0:04:48 S1: Really? Whole body symptoms of…0:04:51 S2: Fevers, chills, fatigue. Now, if he's partied at a bachelor party the weekend before and Monday morning, he's having burning when he pees, it's probably 'cause he's dehydrated, and if he feels like crap is probably 'cause he hadn't slept. So it can't be a one-off thing. It's like you would know, it's like he's been normal, hasn't done anything crazy, and then boom. So that's infections, infections in men are treated pretty much the same way in women initially with antibiotics, and then we would kind of take a deep dive and what the cause of these infections is. Now, one really quick thing about urinary tract infections for either gender is when you get the test done for urinary tract infections, it's usually in the office, it's like a dip stick where we quickly just drop something in, and once it's dropped in, then it quickly gets analyzed by a computer or whatnot, that's not the best way to check for infection, you have some markers and triggers, but that's not the best way.0:05:43.9 S2: The best way to check for infections really is a culture where you actually have your entire urine set up and cultured and where they like to take a deep dive and take a look at things, so that usually is the best way to check for urinary tract infection. I have all these people that come in and say, “Oh, I got checked, blah, blah, my doctor's office and I got an infection.” I'm like, “How do they check for it?”, and it's usually not checked the right way.0:06:09.4 S1: Interesting, so if we have a UTI test, that's the first line of defense to say, “Hey, it's positive”. When you're at home, it's really a screening then, 'cause if you are positive, you should really go in to your physician to get a full culture.0:06:27.8 S2: Yeah, whether it's your physician or whether it's your local urgent care center, you could walk into a grocery store or you walk into one of those corner pharmacies and you can get a test on there, there's actually at home test too, but those are not as accurate, but there's definitely different ways to go and get yourself checked out. So that's urinary tract infections in a nutshell, dudes should not be getting it, if they do, get them treated and then get him evaluated, and usually that will lead down the path of seeing a urologist.0:07:00.6 S1: Okay, and that is what you are.0:07:02.1 S2: That's what I am.0:07:04.1 S1: What about the supplements of like a D-mannose supplement? Does that do any good? 0:07:11.0 S2: I actually am a huge believer in natural remedies and supplements for many diseases, but I would have to see the data on it first. The only supplement that I actually started giving out before the guidelines really promoted it was cranberry. This isn't cranberry juice, this isn't cranberry and vodka drinks, this is actually a cranberry supplement. I think the majority of them do work, but you got it, when you get a supplement, the best thing is to look for certain certifications, now, supplements are not regulated by the FDA, so sometimes you don't know what's in them, where they're coming from, so I really promote like go and either see where your doctors recommend you to make sure they're not making a profit off of it, 'cause sometimes things can be biased, but cranberry supplements, most of them are pretty generic. I think they're fine, and I think they work. Now, should you just take it proactively, no, only take it if you're having a problem, don't put something in your body if you don't need it, so this is not one that I recommend taking proactively. But no, absolutely, for urinary tract infections, I think supplements work great.0:08:11.4 S2: But you know what works better? Drinking water and staying hydrated. That's the thing. I got some going, “Oh, I got burning, burning, burning.”0:08:19.5 S2: I'm like, “How much water did you drink today?” “Two classes and a beer and oh, by the way, I went running outside at the beach.” 0:08:26 S1: And an energy drink. 0:08:28 S2: I'm like, “Can you just drink water please?”0:08:32.5 S2: “Can I have Gatorade?” No, that has salt in it.0:08:36.4 S2: Just drink water, that's gonna help a lot of your burning symptoms, and honestly, like I used to say this, I actually didn't believe it until I had a kidney stone. If you've ever had a kidney stone, if you ever had a stent inside of you, it sucks. And I always tell patients, ”The stent doesn't hurt, I just drink water. It'll be fine.” And I realize I should follow my own advice, so it hurts everywhere down there, but when you drink water it does help 'cause it lubricates your bladder or keeps clots away. So it's the same principle, it's like the more hydrated you are, not only are you gonna feel energetic, your skin's gonna look better, you're gonna glow, but it does help keep urine concentrated and avoids the symptoms and also avoids infections and kidney stones, so supplements, sure.0:09:23.5 S2: But hydration… 0:09:26 S1: If their supplements, Checkable wellness supplements, our UTI prevent is D-mannose and hibiscus flower and cranberry extract. So all three and made in the USA, very proud of that.0:09:42.5 S2: So I love how you're plugging in your product here, so kudos to you.0:09:48.0 S1: It's a great supplement, our number one seller actually. So from the side of prostate health, we don't hear about it as much as women, get your mammogram, and now it's down to age 40 of men, go get your prostate checked. Can you tell us about that?0:10:06.8 S2: Men, you don't really need to go see your doctor, get your prostate checked. Yes, you will eventually get one, but if all men felt that way, no one's gonna go see a doctor, 'cause yo dude, I'm gonna go see a doctor is gonna put his finger up my what, so I usually when I see a guy that's really nervous, hesitant, the first thing I say to them is, “Listen, relax, I'm probably not gonna need to check your prostate, you can relax”, and then their sphincter just relaxes, you see them relaxing in a chair, but when it comes to prostate health, the things that women should look out for is changes in urination, you're going from waking up zero to one to three at night, you see them taking longer to come back when they're going on a break during a football game or basketball game. You see them having to push or strain, you see your dude always standing to pee and now he's sitting to pee, ‘cause he's having to really force it out, so there's lots of symptoms, but usually it's something called nocturia where you guys are waking up at night, there's frequency, there's urgency, there's a weak stream, there may be some dribbling afterwards, so there's these things and what we do when we see these patients in the office, they fill out a survey, so we get an objective measure, and then we kind of from there, follow it. What's really interesting on these surveys is the last question is always about quality of life.0:11:20.0 S2: You may have all these symptoms, but if any bothering you and we do our regular check, there's no point in pushing forward towards something, but there'll be people with minor symptoms in their quality of life…really, really bothered, they can't work, they can't go anywhere. So then we have to get a little bit more aggressive, but when it comes to your guy, he will eventually get a prostate check. The prostate check is part of a screen protocol for prostate cancer, so prostate cancer screening, depending on your family history, could start at 40, could start at 50. You have to kinda talk to your primary care doctor about when you can start based on your family history and other things. So it's a lab test that you get once a year. You get it once a year because that's what insurance covers, unless you have another indication, but that's it, once a year, and then you'll get a prostate exam either now or in the future. I do it maybe once and then I'll do it if there's an issue of suspicion, but really the lab tests and everything else have gotten so good that the need for that has gone down, so guys don't be scared, like that's not the first thing you're gonna get, but when it comes to your prostate, there's actually some really cool things you can do proactively to avoid having prostate issues, those include having a normal weight, a good diet, exercise.0:12:33.1 S2: There's been studies done, longitudinal studies that people that lived in countries that had a very healthy diet and then they moved to America, and they pretty much went from no prostate symptoms to now major prostate symptoms. So there is something within that prostate gland that can be affected by diet, but when you have issues, yes, there's medications and there's surgeries, but just like I mentioned, cranberry for urinary tract infections for your prostate, there's actually some really cool supplements out there now, if you're buying a supplement that you saw on an infomercial at 10 AM at night, and there's a celebrity promoting it, and you gotta sign up for a three-month plan, it's probably a for-profit gimme. Most of these prostate supplements have a combination of things, but usually the main ingredient is saw palmetto. The issue with saw palmetto is again, it's not regulated here, so you don't know exactly what you're getting. Most of what we get here is like the powder extract. The powder extract, you just don't know what the quality is. I'm a big fan of a company called Flomentum, so they actually, it's made right here in my backyard in Florida, and it's a prostate supplement…0:13:35.5 S2: …that's liquid extract. So in Europe, there were studies done looking at the powder versus liquid extract, the liquid extract has been clinically proven to be very strong towards relaxing your prostate, decreasing inflammation. In Europe, it's actually, you need a prescription, you need someone like me to give it to you. Whereas here in the states it's actually a supplement, you can buy it on your own, so that is where you can be proactive, like, “Hey, you wanna do something beyond your vitamins, you can take a prostate supplement, no problem”. I'm not recommending this in your 20s, but unless you're getting in your 40s and you wanna do something that you can proactively actually do it. I, in my office, used to just watch these patients. But if they