Robert J. Cerfolio, MD

The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now. It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me, buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones. I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but you should at least know what's happening, and it is. The tour kicks off late September and goes through the

I know he's a surgeon.

It's not any of this show business circus crap that I usually get in here.

He's a proper growing up doctor, doctor Robert J. S Folio.

So let me tell you this, yes, doctor, as a doctor like sarcastically that I.

Shouldn't say that. You know why. You know, you didn't deserve it.

You are a doctor, and you're a very good doctor. And that's and so I don't want to say doctor. So let me let me try that again.

Let me tell you something, doctor, Yeah, that was a yeah, all right.

So the only rule I have for myself on this podcast is I only talk to people I want to talk to.

That's the only rule. I love that. Yeah.

See, and that's why you are my second repeat guest. Wow, you're the only only the second person who ever did it?

So now I have to ask who was the first? Jesus very close, very close. Kathy Lee Geffert a very good friend of Jesus, and she is, I mean, they are best friend. You know. I listened to one of your podcasts and it was her. Yeah, didn't do you know? Kathy?

No, I feel I feel like you say that, like, how would I meet you mean you're.

A simple robotic lung surgeon. Why would I mean, come on? Fuck you? Well that I hear a lot.

Yeah. So the the idea that I would invite you back is and I don't want you in any way to think this is a way for me to get free medical advice.

But I'm happy to provide it because it's worth what you pay for it. All right, So here you do work on the esophius, right, I do. We've talked about it that I think the last time you were here. Because my father died of cancer. I remember. Obviously I'm paranoid, but you have parrots. I do not have Barretts.

Because I got to nandoscope and they had to look at what they called a molecular paneling and biopsy. Yeah, yeah, that I got called Arnie Markowitz, did it?

He's a sloon cattering beautiful. Yeah.

So I don't want to I don't want to promote the competition, you know.

No, So the competition is cancer and healthcare and equity and diabetes. It's not slung kettering Columbia Cord. Now we can say very noble man, but that is true. It is true. And of course we can say that with the NYU because we're the number one ranked lung cancer program in the world and the number one hospital, number two hospital in the United States and north of rank. So of course we can take the higher road.

Wait, wait a minute, I got to ask then, in the same way as Kathy Lee Gifford, who's.

The number one hospital in the United States. Unfortunately, because of a reputation factor as opposed to outcomes, the Mayo Clinic is number one, number two. That's according to US News and World Report, and also Mayo. They're named after a condiment. It's not the it's not what you want in a hospital. That's what we should be. That's what we did wrong. You should be ketchup or some kind of Berneese wow, that would have been that would have

Then people really come to you. So let me ask you this, right, So I got this. I got this endoscope done. By the way, do you know that in Britain on the National Health Service they give endoscopes without anesthesia.

They do a lot of things in Britain in a national healthcare system, like.

I was talking about Buddy and he gets an endoscope he said, he said, I was the whole time I went, you weren't asleep.

Yeah, it's crazy. Well, sometimes they do it because it's a lot less expensive to do it in outpatient facilities, which we do. But then to have an anesthesiologist there as opposed to a nurse anesthesiologist to practice, you can reduce your costs. And they give you a little bit of twilight stuff like colonoscopy as opposed to being completely out. No, I go for the phil probofall for the kolonoscopy too. I remember that you enjoyed that.

Yeah, you know, it's not so much the caliscopy because I have no memory.

The fact you get one one a month has clued me in that you would joy. Not so much the process. I've got to be careful with that's medicine. Well you know my history, you know with drugs. So I remember like that prop See this is a thing. Did I talk to you about this? What I got dental surgery done? No, I don't know about the dental.

So I get a couple of years ago, I got dental surgery done, and they give me a pain because it's pretty painful thing.

Right. It was like some bone marrow thing or something. Bone it was. It wasn't a root canal. No, they an extraction and then they put in an implant. Yeah, I have an implant screwed into the bone. Yeah.

