When Medicine Lost Its Human Touch: One Doctor's Forty-Year Reckoning | S. A. Lonky

Hey, one more thing before you go.Let me ask you something.What happens when the profession you devoted your life to no longer looks like the one you fell in love with?Imagine dedicating 40 years of your life to saving people.You enter medicine believing that healing is more about charts and numbers and diagnosis.It's all about looking someone in the eye, listening to their story, and recognizing the human being behind the illness.But over those 40 years, the world around you changes.Computers become indispensable.Data becomes guiding decisions, and the systems designed to support doctors become increasingly complex.And somewhere along the way, you begin to wonder, are we getting better at treating disease while losing something essential to all of us?Caring for people?My guest today spent more than four decades inside that changing world.And what he experienced eventually led him to tell a very different kind of story.We're going to talk about that.I'm Michael Herst.Welcome to one more thing before you go.Today I'm sitting down with Dr. S.A. longy.He's a board certified physician whose career, as I said earlier, spans more than four decades, including critical care medicine.He's also a playwright, an actor and a novelist who, whose latest work, Conspiracy of Data, Fail Safe, Not Safe, draws upon his experiences with the changing landscape of modern medicine.But today we're going beyond the book.We're exploring the journey of a physician who witnessed extraordinary changes in how medicine is practiced and what those changes have meant to the people providing care and the people receiving it.Dr. Lockey, welcome to the show.

Glad to be here, Michael.Thank you for having me.

I wanted, first of all and foremost, I appreciate you and your service to the community in regard to medicine.As we said, I've spent about, you know, eight different times in the hospital having a surgery and got to understand doctors from a very personal perspective from, from that point.So thank you, sir, for, for your service.

Well, thank you.You're welcome.

Before we talk about your 40 years, you probably listening to the show know I like to kind of, you know, get a little at the beginning.So before we, you know, the 40 years medicine of the books that you've written, can you take us back to the beginning, what life was like growing up and when you first began to imagine becoming a physician, a doctor,.

Boy, I really, that's a good question.I really go back a long way.As I grew up in New York City and when a very young age my mom had a TV was a whole new medium.Boy, we're really dating ourselves, huh?

Yeah, we are.

Little black and white, black and white television.There was a show called Medic.I don't know if many people will remember that.And.And I remember that the beginning of it was the heart of a lion, the eye of an eagle, the hand of a woman.Those are the three attributes of a worthy physician.I remember that.And I remember saying, you know, that's something I might want to do.I like people.I like science and math.I was good at those things.And I think probably in my early teens, I knew pretty much I was going to be a physician.I knew I was going to be a doctor.And I really gauged my entire educational experience to doing that, to becoming a physician, and to working with people.I do enjoy interaction with people.I enjoy listening to them.I enjoy helping people.That was something that was ingrained in me, I guess.My mom and my dad.My dad was a bricklayer, basically.He.He.We grew up in the Bronx, moved out to the island, and I went to college in New York State.And I always had an idea that I was staying in New York and I was going to be a physician.

And that's amazing.I think that, you know, I grew up in front of a TV as well, about the same time, time frame, watching all the different shows like that and Marcus Welby md And, you know, then it moved on to.I think it was.I think one of the guys just actually died.Was it the original 911 or ER or emergency?

Yeah, all of those shows were impactful on me, but.And that's the way, you know, when I went into medicine and when I finally got into medical school and then finished medical school and became an intern in the city of New York, in Brooklyn, of all places, there was a majesty.There was a certain majesty that medicine had.There were things to learn, there were how.The little intricacies of listening to people, to hearing their stories, to taking a history from a patient.We have courses in how to take a history, how to examine a patient, how to tell the difference between a head bobbing when they talk or not bobbing, and listening to heart murmurs and interpreting them and listening to lungs and putting it all together.I guess I like jigsaw puzzles, too, so I like solving things and then fixing them.But.