wanna do something, I do something called active management, so it's not really a bother, but I'm actively doing something for this that could become a problem and prostate health is one of those things that I do with supplements in my office.0:14:25.7 S1: That's so smart, that's actually promotes good health for my guy. Okay, you can monitor it. It's because a lot of times I can't even tell there's no effect, but they wanna see what's putting in my body helping me and so you can help manage that.0:14:45.4 S2: Yeah and the cool thing about prostate supplements is most of the prostate medications do have some sexual side effects, whether it's loss of libido or retrograde ejaculation, whereas supplements really don't have that side effect, they may not be as good as medications, but hey, I think it's worth a try. I've become a big advocate since I've seen the benefits of recommending something like Flomentum to our patients, so it's pretty cool. I'm a big fan.0:15:09.3 S1: That's a very good tip. So the last thing that I wanted to ask you about was if the unrecognized, undiagnosed symptoms of depression in men and what you see from MD side and how to recognize that and suggest to do something about it.0:15:33.1 S2: So you just have a third question about kidneys, kidney damage, can you feel… I just wanted to do well.0:15:38.6 S1: You are so good, let's talk about kidneys quick. I thought you…0:15:42.0 S2: This is gonna be very quick, I know I'm taking too long, but really quickly, for kidneys, there's actually two specialties that manage. I'm the surgeon of the kidneys, if you have a tumor in there, stones, there's actually a medical subspecialty called nephrology, and they manage the medical part of kidneys. So you work as a team, the best way to screen your kidneys for the big stuff is get a lab test where they actually check something called your creatinine and GFR, and they can actually see how well the horsepower of the kidneys is working. For other things, for your kidneys, whether it's a stone or a tumor, that all just kind of depends on what symptoms you have and whether you have imaging order, whether it's a CAT scan, MRI, ultrasound, as a lot of these things get discovered incidentally, in my line work or emergently in the emergency room, where all of a sudden you're having some issue, you get a CAT scan, you find a stone and then boom, you're in the operating room. So proactively, to really protect that kidney, whether it's from stones or medical disease is really just protect your heart really and again, it is so boring, like exercise, diet, avoid salt.0:16:46.7 S2: But it really is that easy. So that's kidneys in general. So you asked a question about depression in men…0:16:53 S1: Wait! Quick question now about creatinine. What if you do have a look? What if your,  are your measures low? Are they high? You said creatinine, and what was the other?0:17:02 S2: Creatinine and glomerular filtration rate. So creatinine, your numbers should be low, and they check the…creatinine and other things, but you're creatinine, your numbers should be low, if it starts going up, that means your kidneys are having some issues or even failing. The confusing thing is the better gauge of what your kidneys are, and the horse power within them and the juice within them is actually the glomerular filtration rate 'cause that takes into account multiple things from about that patient. It even takes into account race in certain cases, so that number is actually opposite, so you should be really high, like close to 80, 100. If that starts going down, then your kidneys are having a problem and I think if it's, it goes down to 15 or 20, that's when you're on the verge of dialysis, you gotta sit on a machine several times a week to basically do what your kidneys do for you naturally, but yes, it's all in the semantics of the lab test.0:18:03.4 S1: Got it. Okay, I didn't mean to interrupt your… but it was a good explanation. Thank you. Now, onto the depression question.0:18:11.2 S2: I'm glad you're not gonna use a video 'cause I know it's cutting off here as I drink my Celsius here. Celsius sponsor us.0:18:18.8 S1: I do love Celsius myself, except I think I drink it on an empty stomach when I went to a yoga sculpt class the other day at 5:30 in the morning, and I thought I was gonna pass out 'cause my heart rate got so high and it was like a 106 degrees. 0:18:34.5 S2: I don't know if you know this, but when you drink these drinks where they say zero calorie, and good for you, and all these things, you know they taste great, but one thing you gotta make note of is these things may taste great, but they can be very salty. So when you look at salt, it's not gonna say salt on here, it's gonna be sodium, so this one actually has zero milligrams, which is pretty interesting, but maybe it's all in their proprietary blend, but you gotta be very careful about that. So a lot of people think, “Well, I'm eating healthy, I don't add any salt to my diet”, but then they're either drinking things or eating things out of a bag that have a lot of sodium to them, and that can cause blood pressure, kidney sons, etcetera. So just be very careful what, I think Celsius overall has a very good balance on everything, but a lot of these energy drinks do not. 0:19:25 S1: Yeah. Like the Monsters with, there's a Bang with creatine that's…0:19:31 S2: Bang is really popular on TikTok. They pay all these influencers to drink it. I mean Bang tastes pretty good, but if you read it, it's like I can't even pronounce half the stuff and I'm like, we're drinking this.0:19:44.1 S2: You know what people don't realize is like, I used to be addicted to Diet Coke and Red Bull. Just be honest with you, as we're going into our conversation about mental health, I used to drink like three to four Diet Cokes a day and diet, I'm like, always diet, but then you read the sodium and everything else, there's actually studies that show that, and that's why all these companies came out with these new versions of sodas like Coke Zero and then Pepsi Max, so all these artificial sweeteners, we may think like, “Oh yeah, they're good for us, blah, blah”. But these artificial sweeteners can actually change your appetite levels, but also it's been shown that they may not raise your sugars, but they can kind of alter, and I don't wanna sound like an expert, ‘cause I'm not an expert on this, but it can change the way your insulin metabolizes certain things, where you can get, it's not really high sugars and diabetes, but you can get subtle remnants of that where this may be triggering some bad things that may happen in the future, so you gotta be careful. Everything in moderation, I used to drink a lot of this stuff, but then I started going on my fitness kick and switched to water, and now I'm down to one, maybe one and a half, so I still drink it...0:20:53.6 S2: I'm not gonna sit here and say I'm super healthy, whether to Diet Coke or something like this, but I do it in moderation. So what I was trying to get at is, I got dudes coming in for low testosterone all the time, the reality is, their body has become so, is it tolerant or intolerant, where they're drinking so much Bang and all these Monster drinks, so your body is used to a constant amount of caffeine and taurine and all these things are supposed to energize you, but then you need more and more and more and more and more, so of course you're crashing at night after your seventh thing, or of course the next morning you feel like crap because you're not gonna get anywhere until you drink two or three of these, so that's one of the hardest conversations like, “Hey, you don't really need testosterone, you don't even need to lose weight, you just gotta get off your caffeine kick, 'cause it's hard 'cause I think people do get kind of addicted to some of these things, but I think you gotta be careful with how much of this stuff you're putting in.0:21:50.9 S1: Yeah, I think depression and men last time we talked, you had said that it goes undiagnosed and that there's a large percent of men that are depressed and things that we can look for, and really what's the best. I feel like, I know you're gonna say diet and exercise, because doesn't it help with everything?0:22:14.6 S2: But in this case, I think it's more a mental connection, so it's about communication. Dudes really try to treat themselves with alcohol or partying or just sitting by themselves and keeping everything in. Mental wellness is key. We all look at our physical bodies, you forget our mental bodies. I personally have engaged in some of these things to help my mental wellness, and I actually sometimes open up to patients about my own struggles because they come in and they want all these things and after maybe the second or third miss, I'm like, “Listen, bro.” So I put the laptop away, I mean, I'm usually not on the laptop, but I look at him, “Listen, bro, I've been through A, B and C, or listen, I've had this surgery, and blah, blah, blah, this is what you should do”, or you know, it's not perfect, but mental wellness is tough. Depression, anxiety, a lot of people are suffering with this stuff and then they go to all these other addictive behaviors. Depression is, it's easy to screen, but it's also hard to screen, and for you, I'm not an expert at it, but I've gotten so good at it because I see these men, I just know that they have some mental illness, not low testosterone or anything else, but to have that conversation is still very difficult for me.0:23:36.2 S1: Is it? For you, it's hard to have with your patients?0:23:39.4 S2: Because they think they're gonna get testosterone or something else, or I'm gonna solve the world, even when they come in for erectile dysfunction like, “Oh, I can't get it up”. I do try to segue into some way about figuring out their relationship status is like, “How long have you been with your wife? Blah blah. Like what's going on? Is it just with her or is it not with your girlfriend?” We get into these deep conversations, and then they usually open up like, “Yeah, she's at menopause and it hurts her”, so I'm like the issue is not really your inability to have erections, it's more you have concern for your partner. Okay, so let's talk about how we can help