But they had to put bone marrow transplant in before bone grafting. Yeah, an bone graft. So they do all of that. It's all very painful. And the dog, she says, here's some painkillers. And I said, well, I gotta be careful. We went out, these would be all right, I take one of these days. I don't even I don't even put myself in charge of them. I give them to my wife.

That's fantastically responsible. Well, with my history, you gotta be careful, and I appreciate it.

So I give them to my wife, and I say, all right, you'll none of these, and if it gets too bad.

I'll take one. Right, so it gets really bad, which night, first night? Second night? I think it was the second night, you're not sure. It means they were working very well, but.

Yeah, so I take this one. It's called percisset.

Yeah, percocets. Jesus's that's the real deal.

I have never had a better drug in my fucking life. Really, and I've taken one purpose of one of them. Man, I just like the the I've taken everything everything, heroine, cocaine, speed and all of I've had all all the drugs I've had, But legal drugs.

Gosh, unbelieve it's interesting. So here's the funny thing. I have never even had marijuana. I have tried nothing. Hate marijuana. I hate the smell of it. I saw in New York. It's says like you're in marijuana everywhere. It's unbelievable. I come out of my apartment building at six thirty in the morning, he goes see my patients, and the waft of it sounds like a skunk. Literally sounds like a skunk. That's what they call it. They call it skunk. It's

We also I think it's uh, it's persecution against my people, the Scots and the Irish because because.

Italians will be careful, there's a lot of wine going on.

But here's the thing the Scot's in the Irish like if you're a good old gooda Scots and Irish, you know y gooda a good old Scots and I I was going to say drunk, and then I changed my mind, so it sided to goda.

I just made up a word. Go does the hell of a word a go to you? We'll just make it. We'll just make it. It's a new word. We developed it right here Urban Dictionary. Right.

So if you're a goda, which means good old drunk from Scotland or Island, right, you have to hide your shame by by putting it in a brown paper or flask flasks or a brown paper bag in the streets, so people think you're having a soda and everybody knows you're not having soa direct but you have to hide it. But if you're you know, one of those continental types it likes to smoke marijuana cigarettes.

You can just walk down the streets smoke at them. It's crazy. Yeah, I like the days when at least they had to hide it. Now my apartment building, I have a nice apartment building two blocks from work, so I can be in the o R if there's a problem close to the patients, or there's an administrative problem. I'm in in two minutes. There's people on my floor that's smoking. Not supposed to smoke in the building.

Yeah, but it gets in people's clothes and in their hair and stuff, and they can't smell anymore.

It's like cat people.

It is great analogy. It's like cat people. The cat people, they can't smell like these smell a cat, but these smell.

A cat, and they always smell like cats.

Yeah, and their houses smell like cats. Terrible when you go to their houses and I go to their houses and love.

I don't know. So what's the affinity between you and the cat people. It's just there might be a there might be an important thread there emotionally for you.

Well, I think I've probably run in a tox of plasmosis from an old girlfriend.

Maybe very good, you know, cox of plasma because I'm because I know what cats can do.

My brother in law was bitten by a cat right what year was, I don't know, like four or five years ago recently. Yeah, So he's bitten by a cat and he goes to our doctor in California. It's bad because my wife is with him at the time she was about that, we were in Scotland. She was going to come over at Scotland. She said, I gotta stay I mean, he was bitten by a cat. You gotta stay by.

You gotta kitting's got in the airplane and go. Well apparently he gives yes, he got Oh you are filming. Yeah, the lion's got a red streaky infection going up the tendon. That can actually be very serious. That can be very serious. That they were saying, maybe we have to amputate the arm. Maybe that's drastic ivy antibiotics train. Yeah, and they opened the bite and drain it right.

They did all that and it was fine. But I mean they said, I if you had left it longer from a cat. So here's my next question. Was the cat alive the next day. The cat's doing my my wife's family of cat people. They like cats. They may like him more than they like her brother.

Well that's now, that was the next question, because there was the brother there two days later. Because when you got to choose between the cat and the brother in law versus brother.