Do you think that those.Do you think there's those TV shows in.In those early people influenced your decision to pursue medicine and kind of set you, you know, like you say, your early medical training and the first experiences with patients, I'm sure, like when I did as a cop, it was a.It was like embracing something new.I was like Hey, I found my passion, you know, I really found my niche.This is where I want to be.

Oh, it was a passion.It was definitely a passion.There was no question of wanting to be good and then wanting to be the best at what I did.That was always something that was ingrained in me, to be not just good, but be better than good, and to keep getting better, as good as people told me I was, and got an A or an A plus on it.So what?There was so much I didn't know.So it was a.It was a majestic time in medicine for me.And I. I always think fondly about those years.Not the sleepless nights.Not the sleepless nights, of course.

Yeah, I don't miss those either.Once you're retired, don't think.Yeah, I don't miss those at all, do you?From within that career, obviously, you have watched it evolve into something that is such an immense amount of technical aspects that have introduced themselves.The new techniques, the new opportunities.We have robots doing surgery.Theoretically, do you think that.How does that differ from maybe the first patient who made you realize that, you know, medicine was more than just the technical aspect of it as a human being?

Well, I saw things.You know, Michael, when I started, we didn't have CAT scans, CT scans.We didn't have MRIs.We didn't have half the blood tests we had.We didn't have ultrasounds.None of those things were available.Forget about it.We had a chest X ray, we had our stethoscope, we had our hands, we had our ears, we had our brains.And we had the wisdom of older physicians to teach us as apprentices.And it was a learning that was different.And then things started to change, and all of these new tests came in, and we embraced them at first because they made our lives easier.But when I finished my medical training and went into my fellowship, I was a National Institutes of Health fellow, an NIH fellow.I was what they call an extramural fellow.My area of research was biochemistry of lung injury.And I worked at the University of California, San Diego, and I loved my years there, but I loved my boss.My boss was.I'll mention his name.His name was Kenneth M. Moser.He's long since gone.But Ken was a guy who I looked up to as a father figure, and.And I've actually put him in my book as a major character.But Ken was the guy that kept me grounded because everything was moving so fast.We were developing new technologies, new technologies at measuring lung function, new technologies at looking at how An X ray and then a CT scan and then an MRI and then new imaging and blood tests and markers and DNA markers, and all these things were happening.And Ken kept saying, the patient tells you everything.And he kept me grounded.But I left the university and I went into practice in the Los Angeles area.I trained in San Diego and went into practice in la, and everything changed.Everybody was glued to the computer screen.And I started to sit back.And even in an intensive care unit where I spend most of my time, I would see my colleagues walk in and not go to the bedside, but go to the computer and look at the data and look at the information.Everything was there.And I sat back and I still sit back and I say, we're losing something here.

I agree.

I would go and examine patients and I'd have a patient say to me, I would almost be floored.They would say, you know, you're the first doctor that's actually listened to my chest.

Iversa.

What could that be?Well, no, they would come in here and talk to me and tell me what all the numbers say and all the studies say.And that's it.

Yeah, I believe.I believe that wholeheartedly.I think, you know, you entered medicine with a particular understanding of what it's meant, you know, to care for another human being is.That's how you entered.Entered it from what I get from this and that complete evolvement into a more of a. I guess you could call it more of a clinical.More than a human being side, maybe more of a clinical approach where there's no personal interaction.There's no, you know, how you feeling today?How are you doing today?Does this hurt?Does that hurt?Is.Let me read the numbers and let me see.Let me see.The computer says about you, not what you say about you.

But you know something, Michael?Let's look at the other side.The introduction of computers and now artificial intelligence to analyze all of the data, all of the information.It's more accurate.I have to be honest with you.I have to be honest with you.When I had just an X ray and my hands and my ears and the history, I was closer to the patient, but I had limited information.I had to look at the past and see what these symptoms might be and rule out this and rule out that and be sure it's not.This medicine was more of being sure what it wasn't.And then you finally figured out what it was.At least in diagnostic medicine.I'm not talking about orthopedics, where you come in with a broken Bone.It's pretty obvious you have a broken bone and it needs to be fixed.But who you have, we have so much information that to be honest with you, my brain can't, can't compute at all.

