It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
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Have no fear, as Nicole says, I am here. My name is Dan Ray. I'm the host of Night's Side here and heard every weeknight from eight them to midnight on w BZ, Boston's news radio. Delighted to be sitting in this iconic chair, a chair that once I was filled by David Brodnoy and Paul Sullivan and by others before them, and just honored to be here. I hope all of you are happy to be here as well. Rob Brooks is happy he's back in the control room.
He is the producer of this program. And Rob will get you set up with calls to six one seven four ten thirty or six one seven nine three ten thirty once we start taking calls beginning after nine o'clock.
But in this hour we have four guests coming up, Gonna deal a little bit with the some of the free agent signings of the PA with Chris Price of the Boston Globe, going to talk about New England slang words here in New England that all of us understand that would probably confuse most people from other parts of the country. And we'll also talk about a growing and a real crisis here hospital bed shortages. But we'll get to all of that first. Well, if we want to
welcome back Mike Dean. He's an Axios Boston reporter and he is looking at Massachusetts Democrats. They're pretty good shape in Massachusetts, but how do they respond to the Trump era message? And they're kind of searching for a path forward and with us. Mike is going to join us and tell us there's some Democrats out there that maybe have some aspirations beyond Beacon Hill or maybe even beyond Congress. Mike, welcome back to Night Side.
How are you hey? Good? How are you doing?
Dan greatly with yout well.
Obviously Governor Healy has got a little dose of the Potomac fever on this anniversary of the starting of the COVID crisis. Hope it works out better for her than the COVID crisis did for us. Generally, they're in appropriate. The Democrats are fine here. There's no Democrat in Congress that's going to be beaten as far as I can see anytime soon. No Democrat in either the House or the Senate. But there's some little rumblings around here. What are you seeing from your perch on Beacon Hill.
Yeah, you're absolutely right, And you know, Democrats have a pre solid grip on Beacon Hill and our congressional delegation. That's why it's so interesting when our Democratic leaders like mar Healey and like Congressman Jake Auchincloss kind of go into national media as they have recently to kind of make the point of what we should what they should be doing. You know, what are Democrats what their party
should be doing to get back voters. Now, it should be said that, you know, the Republicans did a little bit better in twenty twenty four than they did in twenty twenty. Donald Trump won, you know, a few percentage points more in Massachusetts than he had the previous election.
But was right. It was actually hundreds of thousands. I think it was actually hundreds of thousands of votes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The let's say he had one hundred and twenty five million in twenty four versus one point one seven million in twenty twenty. So you know that that is a significant upswing. In the state legislature, it was kind of a net zero gain. I think the Democrats lost two seats and one against two more Republican seats, so it kind of it was a losh there. But it's interesting.
I think people are looking at, you know, where to go next and what in Massachusetts it needs to you know, what a politician for Massachusetts I should say, and say for the national Party and what heally told the New York Times. She did a big, proper sit down for the interview podcast. It was a pretty big deal for a governor to have a platform like this, and she was urging her party to deliver for everyday American, saying that was what was left out of the Harris campaign
that we just last saw. And she said, you know, to be less distracted by the culture war, but at the same time not abandoning those cultural issues. Heally said that.
Demon that's good.
That's going to be a little bit of a tight rope to walk. That's for sure.
Absolutely is that's where they found.
The Democrats in Massachusetts. I think of you know, President Mike Decaccus in nineteen eighty eight. I think of President John Kerry as recently his two thousand and four President Paul songis former senator here in Massachusetts. In nineteen ninety two, President Ted Kennedy uh and of course, most recently the time in the White House that President Elizabeth warrens Laura, I'm.
Gonna say, and only Warren off that list.
No, no, no, no, quite a you know, quite a losing streak here from Democrats in Massachusetts. Got to go back to a guy named Jack Kennedy to find a Democrat to come out of Massachusetts and win the White House. And yeah, certainly fun with friends of mine, my Democratic friends. And I'm kind of one of those people who kind of a parks from both your houses in many respects.
I often ask I asked him, my Democrats, would you say that the most famous phrase that John Kennedy invoked in his State of the Union address in nineteen sixty one January twenty, that cold, snowy day was ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
I would say was that from the inauguration it was that kind of from that was from the Okay, I wasn't sure if it was from the au speech that was around the same time. There's so many of these kids horns, that's right.