Well, he doesn't he I don't think he even puts it together like he would have a cat to this day, not that one. No, maybe not that one. But but that's the thing. People like, we have a cat. I am a cat in my house, but I know now that that cat is a potential deadly killer.

You could also lose in a hand right or another appendage of your body.

I would never let a cat bite my peepe you just oh listen, by the way, I want to talk to you about plastic surgery.

Here's the thing that's funny. How he went right from his penis the plastic service.

Well, this is the sam there is a thread the definitely definitely well, I was thinking, I'm going to get place.

It's about my time. Sixty two now, yeah, and I am also you're sixty two or a twenty fourth nineteen nine, nineteen sixty two, May seventeen. I remember that, remember right, older than me, so I know a little more about it. As the camera shows, you look just a little bit over. Well, that's what I'm saying. But it was great in our own mind. But here's the thing.

Sixty two, I think, okay, it's time for some plastic surgery. I thought I'll start with my testicles. Wait what, well, I'll get my testicles improved in some.

Way, I don't can. I think they're very plump? Well you think no, no symmetric.

Look, I think by the way, I think actually even calling them testicles is medically an actorate agree?

What do you want to call them? Testical and friend?

I heard that just because because let's be honest, it's it's.

Not it's not equal partnership.

It's not it's not law and hardy, it's you know, it's testical and friend, it's you know, well so, so I think what I'd like to do is have it put into I'll have the other one built up, and then the whole surrounding package smoothed out.

They don't smooth. You don't want that smooth out. That's got a certain ruga around it, so you have a certain skin around it so if you get cold, it can retract and help you stay warm. That's why this has teleologically been selected for over eons of evolution to work as well as they work. What do they know about it so much? But here's the thing with the population.

But what if I get my testicles, like, maybe get some kind of coating put on them so they.

Don't get cold. So we're gonna you want fur coats I want to look. I have a kind of threadbare fur coat there already. But what I'm saying is silic, some kind of silicon thing.

Maybe it's best. It's super effective chemical. Yeah, I forget these links.

It's a bit cancery, but it's a little Yeah. But what I thought i'd do is if I have a procedure done on my testicles. First, this is my insurance policy. If they bought it, it doesn't matter.

It's true because their testicles they look butched already. Nobody and nobody sees them. Well, nobody cares, not that you're showing testicular cleavage. I mean, it's not a common thing. Well, you know, he could be. But if that was at the Olympics. You saw that thing at the Olympics by the guy with the swimming the French guy. No, the opening ceremony of the Olympics, they had, Uh, that was outrageous. It was outraged, mocking. Don't ask Kathy Lee about they

I'm just I'm just speaking to the populace people who want to understand what's going on medical, you know, like the lower pole of the right descended testicle, but you couldn't say it the underball, all right, so underball.

So the guy who showed under ball, I saw a picture of it. One of the patients was showing it to me. They couldn't believe it. That's outrageous.

So look, I figured though, that if I get the plastic surgery done, you know, and they butcher, it doesn't matter, because testicles look like they're botched.

They do. They're one of the most ugliest.

They are the deep sea creature of your pants. There's no doubt about it. They they are, they're they're they're terrible. They're not attractive. And anyway, as as a world renowned surgeon and doctor, right, well, no team, our team is world Your team is the number one lung cancer surgical program again according to the US News and World.

Right right this year this year. Now, first of all, we're tied tied for the Mayo clinic, the Mayo Clinic also good. They're they're pretty good, all right. Our outcomes are better, they're their reputation factor.

I have to say for for someone in your line and work, outcomes extremely important.

It kind of matters. It's kind of important. I know that the work you do is so do.

The work you and your team do right, yes, is so harrowing, so focused, and so high stakes and such a difficult thing to do. And yet over the time getting to know you, you are a light, easy, cheerful, upbeat human being.

And I find that fascinating. I appreciate it.

But I'm kind of interested, is to because I know a little bit about your story.

We talked in the last time.

You got some tragedy in your past, You've got difficulty in your own life, and.

All everyone's had challenges, of course.