And I think this day and age, we're living in a Star Trek age is what, what I remember the old Star Trek movies or shows in the first time they had,.

Oh yeah,.

Everybody.

Oh yeah,.

Tricorder.Everything was computer, you could talk to your computer.

I used to walk around the ward saying, give me a tricorder.That's what I.

Mean.Exactly.Well, you know, as an individual that unfortunately spent a large amount of time in the hospital and you know, going through the surgeries that I have done and dealing with the doctors, the surgeons, the nurses, the everybody, the anesthesiologist all the way down the line.And previous to that, you know, I had.My experience primarily with any hospital was typically bringing people in that had been involved in an accident, a trauma of some sort, domestic violence, an assault, stabbing, shooting, traffic accident, those kind of things, and, or drug overdose, et cetera.And usually watching them work within that, you do see that there's a personal connection.They're there for a reason.You became a doctor for a reason.You have care about people, you care about the outcome of people and how they felt and whether or not you could help them.I think the technology today is a double edged sword in certain respects because you get the value of what's come into here, you get the value of the diagnostics, like you had said, the value of the intricacies that you can't compute your own brain.You can only have a hunch or a gut feeling or based on something that's written in a book, you have something more solid.But I agree with you.I think the personal aspect of it is getting pushed aside a lot more than it really needs to get pushed aside.

You know, I think something happened as I was going through all of this that I began to formulate in my mind.You know, I'm a writer and I've always loved writing.I did acting in college, I started writing plays when I was in college.I enjoy the theater very much.And even in medical school and after I was on the faculty at UC San Diego, I was a member of a little theater and I did a number of shows in San Diego.My creative part of my brain never stopped working.So even as I went through, I always saw stories and I saw my patients and I saw what was happening.And I realized a couple of things.One, we are Going to have artificial intelligence analyze the database.There will be a database.When Obamacare came in and the thought of a single payer in my novel, A Conspiracy of Data, basically, it's interesting.I started writing this book in 2016 and had a pandemic in it.And then Covid happened, so I had to sit back and redo the book and put Covid into it.So Covid is interwoven into a conspiracy of data because you need something to force us to go to a single payer system.What a single payer system means is a single database, one payer, one electronic medical record.All of the information about you, Michael, eventually all your medical history, every visit you ever had to an er, every visit you ever had to a doctor.It may even include things like what you buy at the grocery store, how much alcohol you consume, so on and so forth.All of that information is in the database.If you have all of that information, you can use artificial intelligence to come to the best resolution of what your symptoms are, what the best treatment is going to be going forward.It's better medicine.There's no question about it.It's more accurate.It's going to be fine.What's missing is what we were talking about.

Yeah,.

I mean, I see the new young physicians in critical care medicine, the pulmonary doctors, the cardiologists with a lack of ability to engage with a patient, to examine a patient, they've lost the skills.Those skills are absolutely going to be necessary if anything happens to the electronic medical record.

I agree.

With that.

You know, it's interesting because when you watch, my cardiologist is old school.And my cardiologist, we have a very personal, very personal relationship with that.And he's old school doctor.And you know, I had an incident where we had to.I read his cell phone, if, if there's any incidents, and we texted him, my wife texted him, said, hey, Michael's doing this.We had to call 911, which we have never had to do, you know, up to that point.And this is what he's doing this and boom, boom, boom, you know.And this doctor, Dr. Dawes, an amazing cardiologist, you know, he was in constant communication with my wife in regard to that.He had the advantage of my medical records, but on his phone or on his iPad, whatever he had with him at that time, which was a benefit to him in talking with me with what happened.But he still maintains the personal connection from.For the human being side of it, you know, the ability to kind of understand that, yes, I have all this data, but I also know Michael kind of.Kind of a thing.My daughter unfortunately went through a cardiac.She's not very old.She's only 34 years old, but she's got pots.I hope you're familiar with pots.

