KevinMD on the Medical Entrepreneur podcast

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In this episode, I’m on the other side of the microphone. I’m interviewed by Adam Sewell at the Medical Entrepreneur podcast. I share insights on the non-linear paths physicians can take with their degrees and their options beyond clinical medicine. We also delve into the topic of physician burnout and the high suicide rate in the medical profession. I highlight the importance of financial independence and diversifying one’s income to alleviate burnout. We emphasize the need to pay off debts and have a supplemental income source to have more flexibility in pursuing passions outside of clinical medicine. Join us in this thought-provoking conversation on the future of medicine and the options available to physicians.

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Transcript

Adam Sewell: All right, guys, welcome back to the Medical Entrepreneur podcast. I have a special guest on. You might know him: the very famous KevinMD. If you could, tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Kevin Pho: Sure. Adam, thank you so much for having me on the show. My name is Kevin Pho. I’m the founder of KevinMD. I’m an internal medicine physician, and I still practice primary care. I’m based in Nashua, New Hampshire, and I’ve been running KevinMD since 2004. It’s a platform where anybody in health care can really share their story so they can be heard, and it’s led me in so many different directions, which we’ll talk about today.

Adam Sewell: Man, that is awesome. I know that one of the things I’m always impressed by with you is just the ability you have to talk to so many people. I mean, you do a podcast every day of the week. That’s incredible.

Kevin Pho: It’s definitely a learning experience. I think one of the things that surprised me: I started this a few months after the pandemic, back in June, and I thought, “Man, this is a great opportunity to talk to a lot of the KevinMD authors, to talk to the guest authors so they can share their stories in their own words.” And I remember throwing open my schedule three months in advance. I said, “Who’s going to sign up for the podcast?” And I think within five days, I had about 90 slots filled up. So I was committed; there was no backing out now. I had to go through 90 interviews in three months, and I thought to myself, “Oh my gosh, what did I get myself into?” I’d never done a podcast before. I’m not a skilled interviewer. I was just talking for the first time, but I had 90 of these to do. So it was definitely a trial-by-fire experience.

But it’s been so rewarding, because I’ve met so many people. It’s wonderful to talk to them in person, and it’s been a tremendous learning opportunity for me, because I get to talk to experts in pretty much every field of medicine across the country. I have about 20 minutes of their undivided attention, and I can ask them anything I want, right? So it’s really been a lot of fun, and I’ve learned a tremendous amount. It’s been great.

Adam Sewell: Well, I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about how you started. I mean, you mentioned you were doing internal medicine, but maybe you could tell us what brought you into medicine, the journey that you had, obviously, becoming a physician, and then perhaps, after that, talk about what the impetus was for you to step out. Because so often in medicine, we’re taught to be conservative, that kind of thing.

Kevin Pho: Yeah, so in terms of going into medicine, right, it’s a cliche response: How can you make the best difference in people’s lives? How can I use my skills and my interests and my passion to make a difference in the world? How can I make my mark in the world, right? So going into medicine, people are always coming to you in their most vulnerable state. No one likes to come to the doctor, and they share stories, and they tell you things that they wouldn’t tell anyone else. They’ll disrobe for you, and you examine them, and these are things that don’t happen under normal circumstances. So the amount of trust that patients place in their clinicians, to me, was truly fascinating, and being able to listen to their story and guide them through what a lot of times are the most difficult times in their lives, that, to me, is very rewarding, and it’s still rewarding. I still practice primary care two and a half days a week, despite everything else.

Back in 2004, I started a blog, KevinMD, and I thought it was a wonderful opportunity where I could not only talk to patients one-to-one in the exam room but also one-to-many on what was an early social media platform. I tell the story a lot: I think I wrote a blog post after a drug recall, and then the next day, one of my patients in the exam room said, “You know, I read your blog post this morning, and I was comforted by what you had to say.” And that, to me, was my aha moment in terms of reaching patients outside the exam room.

And now, of course, we’re talking about 20-something years later, and it’s so much more important, because patients now are getting so much information online. We just lived through, or we’re still living through, three-plus years of the pandemic, and there’s still a lot of misinformation out there. There’s still a lot of polarization out there. So I think it’s certainly more important for physicians or clinicians and anyone in the health care field to get out there and guide patients to reputable sources of health care information. And there are so many threats, of course, to our profession as well. It’s so important for us to get our voices heard and to make differences not only in patients’ lives but also in our own lives as well.

