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Bioethics in Iranian Medicine: Amir Davoodi
61 Plays5 months ago
Amir Davoodi is a medical student at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. He also holds dual American and Iranian citizenship. Listen to Amir talk about recent civil unrest in Iran, the bioethical dilemmas faced by Iranian doctors and the role of physicians in the political sphere.
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Transcript
Introduction
00:00:09
Speaker
You're listening to The Wound Dresser, a podcast that uncovers the human side of healthcare. I'm your host, Jon Neary.
00:00:21
Speaker
My guest today is Amir Davouti. Amir is a third year medical student at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. Amir was born in Tehran and holds dual American and Iranian citizenship.
Amir's Background
00:00:33
Speaker
He is currently conducting bioethics research regarding the Iranian healthcare system and recently gave a presentation titled Politics and Prescriptions, the Intersection of Bioethics and Political Activism in Iranian Medicine. Amir, welcome to the show.
00:00:48
Speaker
Thank you for having me, man. How are you? Good, good.
Iran's Political Landscape
00:00:51
Speaker
So first, can you kind of get our listeners up to speed by summarizing some of the recent civil unrest in ah Iran? Yes. So as of the recording of this podcast, Iran just had a presidential election. So if you guys haven't heard on the news, it was ah President Raisi, yeah who was also known as the butcher of Tehran because of his ah the hanging seat did and ordered throughout the 80s and 90s. He died in a helicopter crash. And it was all, yeah, I don't know if you saw the videos. It was are on YouTube and they couldn't find his body and different things emerged. But then about a month later, and we had presidential elections and it was between a reformist candidate and a very conservative candidate. But overall, you got what you have to know about Iran is that
00:01:45
Speaker
um the political structure is set up in a way where the Supreme Leader at the end of the day, who is currently Ayatollah Khamenei, he makes all the decisions, right? So there's like a Supreme Leader, then there's the presidency, then there's the parliament. and They all make kind of decisions, but they're all more or less, it's more like less of a puppet show. i And ultimately, if you want anything done, it goes through Khamenei.
00:02:12
Speaker
With that being said, yeah, so they had a presidential election. And currently, the president, Mr. Pazyshky, Pazyshkyon, whose name translates into Mr. Doctor. And he's actually a heart surgeon. He's theoretically on the liberal side, more progressive side, wanting to do the nuclear deal, very pro-nuclear deal, opening up the borders,
00:02:38
Speaker
pro um you know, getting rid of the hijab, but but in reality, you know, if if the Ayatollah doesn't support it, it's not going to happen. But that's that's where we are right now.
Iran's Civil Unrest History
00:02:53
Speaker
So um how long is kind of a lot of the the civil unrest and protests, how long have they been going on? Is it just related to this presidential election or or that has there been like a longer timeline stretching back ah years? Yes. So currently there is, as far as I know, there haven't been any protests. So these protests happen, at least historically in Iran, have been happening in bursts.
00:03:15
Speaker
There was like in more recent history, we had the 2009 Green Movement, which was like when there was like a false presidential election that was happening and the candidate that the majority of the people didn't support was elected. um That was a few months, but then they usually the government uses a lot of different tools to suppress these protests, tear gas, shootings, hangings, abductions, kidnappings.
00:03:41
Speaker
um And the list goes on and then kind of the protest kind of died down. And then the most recent one was the Massa Amini protests, which is what I based my project on. And that happened in early 2022 when physicians got really involved. But currently, you know there's no as far as I know, civil unrest, there's just a lot of inflation, a lot of um distrust with the government.
00:04:08
Speaker
So as usually, usually, you mentioned 2009, 2022, when these these bursts of protests kind of happen, it's usually kind of one precipitating event that causes things to sort of ah bubble up and and then the government kind of comes in and suppresses any protests. Yeah, so since its inception in 1979,
00:04:25
Speaker
um The Iranian government, we went from prior to 1979, Iran was actually a very democratic society. It was a very free and open society.
Post-Revolution Iran
00:04:36
Speaker
We had the Shah, or known as the king, and he was very Westernized. A brief history on him, he grew up in, or he was taught in a very private Swedish school. He knew four different languages. And when his father, Reza Shah,
00:04:54
Speaker
Uh, he stepped down for that's a whole different story. Uh, and then when he took up the throne, he was very educated and very pro. Democratizing free Iran, um, to put into perspective, he continued a lot of his dad's policies in that direction. So his dad was very against Islam in the first place. He wanted to separate our Persian, the Persian identity from the Islamic, uh, how do I say it? Like marriage that happened over.
