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Healthcare headlines - Part 2
4 Plays7 months ago
Ready for part two? April and Alicia are back with more health news headlines and hot takes! In this episode, they dive into the battle against C-section site infections and the innovations saving the lives of countless women. Also, April unpacks what a compact license means for physician assistants on the move. It's breaking news, and you won't want to miss it!
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Transcript
Introduction and Playful Banter
00:00:00
Speaker
Apparently in Europe, you can't name your child Nutella.
00:00:02
Speaker
Not sure why Nutella is tasty.
00:00:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:07
Speaker
It's even spelled the same in Ohio where I am.
00:00:10
Speaker
You can't name your baby Santa Claus.
00:00:12
Speaker
This is on call.
00:00:14
Speaker
This would be really cool to just wear scrubs all the time.
00:00:16
Speaker
Then you don't have to think about what you're going to wear to work.
00:00:19
Speaker
We're here to answer your questions.
00:00:21
Speaker
We can sit down and discuss.
00:00:23
Speaker
Wait, I got to go.
00:00:24
Speaker
I'm on call.
00:00:25
Speaker
Wait, you're on call.
00:00:26
Speaker
I thought I was on call.
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of On Call with April and Alicia.
00:00:32
Speaker
I'm April.
00:00:33
Speaker
I'm April.
00:00:35
Speaker
Just kidding, Alicia.
00:00:36
Speaker
I'm April, April, April, and April.
00:00:38
Speaker
I was actually not expecting you to say it today because I said I'm April today.
00:00:42
Speaker
I went first.
00:00:43
Speaker
I've been thinking about it this whole time prior to this recording.
00:00:47
Speaker
I'm April, and I'm April.
00:00:48
Speaker
And this is April's podcast.
00:00:49
Speaker
It's all about April.
00:00:51
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody, to April's show.
00:00:52
Speaker
I don't know why I really expected you to say that last time, but anyways...
00:00:56
Speaker
Yeah, well, I did it for you this time.
00:00:57
Speaker
This time I won't let you down.
00:00:58
Speaker
Welcome back.
00:01:00
Speaker
Yeah, welcome back.
00:01:01
Speaker
How's it going?
Aging and Physical Challenges
00:01:02
Speaker
It's going.
00:01:03
Speaker
It's Friday.
00:01:04
Speaker
So looking forward to the weekend.
00:01:07
Speaker
I know we were just talking.
00:01:08
Speaker
We sound like old ladies and their corns conversations right before we were starting.
00:01:13
Speaker
It's like my neck and my finger and I had this and this blah, blah, blah.
00:01:18
Speaker
And like this ailment and I'm not sleeping and I'm not feeling good.
00:01:21
Speaker
Like we are falling apart, April.
00:01:22
Speaker
We really are.
00:01:24
Speaker
Just falling apart.
00:01:26
Speaker
yeah yep you know every day we're a day older right that's right the year my mom will say this is your youngest you'll ever be I'm like yeah um I um it's like I really realized like the delicacy of age now where you know people are I'm like how do you throw your back out just sneezing and I'm like oh I get it now um I mean I'm not throwing my back out sneezing but
00:01:51
Speaker
I did kind of throw my back out last week.
00:01:53
Speaker
I don't even know what I did.
00:01:54
Speaker
I just kind of woke up and was like, well, something slipped, but I don't know what it is while I'm sleeping.
00:01:59
Speaker
So you get injured when you get older, just in sleep, apparently.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:04
Speaker
I mean, the things that I used to do and not hurt the next day that now I'm like, oh, my God.
00:02:08
Speaker
Man, I could sleep on a hardwood floor.
00:02:11
Speaker
I could sleep on a yoga mat.
00:02:13
Speaker
And now I'm like, how many layers?
00:02:15
Speaker
How firm is the mattress?
00:02:17
Speaker
How cool are the sheets?
00:02:20
Speaker
How much correlation?
00:02:21
Speaker
Is there an oscillating thing?
00:02:22
Speaker
Is there noise?
00:02:23
Speaker
Do you have a sound machine?
00:02:25
Speaker
Like I'm such a bougie sleeper.
00:02:27
Speaker
Very high maintenance.
00:02:28
Speaker
Do you have darkening shades?
00:02:30
Speaker
What times does the sunrise?
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:33
Speaker
Well, I did a new yoga routine last week.
00:02:35
Speaker
I do yoga, but it's like resistant fan.
00:02:37
Speaker
It's kind of a mix between yoga and like
00:02:40
Speaker
hit workouts with the resistance band.
00:02:42
Speaker
And just doing that for 15 minutes in the morning, I managed to screw up my entire left arm.
00:02:48
Speaker
So I don't know what I did.
00:02:51
Speaker
No.
00:02:51
Speaker
Well, it's the consequences of getting older.