So my question is.
What thorns and speeches that kind of muddle together?
Yeah, well, what my question then becomes what democrat in Massachusetts today would actually quote that speech ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. I don't know that there's too many Democrats who are going to be quoting that phrase from John Right.
Yeah, now, I hear you saying. I think from a political standpoint, what these Democratic leaders are looking at is, well, we know that the Massachusetts style of liberal democratic politics isn't that appealing nationwide. We've seen that, as you just said multiple times. But it's certainly winning here and it's certainly winning in New England. Is there anything that can be extrapolated from that, you know, Mark Healey winning big, she's going into reelection she very likely will you know,
also win big again. What can she kind of show the national politicians about how to get votes and how to win these things. So it is kind of a weird situation to be in where we're not the state that is going to speak for the rest of the country. However, we do have very successful Democratic politicians who are speaking to you know, real voters, middle class people, about real issues and getting good results. So it's just kind of you know, where we're an outlier. But there might be
something in it. And I think that's what politicians like Auchincloss and Healey are maybe telling themselves about their potential appeal.
Yeah, it'll be interesting again as they venture and spend more time on network programs or they spend more time traveling, that can kind of snap back too. I mean, so that the corollary, if you will, is there's a bunch of Republicans in places like I don't know, Mississippi and Alabama who do really well and they win comfortably in those states. But I don't know that they're going to be the national leaders for the Republican Party either. Uh,
they have they have to find. I think there's a there's a bunch of Democrats nationally who who they can look to, and maybe even Democrats that many people don't know about. Congressman former Congressman Ryan from Ohio. He lost a Senate seat, lost a Senate fight to JD. Vance, but he's he's a really smart guy and uh, and I think a lot of people around the country, Democrats, Republicans, independence would listen to him before they listen to some
Democrat from Massachusetts. That's yeah, I mean, I don't know, it's but I'll tell you. For some reason, Uh, Democratic politicians in Massachusetts are always kind of looking over the horizon. And I'm not talking about the political horizon. I'm talking about the geographical horizon. It's great fun, It is great fun. I did watch the Ezra Kline interview that you referred to with that Auchincloss had with Ezracline, and he made a really interesting point in that interview. I'm sure you
remember it. Auchinclass said that Donald Trump won the city of Fall River in twenty twenty four, first time in one hundred years that a Republican presidential candidate had carried the city of Fall River, which is a Democratic stronghold.
Yeah, he's telling it really is. In that interview, Auchincloss had a lot to say about, you know, working in middle class voters and what they're looking for in his district, and you know, beyond. His advice to the National Party was to not be what he called the Diet Coke version of Republican populism, to kind of focus on the economic messages, he says, to get an abundance agenda that's more supply side rather sorry, I'm on a to increase
on the supply side. Rather than subsidizing demand. And that's kind of a wonky economic message there, but it's the kind of thing that, if articulated correctly, could be very appealing to some, you know, working class, middle class, even upper class voters. One of the biggest things he said though in aucin classes definitely among the more moderate of our Democrats in Congress, he said that the party should
be quote liberal, but not condescending about it. And I think that's kind of where a lot of voters think the Democrats have lost their way on a national level.
I think tone is very important. Mike Then of Axio's Boston Reporter, really enjoyed the conversation. Uh, let's get you back soon. Thank you very much.
Yeah, great to be with you.
Dan.
Absolutely switch and talk about something that we all can agree upon, and that is the Newickland Patriots. They've signing some free agents. Chris Price for the Boston Globe will tell us how critical these signings are. I think they've spent a lot of money. I think they've made some great moves. I'm sure Chris knows a lot more about it than I do. I want to hear what he has to say. Hope you do as well, my name's
Dan Ray. We are here on night Side for the balance of the evening, for the balance of the week, and frankly the balance of the next two or three months, every night Monday through Friday, from May until midnight. God willing back on Nightside right after this.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World Nights Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Delighted to be rejoined by Chris Price of The Boston Globe. Chris, the Patriots had a busy Sunday and Monday. Looks to me like they've made tremendous strides on sure enough, the defense. They spent a lot of money. What's going on?