her, so these are the things I know, we have some doctors here in town that can help her with that problem and let's work on it together. Yeah, but then it's also like they hate each other 'cause the dudes expecting what he sees on YouPorn, ExHamster or that kind of stuff at the age of 80, so you have to have a realistic conversation with them is like, “Listen, you gotta calm down and not be so macho about some of these things”.0:24:40.5 S2: Let's look at, this is on both sides, and honestly, a lot of the time, people are addicted to porn or they become desensitized to it, personal intimacy, one-on-one touch, because when they watch porn and they can look up whatever they want, and it's like one and done. Quick, let's go. Whereas the other way, you gotta buy some flour, you gotta do foreplay, and you gotta do all these other things, so sometimes a lot of work, but I always tell them like this, you gotta stop watching that stuff because that's not reality. All of these things coming together, I think it all is also part of that mental part is because we could be addicted to certain things or we go to other avenues to just get away from our reality, and what I've learned over the past year or two years, and you just gotta face your reality, it's hard. You got as a guy, you gotta face reality like, this is what's wrong, and the wrong is in me, or if the wrong is in someone else, what can you adjust or change, or how can you just get rid of that person in your life so that you kind of stay on track.0:25:50.9 S2: I think men, whether they like to admit or not, are actually very influenced by their social circles, we see all these videos of little girls like Justin Bieber and all these things, but I think men are even more influenced by social factors, but they're just not open about it.0:26:08.3 S1: Yeah, they have an ego that tells them, can't admit that. 0:26:12.9 S2: Yeah, are you talking to me personally or…0:26:14.6 S1: No! I have two teenage boys, and I realized one of them is more influenced than the other, impressionable. And today, this morning, I said he skipped a class yesterday and said, “Oh well, my friends are going to Starbucks and driving around. It was a nice day. So I skipped ceramics”, like you said that you weren't gonna skip any classes and then you skipped.0:26:41.9 S2: Yeah, but mom, it's ceramics, who puts their kid in ceramic class.0:26:45.5 S1: My oldest Will is, it's his best class. He is a beautiful, I'm gonna send you some pictures and Will's my guy that wanted to take steroids, he can bench 250 and he is really good at throwing on the wheel.0:27:00.1 S2: But maybe he wants to do steroids, but not ceramics, but you're forcing him to do one or the other. No, all jokes aside, I think it's good to be engaged like that. I think guys, I don't wanna say ceramics is feminine, that is not the case, but I think guys should be more accepting of doing whatever they want, all because you like something doesn't make you a certain way or give you a certain title. I wear pink shirts all the time, people used to make fun of me in high school, it's like, but I've always embraced my true self, and I think more guys should do that, just be you, BU, that's where I went to college. Boston University.0:27:45.0 S1: Oh, you did? I was just in Boston last week.0:27:47 S2: Oh really? 0:27:48 S1: Yes, I went to a clinical research conference and the American Telemedicine conference. We stayed in Back Bay, and we went to this place called Select Oysters. If you haven't been there, next time you go, you should go. It was amazing. 0:28:06.1 S2: Everyone in Boston goes to, I don't eat meat, I'm vegetarian, man what's it called, now you're gonna kill me. There's tons of them. Very popular place, but yeah, it's a lobster place, but Boston is awesome. I think it's very cool and educational to be there, but mental wellness is key in dudes, I think it's even more important to engage your dude about his mental wellness than his physical wellness, 'cause if he's mentally strong and you guys are on the same wavelength, it's gonna be much easier to get all the other stuff done physically, and I would say utilize your intimacy and what you do in the bedroom as kind of like a way to inspire the other stuff that you want, and I wouldn't do it by force, but there's definitely strategic ways like, Hey, if you go to this then I'll be home even if you're two hours late from your doctor's appointment, but really quickly, some quick things to make doctor's office visits easy for him. Try to get the first appointment block, so whether it's the first appointment in the morning or the afternoon clinic, then usually things are gonna run on time, the second thing is if there's any medical records, just start compiling them.0:29:13.6 S2: There's some apps that do it, but they suck, but any history that you may have like, just do it. Now, there's gonna be paperwork from the doctor's office, but what I tell my patients is to just create a personal thing that only you have access to you on Excel or Word and just have a running thing, so like the dude can just go, How many times do I see a dude that gets an appointment by a wife, like you Patty, and he has no clue why he's there. “I don't know. I don't know.” So give him a list. So early appointment, give him a list, and the third thing is, usually now most people have portals, so you can have access to that portal and you can actually see what was discussed or what orders were put in, and so then you have…Now you're not snooping or anything, obviously, you would get his permission, I'm sure they're gonna be fine, but if you have that, then you're kind of engaged. Sometimes I feel like it's how we engage my kids in school, we know certain things that we give them the independence, but the thing is, once you get started on this track, you can probably just let go and he'll thrive 'cause you'll see how easy it is, but you gotta kinda set him up for success.0:30:19.0 S1: Yes, those are great tips. And to make, it's getting out of their comfort zone and to make it more comfortable and smooth sailing for them, they're gonna utilize the healthcare system even more if it's easier that first time. I love the tip about the first appointment and last appointment. That is excellent.0:30:38.3 S2: Well, the first appointment, both clinics, not the last appointment, if you're doing the last appointment, you're gonna wait a couple hours.0:30:44.5 S1: Oh, I thought you said first and last, or last...0:30:47.7 S2: Well, there's usually two blocks, there's morning clinic, afternoon clinic. So the first appointment in the morning or afternoon clinic.0:30:53.3 S1: Oh, oh, that's good. I see what you're saying. I was wondering, how do you know that you're gonna be on time at a 5 o'clock appointment 'cause...0:31:02.4 S2: But I'm always running on time, so if you're my patient, I will always be on time, so don't worry about what appointment you get.0:31:07.9 S1: Look at that, I love it. Okay… We heard it in the beginning, you have a staff that runs the office so smoothly, so I don't doubt it at all.0:31:17.4 S1: Well Dr. B, it was so nice to have you on again. Thank you. If our guests want to get a hold of you, really follow you, 'cause you have great tips and you're super relatable, what's the best way to follow you?0:31:32 S2: There's multiple avenues, depending on what platform you're on. On most social media platforms, I'm on Dr. Jamin B. So Dr. Jamin B. I have a website, jaminbrahmbhatt.com, or you can just google Jamin Brahmbhatt and things will pop up. You'll see my profile at my hospital, your line to health page, you'll see reviews, etcetera. But I'm also on LinkedIn, I'm huge on LinkedIn, so if you're like a professional and wanna engage there, you can just type my name, J-A-M-I-N Brahmbhatt, B-R-A-H-M-B-H-A-T-T. I think I said that too wrong, but you can just look at the show notes or the title and you'll see. But I've become a big fan of LinkedIn and you can engage me there, the only thing is I can't answer your medical questions. I get people sending me pictures and things, and then they get mad.0:32:19.8 S2: Social media is exactly social media, it's not HIPAA compliant. Yeah, if you wanna engage us professionally in a professional capacity, then we contact the office or I'll give you the number and then you just do it, but I'm not here to offer free advice when it comes to medical stuff, but I do give a lot of free life advice, and then if you just fill in the blanks and you can kind of figure out the rest, so...0:32:42.8 S1: So good. And I think that TikTok, that's what we should follow you on, if you're growing that.0:32:48.7 S2: No, my TikTok is very amateur. It's so bad.0:32:53.8 S1: Well then that's why we should follow you, so then you gotta kick up the game a little bit. 0:33:00.3 S2: Oh my God. It's like, but it's so hard to stay on top of all these platforms, so it's like, I try my best, but yeah, if you wanna hit me up there, no problem, shoot me a like.0:33:09.1 S1: Get your girls to help you.0:33:12.0 S2: They do, listen, whenever I post something with my family, it's always like a major hit, but they're getting of the age where I don't even know if they wanna hang out with me, so...0:33:22.6 S1: Oh, I'm with you there. My daughter, she's turning 12 and just had the play the other day, she gave us this look like, “Oh”, painful that we were in the front row with our cameras. We're like “What?”. We're cool still, aren't we? Not at all. Well, Dr. Brahmbhatt it was so nice to have you on, a pleasure. Thank you for joining us and we will talk to you next time.0:33:47 S2: Thank you Patty. 0:33:56 S1: Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. We hope you got a lot out of it. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can stay up-to-date with our latest episodes. Also, you can find us on social media by searching, Checkable Health. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

A recent survey by Orlando Health finds that many men overestimate how healthy they are, prompting one-third of them to skip their annual health screening. Dr. Thomas Kelley addresses common fears that keep men away from the doctor's office, and why annual checkups are crucial to overall health management.