00:02:54
Speaker
You get to get injured as you get older.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:57
Speaker
That's how you take it in gratitude.
00:02:59
Speaker
You get to get older.
00:03:00
Speaker
It's better than the alternative.
00:03:02
Speaker
So we'll take it.
00:03:03
Speaker
I guess you could just not be here, right?
00:03:04
Speaker
That's right.
00:03:06
Speaker
Anyways, on that note.
00:03:07
Speaker
I was going to say, what's going on?
00:03:09
Speaker
So in other news, what's going on in your world?
Mentoring and Career Advice
00:03:12
Speaker
I got to do something fun this week for work, actually.
00:03:15
Speaker
So at Sound, we do have interns that are working in our various departments, like marketing, legal, compliance, people support.
00:03:26
Speaker
I don't think I knew that.
00:03:28
Speaker
I know.
00:03:28
Speaker
I actually...
00:03:29
Speaker
Didn't know that until I think the kind of springtime, the team that runs the program reached out and said, hey, we're looking for some leaders to do some presentations with the interns this summer.
00:03:40
Speaker
And I said, well, I'll do it.
00:03:42
Speaker
So I got to talk with them this week about just how they can stand out to potential employers or current employers and managers.
00:03:51
Speaker
And we had a really fun, like, interactive conversation.
00:03:53
Speaker
And it was just, it's just fun to me to talk to people who are,
00:03:59
Speaker
kind of young in their career.
00:04:00
Speaker
They're, you know, they were in college doing like a summer internship and just to hear their perspectives.
00:04:05
Speaker
And it was really fun.
00:04:07
Speaker
I really enjoyed it.
00:04:07
Speaker
So yeah.
00:04:08
Speaker
And the feedback was pretty good.
00:04:10
Speaker
It was one of them actually reached out to me afterwards and said, Hey, do you, do you have any resources you recommend I use?
00:04:15
Speaker
I really enjoyed your talk.
00:04:17
Speaker
And, um, I had told them during the talk, like if you, you know, if there's ever anything I can do, I'm happy to be a mentor or whatever.
00:04:22
Speaker
And, and they had reached out and said, could we meet one-on-one?
00:04:26
Speaker
So I thought that was really cool.
00:04:28
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:04:29
Speaker
And then they take that skill, I guess, back to wherever they're.
00:04:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:33
Speaker
And I think the hope, I mean, some of them said, you know, cause I, um, in true profession, I really kind of wanted it to be interactive.
00:04:40
Speaker
So I, I don't really like talking at people, but, um, so I had them all go around and kind of talk about their internship and what their goals were.
00:04:46
Speaker
And some of them said that they would love to work for sound one day and that they're hoping that this will be a stepping stone for them.
00:04:53
Speaker
So it's cool to hear.
00:04:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:56
Speaker
I love that for you.
00:04:57
Speaker
It was fun.
00:04:59
Speaker
It's a really positive, inspirational story.
00:05:01
Speaker
I have a really positive and inspirational story too.
00:05:04
Speaker
Somehow I think that's not true.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:06
Speaker
I think you know my transition.
00:05:09
Speaker
It is positively hilarious.
00:05:11
Speaker
Um,
00:05:13
Speaker
I don't know.
00:05:14
Speaker
Our kids are funny, you know, and I feel like I always tell stories about my kids.
00:05:17
Speaker
And one day they, one day I'm like, they'll look at this as a collection of stuff that I probably forgot over time that was said.
00:05:24
Speaker
But I've been writing things down.
00:05:26
Speaker
I think I told you.
00:05:26
Speaker
It's like your own journal, the podcast.
Curiosity and Banned Names
00:05:28
Speaker
It is.
00:05:28
Speaker
The podcast is becoming my, like my audio journal.
00:05:32
Speaker
But we were, Maddox and I are getting ready for Bad Last Night.
00:05:36
Speaker
And he's just, I think I've mentioned before, like very inquisitive and
00:05:40
Speaker
And again, we were talking on our last week's episode about challenging your kids to, you know, how do you challenge your kids when they ask you questions you don't know the answer to?
00:05:49
Speaker
And that is the kid that's always going to ask me something I don't know the answer to.
00:05:54
Speaker
But out of the blue, I think he just said, but can you name, can you name your baby King?
00:06:00
Speaker
It was so random.
00:06:01
Speaker
And I was like, I'm sure you can name your baby whenever you want.
00:06:04
Speaker
And he goes, no, you can't.
00:06:05
Speaker
And I was like, so you asked me the question because you already knew the answer.
00:06:08
Speaker
He was testing you.
00:06:10
Speaker
Right.
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:10
Speaker
And he goes, but, you know, I get in the weeds.
00:06:13
Speaker
I become a 10 year old with him where I'm like.