Yes, I am.Yeah.Positive orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.

Yes.So we had to take her in and we in.She had.She moved from Colorado down here to Arizona.So she had to get a new cardiologist.And what we found with that cardiologist is that he did.And when I say this, I'm not mentioning any names.So, you know, when I say this, what we, what we saw was the person she had been working with in Colorado, or for me with Dr. Dawes, was much different than the relationship with the new cardiologist.The younger cardiologist that she got here, who was primarily doing what you and I were talking about, he primarily was just looking on the computer and going this, this, this, and this.And everything was a diagnostic.From that perspective, he didn't want actually delve into more of a personal perspective.How do you feel?How is this affecting you and this kind of a thing?So I agree with you, but I think your analogy of all of our medical records, for example, being in one spot, everything being right there, readily available, everything from day one forward, Is that kind of a 1984ish?I mean, yeah, I know we talked about.Do you think it's kind of around that side of it?Because in reality, when you start thinking about we're all a number from there.And I'm sure that's a lot of what's in your book, I'm guessing.Do you think there's a relationship there?

Yes, I think that, you know, Michael, those people who don't understand AI in medicine will eventually learn to understand it.They may not appreciate it, but the fact is it's inevitable that this is going to happen.It's inevitable because medical care has become too expensive.These tests are not inexpensive, as I'm sure you know, insurance companies, their premiums.I paid for my, my employees year after year and for my own.Well, I'm on Medicare now, but I have a supplement.And we.The costs keep going up and up and up.There's nothing facetious about those statements.That's real.

No, it's real.It's a real fact.

And we, we talk about cost effectiveness, but let me give you an idea of what.How do we look at cost effectiveness?So your daughter looks at you, and God forbid something terrible happens to you and, and you wind up in a critical care situation and you become infected and your organs start failing and we need to do dialysis and we need to do other life saving, life prolonging activities.And for your daughter, cost effective means the effect that she wants is for you to survive.She doesn't want to lose her dad.Okay?But for the payer, cost effectiveness is you don't survive because death is cheap.Because once you're gone, you don't cost the system anything anymore.So how do we program artificial intelligence to come up with treatment algorithms that will be quote, cost effective?Who's defining cost effective?Who's doing those things?A committee, a person.And those are the thoughts, those are the things that go through my brain when I see where medicine is heading.And it gave me the ideas for writing this trilogy about AI in medicine and where it could head and how we're going to control it.How are we going to maintain the humanity of.That's my dad and he means a lot to me.And you don't understand, he's a person versus man.He's an expense.And when we listen to the politicians, of course they have no concept of what we're talking about, you and I today.They just say whatever comes into their mind and sounds good.The word free is always the best word.Everything is going to be free.Well, nothing's free.And the fact is there's a cost.And that cost is something we need to be thinking about.So I wrote this trilogy, this conspiracy of Data.The first part is Fail safe, not safe, because it's a system that's supposed to be a fail safe system.But I wrote it to entertain and to satisfy my need for writing.Because writers like to write, let's be honest, they like to create.And I find it as exciting as I hope the reader gets reading my book.I get excited writing it.And right now I'm almost finished with book two and I keep reading it.I get really excited as I'm creating it.But I write it also to make people stop and think about where we're heading and that we have to preserve this human part of our lives while AI becomes an assist, you know, so it's like my girl, one of my grandkids is a hockey player.And it always reminds me, papa, you know, I'm a defenseman, I get more assists than I do goals, but an assist is worth one point, just like a goal.So I say, you're right, that's fine.You know, AI is our assist.But the captain of the Ship still has to be human to human interaction.And when we, if we lose that, we, we lose the eye of an eagle, the heart of a lion, the hand of a woman.We lose that.That was the attributes of a worthy physician.That's what, that's what it is.