They really did. They got some big ticket items too. They were not they weren't shopping in the you know, at filings basement. These are guys who really, in a lot of ways should be transformative pieces for the defensive side of the ball. Last year we all talked about how they need some upgrades on offense, particularly offensive tackle as well as wide receiver. But the way they went
after some of these defensive guys. Cornerback Carlton Davis, defensive tackle Milton Williams, linebacker Robert Splaine, it's been a really impressive stretch as well as I shouldn't I shouldn't forget about BC's own Harold Landry. So they really did their due diligence when you're talking about shoring up, you know, the defensive side of the ball. I really like a lot of these. There were some overpays there, quite honestly, but you know, they had to overpay given their situation.
So I like a lot of the moves. They certainly set themselves up for success, at least at this stage of the offseason.
I love the Landry move because obviously, besides being a BC guy, he played for Vabel at Tennessee with the Titans.
Yeah, there are a couple of guys like that who do have those connections to either Rabel or Josh McDaniels. Played for Josh McDaniels in Vegas, you know, or played for Terrell Williams, the d defensive coordinator in Detroit Carled Williams, you know, comes to New England from the Detroit Lions, where he was part of a defense that included Williams. Splaine played very briefly for Rabel a couple of years ago. Mac Holland one of the new wide receivers that they signed.
He has a history with offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. They are together in Las Vegas. So if you want to look for a common thread here, Dan, but a lot of these signings, a lot of these guys do have a history with the current coaching staff in other places.
Well. That way, not only do they know what they can do on the field, but they know what their presence is in the locker room, which is important. Now. My view is that the Patriots defensively were not that bad last year. That the place that they have to spend some money is on the offensive side of the ball. And I want to give me a couple of signings that you don't want to predict, but might suggest would be worthy of the Patriots. You know it as well
as anybody, Chris. Whenever I talk to you, I learn a lot. So who do you think we've should be looking for?
I appreciate it, and I think a couple of guys to look for. I think, first of all, they need a little help on the offensive line. The short really one left tackle in my regard, they went out and they got right tackle. Morgan Moses, a guy who's been around the lake for an awful long time. Very steady, very sturdy. He played in every single game in his career in eight of the eleven years in his career. So this is a guy you can be you can you feel real good about putting out a right tackle.
They need a left tackle. There's a guy out there by the name of Cam Robinson. Cam Robinson played for the new offensive line coach did a connection with him when they were together in Jacksonville. So you might look for Cam Robinson to be added as a free agent the other big name. And he just shook loose tonight. He was cut loose by the Los Angeles Rams. Veteran wide receiver Cooper Cup. He's not the same guy that
he was a couple of years ago. You know, this is not a guy who's going to come here and catch one hundred and ten passes. But there's still a little bit of juice left.
In his game.
And I think that if they can get the money right, he strikes me the kind of guy who might be kind of a final piece the puzzle. Like if I was Cooper Cup, I would be going to like Buffalo. But if they can get the money right here in New England. I think he would be a really good fit for this Patriots offense.
I don't know what his injury situation is, but he's only thirty one. I happen to pick that up today. So you know, wide receivers, you know, there are some guys who who play a little well into their thirties. Jerry Rice types though. He's a different guy than Jerry Rice.
But he's an explosive wide receiver, and with the Patriots quarterback situation, he may like to you know, he spent a lot of time obviously with Matthew Stafford with the Rams, and you know, Stafford's kind of like a Derek May in many respects, mole, pretty mobile and has a has a gun. I'd love to see him here. I think I think I would session.
I would say this, though, Dan, I do like Cup. I'm gonna I'm I'm a fan of Cooper Cup. He's an impressive receiver, has had great success in the league for an extended period of time. He's you might call an older thirty one. This is a guy who's had some injury problems the last couple of years. So again, I would kind of exercise a little bit of caution there, you're not getting the Cooper Cup of three, four or five years ago. That being said, you know he would
still lead the Patriots and catches as currently constituted. There's also two and we could talk a little bit about this as it gets closer the draft and they have the fourth overall pick, and there's some really intriguing possibilities out there when it comes to augmenting the offensive side
of the ball. The guy that everyone is talking about in college football Travis Hunter, two way player from Colorado, Heisman Trophy winner, a guy who caught ninety something passes this year and oh yeah, by the way, he can also play cornerbacks. So he's another guy if you're a Patriots fan, you might want to keep an eye on him and you can contribute on both sides of the ball. Elliott Wolf had a great line about him at the
Combine last month. He said, I think this is the kind of guy who can major in one minor in the other. So he's a guy that a lot of people have their eyes on Patriots than should be really interested.