ShownotesDr. Jamin Brahmbhatt is a urologist and robotic surgeon who is an outspoken advocate for men's health and wellness. He currently works as the Director of the Personalized Urology & Robotics Clinic at Orlando Health and is a board member of the Florida Urological Society. Dr. Brahmbhatt wants to change the way men value their own health by making an impact on social norms and ideas that influence our perceptions of our health.In this two-part series with Dr. Brahmbhatt, we cover various topics, such as infertility in men, why it's so important to encourage men to go in for a doctor's visit, and steroid use in teenagers. Stay tuned for the second half of this series for more information on men's health with Dr. Brahmbhatt!Key TakeawaysMale infertility, what causes it, and what you can doMyths of urology and urologistsThe importance of engaging men with the healthcare system and tactics to do itSteroid use in teenagers and what to look forFor more resources, check out our website.For Dr. Brahmbhatt's clinic website: https://purclinic.com/Follow Dr. Brahmbhatt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjaminb/Trandscript:0:00:00.1 S1: Enjoy the first part of a two-part series with Dr. B. Our health is the most important thing that we have and as a married woman of almost 19 years to my dear husband, Andrew and mother of two boys and daughter of my dad, Bill, who's 81, I am acutely aware of the fact that men don't go into the doctor and they don't seek care. In fact, I have an uncle that saw the doctor once in his entire life and died at age 86 of a heart attack while he was climbing a mountain. Men typically have a hard time going into the doctor, and this podcast is for all of you women that care about the men in your life. Whether that's your sons, your dads, your husbands, your brothers, your spouse, your partner. We are covering everything with Dr. Brahmbhatt, a urologist at Orlando Health. We're covering everything from steroid use to infertility, to depression, to prostate exams, to identifying any kidney problems, and what's the best way to see a physician. We are covering the gamut. Doctor B is incredibly approachable, relatable, he makes things funny and the reason I had this podcast was for all of you ladies that are the caregivers of the men that we love, and it's good to recognize the symptoms, and it's good to be encouraging to our men that we love.0:01:34.8 S1: With that, let's get into the interview today, you're gonna learn lots, take some notes, I'm gonna have all the show notes with the links of the products that he recommends, and as well as a link to follow Dr. B on LinkedIn and TikTok. And I just hope that you leave with some new ideas on how to incorporate health and wellness into their lives. So with that, let's get into the episode. 0:02:06 S2: Welcome to the Wellness Essentials Podcast, where we invite you to join the conversation and get inspired to be in the driver's seat of your health and well-being. On this podcast, you'll get an all-access pass inside the minds of MDs, experts and thought leaders in the industry. No topic is off-limits, and we're asking the questions to get you the answers across the gamut of topics when it comes to optimizing your health. This is the WE Podcast.0:02:44 S1: Hello everyone, this is Patty Post. Today, I'm your host of the Checkable Health Podcast. We have rebranded everyone, we were the Wellness Essentials Podcast, now we're the Checkable Health Podcast as we are powered by Checkable Medical, but Checkable Health makes more sense because at Checkable Health, we create content that is for mothers that have a core value of health and wellness for themselves and their families.0:03:15.3 S1: So on the Checkable Health Podcast today, my guest is Dr. Brahmbhatt, who is a urologist with Orlando Health. Dr. B, thank you so much for joining me.0:03:27.0 S2: Producer, cue round of applause. Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate the opportunity, and if you can't hear me, it's not my fault, it's Patty's fault.0:03:41.5 S1: This is our take two for, I wish we could have that. That first performance was so good we had such a great connection and our goodbyes, it wasn't like a goodbye forever, we actually did have a great connection, so I'm very thankful that you're coming back on the podcast again. Thank you.0:03:59.5 S2: Thank you. And last time my skin was perfect, I did my hair. This time I have acne on my face, but it's okay, I'm doing it for you, Patty. So, no seriously, all jokes aside I appreciate being on. We had a great conversation, and we can have that same conversation again and go on and on and on, and I look forward to it.0:04:16.7 S1: So I didn't do my hair either, my hair's slicked down and I have a little bit of acne myself, so I just, we're gonna feel comfortable. We're amongst friends here. And that happens in life. Right. If you're a CEO, if you're a doctor, if you're a teacher, life goes on when you have these blemishes, right?0:04:34 It does. And actually, I actually have been more on TikTok lately, actually, as a creator, and my content sucks, but I've just been kind of playing around with the software, and then I'm like, “Holy moly”, I had this like epiphany. They have so many filters, like I remember Snapchat filters, Instagram filters, but you go on TikTok, there's video filters, photo filters like, I can look white, black, my skin could change, my skin could be perfect, I could be toned, I could look skinny. So this whole time for the past year during COVID, I've been wasting time on TikTok, but if TikTok ever sponsors me, TikTok, I don't think it's a waste of time, I appreciate it, but it makes you realize nothing is real nowadays, like nothing at all. So this is the real me, whether you can see it or not, and you can definitely hear it, and I think we should embrace ourselves. I think that's what's lacking, and I think that's why we have you checking us and keeping us some honest here.0:05:32 S1: Getting you on video.0:05:34 S2:. I think what everyone in the audience needs to realize is that everything may be really produced and sound so great and you'll add music, but Patty here, is not only an entrepreneur and trying to change the world with her test and everything else, but she has kids, a dog, and then she has this backdrop, that's almost half falling off, but that's the reality is, it's actually Nurses Week and Healthcare Awareness Week, and I always try to give all the females that work in my office an extra kudos, I don't, I don't gender equal, I don't wanna get in trouble here, but it's amazing how you can be a mother, a wife and run what you're doing. I barely get up from my office and, so it is pretty cool, and I don't think you share it out, I think you should show your real you because of stuff, what you do is not easy, but you make it look easy.0:06:30.2 S1: Well, thank you for saying that. I think with, the women, why this podcast have gotten really narrow with my audience of women, mothers specifically, because we do care for our families, we care for ourselves, we care for our husbands, we care for partners, kids, and a lot of times our parents, which you had mentioned to me that your in-laws are coming, I think that we just naturally, we're gifted as being nurturers, we're inclusive, we're nurturing, we're empathetic, and sometimes it can be a burden that we carry. I think that it is a blessing to the world that there are women because we are like that, so I bet the women in your office like rally around you and take care of you. Is that true?0:07:19.1 S2: They do, they actually do. They know when I'm stressed out. They know when I haven't eaten anything. They go get me what I need, they can control my schedule up ahead, it's pretty amazing, like I am, so, I don't wanna say babied, but we have such a good mutually beneficial relationship, it truly is amazing. But you know what's also amazing is, I'm actually glad we're recording this now, 'cause you mentioned, we were talking about girl power and I have three daughters, so I'm all about it. But you know what's really interesting that really irks me is that Infertility Awareness Week is usually the same week as Mother's Day. It just kills me. You may not know this, but I think in May, it's Infertility Awareness Day or Awareness Week, and then you have Mother's Day and yes, this is geared towards mothers, but you may have people listening that want to be mothers and they're struggling. I actually sub specialize in infertility, the male side of infertility, and I would say dealing with a couple that has infertility is harder than diagnosing metastatic cancer in some cases, because it's such an emotional journey. But that being said, going back to the whole thing, I know I'm going off on a tangent, but I...0:08:26.5 S2: I think it's important to say, going back to the whole thing about what the realities of life are and how social media can really affect you, the first thing I put in my plan with these patients and these couples is get off social media and get off forms and stop reading. Because that, when you go online and hear about someone throwing a balloon off a helicopter to see if it's a boy or girl and doing these gender parties and they're going on vacation before they have a kid or celebrating birthdays, it can really take a big toll on you as a couple, and believe it or not, it's not your age, in many cases, it's not your habits, it's really stress, stress is one of the top risk factors for infertility, whether it's male or female, and what is the biggest stressor in our life, I would say right now, it's probably what we're looking at with their eyes and swiping with our fingers, which is social media, so I just wanted to kind of at least do some education with this girl power conversation that I started off and give you kudos, all the women out there that are trying to become mothers, and all the mothers out there, I think everyone deserves a big kudos.0:09:28.1 S1: I couldn't agree more. We just had a podcast episode about infertility and the struggles with infertility and what couples go through, and then loss of children as well.0:09:41.1 S2: Is this your way of telling me change topic of conversation, 'cause we've already talked about it?0:09:44.8 S1: No, not at all. I think that it is very important, and actually as opening, as I said, that we're narrowing the audience and really Checkable Health, a subject can be covered a dozen to 212 different ways, especially medically speaking, you can get very deep and get into medical terminology, and there's a lot of people out there that really wanna get that medical terminology, so as we continue to grow this podcast, we aren't gonna touch on one subject a single time, we'll touch on it multiple times, and I think hearing it from you as a urologist, hearing that as a father and an employer, it really resonates with me because topics shouldn't just be covered once and the content that we're creating, I want people to take their walk for 45 minutes and hear from a physician or a clinician or subject matter expert on something of their health that they didn't know prior to listening to it, it's entertaining, but more educational. 