I find it really, I find it unique that you, I mean, think we all, anybody that's in a position like you have been, especially in critical care and so forth.You've seen things that other people don't see in a regular daily basis, just like I did as a cop.We always try to find a creative outlet to help us to deal with those atrocities of life that happen to sneak up on people.Because life can change in an instant, as you and I both know from that perspective you chose, the methodology that you chose was conspiracy, which I think is, again, talking to a cop.I appreciate that perspective of it.What made you choose that in, in lieu of maybe a lighter, a lighter heart or a lighter move or, you know, I'm not sure the right verbiage for that, but like a romance novel instead, or that direction.

But you know, that's an interesting question and I ask myself that, am I too dark in my view of the world?But I think that you would see this as a former police officer and first responder.You understand that.Of all the good that we try to do, there are still people that we misjudge.I'll give you an example.In a play I've written which hasn't seen the light of day yet, but I consider to be one of my better pieces of work.I have a character who has a mother in an intensive care unit who is dying and who is caring for her at home.And she wants to keep her mommy alive because she has a fixation on her as a mom.And so her mom is elderly, in her late 80s.We can question whether or not we're keeping an 80 something year old alive in an intensive care unit.That's a question unto itself because she hasn't spoken to anybody in 15 years.But my main character, she wants to keep her mom alive and she's obviously collecting her mom's Social Security check, which keeps coming.And if the mom dies, that Social Security check goes away.She also gets paid for caring for her mother.So the dark side of her is to take a look at her as sponging off her mother.And the only reason she wants to keep her alive is because that's her lifestyle.On the other hand, she was a very successful school administrator and you come to learn that in the play she was making six figures, and she left that job to care for her mother because of her devotion to her mother.There's the personal contact, and I want that push and pull.And with a conspiracy bringing the dark side in and calling it a conspiracy of Data, it isn't all dark.My book has a lot of positive parts.Is there romance in it?Yes.Is there humor?Yes.I think the reader will, will see if they pick up the book and read it, they'll chuckle.They will actually laugh at some of the lines in there.And it's meant to be light.It's meant to still drive home the push and pull of life.Because I think, like, you know, life is full of those kinds of stories.I mean, one thing I've learned as a physician is to be a great listener.I'm really good at listening.I listen to my patients.I listen to the nurses as they talk.I listen to their tone of voice.I listen to the way they talk about people who they feel sorry for, who they are scornful of.And I realize life is filled with the push and pull, isn't it?The good and the bad.And I think what I wanted to do in the Conspiracy of Data was to show the good that my main character is trying to do.He's trying to carry on the legacy of his deceased mentor who dies right in front of him at the very beginning of the book.Spoiler.Sorry, but it's really in the first chapter.I mean, that's what happens, and that's what throws this Alex right into the fray of why was Max killed?

We're going to use that as an exclusive when I go to market this podcast.We have an exclusive for Dr. Longbeach.

So, so you know what, and, and to move him forward.But the fact is, is that you really see the difference in what, what the world, the good and the bad.And, and I drive that to tell a story, it's very difficult to sit down and say, okay, I could just write an essay about, about AI in medicine and that would be the end of it.But no, that's not, that's not going to resonate with people.What will resonate with people is a series of books that they become engaged with, that they become attracted to the, to the characters that they, they root for the characters that they laugh with them, they cry with them, and they move into, into life because life happens and, and, and, and it, it moves forward with a message and the need to keep our humanity in the face of a technological boom, which is Happening.You can't put that genie back in the bottle.There's no.

