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Brian Weis, MD, PhD, FACP: Hello. This is Dr. Brian Weis. I am coming to you from Northwest Texas Healthcare System in Amarillo, Texas. And this podcast is called, Get Wise with Weis, as my goal to bring to you topics that you can incorporate every day to make your life happier and healthier. So for this first podcast, I should probably be asking, well, who is Dr. Weis? So today I'm going to spend a few minutes again and give you some of my background, how I got interested in science and medicine, and then kind of talk about some of the goals of this podcast for the coming months.

So the question is what made me get into medicine? So I grew up in Dallas. I grew up really with a humanities background. So I actually went to a parochial grammar school, parochial high school, and then when I went to college, I studied philosophy and theology. And again, the question was really what makes us human?

Why are we here? And who are we? And so I did the philosophy, theology and, looking for those answers. And it was around that time that really, the world of DNA kind of exploded at that time. The world of molecular biology and neuroscience. And it kind of dawned to me that actually the answers to a lot of the questions as to what makes us human was going to be really in the world of science and medicine, as opposed to world of philosophy and theology.

So I headed back to Dallas. Worked in a lab at UT Southwestern for a year as a lab technician. That's when I fell in love with basic science. And I got to do a lot of molecular biology, cloning of proteins, things like that, and basically got to play with the basic molecules of life, DNA and RNA. And so that's what led me ultimately to getting to the combined MD PhD program at UT Southwestern. I spent eight years, four years in medical school, four years in graduate school and finally they told me I had to get a job at some point. So they threw me out after eight years. And I, did a residency in internal med at Southwestern there and joined the faculty.

And then it was about 17 years ago, I was invited to come to Amarillo and work for Texas Tech and to do what I really love, which was teach. And they asked me to come and be the Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residents at Texas Tech in Amarillo. Now, in terms of what my favorite moments of my career medicine, I would say by far it was the teaching. Yeah, I kind of always knew I had a bit of a talent, a gift for teaching.

And I wasn't sure if I was going to teach underwater basket weaving or something like that, but then becoming a physician and knowing that I could actually teach medical students and teach residents, that has got to be by far the most rewarding stuff I've ever done. So both in Dallas and in Amarillo here, that's been a big part of my life is that daily teaching of these young people.

And the exciting thing is when you're showing them something that they've read about or maybe heard about, and all of a sudden they see it in person to see, see their eyes light up and that smile on their face, who says, ah, I get it. That's incredibly rewarding. So one thing I have enjoyed about Northwest Texas Hospital in particular, it's a great teaching hospital. And I would say every day I see something at this hospital I've never seen before. I think that's probably what makes medicine and science so fascinating. Certainly during the COVID-19, the last two years, the science that we saw, you know, worldwide is absolutely stunning. And I think that's been lost unfortunately to a lot of the politics and extra dialogue but we saw beautiful medicine, beautiful science then the last two years

Now, how about my hobbies? So was basically, I grew up in a household where there was no music. My parents didn't play any music. And so I, I didn't know music existed until boy scout camp. And one summer I went to boy scout camp and I was probably in eighth grade at that time. And one of my friends brought a little FM transistor radio. You can't find those anymore. They don't exist. Anyway, we were listening to rock and roll and I, I remember hearing Steely Dan and Queen had just come out with News of the World and oh gosh, my eyes, my ears were opened, but I have to say the defining moment was when I was at an eighth grade party standing against the wall, as most boys did at eighth grade parties. And I heard the Spirit of Radio by Rush, and that was it. That was a life altering moment.

And so I decided that I had to get into rock and roll. So played around for a bunch of years and then ultimately bass guitar and and six string guitar. And I've played in probably no less than about 16 bands, ranging everything from pop music to hard rock, to heavy metal to polka dance music. So that's been, my, my big hobby for years is actually playing in bands. Most of them, you know, kind of went the same way as you know, famous behind the music kind of stuff, where everything goes well. And then someone gets hooked on drugs. Their ego gets to them and the whole band falls apart. And we all know the story. So, but I did realize that I was not going to make a living doing that knowing how many empty bars I played in my life.

Question is why is learning about healthcare important? Well, because it's about each of us, you know, healthcare affects each of us every day, you know, and healthcare is incredibly rapidly expanding field. I mean, there's new technology, new science, new things coming out every day. And I say, it's no different than in terms of maintaining our own bodies, it's no different than maintaining your car is the more you do in terms of preventative maintenance and knowing how to take care of it, the longer it runs and the better it runs as opposed to trying to repair it after something breaks.

And I think that's why understanding healthcare is so important because as we learn more and more about what keeps us healthy, I think it's important for people to partake in those things and realize that you can live a long, healthy life if you do the right things each day for your body.

I also think too that when people are admitted to the hospital, that every person should have an advocate for them namely a family member, or a friend who's looking out for that person in the hospital, because when someone's sick, they may not always make the best choices or decisions because of just how badly they feel.

But also too is someone needs to be looking out for people in the hospital. So there are two, the more that you can understand about healthcare and how doctors and nurses work, the better you can be an advocate for someone you love if they have to seek medical services.

And then what do I hope listeners take away from the podcast? Well, the biggest thing is that I'd like them to take away knowledge they can apply immediately on an everyday basis. So things that they can say, hah, maybe I need to talk to my doctor about that. Or lifestyle changes that they can enact tomorrow that will make them happier, healthier, and live longer healthy lives.

So that's a really, the goal of this podcast is to have people walk away with some kind of nugget of knowledge that they can then take into their own life and to the lives of loved ones around them and make it a better place for them and for their health. Well, it looks like that is all the time we have for today. I really appreciate all of you listening. I hope you do have something you can take away to incorporate tomorrow to give you a healthier life. I hope you join us next time for our next topic.