Of course, but I wonder and what I want to talk to you about today was a little bit about maintaining emotional equilibrium as someone who works in the face of death almost every day.

Such a great question, because I would tell you there's people listening who do very difficult brain surgery or brain aneurysm surgery, or some of our cardiac surgeons that do aortic work. We're going to say, this guy's just a little robotic lung surgeon. He's not dealing with life and death like I'm or people who do other jobs out there that are putting themselves at danger. My patient's at danger, but I'm sitting on a robot. I got my nice lucky socks on. I'm comfortable. I'm not a danger like

This is all very good, doctor, but let's have a a let's work with the idea that I am the therapist and you.

Okay, I thought we were out of the patient. I switch it somehow. I don't bet because I said to.

You, how do you maintain emotional equilibrium in the face of life and death decisions for other people? Sometimes, yes, that you're making And you, doctor told me about all the people that do other work. And I think that's lovely and noble, but it ain't.

But that's my answer. Really, that actually is my saying about other people. I honestly do because I know that other people that are doing things that are more dangerous, right they have a higher like our risk of lung our ninety day mortality for long surgy is almost zero now. When I started, it was two and a half percent. Now with little incisions and robots and the anaesthesiologists are so good, in the nurses and the pulmonologists, it's zero

I didn't think you were evade. I think that you are. I think you are a genuinely upbeat I am nice guys. It's just my nature.

As I always see the glass half full, of the coffee cup right half full. I always have seen it that way. I'm so lucky to get to do what I do. I don't find it stressful. I thrive on competition.

You know.

I'm a member of a place I go up to on the weekends and I play golf and pickleball, and unless it's super close, and unless it comes down to the last putt or the last drive in the eighteenth hole, or the fifth game, I play singles pickleball with a couple of incredible athletes who are unbelievably successful, people much more successful than me, and it comes down to that fifth game, that final point. That is what I thrive on.

That means said, you tell a patient, look, you got something here you want to do with it? Or no, that's that's basically yeah.

And we say you have a growing nodule, it looks like an obvious cancer. And before surgery, we assess their risks with breathing tests, stress tests, echo cardiogram, we get a cat scan, a PETS gain, we make sure it hasn't metastasized. So we stage their cancer. We assess their risks, and then we do an operation that I've done nineteen thousand, one hundred and eighteen of I think, now, wow, over

Oh my god, I mean, is a consideration and you're lying to work, you go like you look at the personality of a patient and you say, look, this is the person with drug and alcohol history.

They have a problem with it.

And yet this surgery has to be done and they're going to need a painkiller after it is consideration?

Do you think about it? Not only is the consideration, it is something we preemptively work on and we get them into a pain clinic even before surgery. That's interesting, so that there's a pain doctor who can manage the narcotics, because it's like drinking a cup of coffee. If you have twenty cups of coffee day, me giving the other one doesn't help. So if you're comingly actively addicted to any type of narcotic and then I'm going to rev up your pain cycle with an operation. Even little tiny

It is, and so I wonder is it like particularly something like the world that I move in.

I know a lot of sober alcoholics and.

And a law of not a law, but I have heard stories, and I've known people who have had long time sobriety screwed.

Up through procedures. Yeah they have. They have a procedure, yep.

They take a painkiller and they're not prepared for what it does, you know, and and it sets off a cycle of addiction, which is difficult to understand.

I think even if you have and I have it, I don't think it's difficult to understand. We I mean, we all know as healthcare providers what these medicines can do. Right, we only can give you three pills when you leave the hospital. You have to come back and see us

Yes, So it's interesting to me because the idea of the emotionality of that, I find this fascinating. I've had a friend, a couple of friends actually now who have had heart surgeries, big ones.

Yeah, bypass all wires in the sternamy.

So the effect of the surgery physically on both of these guys was extremely one hundred percent successful. Yeah, they both experienced profound owned the depression.

Yes, after the surge. I've heard of that. Yeah, no one. I mean I'm not you know, I don't anything the basis and I'm not a scientist.

