Which Surgeries Yield the Most Life Satisfaction for Patients？ (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_963)
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, Gaj Saad talks about his recent visit to an orthopaedic surgeon, and what he learned from the man who performed his knee replacement surgery on him. Gaj also talks about why not all doctors are narcissistic god complex types, and why it s important to know why one person studies a particular medical specialty versus another.
Transcript
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Hi everybody, this is Gat Saad. A couple of days ago I visited an orthopedic surgeon for my knee
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and it turns out that the gentleman in question is someone that I had gotten to know in summer of 1995.
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We met when we were both vacationing in Cuba. He was traveling with a friend of his and I was also
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on vacation and there he was a young guy 19 years old I think maybe first year university maybe not
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even and so I remember him very well from those days but then we hadn't kept in touch although
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the friend with whom he was traveling I had stayed in touch with a bit more and he had even become
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a research assistant of mine for for a bit and it turns out that my wife went to high school with
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him so they knew each other so we met up I mean he was just the absolute loveliest guy you could
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imagine it kind of gave me renewed hope that not all physicians are just these narcissistic god
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complex type of folks he was polite professional friendly he explained things he did give me a
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very big shot of cortisone in my knee but what I want to talk about today is briefly the fact that
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at one point we were chatting and I said to him you know I'm always interested in knowing why people go
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and you know make the life choices that they make and I've you know why is it that one person studies
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this particular medical specialty versus another and then I continued think chatting and I said
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you know you look at for example psychiatry well the the standard joke is that a psychiatrist has never
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cured a patient and so I wonder how they feel in terms of their purpose and meaning because they never
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absolutely know whether they've helped someone on the other hand in your case this is me speaking to
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the orthopedic surgeon friend of mine I said in your case someone comes in they have a ruptured
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achilles tendon you fix it and their lives are better for it so you must score very highly on sort of
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life satisfaction at life satisfaction at least when it comes to sort of your professional
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responsibilities and he said and he answered me something that you know was actually quite
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revealing he said actually the top three surgeries that provide the greatest amount of post-surgery
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kind of life quality satisfaction are I think number one he said were hip surgery replacement number two
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was cataracts which is something that Sir Harold Ridley pioneered and I discuss him briefly in my forthcoming
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book suicidal empathy which you should go out and pre-order right away and then the third one is
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knee replacement and he said and I said oh so you basically do number one and number three
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so you must be at the apex of sort of occupational satisfaction he said absolutely so there you have it
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folks a little interlude where I'm chatting with a orthopedic surgeon and incorporating some
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issues that are of relevance to happiness occupational happiness psychology and so on and to the
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surgeon in question you are truly the loveliest of physicians that I've met thank you for your help