0:10:52.8 S2: So in this case for the women out there, going and getting an evaluation for infertility is extremely difficult, it's kinda like, “Where do I go?” So you as a female may be trying, trying, trying, and then you go to your gynecologist or obstetrician, and then from there, you may have to go to a specialist, usually the dude is the last person that's looked at it. But the reality is 50% of infertility is male factor-related and 50% is female factor-related, and so what's really changed in my field is a lot of the stuff that we do on dudes when they initially come see us, some of it's actually now in your own hands. So I got reminded of this, 'cause what you're trying to do, you're trying to do a home test that you can make healthcare more accessible for kids and families, in the same way we can actually make your guy's fertility status much more accessible and in your hands, no pun intended here ‘cause I'm gonna tell you what I'm talking about. So you can actually check a full semen analyses. So when we see a couple for infertility, I just do what the guy...0:11:57.8 S2: If the guy has a problem and if he doesn't have a problem or we don't know what's going on, we try to discover it. He comes in, we get a history, a physical. If he's smoking weed, we tell him to stop. If he's smoking, we tell him to stop. He's overweight, we tell him to exercise, but then we get into nitty-gritty, so we check the testicles and then we'll order some labs, we check hormones in testosterone, but the biggest thing that we do is a semen analysis, and that's where we actually take the entire ejaculate and look for sperm counts, and just all these details that we look at, that used to be miserable to do, you have to go to a lab and you're usually put in a toilet somewhere, sometimes a shared toilet, and you gotta go and wank off without lube or anything. And then you gotta rush that thing, but that's actually changed now, and I'm not paid by this company, I just think it's pretty cool what they're doing similar to what you're doing, is at home semen analysis test. They used to be like a gimmick, but the research, there's a research article that came out in a big name Journal of Urology, where they said that this at home test is one of the first tests that…0:12:55.7 S2: Is probably just as good as what you would do in my office. And that you can just buy online on your own, I think it's called meetfellow.com or meetfellow. You can just Google it, I don't know the exact thing, but it's been a game changer. My compliance rate with my patients, 'cause I just tell them, “Hey, just do it at home” has skyrocketed up, but you can actually do that if you're like, “Hey, you know what, we haven't started yet, but hey, let's just track or…”0:13:18.0 S2: If you have a concern, you can do that, and then your labs, you can actually just get your primary care doctor do it when you're seeing them and get the routine stuff, so you can kind of do the basic stuff on your own, and a lot of couples don't realize that, and that's where the fertility part gets delayed, and then you go from being 30 to 35 to 36, and then realizing your dude, his swimmers aren't swimming. You can start doing that early, that's just a little tip to avoid any hopefully frustrations for you guys if you're trying to conceive.0:13:46.8 S1: And emotionally for the female, we carry that burden of the infertility, like “Oh, it's me”, and then you get all of the ovulation tests and you're balancing your… 0:14:02.6 S2: Patty, I'm gonna stop right there. I'm gonna stop right there. Those ovulation tests are the…I don't wanna say anything 'cause I don't wanna get yelled at, but they're like, they're horrible. Yes, yes, you can measure and see when you're most fertile. Today, I saw two couples in fertility, one of them, they only have sex for three days the whole month.0:14:16.7 S1: Oh, jeez.0:14:17.0 S2: Right around that peak, and I'm like, “Dude, you should still be doing it”. So what I tell my couples is like, “Screw that ovulation thing and just do it every other day”, and my dudes, my dudes are like “Yeah!”0:14:29.3 S2: “Did you hear that? Can we do it three times a day?” But…0:14:33.4 S2: It becomes like a, it's just so sad because you're gonna be spending thousands of dollars and if you gotta do all these hormones and testing, you're gonna be spending, you're gonna be putting all these chemicals inside of you, when all you gotta do is enjoy each other's company every other day, don't try to be so perfect with the statistic, so yes, it's ovulation test and apps. They're great, if you're doing it great, but man, don't forget about each other and why you guys are together. It's not about having a baby, it's about that intimacy in that relationship, and so enjoy it, Enjoy it. A bang for your buck, as I say. That's gonna be edited out.0:15:10.9 S1: There are so many, what was the one that you said, “Screw that”, when you start with this. Exactly, you should be screwing more if you want, if you wanna get pregnant. Right, and it shouldn't be so stressful. So with that said of a urologist, let's stop for a second, because some people might not have ever seen a urologist, and I'll back it up another step, I'm actually having you on because as a wife, I have to do the encouragement and sometimes even the calling for doctor's appointments or, I have someone that, lovely works for me, and sometimes she makes embarrassing appointments for my family, but that is my, I feel like it's my role. So for my husband, we're looking for a new doctor for him. I'll set up appointments for him, you need to go do this, and then he just goes, and he doesn't set anything up for himself, and I would like to hear about one, What your view is on the frequency that a male should be seen by their physician, and two, when do you see a urologist? Because it's a specialty. And what does the urologist do? 0:16:29.3 S2: So first, the myths. Urologists only take care of men, no. I would say my practice, about 70% men, 30% females. Second myth is that we only take care of old dudes that can't remember half the stuff they're doing. That is not true, like I see everyone from 18 to 100. The third myth is that you have to always see a primary doctor first to see a urologist. I'm gonna be careful on demystifying that myth, you should always have a primary care doctor first, that is like your quarterback or your coach that navigate, that coach that navigates everything. We are a sub-specialty, but I'm actually seeing more and more, especially young millennial men, just bypass whole system and come see me directly, and then they want me to do all this screening testing, and I think some doctors like me won't accept them, but I just say, “Okay, listen, if we have an opening, let's take them”, and then I'll do the routine urology stuff they're concerned about but I will stress the need for a primary care doctor and I will actually, on their follow-up notes, notate that that's part of the plan is they have to commit to getting a primary care doctor, so I kinda use it as a way to...0:17:38.4 S2: Yes, get them what they need from a urology standpoint, usually some candy like Viagra, Cialis or they're worried about their testosterone, but then I make sure that they get engaged with someone else, so urologists are surgeons of the genitourinary tract, so we deal with all the medical and surgical issues from the kidneys and to the tip of the penis, or the tip of the urethra in women. We do all things like kidney cancers, kidney stones, blocked tubes that go down to the bladder, bladder cancers, overactive bladder is something I'm seeing more and more and more, especially in women, and then we deal with sexual dysfunction and testicle stuff and ball pain and other things, so I personally am based, I'm nine years out of practice, I'm in Orlando, part of the Orlando Health System, and if you go to myballshurt.com, it actually comes to my website. 0:18:30 S1: Are you serious?0:18:31 S2 Yeah, I own about 300 domain names that all get filtered and you'd be surprised that people aren't looking for urologist in Orlando, they're like, “Man, myballshurt.com”. I have some other raunchy ones, which I'm not gonna say, but hey, it brings the people in.0:18:46.5 S2: We actually are a sub-specialty, and it's a specialty that no one really knows about until you actually need one. I actually needed one myself when I had a kidney stone a year and a half ago. I couldn't take care of my own stone, but we do a lot, and we're actually very broad, but we are probably the specialty that's trying to get men healthy the quickest. And that's because we see problems as sometimes are irreversible, like they can no longer have erections, or now they have issues with scarring on their penis, and it's all bent another way.0:19:16.7 S1: That sounds awful. What is that called?0:19:19.6 S2: It's called Peyronie's Disease, that's abnormal curvature of the penis, and the company that has a product that we inject into the scar to open it up has a really cool marketing campaign, it's with the carrot and like a bent carrot. They didn't have that great, great marketing, but now, I'm like, “Man, this carrot thing is pretty cool”. But hey, it gets the guys in, but we do a lot and we've become kind of like the advocates for men because we have opportunities to engage men way more than other people or other specialties may. So I personally have made it a life's mission to change some of the statistics that men are dealing with in America. Men live 5 years less than their female counterparts. Men are 50% less likely to go see a doctor when they have an acute condition, men are full of excuses when it comes to why they don't wanna go see a doctor. If you look at the top 10, the top causes of death in America have changed since COVID, but if you look at, I think it's 9 out of 10, or now even maybe 10 out of 10 causes of death in America, men are more likely to die of these than women.0:20:23.7 S2: And it's because a lot of factors, we just don't engage healthcare like we should, we think we're macho, we're afraid of the prostate exam, not everyone that comes to my office gets a prostate exam guys. So our whole thing is to get guys more healthy, and there's many different tactics to do it, but it ain't easy. Dudes are not easy to get into, and I know that because I'm a dude myself.0:20:46.0 S1: And how do you motivate you though, because you can say something and I want a reaction right away. Like, “Well, you should go do this”. And then two days later, I'd be like, “Oh, Did you make that appointment?” “Oh no, I didn't”, and then it will be like two months and this appointment is still not made, so how do you motivate a male to see a urologist or see doctor just in general.0:21:16.6 S2: Well, there's, there's many different ways, tell them he's not gonna have any dessert until he goes and sees the physician, but I think what it comes down to guys is, listen, men really don't have as many opportunities as women do to engage healthcare. So birth control is more prominent in women. When it comes to birthing years, women have to engage healthcare professionals whereas dudes, until they're having trouble peeing or their erections go down, or they're having chest pain that you really don't see a purpose, but what men need to realize is at about the age of 20, you should start going and seeing a primary care doctor. That's when you kinda get the manual for your health. Once you get that manual, everything is kind of pre-determined for you based on science and research, so whether it's a certain set of labs every five years, visits every two years or something every single year, it's all kind of catered to you based on how much you weigh, your past medical history, your parents history, your family history, so the primary care doctor is pretty good about getting that. What happens is when you go in and see your primary care doctor for the first time at 50 or 60, it's very overwhelming, 'cause you've had 50 years of life that they have to dive into, why not just form a relationship and kind of get how the healthcare systems work early and then once you got that manual, you just follow it, that's all you gotta do. It's kinda like the car, like, “Hey, I gotta change my oil here, the light goes on here, then I gotta go do this”.0:22:47.2 S2: We through Orlando Health when we did, we have this campaign called the Drive for Men's Health, where we drive across the country every summer and we use really cool tactics to get guys