Adam Sewell: Wow, that makes some really good points. And then I was going to say, with regard to patient care, I mean, what I’ve kind of seen, and the kind of things that we talk about on the Medical Entrepreneur podcast, is that a lot of the people we’re talking to are basically disenfranchised people in medicine. When you go through the training, you think, “Oh, I’m going to get out, I’m going to help so many people, I’m going to do this.” And then you get out, and you realize you’re burdened under a system that essentially is algorithm-driven. The insurance company will only pay for certain things, even if it’s not necessarily in the best interest of the patient. Have you seen your practice change over the years? And if so, have you taken any steps to be able to practice the way that you want to?

Kevin Pho: It’s exactly what you said. I think that a lot of people going into medicine go in with that idealistic mindset, but then they come out and see what our health care system is, and there are so many things that are wrong with our health care system that could be improved. I think that letdown, the disappointment, is leading to a lot of clinician burnout, right? We know the statistics: 60 percent of clinicians are burned out or feeling burned out, and I think medicine isn’t quite what they expected. And I think the biggest reason, as you said, is that loss of autonomy, right? I think clinicians are being told what to do. They can’t practice the way they want. They’re being told that they have to stick with these algorithms. They have to do prior authorizations before they order tests and prescribe medications. And I think this is a lot of disappointment, where the reality of medicine isn’t quite meeting their expectation of medicine.

I certainly see that a lot in primary care, of course, where I’m seeing more and more bureaucracy, and we have to deal with these clunky electronic medical record systems, and of course, you’re on the phone with people arguing about prior authorization. So it is a little bit disenfranchising, and sometimes that loss of autonomy makes practicing medicine much more difficult. But then, if you think it’s difficult for us, you have to look at it from the patient’s end, and I think we have to realize that as hard as we have it, patients have it worse. For them to navigate through this maze of bureaucracy that they have to face whenever they go for health care, I think it’s even worse for patients. And that’s why we have to stick with it, because if patients don’t have clinicians to guide them, they don’t have much of a chance when it comes to navigating the health care system themselves.

Adam Sewell: That’s so true. Is there anything that you’ve done? In our practice, we always try to tell people to get to where they’re not dependent on insurance-based medicine, because with insurance-based medicine, so many things can go wrong. I’ve even seen it get to the point where, here in Texas, Blue Cross Blue Shield actually had a wholly owned subsidiary file medical board complaints against primary care physicians who had prescribed expensive drugs, as they defined expensive. And then these four guys had to go up and defend against a medical board complaint, which at the minimum was about five grand in legal costs. It was basically just Blue Cross essentially punishing these guys for prescribing medications whose price they can’t control.

Kevin Pho: Yeah, so I talk to a lot of clinicians who are leaving this insurance-based health care system. They’re going to what’s known, of course, as direct primary care, where patients pay a set fee, it could be about $100 a month, where they can get access to these physicians. And I get a sense that these physicians are much happier. They don’t have to deal with things like that, like the bureaucracy and the paperwork. They can spend 45 minutes to an hour with each patient and see fewer patients. So yes, I am seeing a trend toward more physicians getting out of the insurance-based health care system.

Adam Sewell: Awesome. Do you have any of your own? I know you mentioned you’re practicing two days a week. Is that just to keep up your license, or is that just something that’s a passion project? Can you tell us more about that?

Kevin Pho: Yeah, so I practice two and a half days a week, and I think the biggest reason is that there’s such a shortage of primary care clinicians, and the bottom line is that patients need us, right? I’m not sure what the situation is in Texas, but up here in New Hampshire, you have to wait months, right, for patients to get in to see a primary care clinician. So part of it is that I’m needed. Second is that I do enjoy the medicine aspects of it, right? I’m not sure about practicing primary care five days a week; I think that would be very, very difficult. But with the medicine aspect of it, I still get a lot of reward from talking to patients about the various issues and problems that they have, trying to solve some of these issues, and, again, just guiding them through the health care system whenever they get diagnosed with a complex disease.

And then also, from a more personal standpoint, whenever I’m talking to physicians about things like social media and why they should get on, I think that I have a little bit more credibility because I’m a practicing physician myself, right? So if I’m talking to primary care physicians about why they should get involved with social media, why they perhaps need to go on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, I’m not someone who’s not going through what they are going through, right? I’ve actually lived through it. I’ve done it myself, and that, to me, is a little bit more persuasive whenever I talk to other clinicians. So I think that blend of what I do with KevinMD and on the website, speaking, doing the podcast, and going on other podcasts like I am now, to me, has been a fantastic counterbalance to what I do clinically in primary care.