Way it's out there, and it's going to continue to be out there.And, you know, I use AI and we use it around the house.Our.I don't want to say the words out loud, but our Siri on my iPhone, for example, use it with Lexi.We call it Lexi.If I say the real word, she'll answer me over here in a second.You.You.It's ironic because we start developing kind of sort of a relationship with our AI and then you see AI developing a relationship back with you.And I don't mean this in a romantic capacity.I mean, they understand.You know, we.My.My Lexi, for example, I. I cook.I have turned into an amateur chef.That's one of my other.My pastimes to keep me occupied, to keep me moving forward.I enjoy it.I have a passion for eating, so I have a passion for making really good food.So if I ask her something in regard to something, she'll go, oh, yeah, because you like to cook French and Italian dishes, let me recommend something for you.It has developed a chronological order of likes and dislikes and encouragements.And sometimes you have to stop and say, give me the real.You know, don't sugarcoat this.I need a real answer.Tell me.I'm going to give you something and I'm going to explain something to you, but I don't want you to sugarcoat.Be nice to me.I want you to give me a real answer and kind of reset it just a little bit so that it becomes more on our level.I think we could get lost in that if it's not.I'm not going to say controlled, if it's not monitored to a certain perspective.

Now, I understand exactly what you're saying.You know, I.In working on these books and this story, which, you know, I was really foolish at the beginning.I thought this would all be just one book.But.

Right.

You know, 200,000 words.It's not going to work.So I chopped it into three parts.But the fact is I've interviewed and met with a number of people, one of which is, I live in Santa Barbara now, so I have a friend who is a professor at UC Santa Barbara, and his specialty is AI and he consults to a number of different organizations.He's pretty well known.And he reminds me one thing.He says, stuart, you know, there's one thing that you have to remember about AI.AI does not wake up in the morning and have any goal and I stopped and thought about that.It doesn't want to go to medical school.AI did not wake up this morning and decide it wanted to be a chef.It has no goal until you give it a go.And that's what made me stop and say, who is programming the AI?What is bias?What is one person's view of the world is another person's view of the world.I don't have to talk about politics to.To make people realize there can be opposing views of the same exact thing.And depending on who's programming.And that's the conspiracy, who's dictating the ones and the zeros, the code that tells AI what counts and what doesn't count, what's the goal of that person?That's what is going to dictate whether or not AI is a friend or a foe.That's part of what the story of a conspiracy of data is all about.And figuring it all out, of course, leaves my protagonist through three different books getting deeper and deeper and deeper.And I don't have to tell you, the minute you.You have one layer of the onion, you get more layers.

Rabbit hole,.

Rabbit holes.And that's the fun part for me, you know, sometimes I'm not even sure what's going on.Sometimes I sit down and I write.And in the morning when I read what I've written, the day before I go, did I write that?Who wrote that?That's good.

I was.

Bazelle Kampitz.You know what I'm saying?That's.That's the joy of writing.

Well, my father was a writer.My father was a writer before he died.My father loved writing, was journalist, and he was in the middle of a novel before he passed on, you know, and I remember him, in creating that, he.Because of his journalistic career, he went right out of college, worked for a newspaper, and had worked for a newspaper ever since, kind of a thing.Always.He did the crime be did accidents, he did train crashes, he did plane crashes.You know, you name.It was always the downside of something.He's always reporting the news.And we both know that about 90% of the news out there is usually something that's bad.It's like when you have a cop knock on the door, you know, it isn't always good news when the cops knock on the door.So I know that when he was writing his novel and he started the novel, he said, I want to write a novel because I really want to take my mind off of all of this trash, basically, all of this Junk, all of this noise, all of this everything.You chose to write fiction in lieu of non fiction when you could have made a very lucrative career.I'm sure writing non fiction books with your specialties that you have in heart.So I think taking this opportunity and weaving in your, your skills in your profession into a trilogy of novels is a kind of a very unique and a heartfelt way to share your expertise in a way that shows life happens.

It does, and I'm glad you point that out.I mean, I do write nonfiction, but my love is fiction and I believe most people respond to stories, characters, you know, TV series, movies, all of these things that are memorable.You know, we see a lot of movies, we see a lot, we read a lot of books, but there are some that are just so memorable that have taught us a life lesson.

Exactly.