Do you think he'll stick around? Will he be available at number four? Though? That'll be biking Sorry.
Well, really for me, the Giants, who picked third overall are kind of a wild card. They don't have a quarterback. But again, Hunter is this absolutely electric performer. They might want to go Hunter at three, or they might want to go after one of the quarterbacks at three and cam Ward or should do or Sanders the son of Dione Sanders. So the Giants kind of hold all the cards here. If the Giants end up going quarterback, then someone like Travis Hunter could be there at number four.
The other guy who Patriot Sam should keep an eye on what the possibility him fall into four. I don't think he will, but the possibility of Penn State's Abdual Carter, an absolute game wrecker of a defensive end. Abdual Carter, I know we talked about the needs on the offensive side of the ball. Abdual Carter is the one guy where you tear up the plant you cross out of the draft board and you say, if Abdul Carter is there,
we're going to go get him. So the two guys head and shoulders above the rest of the draft.
Class, I mean, that's the best player approach. By the way, when you say that Cooper Cups and older thirty one wouldn't you, and I like to be an older thirty five. I remember the world that ain't bad football different story.
I remember what it was like a little bit more spring and my stuff back then.
Me too. Hey, Chris really enjoyed it as always, you know your stuff. I love talking football with you because that's one sport that I need to spend more time reading, reading your columns on because you do a fabulous job. Chris Price on the Boston Globe. Uh. We're going to talk with Chris, hopefully a lot between now and I guess the started training camp and probably even beyond. Chris, thank you so much for your time tonight.
I appreciate it. Dan take Caarin. We'll definitely talk again soon.
You bet you, you bet you. Okay, We've got the eight thirty News coming up. We also have the new iHeart app. It's new and improved. You can download it pretty I did it, and you can make it WBZ your number one presept So that means that a touch of a finger, you have us wherever you are in the world, at whatever time of day, whatever day of the week. It's as simple as that. The iHeart App. Now coming up, we're going to talk about new England slang.
This should be fun. Stacy Milbauer of the Grinned Post News has picked on about fifty New England sayings, expressions, slang that will be explained. Most of us know, but some of our listeners who are outside of New England, We're going to stun him in the next segment back right after this on Nightside.
It's Night Side Boston's news radio.
All right, all of us know that in different parts of the country this words slang, your clean words, not bad words, and that are endemic to that particular region of the world. Here in New England, We're no exception with us, is Stacey Milbauer. She writes for the Granite Post News, which is a digital site. Welcome, Stacy, how are you tonight?
I'm good, Dan, how are you great?
So you got some unique, quirky slang words that are pretty endemic to New England. You got fifty of them. This must have been a fun assignment. Maybe you came up with this idea of yourself, which was it.
I did not come up with the idea of myself, but it was a fun assignment. I could have done fifty more. I found so many because I had the whole region, not just New Hampshire.
Yeah. I love the picture of the sign that says frost heaves. Can you imagine being up here from Mississippi, Alabama? The hell of frost leaves frosts? Yeah? Seriously, I almost used the word flat lander earlier this evening. I didn't realize that was one of the words you got. Let's go over some of the ones that you found to
be most fun. Let's hit a few of them. Tell us the word, and then let people think for a second or so, and you can explain what it actually means for those who you know who might not know a word here here or there.
You want me to pick a word, I'd love.
You to tell me the favorites you've You've studied it.
One of my favorites is spucky. So I did it spucky? That yet?
Spucky?
How do you spell that's? That's like a submarine sandwich right exactly south. I've been around not every that was a tough one. You hit me with a tough one, come on.
Yeah.
And it comes from the Italian word buckadella, which means a long roll.
Yeah. I had a spucky for dinner tonight. I had a turkey spucky. I had some nice turkey and put it in one of those roles I love the one that I love. Uh And look, I'm not only uh New Englander, but I'm Irish and I love packy or packy. Most people are get down of that packy and get bring back something for your father. Yeah.