And one of the themes that I’m sure we’re going to mention later is that our degrees, our lives, are what you make of them. We are certainly more than our degrees, and I think that there are so many opportunities for clinicians out there to make their professional lives the way they want. Gone are the days when physicians only go to the hospital, only do surgery, only go to the clinic. I think now there are so many opportunities available to us that the definition of what being a clinician is, is so varied and vast. There are so many opportunities out there that we have so much flexibility in terms of choosing how our professional life is.

Adam Sewell: Man, that’s really great. I mean, that’s a really great thing. I know somebody actually referred to you as the Gary Vaynerchuk of medical social media.

Kevin Pho: Well, I don’t know. I don’t know if I have the cachet of GaryVee, but that’s a compliment, I think, right? But like I said earlier, I try to make a difference in terms of improving the lives of clinicians and getting our voices out there, and again, it’s been very rewarding in terms of seeing the impact of that.

Adam Sewell: Absolutely. Man, that’s so interesting. What would you say to someone who, for example, well, I just see this lack of information and education that’s out there, especially, I mean, even, for example, if you take an average GI doctor, right? Most of the time, they’re spending most of their days doing scopes all day, and maybe they have clinic twice a week, that kind of thing. And so for somebody like that who’s out there and says, “How can I make a difference?” what would the Gary Vaynerchuk of medical social media tell him?

Kevin Pho: Yeah, so they’d have to ask themselves: Are they happy with what they’re doing, right? We always talk about physicians looking for a side gig and looking for things outside clinical medicine. Now, I think that discounts a lot of physicians who are perfectly happy doing what they’re doing. So the first thing I would say to that GI doc is, “Are you happy doing what you’re doing?” And they may say, “Yes, I am perfectly happy doing scopes, and my life is great, and I don’t really want to be involved with things like social media, because what I’m doing is perfectly rewarding and fulfilling, and I’m not burned out.” So for those physicians, I probably don’t have too much to say.

But I would say that more than 50 percent of physicians, like I said, the data is about 60 percent of physicians, are experiencing symptoms of burnout, right? So the question then becomes, “What can I do about it? Should I stick with this job that’s leading me to be burned out and perhaps less empathetic to patients, where my patient care is suffering because I am burned out?” So then the question is, “What can I do?” Then I think that you have to find a cause, and the cause in a majority of cases is that lack of empowerment, right? So you need to find a way to become more empowered in terms of your professional career.

For me, of course, it’s having what I do with KevinMD, and it does supplement my income. It allows me to cut back to two and a half days a week, so some of the downsides of practicing primary care are limited, because I’m only practicing two and a half days a week. So talking to the GI doc, if they find that they’re being burned out by the productivity pressures, or whatever is burning them out in medicine, I would probably say, cut down and find something that fills their cup up again, right? It doesn’t have to be social media, right? It could be writing, it could be investing, it could be real estate, starting a business, whatever fills your passion up, because I think it’s so important to have that balance. And like I said, as physicians, we do have opportunities out there outside of clinical medicine.

Adam Sewell: And I was wondering if you could maybe, because for a lot of physicians, we have the typical role in mind. You have the idea of maybe an influencer on Instagram who lives this, I don’t know, maybe, say, fancy life, if you will, where they’re like, “Oh, I’m wearing this, I’m going to this place, I’m eating at this restaurant.” Could you maybe describe what you would foresee for a physician who is participating in social media, kind of like yourself, what it might look like for them to be an influencer?

Kevin Pho: So I think they have to go in with what their goals are, right? I think going into social media to be an influencer, or going into social media for the sake of social media, probably isn’t a good idea. They have to go in with a specific goal in mind, right? So what do they want to accomplish by being on social media? Because it’s not easy. It’s a grind. For me, I spend more time on social media and on my podcast than I do practicing clinical medicine. So for some people, looking at my workday may feel like that’s a lot of work, right? It’s a big grind.

So in general, the main reasons why people want to go into social media would be, number one, to educate patients. We talked about this earlier, in terms of guiding patients through all sorts of health care information and increasing the ratio when it comes to reputable versus unreputable sources of health care information. So that’s, I think, one of the strongest reasons why more of us need to be online, to make that a more favorable ratio.