But yeah, is that is that something that you're aware of after because even after like a tiny surgery, if I get I'm like, eh, messes with your head a little bit.

So there's two things in that. First of all, being on cardiopulmonary bypass, which is something that happens specifically with heart surgery because the heart's not beating. Then you have to put him in a pump that both oxygenates and circulates the blood around, so the machine is keeping you alive. The machine's keeping there's some data that that could hurt cognitive function. Remember my dad was a super smart surgeon.

You know?

And then we did it again and he got better. But so I think depression is common from a general anesthetic depression and cognitive loss has been bantered around about being on bypass, but there's no good data for it. I think clearly maybe just being in the hospital, coming in an operating room, dealing with your own mortality. No matter what you say, everyone wonders, am I going to wake up? Even a lung operation where we haven't had a problem in years, every patient wonders, am I going

Year old I'm avoiding the knee thing right now myself.

The best d well it is leg day. But yeah, that's the best thing I did. Really. I could not run, I couldn't compete, I couldn't play, I couldn't do all the stuff I wanted to do. And for me, it's about quality of life, not quantity, for sure, Yeah, for sure. So I'm glad I did it well. Good? Were you tough on yourself? You're probably a terrible patient, right. I had it done the day before Christmas, both needs at the same time, and I was back in the oar

Well, I think that's what it's about really For me, I would like an ornary doctorate so that my corporate rate for speaking as events goes through the roof.

Exactly.

There you go, and that's what it's all about. You live inside New York City, don't you.

I live two blocks away. I two blocks away but you pay the New York tax. I pay the New York City state tax, the New York City tax, the federal government tax. I'm a fifty three percent tax provider. Do you know what? I'm an idiot?

If if you were in the UK, yeah, you'd be paying more. I'd be paying more. Yeah, I get it's one of these. Is why I live in America.

But if I was living in Florida, I'd be paying a lot less.

Well, that is true, and they can't take your house away from you in Florida.

That's correct.

Florida, and I think New Hampshire. That's a couple of the other ones. Know about New Hampshire.

Also, these squatters, these squatters can take your house away from you, but that's a difference. They move into your house if you're not out there, and they can't get rid of them where. I'll let you read about it. I was just another patient. Tell me about that. Really, Yeah, I.

Don't know about that. I don't want that happening. And I'll never leave my house again.

You won't. You'll come there, there'll be eight people hanging out, throwing your furniture in the fireplace.

Nobody that, nobody wants to live in my house. Oh my stuff is there.

They might like your stuff. All right, this makes me very sad. I don't like this at all, just the reality of the squatterville that we live. You're not originally from New York, New Jersey, New Jersey. That explains a lot.

So you came up in the world. Then are you from Franklin, Lakesburg and County. I don't know that, par I know North all right? Okay, so I know the place that John bon Jovi is from. Is that Red Bank?

Oh that's that's further Yeah, that's nice down there. Yeah, well the shores are beautiful there, Yeah, beautiful. You know the thing is when you could drive down the Red Bank. We'll get back on you in a minute. But when you look.

With the Red Bank, the Red Bank, they have the John bon Jovi service station, like.

An actual gas where he works, like a rest stop or something named after him. There's nobody there that's not even John bon Jovi. Nobody. That's when you know you hit it big when they have a rest stop, deserted rest stop named after you. It's like a Scooby Doo says, I mean, is by a snack like Yodels twinky, not a thing, and he's not there, not even a picture of him. Wait a minute, it's named after There's got to be a plaque besides them.

You know. And there's another one in a really good one. Actually, rest up the James Gandolfini rest up in New Jersey.

That's what the diner is. That's where the diner. You could sit in that. But somebody bought that booth. I heard from him. But that's it. That's a different thing.

I mean, clearly, John bon Jovi's people need to be looking into this.

They do because because the guy's been much more successful. Well, yeah, there's abous drawbacks. Obviously, he's he's been dead for a while. That kind of helps. When you're dead, What are you die of? It was something, but it wasn't a heart attack. I think it was a heart attack. That was heart attack?