00:06:17
Speaker
I've made I'm named my baby king just right now just because somebody told me I can't name my baby king like but I think you can't use royalty names right well of course now you know that I had no idea so he's like two things that are funny about this story that came out of the blue we were actually watching the summer league of basketball so I was unless he was thinking LeBron except LeBron wasn't playing I don't know
00:06:39
Speaker
But he's like the way he talks to Siri is the first thing I want to just highlight.
00:06:44
Speaker
It's the funniest thing.
00:06:46
Speaker
He he gets Siri on and I feel like she's going to move now that I've said that.
00:06:54
Speaker
He says, hey, S.I.R.I.
00:06:57
Speaker
He'll go.
00:06:59
Speaker
What?
00:07:00
Speaker
are the names in the United States of America in 2025 that are banned in the country.
00:07:08
Speaker
Like there are so many descriptors in a sentence where I'm like, Hey, what names are illegal?
00:07:14
Speaker
Like that's how, and he's like,
00:07:16
Speaker
Or if he's asking, looking up team stats, he'll go, what are the stats for Damian Lillard in the 2024 and 2025 season for the National Basketball Association?
00:07:29
Speaker
And I'm like, oh my God, Siri went back to sleep.
00:07:33
Speaker
It's just the funniest thing to hear.
00:07:36
Speaker
And he's so articulate when he does it.
00:07:37
Speaker
But I'm like, I don't think Siri's checking your grammar.
00:07:41
Speaker
But we did find a list.
00:07:43
Speaker
And I pulled this list up and I was giggling through the night.
00:07:46
Speaker
Most of these I can't even read on the air.
00:07:50
Speaker
But these are all, there is a list.
00:07:53
Speaker
And if you want to look, there's actually a Parents Magazine list.
00:07:55
Speaker
But it goes like country to country and what names are banned in certain country.
00:07:59
Speaker
But I, there's one on here that's just the at symbol.
00:08:06
Speaker
Somebody tried to name their baby an emoji.
00:08:10
Speaker
Basically, it was just the at or just a character.
00:08:13
Speaker
It was just the at symbol.
00:08:15
Speaker
There's one that's like, where is that?
00:08:19
Speaker
This is hilarious.
00:08:19
Speaker
This is in Sweden.
00:08:22
Speaker
B-R-F-X-X-C-C-X-X-M-N-P-C-C-C-L-L-M-N-N-P-R-X-V-C-L-M-C.
00:08:31
Speaker
There's way more characters in that.
00:08:33
Speaker
It's illegal in Sweden.
00:08:35
Speaker
And somebody tried to name their child that and said it was somehow pronounced Albin.
00:08:41
Speaker
Interesting.
00:08:42
Speaker
But I was giggling myself to sleep reading some of these.
00:08:45
Speaker
I was like, people are insane.
00:08:47
Speaker
Apparently in Europe, you can't name your child Nutella.
00:08:49
Speaker
Not sure.
00:08:50
Speaker
Oh, really?
00:08:51
Speaker
Nutella's tasty.
00:08:52
Speaker
The food Nutella?
00:08:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:54
Speaker
It's even spelled the same in Ohio, where I am.
00:08:57
Speaker
You can't name your baby Santa Claus.
00:09:01
Speaker
Of course you can't name Santa Claus.
00:09:03
Speaker
But why couldn't you?
00:09:04
Speaker
I mean, it's, I don't know.
00:09:05
Speaker
I mean, I wouldn't, but I have run into some people with some very interesting names.
00:09:14
Speaker
And probably one that, again, isn't probably appropriate for the year.
00:09:17
Speaker
I'll tell you.
00:09:18
Speaker
Lita was actually a person I grew up and went to high school with, and the way the parents chose to spell their name made it sound like two different words that were not great.
00:09:26
Speaker
You can tell me now offline.
00:09:28
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:09:28
Speaker
But anyway, I was just a little funny.
00:09:30
Speaker
I was, one, just how proper we were talking to Siri to look up illegal names.
00:09:37
Speaker
last night.
00:09:38
Speaker
But yeah, so by the way, don't name your baby Nutella.
00:09:41
Speaker
It is interesting to like think about what makes the kids think about these things.
00:09:45
Speaker
Because my mind that's super curious, like we'll just be in the car like talk about something completely and she'll be like and she'll ask us a completely random question and the rest of us are like, what?
00:09:55
Speaker
Where did you come up with that question?
00:09:58
Speaker
But, you know, we Google and we answer and, you know, we all learn, which is good.
00:10:03
Speaker
See, you learned something last night from medics.
00:10:06
Speaker
Well, I did.
00:10:07
Speaker
I actually did.
00:10:08
Speaker
What's funny is that I doubled down on the answer.
00:10:10
Speaker
Like, you can name your baby whatever you want.
00:10:11
Speaker
Like, period.
00:10:12
Speaker
And he looked like a, gotcha.