talking, we actually did a survey one of those years, and we asked the question, as men, we found, remember their make and model of their first car more than when their last doctors visit was, so they know everything about their cars, but very little about their healthcare. So it's just getting them to realize, “Yo, this is a priority”, how you do that is the billion dollar question, which hopefully, we'll get someone like Elon Musk or Tim Cook to support me in my endeavors and help us figure all this stuff out much more quicker, so…0:23:33.8 S1: I think from the comfortability, this might be a really bad example, but when my kids were learning their own anatomy, there were friends that would, “Well, we don't say vagina, we say who-who or kitty cat”. I'm like, “It's a vagina. It's a penis. It's not your dingaling”. And they would giggle at first, and same with fifth grade, we are talking about anatomy and after you hear it a few times, you're more comfortable with it, and what resonated for me when you said women are more comfortable with the healthcare setting, especially if we've had children, then we've had to go in even just for that first child, those first visits are very uncomfortable, or when you get your first annual gyno exam. Uncomfortable, but then you're familiar. You know what it takes. And to me, when I hear erectile dysfunction, I'm thinking, “Well, how would, it's embarrassing”. And then how would you get over the hurdle of making that call of like, “Oh, I have, I might have a problem here”, and that's where the Romans and the Hims have made it where the barrier to entry is so low, but I'm curious of what your opinion is on that, because it might not just be erectile dysfunction, there might be some...0:25:05.0 S1: There could be something that's causing that erectile dysfunction, and it's important to get into your uncomfortable zone and actually go in and see a physician if something is happening.0:25:16.2 S2: Yes, so kudos to Hims and get Roman, all these companies, they really did open up access to kind of taboo medications and topics and treatments for the mass audiences, so definitely kudos, kudos to them. But at the same time, these are for-profit entities, so you go online, you fill out a questionnaire, and if you really know what you want, you can kind of fill it out in a certain way, then you quickly get an evaluation and then you get your drugs and usually in these things, it's more response, I'd say more of a subscription model, so you gotta get three months supply, where a Cialis is gonna cost you four bucks a pill, whereas you can go to your local grocery store using GoodRx. Yay, GoodRx, sponsor us! GoodRx is gonna be about a buck a pill. The biggest thing is, I think these things are great, but I see so many patients that go see these online things, get what they need, but then you're right, they're only gonna have to work up. If you're a guy in your 40s, and the only thing or only problem you have is erectile dysfunction, I'm gonna go send you to see your cardiologist to make sure your heart's okay.0:26:24.7 S2: Early onset erectile dysfunction is a huge warning sign for cardiac disease and heart attacks in the future. I send several guys a year to the cardiologist and you'd be surprised what they find and most they don't find anything, but hey, it gives us a peace of mind. At the same time, dudes will be started on, let's say, testosterone at super high doses, and they're in their 20s and now they're having infertility, these are all things that are on there when you sign your life away on all those pages. But there's so much more to it, and yes, it's easy to do that, and it's hard to get in with someone like me, it may be a several month wait, so it sucks, and I don't know how to fill that gap, but it's possible because we have virtual visits, and you can go see a virtual primary care doctor within a healthcare organization that has consultants that can kind of help out. I think it's kind of like when it comes to your body, you can pick any car you want, I'm not gonna name any brands, but you can get the top of the line sports car to take care of you and drive you around, or you can just go for the golf cart.0:27:34.1 S2: And I think when we take these easy ways out, like the golf cart may be great, but it's not gonna get you to your final destination, so I think this is one where even if it sucks and you're gonna suck it up, go and engage in a system that you're comfortable with number one. And there's lots of ways to make it comfortable for you, we'll go into that either now or in a different way. Go into the best first, where you're gonna have tons of resources open to you and to get evaluated.0:28:00.6 S1: Go into the best first, did you say?0:28:03 S2: Yeah, I would say go and if you have to wait a little bit to see a primary care doctor that's legit, just wait.0:28:09.6 S2: And get in there, don't just try to take the golf cart mentality where you just go online and quickly get whatever you need based on symptoms. Don't focus on the symptom, focus on you and your entire body. I think that's essential. So it's worth the wait because you only get one body.0:28:25.5 S1: I just had this conversation with my son, so I have two boys, 18 and 16, and I'm not sure if you've heard this from guys that age, but they really think that steroids isn't a big deal, and they wanna get big and have big muscles and be studly for when they get older, right now they do. And I say there are repercussions in doing that, and I'm wondering if you can elaborate on that.0:28:58.6 S2: I've been fortunate where I haven't had to deal with getting kids off of this stuff, I have heard stories of people being on them and with their kid, and some of the stories are pretty sad, it's kinda like you've got this peer pressure to be the best sports athlete, and then you want to appease your coach, and you want that cheerleader to look at you. I think as a kid, if you're taking steroids, that's one of the stupidest things you can do. I'd have no other way to describe it. Is it a defect on the part of you as a parent? No, 'cause sometimes you don't even know what's going on, but I think this is where it's essential, as we go off, just a quick tangent, you gotta have open communication with your kids day one. So as you mentioned like you, I'm just gonna use the words that are there and make sure that their biggest confidant is not some girl or we have to be equal here or a guy that they have a crush on, that it's always you. Steroids, yes, you can get those gains, but those are not everlasting gains. Once you stop, they're gone. But once you stop, you may have caused yourself infertility, you may have increased your risk of heart attacks and blood clots in the future.0:30:09.4 S2: Dudes that take steroids without prescriptions and try to get big, they're taking a lot of stuff, and what's really funny is when I tell guys this they just start laughing, and I'm gonna try not to laugh. When you take steroids or exogenous testosterone like yeah, your muscles may get big and your balls are gonna shrink.0:30:28.4 S1: It's true, it really happens.0:30:30.5 S2: You're gonna have small balls. Yeah, so you may have guns, that's where you can say the beach is that way and you can move your like man boobs left and right, so do you wanna be known as the guy with the small balls? It's true, and that's because when you take all this stuff, exogenously, your testicle thinks, “Woah, they don't need me, there's no use for me”, 'cause the testicle is where most of your testosterone is made. That's also where your sperm is made. So if you're taking exogenous stuff, then your testicle's gonna be like, “Alright, I don't gotta work” and it's gonna kinda shrivel up.0:31:01.1 S1: They get lazy.0:31:02.3 S2: They get lazy, shrivel up and say, “Buh-bye”, the testicle actually in most cases, stops producing sperm. You should not get into the habit of this now. What if you're a parent? How are you gonna know? There are kind of ways, I'm not an expert at this, but there are ways, 'cause when people are on these things, they may have mood changes, they may be super irritable, you may be like, “Yo dude, you never had acne in your life, and now you have crazy acne,” well, acne. You may notice that they're a little bit more swollen, they have fluid retention. So there's lots of different things that you can kind of look at, but I hope kids aren't doing this and if they are, then try to stop it 'cause it can be very dangerous for them now and in the future.0:31:46.4 S1: I completely agree. I can't wait until Will Post listens to this and he hears you say that.0:31:54.2 S2: Who's that?0:31:54.6 S1: That's my son. 0:31:57 S2: How old is he? 0:31:58 S1: He's 18.0:32:00.2 S2: 18, what does he wanna do with his life?0:32:02.6 S1: He's gonna be a entrepreneur, finance major, entrepreneurship.0:32:08.2 S2: You've determined that for him?0:32:09.4 S1: No, that's what he wants to do. We just went to visit schools. I actually want him to be like finance, econ, I'm like don't be an entrepreneur. That's crazy talk. But he wants to, so we'll see.0:32:25.6 S2: He has to follow in your footsteps. No, I think that's good. I think you're letting him kind of flourish, like I know, we have one daughter that wants to be a lawyer, one daughter that wants to be a doctor like me, and then we got one daughter that wants to be an artist. And so when she first said that to us, me and my wife were like... But we didn't how to engage that conversation because we're thinking like, “Okay, most of the artists we know, financially, everything else may be struggling”, but then my wife looked at, well, there's lots of artists that are thriving, they're doing better than us, so we kind of now encourage it, and let them do whatever they want, but it's hard I think being a parent. So I think if he wants to be an entrepreneur let him be an entrepreneur. I never thought I was gonna be a penis doctor.0:33:10.9 S1: When you were 18, you weren't like, “This is what I'm going to, this is what I'm going to pursue. Urology!”0:33:20.0 S2: I didn't even know what urology was until med school, I didn't even know it was a specialty. I personally knew what urology was, but I didn't know what urology was. No, I didn't even know the specialty existed, 'cause every, I'm of Indian origin, I was born in New Jersey. Patients think I'm not from America, but I am from America, I was born in New Jersey. New Jersey is a state in the United States of America. I know New Yorkers kinda don't believe in that, but when I was, most of my family was either cardiologists, like heart doctors or primary care doctors, so that's all I knew. Throughout med school, you do these rotations, and I fell in love with it, and now I made a career out of it. I just wish my mom could really explain to people what I do, but it's okay. I'm a kidney doctor, I'm like, “Mom, I'm a surgeon”.0:34:04.8 S1: Right, you're in the OR, how many days a week?0:34:09.3 S2: About two days a week, and I'm in the clinic about two and a half days a week.0:34:14.0 S1: We hope you enjoyed the first half of Patty's conversation with Dr. B. Make sure to catch the second half on the next episode. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. We hope you got a lot out of it. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can stay up-to-date with our latest episodes. Also, you can find us on social media by searching, Checkable Health. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

In this episode of the Brand Narrative podcast, Andrew Snyder, Sr VP of Marketing and Communications at Orlando Health. Links discussed include: Andrew Snyder bio Orlando Health The Brand Narrative podcast is produced and published by Findsome & Winmore and hosted by Matt Certo, agency CEO and author of Formulaic: How Thriving Companies Market from the Core.