00:05:22
Speaker
800,000 years ago when ah the Muslims invaded Iran or Persia at the time. So he was very Westernized. And he thought that like this these beliefs that people had in Iran was holding Iran back from becoming like that Persian empire again and like really participating in world global orders. So his dad would have different policies, such as like you know if a woman were wearing a hijab on the street, they would yank them off their heads. So it was a complete 180.
00:05:49
Speaker
from today's world. So when you look at Iran today, it's like you see these you know the theocratic ah dictatorships. like you're not If women online get a job, they're being on the streets, arrested. If men are you know if you're drinking alcohol, which is legal, like all these different freedoms that we take over in the United States, these were all free back in before the Shah's time. But now you know the vision that we have is that like oh Iran has always been like
Iran's Brain Drain and Internet Control
00:06:16
Speaker
this, but that's not true. It's only been since 1979 to win.
00:06:20
Speaker
the yeah The Shah was ousted from the throne. And this Islamic hardline regime like took its place. And slowly but surely, um there's a lot of history that goes here. So I'm giving you a very, very brief ah background.
00:06:36
Speaker
um yeah So year by year, they started increasing their power, and it became consolidated in a very small group of clerks. um And one of them was Khamenei. I used to be a president back in the 80s, in the 90s, I think.
00:06:50
Speaker
um And it got, and these, they started to control the media, the newspapers, they control obviously the military, all the money, the oil. So it's very hard to, and these things, you know, we started to get, Iran started to get sanctioned and like pushed out of the big global affairs. Obviously the Iranian government, the Iranian Islamic regime, um they started saying all these different things to different countries like that to America, that to Israel and really isolated themselves.
00:07:19
Speaker
um When in fact, the Iranian people are not like that at all. They want to build a relationship with the West. They want to be a free open democratic society and challenge their own institutions. um However, like Iran in the Middle East has the greatest brain drain in the world.
00:07:38
Speaker
So every year you're having either the smartest, the most successful, the people with the most money leave your country. And what's left are the people who don't have those resources. And they're just stuck under a system of oppression. But that culture of wanting to be free and educated and and and ah just live without any ah sanctions over your head, without any dictatorship, breathing down your throat is is what the majority of people in Iran want. um But this regime, you know, they've
00:08:13
Speaker
Amongst many different things, they've had, you know, inflation just I think the past two, three years was like over 50, 60%. Like the currency has devalued tremendously. and You can't get products into out of your own shipments or expensive prices of everything have went high.
00:08:28
Speaker
um and the internet is all blocked. I don't know if you went to your high school, similar in New Jersey, but in my high school, they blocked certain websites right when you're on the high school computers, right? So make sure the kids aren't watching anything. I'm supposed to be watching. So in Iran, the government does that for everything.
00:08:48
Speaker
so you Regardless of where you are in the country, if you're hooked up to any Iranian WiFi system, it doesn't matter if it's a library, hospital, your house, anything, it's all filtered. You can't go on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, no American companies. You can't search anything. So it requires access of information is another big issue. So they control access of information. And if the protests get big enough,
00:09:12
Speaker
um you know they they They have shut down the internet to the entire country. So you're talking about hospitals losing internet connection, losing electricity. You're talking about fire departments. You're talking about um you know any sort of public infrastructure just losing internet.
Masa Amini's Impact
00:09:30
Speaker
so And there's a statistic on Wikipedia and online, I forgot, they lost, not in this protest, I don't think, but in the protests and years before, in one day, in order to keep this regime functioning, they shut down the internet so people wouldn't be able to like take videos and upload it online to get the voice out there because obviously there's no journalism, free journalism in Iran, everything sanctioned.
00:09:56
Speaker
or suppressed. I would say everything is very suppressed. So they don't let outside news. Iranian people started to like you know obviously record, take pictures of what's going on, and try to upload it. So when they saw like a lot of that was going down, they would just shut down the internet, and they lost over $20 billion dollars in like one day, $30 billion, $40 billion. But they're willing to make those sacrifices stay in power.
00:10:18
Speaker
You mentioned the Masi Amini ah kind of ah incident as as as a big part of your your research, like things you're involved with. Can you talk about like what the civil unrest was related to you know um that ah that person and and how that eventually affected the health care system like downstream?
Bioethics in Healthcare
00:10:40
Speaker
So I don't want to say it's one particular thing, but I think her death was like ah what What pulled the trigger, if that makes sense. So currently Iran is very unstable, like I just told you. The the inflation, the high price of gas, food, um the you know yeah lack of access to free ah information, education suppression.
00:11:04
Speaker
um you getting arrested arbitrarily, if you speak out against anything. um So these things have been accumulating over time, right? It's getting worse and worse, and they're being more aggressive in their approach. And so for the mass and meanie protests, and that was, again, like a very simplified explanation, but so all these things are accumulating in the background. It's like a boiling pot.