00:10:14
Speaker
Like, no, you can't.
00:10:17
Speaker
Hold on.
00:10:18
Speaker
Let me talk to S-I-R-I.
00:10:20
Speaker
Hey, S-I-R-I.
00:10:21
Speaker
Can you?
00:10:23
Speaker
I kind of love that he did that, too.
00:10:24
Speaker
That's great.
00:10:25
Speaker
Oh, he gets me all the time.
00:10:27
Speaker
And I've learned now, and I should know my lesson by now.
00:10:29
Speaker
If he's asking me, he knows the answer.
00:10:32
Speaker
Period.
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:33
Speaker
I think last time, last episode when we ended, we promised a part two.
00:10:37
Speaker
Is that right?
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:39
Speaker
The news, news that didn't make the news, but kind of made the news, but didn't make our news.
00:10:44
Speaker
Maybe.
00:10:44
Speaker
I don't know what we call a segment, but yes, medical news.
00:10:47
Speaker
I'm, I'm excited about, I was really chomping at the bit to get to my other story last week and I know we ran out of time, so I am excited to kind of do
Medical Licensing Advancements
00:10:56
Speaker
part two of this.
00:10:56
Speaker
So yeah, let's kick this.
00:10:58
Speaker
Let's kick part two off.
00:10:59
Speaker
All right.
00:11:00
Speaker
You want to go first in style.
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:02
Speaker
Do I, let me think, do I want to know?
00:11:04
Speaker
I would like for you to go first.
00:11:06
Speaker
Oh, all right.
00:11:07
Speaker
Well, so my, um, my news story is, uh, so it's pretty specific to, to me as a PA and the PA profession, but, um, there's been a lot of advocacy around physician assistant practice, um, recently.
00:11:24
Speaker
And one of the things that has come, um,
00:11:28
Speaker
into fruition and now is in place as a compact license for PEs, which we never had before.
00:11:33
Speaker
And so for those that don't know what a compact license is, it historically, um, if you wanted, if you had a license, so say I'm, I'm licensed in Maryland, right.
00:11:43
Speaker
But if I want to go practice in New York, say, um, there's usually a list of, you know, criteria that you have to meet to get that license.
00:11:51
Speaker
There's not reciprocity right between states.
00:11:53
Speaker
So you have to,
00:11:55
Speaker
apply for that state license and there might be other courses you have to take or other criteria that you have to meet to get that state license if you want to practice in another state.
00:12:05
Speaker
But the compact license actually allows, if it's a state that participates in that, it allows you to practice in the other states without having to do any other
00:12:15
Speaker
you essentially just apply and then you can practice in that state.
00:12:19
Speaker
So it gives you that reciprocity.
00:12:21
Speaker
So it's new, it's very kind of new this year that we have this for PAs.
00:12:27
Speaker
And so we currently have 19 states that are participating in the compact license, which about a year ago we had none.
00:12:35
Speaker
So when did this go into effect?
00:12:38
Speaker
I can't remember exactly when the first state went into effect, but it's been within the past year.
00:12:45
Speaker
I know that we were talking about this.
00:12:47
Speaker
I mean, that fits right up, right up my alley with ambassadors and we, we, you know, our physicians are able to be compacted and then, um, APP or NPs can get, um, compact for their RN cause they've got to get, you know, their RN, um,
00:13:05
Speaker
license and their advanced practice license for each date, but at least kind of takes out some of the work if you can be compacted for your RN.
00:13:14
Speaker
But I, the PA was always an area that we always heard was coming down the pike, but that our team didn't even know that.
00:13:20
Speaker
So that's like, that's a major win internally for us.
00:13:23
Speaker
I'm excited to hear that.
00:13:24
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, for sure for our ambassador lane, it's, um, it's huge.
00:13:29
Speaker
It's huge for us to be able to
00:13:31
Speaker
kind of use them in different states and get people traveled around.
00:13:34
Speaker
So that's exciting to know.
00:13:36
Speaker
I can't wait to take that little golden nugget into my next meeting.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:41
Speaker
So right.
00:13:41
Speaker
As of right now, there's as of July right now, there's 19 states.
00:13:47
Speaker
And so I can send you a list so that you have it for your, for your meeting.
00:13:50
Speaker
Is Ohio in there?
00:13:53
Speaker
Is Ohio in there?
00:13:56
Speaker
Is your state?
00:13:57
Speaker
I'm just curious.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:59
Speaker
My state is not right now.
00:14:00
Speaker
Maryland is not.
00:14:02
Speaker
And Ohio is not yet either.
00:14:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:05
Speaker
Well, that's, it's still a move anyway.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's still a move.
00:14:10
Speaker
It's still a, it's still a move in the right direction.
00:14:13
Speaker
Right.
00:14:14
Speaker
So.
00:14:14
Speaker
Right.