Well, so I have to explain that I'm actually urgently from New York, but my husband is from Boston and he's got the real like pokik accents. He was my he was my advisor on this and he's the one who came up with spucky, which I had never heard before. But yeah, give me enough.
Give me you got spucky or a grinder. That's a good one. Okay, give me a couple of one. That.
So the other one that surprised me is cool?
Have you No? I don't know, and I can read it and fake it, but I'm not. I'm going to let you do it because I saw it and I thought, what the heck does that mean? That's not cool? That's ghool like g O R.
Yeah, yet not like a ghost. Yeah. So that is a term. Again, never heard of it before, but it is the place that when you're playing a game like tag or Olliel Talks and free that's your safe place, so you can say, like you know, you can't tag me out. I'm in a wicked ghoul.
That's one thing. You can't just stumped me on that. You stumped me on that. But I mean the others obviously dunks. Everybody knows dunks. I love the down East, which of course is the Mid Coast, as you said, the mid coast of Main and Jimmy's people you say you want Jimmy's or anywhere else in the country, what are they? What are you talking about? A little sprinkles on the ice cream call and that's all I want.
Well, you know it's interesting. When I was researching Jimmy's, I didn't know there was So there's a distinction in some places in New Way, England that a Jimmy is the chocolate sprinkles and a sprinkle is the colored sprinkles. I never heard.
Yeah, chocolate chocolate sprinkles are what I want.
Who doesn't all.
Those other colors? I don't need the rainbow. I all I want is the Jimmy because it's chocolate, and of course the classic is frap.
Yeah. Yeah, So this is a pat paper of mind. So and I wrote in my article, like, god forbid, you should call it a frat pey. I mean, that's just why you pretend, just for New England. So yeah, So in New York run from a milkshake is what you would call a frap. Here, it's thick, is made with ice cream, And here a milkshake is just like chocolate milk that you shake up. But a frap is the ice cream and the milk and the er Well, I think you know.
I'm going to disagree with you a second. I'm gonna have a little disagreement if I throw some Hershey syrup in in my milk here, I don't think that's a frap. I think, okay, well, I think it's a chocolate milk. But if I if I have a blender, which of course I never because I get I'm afraid of things electronic, a couple of scoops of ice cream in there with some milk and chocolate, Now.
That's a frap, right, Only it's only a milkshake if your chocolate milk is shaken.
Yeah, but you gotta have ice cream to make it a frap, don't you?
You do?
You do?
You have?
And then and it's even more confusing because in Rhode Island they have cabinets, which is kind of like the same thing. They call them cabin yeah, and they think that that comes from the place where they kept the blender within the cabinet.
Got it, got it, got got it? Yeah. I love some of the other phrases here, just a few of them, for examp for you know, for wicked. Everybody knows wicked your friend is legless, you know, I mean, I think of the guy's accent and the Sam Adams commercials. Love that d D. We know what that means, a little small little thing. And of course, if we're talking about the Massachusetts State Police to the states everybody, that's a good one. And I love this one. Banging a yuie, banging a yuie.
You gotta bang a yuie, You gotta bang a yuwie. I'm getting out.
I'm getting out of this traffic. This traffic's horrible. I'm banging a yuie. I'm not I have no idea where I'm going, but I'm getting off the.
Road and you're banging that yuie. Yeah, yeah, bang.
The you.
My pet peeve. This is the one that causes the most arguments of my house is the so don't die, which is dramatically ridiculous.
I mean I missed that one. Wait, hold on, wait second, I missed the one. What is that again?
So don't I?
Oh, so don't? I? Oh sure, yeah, yeah.
Yeah yeah.
So I said, like I'm going to you know, let's see, do you want an orange?
Yeah?
No, so don't die? It means so do I. I don't understand it, but it's it's something that people say here in southern New Hampshire, and I think in parts of Massachusetts are so didn't he? And when my husband says it, I'm like, I don't understand what that means. So did not he? To me, it's impossible, but but it actually comes from Maine in the nineteen sixties as a way for rebellious teenagers to get back at their parents when they said so do I.
Oh okay. Well, it's always good when you when you understand where something comes from. But again, some prom arion is not going to understand it. Hey, but there's a lot of phrases in Shakespeare I don't understand either. So it's just true.