00:11:29
Speaker
And then so Massa Mina was this Kurdish-Iranian, um and she was visiting Tehran with her family on vacation. And what had happened was she and one, I think she was out like in the city with her family, and she didn't wear a headscarf. It was like on her shoulders instead. And she got into an altercation with like what in iran has So Iran has you know yeah your general police officers, your military you have this thing called the morality police. It's called the Besij. And their sole job is to enforce the moral code the moral Islamic code that they have.
00:12:07
Speaker
Okay, so it's their own thing at their own, you know, funding from the government, separate, not a lot of books. And that's, that's all they do throughout the country. So there's an a event like these morality police officers got in confrontation with NASA, I mean, you didn't never have a good job on. And what had happened, one thing led to another and she like, they, they essentially like took her, they arrested her, took her back. And then Next thing you know, you know the parents obviously didn't get any notification where she's going, how long she's going to be going for. You have no right to a lawyer, nothing like that. And then she had a brain hemorrhage, essentially what happened. So she hit her head, started bleeding into her brain.
00:12:48
Speaker
and This was a report until later when the police officers, you know, said like, you know, she shoots, she's dead or whatever. And then that went viral on their parents, like made videos and then it was circulated and that their explanations.
00:13:06
Speaker
were that, you know, nothing really happened. She was like dehydrated, et cetera, et cetera. And when they made this announcement, the physicians in Iran, even the ones who did the autopsy reports like, you know, this is, this is fault, like wrong. She died from blunt force trauma. And that's when kind of like shit hit the fan.
00:13:26
Speaker
and all of Iran just massive on ways to protest it because it's like you guys it's like imagine you have all these issues going on you can't feed your kids you can't go to school and you're trying to get out of this country and there's inflation is like 70 80 percent your wages are stagnant um you know, you have two or three kids can't pay you rent your electricity. And then out of nowhere, where your funds and resources are going to fund, you know, different groups in the Middle East, they're going to everyone anywhere but your people, and then just kill this woman from hiring her job. So that just sparked all of Iranians. It was the biggest protests in Iran's history since 1979.
00:14:10
Speaker
that got rid of the Shah. And it was spread throughout the country. And yeah, and that's what that's what her death sparked the movement. And the movement was woman life freedom. It was a woman's really, really championed by Iranian women. And to be able to have the choice and the freedoms to wear whatever they want to wear. But it goes beyond that, if you see what I'm saying. I hope that explanation helps. But that was like the big trigger.
00:14:41
Speaker
so So from that, um you you said you you're kind of doing some research into bioethics. Can you talk about you know what's going on with physicians, what's going on with healthcare care ah in Iran related to those ah mass and ME protests? Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, that was just a bit of a background because I feel like if I didn't tell you that, you it would be very difficult to follow. So yeah, so I said, so our story really begins and this research begins with the physicians that started to speak out against like what the government had said on paper. Oh, she just randomly died. So when when those when those physicians made the decision to theyc take that declaration, um that is when the country or that's when the Islamic regime essentially waged a war on the medical system on their own medical system.
00:15:30
Speaker
So what had happened was was they started to, first of all, tear gas medical schools and and like ah academic centers. um They started to, ah they arrested all those physicians who came out and spoke for the first time. um They were, and it it caused, and so these protests when they were going on, they started to create a series of um hidden How should I explain? like Hidden tricks, I would say, to kind of catch protesters and also squel the medical community. So they started to use, it like, what some examples are, they started to use ambulances. And ah they would take ambulances from hospitals or whatever they had, and they would staff it with the morality police agents. So they would come in, these ambulances, imagine, like, protest your tear gas, are beat you're you're being shot at.
00:16:27
Speaker
but People are bleeding, people are losing their vision, like different things are happening. So these ambulances would pull up and then people are like in, it's it's a state of chaos. So people start knocking on the ambulance trying to come in, but these ambulance were actually police officers arresting people. And that obviously does not look good on the medical community, right? And it's like people don't know who to trust anymore.
00:16:49
Speaker
um I had, ah last year, I invited my cousin, who's a physician in Iran, and I asked her to come speak ah to her school. And I had a bit of a diversity event, and she came to speak and talk about her firsthand experiences as to what happened. And it was the point where physicians had to, oh, they also started to, before we get in here, so they also started to like mandate hospitals to report protestors. So if anyone came into a hospital and they had protest-related injuries,
00:17:18
Speaker
They had a certain amount of criteria. Physicians hacked. They were mandated to report their social security equivalent in Iran, their IDs and everything, and say, hey, like and flag it on like their EMR system. And and with that, then like police officers would show up. They would all be staffed in the ER ED. And if people came in who weren't there from their blood pressure medication, they would come and arrest them.