00:14:15
Speaker
Well, I mean, with our physician, I think when I started as director for the ambassadors a couple of years ago,
00:14:23
Speaker
I think there were still some like 30, maybe high 30s, low 40 states.
00:14:28
Speaker
We're almost all states now for interstate for physician, interstate compact.
00:14:33
Speaker
So almost all states participate.
00:14:35
Speaker
And I think even New York is making that transition.
00:14:38
Speaker
That was always a big one.
00:14:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:41
Speaker
New York is not on the PA one.
00:14:43
Speaker
And I lied to you.
00:14:44
Speaker
Ohio is on the list.
00:14:45
Speaker
Sorry.
00:14:46
Speaker
Yep.
00:14:48
Speaker
But New York is not on there yet.
00:14:50
Speaker
Um, so it was officially activated in April of 2024.
00:14:54
Speaker
Um, the compact was, but then, so then people, you know, states have been added since then.
00:15:00
Speaker
So I wish we would have done better communication around that.
00:15:03
Speaker
I wish we would have known somehow.
00:15:05
Speaker
Huh?
00:15:06
Speaker
Well, I see it because I follow like, you know, the APA, um, other news.
00:15:11
Speaker
And so every time a state gets added, you know, I see that.
00:15:14
Speaker
So.
00:15:15
Speaker
Oh, I love that.
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:17
Speaker
So to keep an eye on.
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:20
Speaker
That was, that was a dose of good news or any of our PA providers that are listening right now, figure it out.
00:15:28
Speaker
This is, especially if you're traveling or in the welcome world or any of that, it's, it's a, that's a great, man, it's shaved so much time off.
00:15:36
Speaker
You have no idea anybody that's gone through licensing some States, man.
00:15:41
Speaker
I know.
00:15:41
Speaker
I mean, there was like another, a time that we, you know, potentially we're going to move to New York.
00:15:45
Speaker
So I looked at license over there and,
00:15:48
Speaker
You had to take extra classes and stuff.
00:15:50
Speaker
So I'm watching out for when Marilyn gets added because then I can do it.
00:15:56
Speaker
That's wonderful.
00:15:57
Speaker
I got my compact recently, but I don't anticipate that I'll be traveling a ton time, but I kind of just did it to be available.
00:16:05
Speaker
But that's exciting.
00:16:08
Speaker
I'm stoked going into my next meeting.
00:16:10
Speaker
I'm going to pretend like I found it out all by myself, though.
00:16:12
Speaker
So I won't give you credit for it.
00:16:15
Speaker
All right.
00:16:15
Speaker
Just kidding.
00:16:16
Speaker
Of course, I'll give you credit.
00:16:17
Speaker
You can steal my thunder if you want.
00:16:18
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:16:20
Speaker
If we check that interstate compact, watch this transition, and travel down the interstate to Chicago.
00:16:26
Speaker
You like that?
00:16:28
Speaker
I like it.
00:16:31
Speaker
In Chicago.
00:16:32
Speaker
In April of 2004, there was a young lady that was born that was really kind of destined to try to change life.
00:16:40
Speaker
medicine.
Innovative Medical Solutions
00:16:42
Speaker
Her name is Deja Taylor.
00:16:44
Speaker
I don't know if you've heard about her.
00:16:45
Speaker
She's hit the news.
00:16:47
Speaker
I've seen her in a couple different outlets.
00:16:49
Speaker
Again, my lovely Echo show that gives me all my headlines.
00:16:54
Speaker
I saw it on that.
00:16:55
Speaker
Lived in Chicago, later moved to Indiana and Iowa, but she really got involved at a very young age in community equity work.
00:17:02
Speaker
She advocated a lot in her youth, just anti-racist education with her school board, trying to keep what we know as American history preserved, I guess, in her mind, preserved in our schools.
00:17:16
Speaker
And in 2019, she was a junior in high school and she was in Iowa.
00:17:20
Speaker
She launched this independent STEM research study that was kind of combining her passion for social justice.
00:17:28
Speaker
So it's kind of along the same lines of Hemantin.
00:17:33
Speaker
underserved communities along with science, which was her passion.
00:17:38
Speaker
So the problem that she was trying to tackle with her STEM project was surgical site infections and how many of those infections, like 11% of surgical sites become infected.
00:17:51
Speaker
And then in middle-income countries, there's like up to 20%, I think, of like C-sections in some African regions where
00:17:59
Speaker
there's like even a higher percentage of that, but in the wealthier nations, like surgical site infections are really only about two to 4%.
00:18:06
Speaker
So she was trying to look at like, how do we, how do we manage infection or how do we identify infection early, especially in these, again, vulnerable, marginalized populations.
00:18:18
Speaker
So she started thinking of this high tech smart suture, um, that could be pretty cost, um,
00:18:25
Speaker
appropriate, but also, you know, pretty innovative.