That's true.
It's what they were it's what they were writing at the time at Strafford or Avelon. It's what we're saying at the time here in New England.
Stacy.
I love the article. Folks can find that. Granted Post is just granted postnews dot com. I think is the is the the website.
You get online. There's a website. It's on Facebook, you know, some x and everywhere, so you can find it in any place. Instagram.
Yeah, I love the cow Hampshire everybody. Everybody knows where cow Hampshire is, uh, And there's yeah, yeah, yeah, well yeah, that's one that's around and you know something that sometimes uh sometimes it works, particularly when you're behind the wheel the car and some guys cut you off. If you know what I'm saying.
That's that's always what it's used. I don't think I've ever heard it used outside of a you know, raging driver saying it's always in the car.
Oh some of us, some of us use that term more broadly, to be really honest with you, And I've one of them who have used that term a little more broadly, and it has.
Entered it's entered the Oxford English Dictionary, so it's now a real word.
Well it's not only real word, but it has the respect that I think it's in there.
It's in there what.
I do and I'm told, and this is this is just me sometimes when I'm in a set of circumstances, like in a store where somebody's blocking the aisle with their carriage at an angle so no one can get by. When they finally wake out of that slumber and they realize they're blocking the aisle, I'd like to use that word, but it's much better in a car when you're pointing your finger to the guy. So here's what I do.
I go by the person after they've kind of woken from their slumber, and I just say soto voci, very very softly oblivious. The person doesn't hear the word, but I plant it in their brain. And so for me, that's a synonym that I use in grocery stores for the phrase that most of us would use while driving on the car and being cut off by some guy from Massachusetts.
That is a very handy hint.
We'll all take that, beg Stacy, We'll talk again. Okay, I really enjoyed. Let's do it again.
Okay, bye bye.
Stacy Milbar of the Granite Post News granted Postnews dot com. We get back. I'm going to talk about a more serious subject, and that is a growing shortage of hospital beds. And if you're anywhere over the age of forty, you want to pay attention back on Nightside.
Now back to Dan Ray Mine from the Window World Nightside Studios on w b Z News Radio.
Okay, we are going to change to a most serious topic and with us is doctor Richard Lucter. He's an assistant Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine and UCLA and the studies lead investigator. I guess we're facing first of all, elector welcome to Nightside. How are you, sir?
I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me here.
And is it I want to is it Lucter or what is the correct pronunciation of your last name?
Yeah, that's actually that's actually perfect. You've done what many people cannot do, which is you got to write the first time.
I did Luketer. Okay, thank you. So there's a critical hospital bed shortage that will I guess material in twenty thirty two. I assume that has something to do with my generation, the baby boomers. I hate, I hate to be so upfront about it, but it's it's been that figured it out to the year at twenty thirty two.
Yeah, yeah, you know, that's that's that's an estimate. And I think the baby boomers, you know, not the point fingers out, but I think that that's part of it. But really there's two components to it. The first is that if you look at the trend of national hospital occupancy over the last ten years or so, you know, really starting for the most part of the two thousands, we were hovering right around sixty four percent national hospital occupancy.
Nothing changed during the pandemic, where now in this post pandemic period we are now at a steady state of seventy five percent. So we were at sixty four percent, now we're at seventy five percent. A hospital bed shortage is generally thought to occur, so you can see we kind of jumped up to get halfway there. So that
was kind of the first part of the finding. The second part is we did some forward looking modeling to say, well, what is it going to take to get us there to that eighty five percent, and that's where the you know, the aging population comes in.
That's where we project that just.
By an aging population alone. If we do nothing else that increased demand for hospital that would put us to that eighty five percent by twenty thirty two.
I know that here in New England, and we have some great hospitals here as you do in Los Angeles, but I know that here in New England they are moving people out of hospitals very quickly. The idea of having surgery and staying a couple of days to get yourself back in your feet, that's not happening in New England. It's it's kind of pumper out. Yeah. I don't know if that's happened in la as well.
Yeah, yeah, No, I think that is kind of a national trend that we're seeing, and a lot of that is actually driven by data showing that's actually better for for patients. That's you know, better care because I think you know, you get people out of the hospital sooner a they become more mobile, right, and it's better to be up and about in your own home rather than sitting in a bed for twenty three hours a day.