Have made else better people.And you know, do I really think I'm going to make people better people?No, I'm going to make them more aware.That's what I, I want them to reach deep inside themselves and say, does this resonate with me?Do I want this?Yes.I want good medicine.Yes.I want excellent care for everybody.I want everybody to have equal care.And the computer can do that.It could do it better than a concierge doctor.I don't care how bright he is, he can't possibly analyze all the data.

We all have the opportunity for Dr. Chat right now.Dr. Chatgpt, you can.

But the fact is is that once all of your information is there and once it's accurate and the accuracy can be proven.

Yeah,.

What are we losing?

Yeah, I think it's, I mean, honestly, I think it's a benefit because it allows you to, like you said earlier, analyze a little better, more effective and more efficiently.It gives them the opportunities that sometimes an individual may always think about and may say, oh, I didn't think about that.We can go this direction or that direction, or it could be this.I didn't think about that before.So I think you taking that approach because like we said, AI is not going anywhere.It's going to continue to build within itself and compound upon itself.And it's a learning, all AI is a learning aspect.Unfortunately, when you look at Terminator where it says, okay, machines keep learning it and they're learning and they're learning, they're learning, they're going to take over.Yes, that has to be monitored to a specific point.But in reality, computers are building computers because they know better how to build that computer and what it needs and what it needs to develop and give us answers than it would be with an individual sitting in there doing the same thing.And I feel within the medicinal practices that the same kind of approach, it will still give this.I'm.I'm hoping we can still retain the human contact as well and understand that although you're utilizing these tools, remember that we're still a human being sitting down in front of you.

You and me both, Michael.That's where I go.And that's.I would love for your viewers and your listeners to give a look at my website.It's s a lonk s alonki author.com Very simple.And they can purchase the first book there and talk to me and ask me questions and leave a review and critique and whatever they want to do.But as I say, my goal is to reach as many people as possible with a message and with a story that both entertains, enlightens, and causes them to take pause and think that's all.

Let me ask you this before we kind of go a bit more depth on how to get in touch with you, looking back across those 40 years, because that's an amazing accomplishment within itself to stick with something for 40 years, for that long.What do you think our young, if you know your younger self, the doctor just beginning his career would make of the world of medicine today?Kind of, kind of think back when you first started this, and then you see the glimpse of the future.Now, what would you tell yourself?

I would tell myself to be careful and to maintain my humanity at all costs, to keep listening.I would look at where we are today from back then, and I would say, if that's where we're going.The one missing piece was the piece that turned me on, so to speak, the communication with people.You know, some people think it's egocentric.You know, doctors think they're the center of the universe.In a sense, we.In my days when I was younger, I wanted to be that important person.I wanted to be the person that helped my patients make a transition from illness to wellness, whatever it took.And if I looked into the future and I said, if that's what it's become, I've just become irrelevant.They don't need me because the machine can make them better.And I would have fought that back when I was younger, that younger me would have said, no, no, no, no, no, no.Maintain what you've maintained.Some of the young nurse practitioners and PAs and nurses and younger physicians on the staff always looked at me and said, you're kind of an old timer.You do things the old way as if that was a curse.But, you know, I know something.I think the nurses and the PAs, the physician's assistants and nurse practitioners looked at me and said, I want him as my doctor.You know, the best compliment was most of them came to me as their doctor when they got sick.That was the best compliment I ever got.

Yeah.

Was the hospital staff all wanted to be my patient.

Yeah.That's actually,.

You know, the assembly line of medicine.You know, 10 minutes per patient.You know, you only have 10 minutes per patient now.

That's ridiculous.

I could never have done that.Even up until the day that I stopped seeing patients a year and a half ago, I allowed 30 minutes per patient.I have fun with my patients.

It's an honorable thing that you were doing there.Because they had a commercial hill running in Arizona where it showed a doctor walking into an exam room, and then they sit down and say, okay, so today we're here to see you about.And then it showed this claw.Come in and grab them, pick them up by the shirt collar and then take them out and move them down to the next one and then drop them into the next one.Trying to show.This particular ad was trying to show we have a clinic that you can come to that people spend time with you.And it's not just as soon as you sit down and go, hi, Dr. Loke, my name is Michael Hurst, and I'm here for this and this and this.And then you being yanked right out of the chair and move to the next one.