00:17:44
Speaker
after they were treated for the protest-related injury. right ah So that caused a lot of problems. And obviously in Iran, it's very difficult to organize um because if you try to organize politically, they usually take out come and take out the leaders, arrest them, kill them, whatever it is.
00:18:05
Speaker
so what was through non, so like a very hidden channels of their own, physicians started to kind of congregate and through like WhatsApp, like chat messages, telegrams, which are like encrypted messaging services where like the government can't really hack into and different virtual private networks or VPNs. They started to deliver information and in terms of like They would send, for example, someone they knew who was a protester, they would say, okay, listen, me and a few of my, like, residents or physician colleagues were going to come to your house at, like, nighttime, and they were called the night physicians. So I want you to gather anyone who had a protest-related injury that you know of, don't tell anybody else, and bring them there. We'll treat them. We'll bring stuff from the hospital and treat them at home.
00:18:51
Speaker
So physicians were working during the day, and they would also so they started also spreading information of telling people, hey, if you're going to be in the protest tomorrow or whatever, when you come into the hospital and you need treatment, do give us a fake social security number. Give us a fake birthday so we would don't have to get in trouble. That way we can keep treating you and be like, hey, yeah, this is what they gave me. like I don't know what they're doing.
00:19:13
Speaker
So there was a lot of collaboration between the people and the medical system, right? And that's when my research really started to get interesting because it was like, okay, so the ethics, so at what point do physicians, at what point should physicians get involved in protests, in politics?
00:19:33
Speaker
and What is their oath to society, and what is their oath to a patient? is it And all these different questions started to arise, and I thought I would like kind of dive into the research and see you know when is the right time, is there a right time? Or if your medical license and potentially your life is on the line, is that worth saving a patient?
00:19:55
Speaker
should Should a physician in that circumstance, would you blame them if they reported to be patient? And instead of telling them to, hey, I'm going to give you like do a fake number if you're late. Oh, so it's like where to do, where does practicing and where does medicine draw the lines at and how much are we obliged to help people in society? So kind of taking a bigger picture, right? Um,
00:20:21
Speaker
A journalist I talked to, Sarah de Gregorio, she was saying that medicine is inherently political, right? That like you can't do medicine while completely ah avoiding politics. And that
Physicians in Politics
00:20:34
Speaker
makes sense, right? Because when you think about so social determinants of health, when you think about just everything that goes into health outcomes, a lot of it is what occurs outside the doors of the hospital. So like where do you kind of think of like When should physicians get involved in kind of what's going on outside, especially politically? I think politics and medicine are one of the same. you know If you can use rastethoscopes and scalpels to treat individuals, you can use them to treat social illnesses as well. and Just take the example of the United States. right so You have OB-GYN physicians or even family physicians, and you have
00:21:14
Speaker
bans an abortion. right That directly affects your scope of practice. It directly affects what drugs you can give, what medications you can give, how much intervention you can give to you know a patient who is either needs an abortion for whatever reason. And the abortion is a treatment tool. right So now in the context of that in Iran,
00:21:36
Speaker
um When should physicians get involved? If they're up to me, I think physicians at a baseline should be involved in at least um I think um definitely I think on the big things they should be involved. So things like that have a mass effect on your scope of practice. I don't, for me, for me personally, you know, if there are certain tax laws or very small things are going on, like locally or, you know, if you want to get involved, sure, I don't think every physician should be obliged to do those things. But if it's things like national issues and abortion that directly limit your practice, if it's things like,
00:22:17
Speaker
um you know you You have to yeah you have to ah pretty much quite identify protesters and send them to jail. you know those things I didn't sign up to do that. So when it's mass, things like that, I think every physician should be involved ah personally. But at the end of the day, you know it's going to be an individualized decision for the how much risk you're willing to take and I think I Look at the oath that we swore um and the choice we made to enter this profession as one that Is a little bit different than the ones like this is not a job in my very view I think this is a very this is like
00:23:07
Speaker
a lifestyle almost. This is a calling. I know it's very cliche, but um um because we're so privileged to be able to be at people and at any stage of their lives, right? So when we practice in a hospital, what other place besides an airport do you get do you get to see people from all specters of the socioeconomic ladder, from the poorest of the poor who don't have insurance, showing up to ED, to the most richest person who has the private room in the whatever suite of the hospital that you didn't even know existed, right? So it's it's you get to see everybody, and it's it's an honor to be able to do that. So I think we do have,
00:23:48
Speaker
I definitely think physicians have a role in place, especially when it comes to laws or actions taken by governments that affect the way we're able to make medical decisions and how patients are able to work with us in order to get those medical complications solved.