Is that a tam that you guys actually would use now acurate mielcardial infarction? All right, But a heart attack can cover a bunch of different things, right, No heart attack.

Really means you have is schemia to the heart scheme means low blood supply, right, and then the heart has gets an infarct that dies and without enough blood supply, no oxygen, no blood going to it, so can't empty oxygen to the myocytes, the cells of the heart, that part of the heart dies and it usually leads to an arrhythmia, and the arrhythmia is what takes your life.

Actually, all right, So the irregular heartbeat thing is that, well, that's an irregular heart beats.

Different these are fatal arrhythmias. A regular heartbeats that people have a fib a flutter, that's very common. They don't take your life. They're a nuisance we need to treat with either blood thinners or replation or surgery. Are you hyper.

Aware of your own physical well being because of what you know is so much?

Well, I don't know so much, but you're a medical do I'm meant to totally into fitness. Like I weigh myself every morning and work out four five times a week. Measure my total body fat content which is now down to ten percent, muscle and my lean muscle body masses up to forty nine percent, which is good. Right, goal was fifty So I know there, but you're nearly there.

I agree with you, but not that that would mark to you because I'm not appear in your business.

But but you're a doctor. I'm getting there. You will be, you know.

I think that it's a very holistic approach though, yes, which is not there's not a great history of that in your profession. The holistic approach to medicine is there.

I mean, it's fairly new that idea, especially insurgents, because it takes it's so hard, it's such the training was used to be so hard. It used to be one hundred and twenty hours a week. Now we're only down to eighty hours a week. Right, it's still you know, four years of college, four years of medical school, five years of general surgical training, two or three years of fellowship training, and then usually another year. So you're thirty four or thirty three when you first start out, you're

But you've got to be driven to achieve that escape velocity to meet and efficient see that. Back in the day though, like in the Middle Ages, surgeons and barbers they were the same thing.

Did you know that? Actually I believe I've heard that. Yeah, because you know the red and white barber pool. Correct, there is a medical poll.

Right, they used to have a pool and it was a bloody toe wrapped right, so that red and white. So what I'm gett up to is do you think you could give a decent haircut?

Hell? No no, But why not like to look at your hairs perfect? Holp the camera, hope the camera sees how I mean? I got my hair is all messed the hell up, and hair is great.

You're talking about tom my hair has reached fifty percent body fat.

The goal was forty. Visit the exercise program I sent you on pdf by the email last week. Do you do that? TOI pitious? You say, look, this is a program. I want you to do that. So you had to off to someone you gotta be a little bit careful because I'm seeing them for lung cancer, but I am

Then if you take a zampick and you've got like you have, I don't know.

A burger. That burger is just going to around there for a while. It sits around your gastric empty time is longer. Yeah, I don't like this at all. This sounds dangerous to me. Well, it's not.

We could go bad in there. It's already pretty bad once it goes into your mouth. But it's a burger, right, not like it's a sterile thing where you eat. Number two is going into a giant sack of acid and bile. So that's necessterily right exactly. But it does decrease your transit at leads to constipation. People have a domino pain if it's not dosed correctly. If you have to start very slow and then slowly increase it.

I'm not an expert on this. I would refer to the doctors who do it sure, but I know as a physician. Now now I ask everybody, by the way, are you on anything for weight loss? Because we're operating there, and so many of them will say no. And then the husband or the wife, or the family or the daughter, and I said, okay, tell the doctor because they don't want to tell us. And I say, well, you need to stop that a few weeks before because it does

But I have a friend who lost.

They're all the same guy.

I have a friend and he took ozembic and he lost a lot of way and he looks great. And I said to him, what does it do? And he said, exactly what you do? He said, you just don't you don't feel hungry. I don't eat because I'm hungry I eat because I'm sad.

That's interesting. Yeah, So I don't. It's not going to work for me. So I eat when I'm sad. I mean, last night we went out to dinner and I had a racing fork. I had a racing strip by my fork because I had that dessert and I'm just all this. It's the devil though, but.