Right.
We know mobility promotes healing. We didn't used to, you know, leave that as much. We also know that, you know, hospitals can While they're great for, you know, certain life saving things, they can also be dangerous places. There's a receense that he actually.
Out of yeah, five years, five years ago this month we found that out.
That's exactly right, and that was just one of many examples. There's actually a study by David Bates that came out of Harvard and New England Journal just a couple of years ago that showed up to a quarter of hospitalizations have an adverse event occurred during them, and over twenty percent of those adverse events are actually preventable.
You know.
These are things like hospital acquired infections, delirium, medication errors, things like that, and those are what we're really scared about. If a hospital bed shortage were to occur, for reached eighty five percent, those are likely to get worse, you know, because when hospitals are overcrowded, staff gets stretched thin, errors start to happen, miss medications, misdiagnoses, all things like that.
Yeah, I've known stories about people, including a family member who had a pretty bad fracture, ended up spending the better part of a night in a some sort of mobile bed, literally in a hallway because yeah, no rooms available. My question is is this problem which we know exists here in say Boston and Los Angeles, is it as acute in other parts of the country, let's say, places like Nebraska and Kansas, South Dakota, or is this something that is pervasive throughout the country.
That's a very good question. And you know, the data from our study wasn't quite that granular where we could look at you know, metropolitan areas and rural versus know,
urban and things like that. But I think from other data that's been published, we do find that this is generally true at large academic centers, especially in urban areas, and even non academic centers in urban areas where this phenomenon of people you know, boarding or effectively, you know, queuing up for a bed upstairs and the ed in this obscure hallway is increasingly common. What happens at some of the more rural centers is what it certainly can happen.
We're also seeing a lot of staffing shortages. We're seeing it harder to actually open beds in some of these rural centers, so you get this phenomenon of what's called dormant beds, where you know, whole wards basically the beds are there, they're just not the personnel, the physicians, the ancillary staff, the nurses to be able to actually open those beds to patients. So then you actually can kind of get spill over to the nearest academic center, the
nearest urban center. So it's kind of this vicious cycle where it affects and urban centers in different ways, but it negatively impacts all.
Of them, you know. Doctor With every medical professional who I talk to, and I talked to a lot over the course of a month, probably at least eight or nine in these sort of relative and short interviews, I try to raise the issue of why is it That I'll leave the question hanging, but I want you to know it's something that this talk show host and longtime
journalist in Boston is very concerned about. Why is it that we have a doctor shortage in this country that so many qualified young people who are graduating from great colleges, great colleges are having to go offshore to complete their medical education medical to get their medical degrees, whether it's in the Caribbean or other very good teaching institutions. What has happened to this country that as we have grown over grown, older everybody could have seen this coming that
we didn't prepare better for it. We have a PCP shortage here in New England, which is incredible. I know doctors who retire who can't get a PCP in New England. So I don't know what's going on in LA, but this is something that I want to ring the belt and the alarm on every nime, every time I talk to someone like yourself who's a thought leader in your community. So I just leave it there. I'm not looking for you to join the crusade. We got to people into the medical field, period.
No, that's that's absolutely true. And I think also kind of jumping off of that, we have to get more people. You just mentioned primary care that you're just here, and I think, you know, even when we we do increase the pipeline of physicians, there's such an incentive now to go into these highly highly lucrative subspecialists and some of these other positions, and less so less incentives to actually go into primary care, which which we need more of.
We also need more you know, nurses and speaking of you know, pipelines there, you know, there's been a lot of I think a lot of like a catastrophic decisions in terms of health policy, like the US State Department, for example, last June froze all visas for foreign trained nurses. We already I think that the nursing shortage is actually
more profound than the physician staffing shortage. And it blows my mind that these types of policies and legislation are enacted when we need desper me more nurses.
I got to get you on some night and we do an hour and we talk to callers, but I'm flat out of time. We got the nine o'clock news here. I know it's a three hour difference, so I could talk to you for three more else, but we got to let you go. Doctor.
Well that's great.
I'll come back anytime.
Lucer, thank you very much, Thank you very much. With UCLA. Thanks again. Doctor can give me back. Right after the nine o'clock news, we're going to talk about long COVID. It's the real thing, folks, Long COVID