00:18:29
Speaker
And she discovered that beet juice in her research acts as a natural pH indicator.
00:18:35
Speaker
So it transitions from this really bright red at a pH of five on the skin into this really deep purple when your pH hits a nine.
00:18:43
Speaker
So after testing, she did like 30 beets, all these various fibers.
00:18:46
Speaker
She found that this cotton polyester blend suture binds with a dye and then visibly changes colors within five minutes when exposed to an infection.
00:18:54
Speaker
So what she's currently working on and she won this Regeneron Science talent search earning, she's taken all of these sutures into testing now.
00:19:05
Speaker
And obviously there's some pros and cons, but technically the pH-based detection, there's some question of, well, it will do superficial infections.
00:19:16
Speaker
There's some question of like, would it identify deeper tissue infections?
00:19:20
Speaker
But as far as affordability and simplicity, it really does kind of act as a conduit
00:19:25
Speaker
for those that maybe have a little bit more challenging access to care.
00:19:30
Speaker
So she's really kind of in the process and she's working through it right now.
00:19:34
Speaker
And all I kept thinking was how brilliant.
00:19:37
Speaker
Why don't we think of this sooner?
00:19:38
Speaker
That is interesting.
00:19:40
Speaker
So it'll detect it.
00:19:41
Speaker
So the, so the infected tissue would have to touch the suture.
00:19:44
Speaker
So it's like a super kind of like right under the layer of the suture.
00:19:47
Speaker
And is there like a,
00:19:50
Speaker
A timeframe of the beet juice wearing off, or is this just as long as the sutures in it would detect it?
00:19:55
Speaker
You know, I don't, I don't have that information as far as, um, like the nuances.
00:20:00
Speaker
I know that it is gone to, um,
00:20:05
Speaker
Like, not to research.
00:20:06
Speaker
Thank you.
00:20:07
Speaker
I was going to say, like, we're in study.
00:20:09
Speaker
Yeah, for it.
00:20:10
Speaker
I think she's in phase one.
00:20:12
Speaker
But what I did, but what they did say was that's what I mentioned earlier, like within five minutes of coming into contact.
00:20:20
Speaker
So I'm guessing when you've got, you know, cellular change, cellular turnover, cellular damage, invasion of white cell, whatever is, you know, currently happening.
00:20:28
Speaker
that is when those sutures change color and alerts the person that it's happening but the other thing that was kind of cool with her pursuing beat which is pretty easy to attain resources it's not expensive it's you know you're using pretty much a resource that's in every every country but the beat dye reportedly in and of itself
00:20:50
Speaker
does offer some antibacterial activity against E. coli.
00:20:54
Speaker
So there, there could just, you know, be an additional benefit in antibacterial protection there.
00:21:00
Speaker
So I think right now, yeah, I just, I, I, I think she's working on patenting, patenting it and really hopes to just deploy it ideally at first in her, the interview I watched of hers, she really wants to start an underserved communities.
00:21:17
Speaker
Again, similar to him in,
00:21:19
Speaker
Um, or, you know, his focus on our last episode, if you guys didn't listen to that, go back to that.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:25
Speaker
Just, um, that the Ethiopian son and, you know, um, management of early skin cancer.
00:21:31
Speaker
But yeah, these, these kids are brilliant to me.
00:21:36
Speaker
Um, I mean, I would love to see, I mean, imagine just being, you know, either your generalist at the, at the bedside or even if you're surgery or whatever, but you're coming to check a patient's wound in house and you're like, Oh, it's purple.
00:21:49
Speaker
Well, even like a patient at home, I think back to like I had sutures at one point that in the scar it was like really
00:21:57
Speaker
funny from it.
00:21:59
Speaker
And so I had like seen a different provider for something else.
00:22:02
Speaker
And I said, you know, like this scar and, um, they ended up looking at it and it ended up that I had gotten infected like underneath.
00:22:09
Speaker
And there was like a lot of like tissue.
00:22:11
Speaker
So like, had I had these sutures, I would have been able to see it.
00:22:13
Speaker
Cause it was like an, you know, I had a procedure done that was outpatient.
00:22:16
Speaker
Um, so I wasn't following up with anybody about it, you know, and, um, I would have seen it myself and said, huh, that's funny.
00:22:23
Speaker
Maybe she called the doctor, you know?
00:22:25
Speaker
Well, I think about when you're right.
00:22:27
Speaker
And it's, I think if you're talking about, um,
00:22:31
Speaker
you're going underserved, vulnerable populations.
00:22:35
Speaker
There may be just lack of education in general.
00:22:37
Speaker
So I think for the most part, basic, basic, we know our colors.
00:22:43
Speaker
So, and I don't mean to dumb it down, but I do think like we learn as clinicians to talk to the patient at a level that they can understand.