In an Italian restaurant last night, and the chocolateate thing and it's crazy.

The one you have to order early because it's a long time. I love that one. Well.

See that's the danger of New York City as well. Everything is delicious everything.

There's great food there, great people, great food, great culture. I have to say, I was away from New York for a long time. You missed and New York missed you. I missed it a lot.

I missed it a lot, and I'm happy to be back. I saw i'd go to the Rangers game. But a couple of weeks ago, the New York Rangers, New York hang on. Remember I'm a sports fan, right. The NHL season has been over for a few months, bro, all right.

So it was a couple of months. A couple of months ago they lost in the playoffs. Extremely disappointed.

Yeah, but they made the playoffs and that's where that because they won that they want.

Residents Trophy, they won the President's Trevia at the best record of any EHL team, That's what I meant. And they weren't seated first. If you look at the Vegas odds, they were second. But they should have gone to the finals and they ended up didn't make it very disappointing for me as a Rabbit, a Ranger fan.

Well, you're gonna hate what I've got to tell, you know, I'm not gonna like. So I go, I call up my guys and I say, listen, my.

Uncle Vinny from New Jersey. That guy. Maybe maybe it's a guy I know, maybe it's not. Maybe you don't ask that question. Maybe I don't get my break my little rigoglass. Hey, mister robut search and you need those fingers? No I don't, Yes, sir, I'll get you the money tomorrow.

So I call my I call a friend of mine and a friend of ours, let's say, a friend of ours and guy same guy, uh, And I say uh, I'd say, can you get me in the Rangers game?

And because they got me in before?

And he said sure, And actually the New York Rangers are fantastic. They're just beautiful the way they do the hospitality. Come along, yes, but we remember you come on. And so they have this like whole backstage thing. Yes, and I go into this suite. They give you free popcorn. Yeah, they give you dinner. It's like a full dinner.

Forget the dinner. You got free popcorn and free pop corn. And that makes me mad because I have to pay for my pop.

Well, it's and then they sit you in a little private room and then you go out to the thing and then they put your face up on it.

You're on the jumbo screen. And then some people go who's and everyone knows who you are.

And then what he did was they're playing a game. And this is my thirteen year old son's first professional hockey game.

Best sport to watch in person is an NHL hockey game. It's amazing and so exciting. The lights, the ice, the snow when they stopped the puck, the speed, the violence, so awesome.

The puck comes off the ice right, security guy grabs the puck.

Gives it to my kid. That's also his first hockey game, and he had all his teeth when he goes Yeah. Yeah, yes, guys don't when they get there first. No, he got he just go handed. Yeah, so he has to know. But I played hockey since I was five or six years old, and I played in high school and got recruited not by Division one teams it wasn't good enough, but a few Division three teams. But I played baseball in college as opposed to ice hockey.

But I I'm not surprised by that though, because I know that surge and culture, doctor culture and jock culture.

This is almost exactly the same thing.

You know, you guys are all kind of bro phil the burn, fix the guy.

Feel the burn, and fix the guys where the hill is the same it fhil the burn, fix the patient. Do it right when take that death? Take that? But you're right there, yea, there is that. Yeah, you're right.

I wonder because I mentioned death and uh, and it is part of life. Fortunately it's the very end of it. Usually it's the end of it. You've been around it. We've all been around it. But you've you've been you've been around it in a way which both personally, which we all have personally in one way or another. But professionally you get to see it sometimes, especially.

When because I do pediatrics, especially Jesus, we've had a few recently who really been devastating. Yeah to the team, to the staff, listen to the patient and the family first and foremost of course, and it's all about them. But when you know this is a patient who would be operate on many times, and I won't say more than that, so we become part of the family, of course.

Oh my god, that's the sample jar is that the cats do I use that for?

I used that because the urine. Yeah? Is it clear enough? It is? Yeah? Wed it to your profession perfect. I feel like I'm on friends with this.

What about the mystical and spiritual site of all of that?

Do you do?

You?