How to build wealth by investing in our children is how Antwan Williams finds value. He stresses the importance of learning the value of saving and writing down your goals through his new Children's book Mansa Little Reminders. Antwan also spends a lot of time on Strategic growth initiatives as a healthcare executive to understand the underlying financial impact on his community.  He brings a genuine optimistic spirit to challenge the status quo and cares about people.  The oldest of ten, he leads the way to impact more communities beyond his own. Antwan believes in  Self-reflecting to better understand what he wants in life. He puts in the research to become a high-performing healthcare executive and forever learner. Antwan D. Williams is an Author, leader in healthcare, and servant to the community.  His book, Mansa's Little Reminders, is a financial literacy gem for kids everywhere. Antwan is currently with Henry Ford Health as Vice President of Operations with the Wyandotte Hospital. He is also co-founder of The Advancement League. A membership ecosystem known for career development, community impact, and their annual Young Health Leader Summit. Before serving in his current role, Antwan served as Executive Administrator for Allied Health and Support Services for Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies and the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children at Orlando Health.Originally from St. Petersburg, Florida, Antwan joined Orlando Health from the Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pennsylvania, where he directed numerous service line initiatives, including serving as the Executive leading the systems' emergency departments across the 12-hospital campus portfolio.Antwan earned his Bachelor of Science in business management at Florida State University and his Master's degree in health services administration at the University of Central Florida.https://www.henryford.com/www.5starbdm.com

Healthcare reimbursement models are ever-changing which requires the industry to seek out diversity in thought and experience to stay fiscally resilient in challenging times.  LaTasha Barnes understands the importance of financial operations to meet the needs of taking care of people. Resiliency in a highly competitive industry during challenging times has led her to see the healthcare system holistically when making key decisions.  Patient flow and care continuum are paramount and top of mind when assessing supply utilization, patient acuity, industry benchmarks and key performance indicators.  “ The numbers don't always tell the whole story. You must understand the business operations to be an effective financial executive.  Says LaTasha BarnesBe intentional when framing opportunities in healthcare finance Alternative career experiences can make you special because it gives you differentiation!   As chief financial officer (CFO) of Bayfront Health St. Petersburg, LaTasha Barnes oversees all financial operations for the 480-bed regional hospital. Previously, she was CFO of Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies and Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children from 2018-to 2020 and played a leading role in financial, operational, and strategic initiatives for the organization.LaTasha has more than 20 years of experience in healthcare finance. Before joining Orlando Health, she held leadership positions with Hospital Corporation of American (HCA), most recently as CFO of Tampa Community Hospital. An experienced CPA, she also is a former auditor for Arthur Andersen and Deloitte & Touche.She earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from Tennessee State University in Nashville and holds CPA licenses in both Florida and Tennessee.LaTasha is a member of the National Association of Black Accountants and has served on the board of directors for Central Florida Community Arts, Girls on the Run Central Florida, and the African American Chamber of Commerce Central Florida and was recently chosen as a nominee as Business Woman of the Year honoree.Let us welcome LaTasha Barnes to the Follow The Brand podcast where we are building a 5 STAR Brand that you can follow! https://www.orlandohealth.com/www.5starbdm.com

First of all, anybody who thinks that your average citizen in the United States today is unaware of the financial double jeopardy of going to a doctor, going to an emergency room, getting a procedure is sorely mistaken. Americans today are well aware of the financial risk that they are taking by seeking healthcare in this country. To illustrate this point, let me read the first couple of sentences from a New York Times best-selling book review: “The illness narrative, ending in financial ruin and decreased quality of life, has become one of the classic 21st-century American stories. In her debut essay collection, Emily Maloney documents the … intersections of money, illness and medicine. For Maloney, the primary experience of receiving health care is not merely a bodily or spiritual event but always … a financial one. She understands … the relationship of money to being ill, … to managing an unfathomable amount of debt.” This is a New York Times best-selling book in the beginning of 2022.  Add to this something I saw Pete Scruggs write on LinkedIn a while back, which I found actionable. He said:   “Patients selling personal items or taking on credit card debt after medical procedures is a failure of creativity in providing healthcare. It is possible to build creative health plans that reduce costs for patients with expensive procedures by giving wise guidance at the time patients need it the most. “It is not enough for insurance to provide access to a wide range of health providers but effectively leave the patient in debt … after the procedures are done. It is possible to buy healthcare so well in the local community that employers can reduce cost dramatically at the time most needed by those using health services.” And lastly, let me quote from a recent article in JAMA by David Scheinker, PhD; Arnold Milstein, MD; and Kevin Schulman, MD, which says, “The financial consequences of an underperforming health insurance market (one that is not holding down … cost … ) diminishes the quality of life affordable to US employees and their families and the financial viability of employers not in the health care industry.”  So, in this healthcare podcast, I am speaking with Wayne Jenkins, MD, who is chief medical officer over at Centivo. Before his move into value-based healthcare about 10 years ago, Dr. Jenkins started his career as a radiation oncologist. He has also served as the chief clinician at a bunch of large health systems. I wanted to have Dr. Jenkins on the show to discuss a recent report which was published by Centivo that methodically dissects how financial toxicity is affecting patients. This includes how it affects choices that employees/patients/members are making both in terms of the care they decide they are willing to pay for or, more likely, the financial risks they're willing to take.  In short, the three key findings of the report are as follows: Workers face mounting healthcare affordability issues, and health plan cost sharing features such as high deductibles are an underlying cause. Just a quick spoiler here: Do you know the percentage of employees who are forgoing buying groceries in order to afford medical expenses left on their shoulders by their high-deductible health plan or by their health plan with excessive premiums? Going hungry isn't just for minimum wage workers. Medical expenses are a significant cause of mental health and well-being issues for both individuals and also families. The conventional wisdom that health plan members will never “trade off” certain offerings for greater savings is simply false. The big takeaway here, though, is that the situation that we have in this country today is not a secret among your average regular American civilian. They do fully understand that by entering a healthcare setting, they are very well trading off, in their attempt to be healthy and going to the doctor in pursuit of that aim, they are trading off their financial well-being. And that financial toxicity actually has health implications. If you can't afford groceries, for example, or your mental health suffers, we get ourselves rather rapidly into a downward spiral, as you may be able to see. Other episodes dedicated to the impact of financial toxicity and possible solutions are in the show notes. I'm just gonna mention here quickly, we talked to Marty Makary, MD, about his book called The Price We Pay (EP242). There's an interview with Marshall Allen (EP328) and then also a very interesting conversation with Mark Fendrick, MD (EP308).   You can learn more at centivo.com.   Wayne Jenkins, MD, is the chief medical officer at Centivo. He is an accomplished physician and executive with a proven track record of patient-centered, revenue-driven results. Over the course of his career, he has consistently transformed large, complex healthcare systems into market leaders that deliver quality and value in a dynamically changing environment. Prior to Centivo, he was the chief clinical officer for population health at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he provided clinical oversight of value-based care delivery and completed the formation of Medicare accountable care organizations (ACOs). Before his time at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, he served as the senior vice president and chief strategy officer of Orlando Health, as well as president of Orlando Health Physician Partners. Previously, Wayne was the chief of radiation oncology and then subsequently the medical director for the Florida affiliate of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, a subsidiary of Orlando Health, Inc. Wayne holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Tennessee, an MD from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and a master's of health policy and administration from Johns Hopkins University. He is board certified in radiation oncology and was recognized in Best Doctors in America annually from 1994 to 2015. He has published 18 scientific articles and is often sought out to speak at state and national conferences. 05:23 How is financial toxicity in healthcare affecting patients? 07:02 How do we define a “normal” deductible in today's healthcare? 08:14 What's the point of having a deductible? What does a plan gain from a high deductible? 10:43 How does the cost of a patient's deductible correlate with their use of their health insurance? 12:51 EP308 with Mark Fendrick, MD.15:18 How is health insurance actually sometimes reducing patients' health? 16:24 What is the defining characteristic of those who are more adversely affected by high deductibles? 17:04 Why should CFOs consider plans with lower deductibles for their employees? 