Number two is to advocate for our profession and allow clinicians to share their stories, and to talk to people who may not be clinicians but who make medical decisions on our behalf. We’re talking about things like politicians, or physicians who don’t practice anymore yet are involved with policy. So I think it’s important to influence them. Or it could be something as simple as maintaining our online reputation. A lot of patients Google us online, and if we’re not involved with proactively creating our content online, then we’re going to be defined by someone else, right? It could be a third-party physician rating site. So I think being involved in creating content can help us take control of our online reputation. But no matter what the reason is, you have to come in with a preconceived reason and then adapt social media to fit those goals.

In terms of the life of an influencer, like I said, it is a grind. It’s a constant pressure, right? Some people say it’s very difficult to have that pressure of creating content every day. Content creators themselves are burned out just because of that constant need to feed that monster that always requires content, right? So whether it’s Instagram or YouTube, you have to do it regularly. It could be a daily podcast like me; it could be several times a week, several times a month. But the fact that it has to be regular, that in itself is a pressure. Not everyone’s really equipped for that. But I think that if you have a goal that speaks to you, that you’re passionate about, that makes the social media content creation grind much easier.

Adam Sewell: Man, that’s a really good point. One of the things I was so impressed with was just the sheer volume of people you’ve talked to. I mean, just because you have a podcast, I can only imagine what your schedule is like. To produce seven podcasts a week is incredible. But with just the sheer volume and all the things that you’ve done, were there any things, perhaps some of your podcasts, where you felt like, “Oh, that’s an idea that changed my life,” that kind of thing?

Kevin Pho: So I’ve talked to, well, we’re closing in on a thousand episodes, right, as we’re doing this, almost two and a half, three years. On KevinMD, we have about 6,000 to 7,000 guest authors, and I’ve learned so much from them. There are the clinical things; I always stay up to date on whatever clinical topics. I think the biggest impression I had is that, even going into it, there are so many more things we can do with our degrees, right? I’ve talked to physicians who turned into real estate investors. I’ve talked to physicians who became venture capitalists. I talked to a physician who actually quit medicine and became a high school science teacher, right?

So I think that the path that we take, like I said, is so non-linear now, and that, to me, was the biggest impression that I got just talking to so many other clinicians out there: We just have so many options in terms of where to take our degree, and if we’re not happy with what we’re doing in clinical medicine, we have options, right? So that’s certainly the point of this podcast: that we have options with our degree other than what’s making us unhappy in clinical medicine.

Adam Sewell: Oh, that’s very true. I just think everything that you’ve built is very impressive. And one of the things you kind of mentioned earlier that I want to touch back on, because I’ve seen this more and more with my colleagues: You might have seen that the suicide rate for physicians is so high. And the thing is that it’s kind of unmeasured, even with nurse practitioners, CRNAs, and other divisions of medicine. It doesn’t seem like they have any data on it, and so I imagine it’s probably the same for them. So we have basically a whole workforce in medicine that essentially is not only burned out, but to the point where there are statistics saying that about 80 percent of physicians would leave medicine if they had a financial income that could be similar to what they were earning in medicine.

For those people who are dealing with burnout, who are dealing with this feeling that they’re losing ground, just to give an example, one of the colleagues I talked to is a primary care physician who also does sports medicine, and he was saying that in the last three years, he’s worked harder than he’s ever worked, he’s made less money than he’s ever made, and yet the amount of stress and the bureaucracy and stuff is higher than ever before. For someone like that, is there anything that you would recommend, or any pathways that maybe you’ve seen from some of your guests, that might be applicable for somebody who’s stuck in that situation?

Kevin Pho: Yeah, so I think that you just hit the nail on the head, and that is one of the biggest reasons why physicians continue to be burned out: because they have to stay in medicine for financial reasons, right? It could be school loans, or they bought too expensive a house, expensive cars. They had to live that proverbial doctor lifestyle and live beyond their means, right? And now they’re stuck in their jobs, because they can’t quit, because they’ve got to pay the bills, right?

So I think in order for us to be more than our degrees and do things outside of clinical medicine, you have to be financially independent, right? So number one, of course, you have to pay off your debts, and then you have to find some way to supplement your income so you’re not reliant on what we call our W-2 income, right, our doctor income. So if you have some type of income source, if you could diversify your income, put in some 1099 income in addition to your W-2 income so you’re less reliant on it, that, to me, is the surest path out of burnout. Once you can cut down, once you have the financial flexibility to see patients only two days a week, then I figure burnout lessens, because whatever is causing you to be burned out, you’re just doing less of, and then you’re doing more of something you’re more passionate about. And the first step to that, of course, is that you have to pay off your debt, right? So whether it’s student loans or a mortgage, once you pay that off, you’re going to find that you have more financial flexibility to do something that you truly love to do.