00:22:53
Speaker
And sometimes that is like the amount of school that they've completed and
00:22:57
Speaker
Sometimes that's, they may have completed enough, but there's challenges in processing.
00:23:03
Speaker
You know, we have to learn how they hear us, right?
00:23:07
Speaker
And I think...
00:23:09
Speaker
just to have a color change, it's almost like it goes to a red to green.
00:23:13
Speaker
I kind of wish it was that easy because we all know red is a stop and green is a go.
00:23:17
Speaker
But even just a red to a purple, and it's a bright red, beet red, to this really, really dark purple, it's just enough that you don't have to be scientific.
00:23:27
Speaker
You don't have to check your temperature.
00:23:29
Speaker
You don't have to assess your vitals, get blood work, look at a differential on a CP.
00:23:34
Speaker
You don't have to do any of that as a patient to become an advocate for yourself at that point.
00:23:39
Speaker
And I think you're right.
00:23:40
Speaker
Early detection in the, you know, post-op phase when you're home can, you know, lead to better outcomes.
00:23:46
Speaker
I was also thinking about some of those cases.
00:23:48
Speaker
Well, also, like, you might say some CT scans, some radiation in the hospital, right?
00:23:52
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:23:52
Speaker
Well, the cost, right?
00:23:53
Speaker
And it will know, like, you know, because you see it's a little puffy, it's a little red.
00:23:56
Speaker
Like, is it infected?
00:23:57
Speaker
Is it not?
00:23:58
Speaker
And you end up doing a CAT scan.
00:24:00
Speaker
But if it's purple, it is, right?
00:24:02
Speaker
So.
00:24:02
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:24:03
Speaker
I had a patient.
00:24:04
Speaker
It made me think of this patient I had a long time ago.
00:24:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:08
Speaker
I would say probably 2009, 2010, somewhere around there.
00:24:11
Speaker
And he had had some pretty significant abdominal surgery.
00:24:15
Speaker
And I had a really great relationship with the surgeon.
00:24:17
Speaker
And not, you know, the residency team was fairly a new team at that time.
00:24:22
Speaker
But I knew this patient.
00:24:24
Speaker
I'd had him for a while.
00:24:25
Speaker
You know, you get continuity with the patient.
00:24:27
Speaker
You know when...
00:24:28
Speaker
I had a pre-surgery post-op as well.
00:24:32
Speaker
But he just like his wound was draining so much and he was maybe post-op day one or two.
00:24:37
Speaker
And I just kept like thinking, I'm like, I'm not a surgeon, but, you know, some some wounds we do expect to drain.
00:24:43
Speaker
Usually we do put some kind of drain in place when you expect to have that much.
00:24:47
Speaker
But it wasn't prevalent.
00:24:48
Speaker
It didn't smell.
00:24:49
Speaker
He wasn't having pain.
00:24:50
Speaker
It wasn't red.
00:24:51
Speaker
It just was draining.
00:24:52
Speaker
And I was like, this just doesn't feel right.
00:24:54
Speaker
And it looked like he had dehist just a tiny bit.
00:24:57
Speaker
You know, a couple of the sutures might have popped open.
00:25:01
Speaker
But it was, I feel like I, it was about a day that I felt that I was like really starting to push on this team that,
00:25:08
Speaker
We're changing that.
00:25:09
Speaker
We're now adding ABD pads.
00:25:11
Speaker
So those that don't know, think thick maxi pad.
00:25:14
Speaker
We're changing those pretty frequently.
00:25:17
Speaker
He was infected, but he kind of had a loculated mass underneath.
00:25:22
Speaker
So he did end up going back into the OR, but he was the first one I thought of outside of drainage, which was clear.
00:25:30
Speaker
There wasn't a ton of signs.
00:25:32
Speaker
He felt fine.
00:25:32
Speaker
He was up mobile.
00:25:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:35
Speaker
We maybe could have intervened a little bit early.
00:25:37
Speaker
Gratefully, he got a good outcome.
00:25:39
Speaker
He healed.
00:25:39
Speaker
He went home.
00:25:40
Speaker
He's done great since.
00:25:42
Speaker
But...
00:25:43
Speaker
Just, yeah, even in the inpatient setting, things that can set in pretty quickly.
00:25:47
Speaker
And then we all think E. coli, anytime you're doing an abdominal surgery, that's one of your biggest risks for wound infection, just given its location and given the gut.
00:26:00
Speaker
If it's got some antibacterial property against E. coli, I think it's just a major win.
00:26:04
Speaker
But it takes my brain to, when's Maddox going to invent something?
00:26:10
Speaker
Why can Maddox invent something like this and challenge me with that instead of what names to name people?
00:26:16
Speaker
But in all seriousness, I just think it's so neat.
00:26:20
Speaker
And you're right.
00:26:22
Speaker
Like the cost of health care right now, so great.