18:26 “Are there other ways to approach this in a marketplace, to get more value for what you're paying for so this problem can be addressed?” 21:56 How should employers contemplate health plans moving forward? 22:24 “Having the health plan choice gives more financial viability in addition to that open access.” 22:58 “In some sense, [that] can be a zero-sum game. Do you get it in the premium, or is it paid in the higher deductible?” 23:45 “I think there are value choices in the market that may help negate some of the problems that we were just discussing.” 25:33 “I think conventional wisdom may be left over from the '90s.” 26:49 Why does building these narrow networks have to be a science? 28:38 Does a narrow network adversely affect mental health? 32:20 “Narrow and excellent is not a bad choice for people.” You can learn more at centivo.com.  Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses health insurance plan design on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts How is financial toxicity in healthcare affecting patients? Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts How do we define a “normal” deductible in today's healthcare? Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts What's the point of having a deductible? What does a plan gain from a high deductible? Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts How does the cost of a patient's deductible correlate with their use of their health insurance? Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts How is health insurance actually sometimes reducing patients' health? Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts What is the defining characteristic of those who are more adversely affected by high deductibles? Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts Why should CFOs consider plans with lower deductibles for their employees? Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts “Are there other ways to approach this in a marketplace, to get more value for what you're paying for so this problem can be addressed?” Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts How should employers contemplate health plans moving forward? Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts “Having the health plan choice gives more financial viability in addition to that open access.” Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts “In some sense, [that] can be a zero-sum game. Do you get it in the premium, or is it paid in the higher deductible?” Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts “I think there are value choices in the market that may help negate some of the problems that we were just discussing.” Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts “I think conventional wisdom may be left over from the '90s.” Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts Why does building these narrow networks have to be a science? Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts Does a narrow network adversely affect mental health? Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts “Narrow and excellent is not a bad choice for people.” Wayne Jenkins, MD, of @Centivo_Health discusses on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthcarecosts Recent past interviews: Click a guest's name for their latest RHV episode! Liliana Petrova, Ge Bai, Nikhil Krishnan, Shawn Rhodes, Pramod John (EP353), Pramod John (EP352), Dr Eric Bricker, Katy Talento, Stacey Richter (INBW33), Stacey Richter (INBW32), Dr Steve Schutzer (Encore! EP294), Lisa Trumble, Jeb Dunkelberger, Dr Ian Tong, Mike Schneider, Peter Hayes, Paul Simms, Dr Steven Quimby, Dr David Carmouche (EP343), Christin Deacon, Gary Campbell, Kristin Begley, David Contorno (AEE17), David Contorno (EP339), Nikki King, Olivia Webb, Brandon Weber, Stacey Richter (INBW30)  

It's National Engineers Week and we are celebrating Novlet Mattis, Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Orlando Health. In this episode, Novlet shares why she became a “Coder Girl”. As Orlando Health's CIO, Novlet provides executive leadership for information technology and systems that advance clinical and business strategies and optimize operational processes.Prior to joining Orlando Health in 2018, she was with Ascension Information Services in St. Louis, where she served as vice president of information technology, supporting more than 125 hospitals across the U.S. as well as international joint ventures.  Mattis began her career with AT&T and started as a COBOL programmer for billing systems. She later ended up working for Dell, and after working in a couple other verticals, she was placed on a healthcare account in Texas. That is at that very moment she was introduced to healthcare IT. Mattis shares that healthcare is a unique vertical in that, even as part of IT, you feel connected to the mission of caring and healing. At Dell, Lucent and AT&T, she was able to develop great technical skills, but now in this current position she truly feels that the projects she works on are making a difference in people's lives.Mattis earned a bachelor's in business administration from Howard University and an MBA from George Washington University, both in Washington, D.C. She is a Certified Healthcare CIO through the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME).

On this episode, Joel talks to Ken Kozielski, VP of Customer Experience at Orlando Health, a not-for-profit healthcare organization founded more than 100 years ago and Florida's #1 Health Care Employer. Ken describes the two key elements in unlocking trust, the INCREDIBLE story of a housekeeper giving hope and care, saving the life of a patient with Covid, how fun at work makes us human, and much more.

Midwife Brooke Schmoe shares with Michelle the incredible and inspirational story of her journey to becoming a midwife and her calling to provide high-caliber health care to women in all stages of life. Brooke believes that every woman deserves to be heard, helped, and supported by competent providers who care about her. Thus, The Midwife Bus was born! No one is turned away, regardless of their health history, socioeconomic status, or inability to pay. The Midwife Bus is a retired Bloodbank bus that has been renovated into an ultramodern midwifery clinic on wheels. It was first purchased by Charlie Rae Young, a Tampa midwife, who pioneered the idea of a mobile midwifery clinic to provide care to underserved populations. Brooke was inspired by Charlie's work (and by a serendipitously timed NPR interview with Dr. James O'Connell, a doctor for the homeless in Boston). After working at a high-volume birth center in Orlando, Florida, she was determined to do something with her midwifery training that would bring quality women's health care to the most vulnerable women in her hometown of Osceola County, Florida. When Brooke reached out to her, Charlie happened to be looking for a new home for the bus, as her philanthropic efforts had taken her in a different direction. She willingly gifted the bus to her to continue spreading the important work she had begun.Starting with a lot of passion but very few resources to help make this dream a reality, Brooke came across a grant opportunity offered by a local hospital chain, Orlando Health. The Midwife bus was blessed to be chosen out of dozens of applicants to receive their top Community Benefit Grant award in 2019. These resources allowed Brooke to complete phase two of the bus renovation and to get the bus back out on the road again!Brooke also serves as a homebirth midwife for Central Florida Families."I am driving a bus. Like, just little ol' me, driving a bus. It's so random. But it's working, and really God is using me to touch so many people. And, just to help where people wouldn't normally have any options or any resources. Just being able to help them, it's been amazing."—Brooke Schmoe About Brooke:Brooke Schmoe is a native of Kissimmee, Florida. She grew up amongst the medical journals and birth stories of her OBGYN father, which sparked an interest in women's health from an early age. Birthing her first daughter under the care of a midwife inspired her to pursue midwifery as a profession. She went on to have three more home births (all girls!) under the care of amazing midwives. She graduated in 2015 from The Florida School of Traditional Midwifery in Gainesville, Florida. She began dreaming about The Midwife Bus concept after working at a high volume practice and seeing the blatant disparities in education, pregnancy health, emotional health, birth outcomes, and quality of life between the wealthy and indigent families. Wanting to bring gentle, respectful care into all neighborhoods, she founded The Midwife Bus in 2018. Brooke cares sincerely about educating women, giving them autonomy over their own healthcare, and connecting families with resources that will help them establish self-reliance. She currently resides in South-East Orlando with her husband Nathan and their four daughters. Connect with Brooke:Donate:  The Midwife BusWebsite:  https://themidwifebus.org/Facebook: @themidwifebusInstagram: @themidwifebus Connect with Michelle Smith:Classes with Michelle: birtheaseservices.com/birth-ease-childbirth-education, birtheasehypnobirth.com/hypnobirthing-classes-orlando-michelleFacebook:   Birth Ease,   The Birth Ease Podcast,  Birth Ease Baby Loss SupportInstagram:    @birtheasemichellesmith,  @birtheaselossssupportYouTube:    Birth EaseLinkedIn:  Birth Ease Michelle SmithWebsite:  BirthEaseServices.com  birtheasehypnobirth.com

EPISODE 77 | Dr. Megan Gray is a practicing obstetrician/gynecologist with over 15 years of experience, as well as a mom of two littles and wife. She was a scholar athlete in gymnastics and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. Gray received her medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina and then completed her Ob/Gyn residency training at Orlando Health in Orlando, Florida. She has cared for thousands of women and delivered well over a thousand babies in her career so far, but it wasn't until she went through the postpartum experience herself that she really understood what was lacking in maternal care. While on maternity leave, with her first child she was inspired by her own experience to write Amazon bestselling The Forgotten Trimester: Navigating Self-Care After Birth. Dr. Gray is the co-creator of Postpartum U, a postpartum preparation group coaching program. She's passionate about improving the experience of the fourth trimester through educating, encouraging, and empowering moms about their health and wellness after birth. In the episode, Dr. Gray shares why new moms struggle more during the postpartum period now than they did many years ago, many of the unexpected challenges they face, how any new mom can make the “fourth trimester” more bearable...and more! Enjoy!! EPISODE WEBPAGE: thehealthinvestment.com/77 P.S. – If you're liking The Health Investment Podcast, be sure to hit “subscribe/follow” so that you never miss an episode