Everybody ponders it right to do so? I have it, and and part of that is my bias. Right I was born, my mother had us go to church. My wife, deeply religious, made all my boys go to a Catholic high school, even if they didn't have the best baseball, football, or hockey team or basketball team. So that's part of who I am. And you have to be aware of your own biases and the ones you can check and can't check. So I do have a spiritual belief. I

There's a there's a very old joke which I'm sure you've heard, but I'm gonna tellt from your friend. My buddy told me this same guy, So as a priest and a rabbi go to a boxing match, right, and they stand next to you, Sharida, and before the fight starts, they watch and one of the fighters crosses himself right before the fight stars, and the rabbi said, oh, we don't mind my asking, but what does that mean when he does that?

And the priest says, if he can't fight, not a fucking thing. It is exactly right, right. I love it. And so the practice the accent makes it so funny because if I say that, it just doesn't funny. Well, it's laughing even I'm not laughing. But the livery in the accent is perfect. But well you know, it's it's team.

It's me and my team, and they tell you that was just you.

But what I take from the joke is there is a spiritual belief, but there's also a belief in science and the Actually, what I think is weird in current culture is maybe too big a word, but maybe maybe current Coleman thought is that somehow science and spirituality or science and religion can't co exist, and then co existed nearly all the time.

They not only they coexist, they're inextricably intertwined. That's pretty good, right there. Not intertwined. Very good I'm talking about. I think you just went past the male clinic right there. Path not to mention literative literal fifty muscle man finally got in my head the muscles of the bridge. But no, I think it they are. In fact, I submit to you can't have one without the other, because I have

What about do you ever think about your own mortality?

Do you have the time you know you do? Do you think about a continuation of consciousness? Do you do? You know? You don't think that's a thing. So I answered that maybe too quickly. I don't think that, you know, someone like me is not is never going to you know, God's never going to appear to me. Angels don't appear to God like me. I'm not going to have an

But see, I think I think it is quite fascinating because you've picked things the things you like to do.

Pickle Ball is very competitive.

Golf is you're always playing against yourself, really, that's who you.

You never play against anyone else you can play against you. I always play against someone else. And I'm like a six and a half index, and I play against guys with the same index, and we give no strokes, and we go out a match play all the time every weekend.

I see, I can't play golf like that. This is how I play golf. I go out on my own and I don't want to talk to anybody me.

That's interesting.

Yeah, I just want to go ahead of my I won't even go on stage if I have to poop.

I work alone. Man, I didn't know you were going. I said, we're going back to the other side.

No I if I if I have to poop, we got to take care of business before I go on stage.

I don't like having anybody around, so I like that. But you know you can do that and then we'll go out and play. You're welcome to come up and play golf, and we'd love to have you'd hate it because because I'm no good. It doesn't matter if you're Because because at this particular place, Silo Ridge, one of the Discovery Lands, there's no dress code. You can play two holes and get off. There's free alcohol, which probably is not good for you. It's all right. Look if

Well, i'll take it out, but let me just say that we're kind of like.

Rolling to the end of this. But that was fast, was it fast?

No?

Insually an hour with me really rolls. Yeah, it's about an hour. Yeah, we did about an hour, so that'll be I don't know what do you charge an hour? It depends if it's a lawyer.

But like I say, I only talk to people I want to talk to on this thing. I appreciate it, and you are I fucking met everybody, everybody, and you are a special human being.

Well I don't know about but I appreciate. I appreciate that perspective. It is absolutely the truth. And keep doing it. And you know what, if it's you against the big c.

One hundred percent, good for you. And that team is the oncologist, the pulmonologist, the pathologist, all these people. You know, I do want to put a plug in because you know, we get this award as you know the best lung cancer surgery or lung program and pulmonologists, but the pathologists, the oncologists you know, Abe Jachoa, Josh Sabari all our other oncologists who are world class get that accolade with us, because how do you beat cancer. You don't beat it

Well, keep doing it and keep getting better at it. I'm great to see You'll see you in the next episode with you.

It sounds great, sounds great. H