Adam Sewell: That’s awesome. What would you, so, for example, I remember when I first went into medicine, some of the doctors who were already physicians at the time would tell me, “Hey, don’t go into medicine. It’s not what it used to be.” And I was just like, “Oh yeah, sure, that’s what you say. It looks like you’re doing good.” These days, with the changes that have happened to medicine, and even, I would say, almost more, some of the punishments for even having a different viewpoint, like we saw during COVID: If a physician felt like, “Hey, I want to treat a patient with budesonide or something,” some of those doctors lost their jobs for speaking out or trying medications in an emergency situation that weren’t in line with the popular narrative or whatever. What would you say to somebody who is looking at going into medicine? They haven’t pulled the trigger yet. They think they want to be a doctor; they think they want to help people. What would be your advice to a young man or woman who is interested in becoming a physician or a nurse practitioner, something like this?

Kevin Pho: Yeah, you have to do it for the right reason, right? So it can never, ever be for money. It can never, ever be for lifestyle, because you’re going to be working harder than your peers, you’re going to be sleeping less than your peers, you’re going to be dealing with more bureaucracy than your peers, and in a lot of cases, you’re going to be paid less, right? The training is tremendously rigorous. Going through residency is not easy. And even when you get out of residency, like you said, it’s probably not going to be what you expect it to be. It’s not like you’re going to graduate from residency and all of a sudden have the riches come to you and live that extravagant lifestyle. That’s simply not the case.

So you have to go into it for the right reason, and, it sounds like a cliche, you really have to do it to help people, right? You have to do it because you want to take care of people who are probably going through a more difficult time than you are. And that would be my biggest piece of advice: Do not go into medicine for the lifestyle or money. Go for it because you truly want to help people. And I wish I had a more interesting answer to that, but it’s true.

Adam Sewell: That was really good. What do you think about our health care system in the United States? It’s obviously changed a lot, and I feel like the insurance companies are becoming so powerful now as they continue to consolidate. Is there anything that you’ve seen from your guests or even from your own experience? If I could give you, KevinMD, a wand and say, “Hey, you can remake the health care system however you want to,” what would be kind of an ideal scenario that you think would be good for the health care system?

Kevin Pho: Yeah, that’s kind of a huge question. So I think smarter minds than mine have certainly tried to tackle that question. I think that there’s just so much inertia in terms of what we already have with our health care system, right? We have this employer-based health care insurance, or Medicare and Medicaid. We have private insurers, right? So I think it’s very difficult. There are so many entrenched interests in our health care system. So to those who say, “Oh, we should just scrap it all and do something like a single-payer health care system,” I think that realistically would be difficult.

I think that sometimes, if you start from scratch, that certainly would be one option, but we’re not starting from scratch. We’re starting from an area where we literally have billions to trillions of dollars entrenched in the current system that we have, so there’s going to be a lot of resistance to any major change. So then you have to look at other countries that have values similar to ours and a similar basis for health care. You can look at countries like Switzerland that have private insurers that are highly regulated. That’s what the Affordable Care Act tried to do: to better regulate private insurance. So that’s certainly one option.

Another consideration is to have basic government-provided health care insurance. Sometimes some people say Medicaid for all, perhaps, or Medicare for all, to have some type of basic health care insurance, and then people who want to can pay more and get some private insurance on top of that. I like Australia’s health care system. Australia, for instance, has government-provided baseline health care insurance, but if you want to skip the line, and if you want something on top of that, then you can have private health insurance on top of that. But I do think that we need at least some universal basic health care insurance for everybody in this country. That needs to be the start. I know the Affordable Care Act tried to do that, but we still have tens of millions of people who are without insurance. So finding a way to cover the gaps, and then better regulating the private insurers and trying to improve what we already have, would probably be the most realistic way going forward.

Adam Sewell: Absolutely. I was curious to see what your take is on patients’ rights. With the whole COVID thing, there was this whole concept where basically, “Hey, there’s a pandemic, so now everybody needs to have this medical procedure.” And the question kind of came down to: Is it your right to not have a medical procedure? Just from your experience, and maybe some of the people you’ve interviewed, where do you see that? I kind of see that line starting to fade, where it’s coming to a point where, in many cases, if they have a digital passport, this kind of stuff, you may not have the option to choose anymore.