00:26:25
Speaker
That if we had these simple things in place, we could decrease our amount of exposure, radiation exposure, testing, taking up hospital beds and being able to manage these things outpatient, you know?
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:38
Speaker
I mean, it's, you know, we went into medicine because we're passionate about it, but it, you know, it, it is cool.
00:26:43
Speaker
Just like the things that we can advance in over time, you know, so it's, it's fun to see it.
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah, I love it.
00:26:52
Speaker
And I love this segment.
00:26:53
Speaker
And I feel like I want to do more of this because this is not that I don't feel good after every podcast.
00:26:58
Speaker
We laugh.
00:26:59
Speaker
We joke.
00:26:59
Speaker
We have a good time.
00:27:00
Speaker
We do tackle serious subjects.
00:27:01
Speaker
But it's just nice to see innovation.
00:27:03
Speaker
I don't know.
00:27:04
Speaker
There's something about it revives me even on a Friday afternoon after a really challenging week of work.
00:27:09
Speaker
It's kind of refreshing to hear the new things.
00:27:11
Speaker
And I learned that there's compacts.
00:27:14
Speaker
for PAs, which I just, I'm the one that figured it out.
00:27:17
Speaker
So I can't wait to tell everybody.
00:27:19
Speaker
Of course.
00:27:22
Speaker
When you're in your meeting, just make sure you say, yeah, we have a contract license.
00:27:25
Speaker
Hold on.
00:27:26
Speaker
Let me pull up the list April sent me.
00:27:28
Speaker
No, I'm going to say, hold on guys.
00:27:29
Speaker
I talked to actually to the APA myself.
00:27:32
Speaker
And so here's what they called me to let me know before everybody knew.
00:27:36
Speaker
I just forgot to tell you guys in 2024.
00:27:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:39
Speaker
Well, you know, it's been more, it was an active then, but it took a bit for people to
00:27:44
Speaker
Yeah, we were rolling it out slow.
00:27:46
Speaker
We didn't want to overwhelm the states.
00:27:47
Speaker
It's really recent.
00:27:48
Speaker
It's like cut off the press.
00:27:51
Speaker
Yes, I think we should do this.
00:27:53
Speaker
And if anybody out there listening, you have some good stories.
00:27:56
Speaker
Your kids are doing amazing things.
00:27:57
Speaker
Let us know.
00:27:58
Speaker
I would love, especially our children, our youth, I get really excited.
00:28:04
Speaker
Again, I think it just refreshes me, April, to think, you know, our peer group, our age group, even those, you know, scientists and researchers that are
00:28:12
Speaker
Our older are great.
00:28:14
Speaker
They've paved the way for us to be where we are.
00:28:16
Speaker
And we've taken amazing leaps and bounds in medicine.
00:28:19
Speaker
It's just so exciting to go.
00:28:22
Speaker
There's not going to be a gap because our youth is doing the same thing.
00:28:26
Speaker
And we're actually, I think, probably a lot more interconnected just given social media and given...
00:28:32
Speaker
Our interconnectivity, just even with ChatGPT now and ability to access all these other data banks, I'm just excited about where medicine can go here.
00:28:41
Speaker
But if you are in our listening audience and you've got a child that's involved in things like this or you've experienced this or you just have an idea of a really cool story, a new story that you'd love to share with us and maybe we can highlight on one of these episodes, we'd love to hear from
Listener Engagement and Interaction
00:28:54
Speaker
you.
00:28:54
Speaker
You can always find April and I on Instagram.
00:28:58
Speaker
That is our social media page at On Call with April and Alicia.
00:29:01
Speaker
You can also find us on LinkedIn.
00:29:03
Speaker
Same tag, at On Call with April and Alicia.
00:29:06
Speaker
For all of you folks who aren't emailing us, I think we say this in every episode, we've not had an email yet.
00:29:11
Speaker
Be the first.
00:29:13
Speaker
If you'd like to email us, email us at oncallpodcast at soundphysicians.com.
00:29:17
Speaker
And you can find and subscribe to our podcast anywhere you listen to your podcast.
00:29:20
Speaker
So please do that.
00:29:21
Speaker
Subscribe, leave us a review.
00:29:23
Speaker
That always kind of helps push our podcast up to get our viewership to other people that may not know that we're around and may need to know that PAs can have an interstate compact like I just found out today.
00:29:38
Speaker
And I just learned and told April about it.
00:29:40
Speaker
So...
00:29:42
Speaker
You know, any ideas that you guys have, obviously we love to interact with you.
00:29:45
Speaker
It's always exciting to bring this information to you.
00:29:48
Speaker
So thank you guys again for listening to another episode.
00:29:50
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:29:51
Speaker
And until next time, you guys stay well and we'll stay on call.
00:29:54
Speaker
Bye, everyone.
00:29:54
Speaker
Have a good week, guys.