Right.Because the efficiency of the system.That's how it works.

Yeah.Yeah.Which is, to me, it was a brilliant commercial to showcase.To.

Like it.

In reference to what we just spoke about real quick, because we're running on time here.Imagine for a moment that you had never entered medicine.I do this almost question, and I ask every guest that comes on here, if you had never entered medicine, you never spent those 40 years with patients.You never witnessed the changes that we've discussed.You never carried those experiences into your writing.What do you think the world might have missed because you weren't there.You weren't here, but there.

I think there are certain people who I've trained over the years who wouldn't be as good as they are today.And as Karen, I think that my ability now to put things on paper, and it's a talent, it's a skill, it's learned to some extent, but some of it comes natural as being a storyteller.I think that the world would be missing that insight into what we call progress.Some progress is not progressive, so to speak.And it just doesn't.It doesn't make us better people.And I think that the world would miss that.

I agree with them.I agree with them.Let's tell people how to find your book again, please.And how to get their conspiracy of data fail safe.Not safe.

Right.Well, it's on Amazon, obviously, but it.And Barnes and Noble and a number of other sites.But my website, which is updated regularly and where they can contact me is www.salonkylonky.Offer ankiauthor.com and I'm happy to talk with anybody and obviously would appreciate people taking a look at my work and reading it and finding it entertaining and telling me if it was entertaining and if it.If it want.Made them want more.Because there's more coming whether you want it or not.

Yeah, book two and three coming.Well, I'll make sure that that link's in the show.Notes.Everybody has an easy way to click it and come to you.I'd like to have some wardrobe.Wisdom.This is that.One more thing before you go.Words of wisdom.We've talked about lifetime of medicine, the changes you witnessed, and the importance of remembering the human being behind every decision.So before we go, my one final question is, what is the one thing you want people to remember about the relationship between medicine, humanity and AI?

That medical care is about caring for people.And people are not just a physical physiological heartbeat, heart rhythm, CT scan, MRI, survival.It's a spirit.There's a soul inside there.And sometimes getting better means touching that spirit and that soul.And that's really important.It's important to have that in your relationship with your caregiver.

Amazing words of wisdom.Amazing words of wisdom.Dr. Locke, thank you very much for joining me today.And I thank you for sharing your experiences and your wisdom, your perspective and the journey that you led from medicine into storytelling.I think you're an amazing storyteller and an opportunity for us to kind of delve into your world is an opportunity to excel within ourselves.I appreciate you taking a time taking a seat at the table with me.

I really enjoyed talking with you, Michael, and learning about you too, and having the opportunity to talk to your audience.

I will do this again when your next book comes out.

Thank you.

You know, what stays with me from this conversation is a question that extends far beyond medicine.We live in a world where technology can help us do extraordinary things.But as our systems become more sophisticated, how do we make sure we don't lose sight of the people those systems were created to serve.So whether you're a physician, a teacher, a parent, or simply someone trying to make a difference, perhaps the most important thing we can offer another human being is our presence.Because sometimes being seen and being heard matters just as much as having the right answer.And perhaps that's something worth remembering, not just in medicine, but in every part of our lives.So thank you very much for spending this time.And one more thing before you go.If today's conversation resonated with you, share it with someone who might appreciate it.And be sure to follow us and subscribe.If you don't excuse me, Follow us and subscribe so you don't miss the stories still to come.You'll find more about Dr. Lanky, his book, and the resources we discussed in the show notes.So until next time, stay curious, stay connected, and remember, every person has a story worth telling.Be sure to bring your mind My name Michael Hurst and this is one more thing before you go.Listening to this episode of One more Thing before you Go, check out our website at before you Go Podcast.You can find us as well as subscribe to the program and rate us on your favorite podcast listening platform.