Kevin Pho: Yeah, tell me more about the digital passport.

Adam Sewell: Well, from what we see, basically, I believe the G20 nations have now put into place a kind of proposal that would include a digital passport, which would basically require your vaccinations to be linked to this digital passport. The thought, obviously, is that in order for you to travel or be accepted into a country, they would view your digital passport and say, “Hey, you need to have these kinds of treatments in order to come in,” that kind of thing.

Kevin Pho: Yeah, so I don’t think it’s going to fly very well in this country, right? I think that it goes to the culture as well. I think it’s probably not controversial to say that in the United States, we have a very individualistic culture, and that goes all throughout history, because our country was born of revolution, right? Our country was not born of compliance or a central government, right? We were born out of revolution. So I think that culture of individualism is very, very strong today. So from a public health standpoint, some may say that may make sense, but I think, realistically, if you look at the culture of America, I don’t think that’s going to convince a majority of people that they want to do that, right? We have things like privacy concerns and things like that.

In general, I do think that when it comes to diagnostic and treatment plans, patients do have the final say. Of course, there are some exceptions when it comes to societal benefits and things that are blatantly wrong and that will hurt patients themselves. Those are exceptions. But in general, when it comes to treatment options, we have various options that we can give to a lot of patients, right? And you have to take into account patients’ individual values when it comes to considering what they want to do next, because one patient may want to be more aggressive and others may want to be more conservative. So I always try to engage patients and give them a menu of options ranging from conservative to aggressive, and that way patients can include their own values when it comes to guiding the treatment plan. So yes, in general, I do think that patients do have the final say. I am a believer in patients’ rights, and specific to that digital passport that you mentioned, I don’t think it’s a realistic path forward, especially in this country.

Adam Sewell: Wow, I totally agree. I mean, I’m from Texas. People here are very, very individualistic, and everybody has their beliefs; they have the right. And I’m just always curious, because I do see other physician voices coming out saying, “Hey, you need to do this. It’s for the public good,” etc. So I was curious to see, from all the information you’ve seen, your opinion.

Kevin Pho: Yeah, and you’re seeing something like that play out right now, even with COVID, right? You’re seeing that tension between individual rights and public health, right? And you’re seeing that still play out today. So that is certainly going to be an ongoing tension. We do live in a polarized country, a polarized society, so I think that’s just another ramification of that.

Adam Sewell: Oh, it’s very true. And then I was just curious, you treat patients two and a half days a week. Obviously, you’re very well-spoken. I can see exactly why patients would love to talk to you, and you’re obviously highly educated. Are there any examples you might give of a time when you were able to use the power of your social media to either identify a patient who may not normally have come in to see you, or perhaps you were able to point to one of your podcast episodes to help a patient become more educated? Maybe an example of how social media actually helped a patient interaction?

Kevin Pho: Yeah, so I think that there are some patients who come to me because they listen to my podcast or they found me on social media, and we’ll have a conversation. Some patients would say, “I don’t agree with what this doctor said about the COVID vaccine,” right? And the fact is they come in to me, and even if I don’t agree with what their personal values are about the COVID vaccine, they’re willing to come in for a conversation based on what they saw on my blog or listened to on my podcast. So it’s given an opportunity where we can actually have that conversation and a good back-and-forth. We’re not arguing with each other. I can certainly share my opinion, and that person will be very receptive, and he or she will give their opinion, and it’s led to a constructive conversation.

Now, have I convinced every single patient to see things my way, or convinced them to get a vaccine that they otherwise wouldn’t have? No, of course not, never 100 percent. But I have made a few patients reconsider, for instance, taking the COVID vaccine, or considering a treatment that they otherwise wouldn’t have. And really, that’s the best result that I can expect, because as physicians, we can’t expect to convince 100 percent of patients. But if you can change the minds of maybe one or two, or make them reconsider, or make them think twice about something that they previously had another viewpoint on, that, to me, is considered a success.

Adam Sewell: Wow, that’s awesome. Once again, it’s such a pleasure to interview you, and you’re something of a superhero in our community, so this is amazing. I’m still so impressed that you can do so many podcasts a week. So incredible. I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the Medical Entrepreneur podcast. It’s been a real honor. It’s Dr. Kevin Pho, also known as KevinMD. That’s what I always refer to you as, KevinMD. Thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate it.

Kevin Pho: Adam, thank you so much for having me.

Adam Sewell: Thank you.

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