00:24:07
Speaker
You think we should encourage more ah physicians and health care professionals to run for for public office, considering you know they take this this oath to do to do no harm, to have beneficence to to to to embody all these like core values? ah Sometimes I feel like politics could use a little more of that, huh?
00:24:26
Speaker
Yes, yes. And i of course, the other side of the argument is that like, there is this neutrality expect, that's probably the biggest one I saw through my research that new physicians are naturally neutral, right? Because if you take a stance for ostracizing other patients,
00:24:43
Speaker
While there is merit and debate on that argument, um i don't like I don't necessarily think you should be bringing your judgment and your views when you sit at the bedside of a patient. um Whether it's someone you agree with or not, like that is a sacred place. But outside, when you take off your white coat, while you may still be a physician,
00:25:05
Speaker
um you know I think you can compartmentalize those things. I think there's a you you should be neutral in the operating room and everywhere else and give everyone the same kind of care. But I disagree with the premise that you know that means that should carry on all my life.
00:25:24
Speaker
And yeah, I would definitely think that physicians, residents, medical students should definitely get involved. I think you see that more and more now. Recently in the United States, there was residents are unionizing across the country.
00:25:37
Speaker
um And in records or numbers, ah different institutions, different programs for our wages or hours. And I think we're moving in the right direction. I think if not to get too tangential of what original topic was, but you see these different factors like the pharmaceutical cost of drugs.
00:25:58
Speaker
You see insurance ah in this country just soaring through the roof every year, charging whatever they want, whatever patent costs that they can make arbitrary numbers or yet sell them to other countries for much cheaper. And these things are driving the cost of healthcare. And yet we have a shortage of physicians. We're not expecting Medicaid programs.
00:26:19
Speaker
And we take on substantially more debt as medical students than any of our predecessors in any point in time in the US history. and and And the saddest part is when I graduate or you and I graduate from medical school, the the ones coming in 10 years from now are going to be way more on the whole than I ever was.
00:26:39
Speaker
And they're probably going to be learning 20 times the more information than we ever learned. And that's just how it is. So, you know, addressing these issues. And I think it's finally time for physicians to take control of those situations, at least in the context of the United States and everywhere, really.
00:26:56
Speaker
and getting involved in lobbying or your grassroots local or lobbying organizations. Like, for example, there's like the American College of Physicians that I'm part of the ACP. um There is, you know, to join your act Academy of OB-GYNs, your Academy of Cardiology or whatever it is, your Academy of, you know, and start there.
00:27:16
Speaker
and see they all have different lobbying and political groups and you know some of them like I did I went to Washington DC this summer and I was able to lobby and different things and I think hearing our voices at any stage of the medical training and beyond it you know really allows us to tell you like hey this is what's affecting the patients this is what we should be doing instead of you know different pharmaceutical or insurance or who you know hospital executives who are so distant from patient care and go to these congressmen and show them data and this and that. Okay, we should be having this. This is the reasons. But we have the direct experience. We see these people's lives. We treat them for 20 years. you know i've I've worked with physicians who get invited to you know
00:28:03
Speaker
kids of their patients' weddings. And this is like a special bond, right? So we know what works for patients, what doesn't work for patients, why you know emergency departments are overfilled and things like that. So I i think these do affect um the way we practice it when we operate, and I definitely would encourage all physicians, residents, et cetera, to get involved. even at Even at a low level, you know, just to see what the current news is, where we are, what's going on in politics. Even if you don't, if you're too scared to, or, you know, too shy or don't want to get involved, your thing is something else, you know, you're in research, you're more clinical, you just want to go home, whatever it is. But I think getting involved in these organizations,
00:28:43
Speaker
And just listening, getting updated on the current news, the legislation I think is very, very helpful.
Diversity in Healthcare
00:28:48
Speaker
It's just as helpful as reading the guidelines of the newest recommendations for, I don't know, AFib.
00:28:55
Speaker
I like that you mentioned the the sacred space. I think that's something I struggle with a lot to think like, Oh, I have a set of core values and I will fight for some of those outside the walls of the hospital, but then maybe not fight so hard for them in the walls of the hospital. So it's like, which ones do I kind of drop at the door and which ones do I kind of, you know, hold onto? to But, um, I think ah ah a lot of it, like, you know,
00:29:20
Speaker
the word sacred, right? It just sort of of melts away when you're like with a patient. And like a lot of those things almost don't even matter anymore. And it's just about healing that person. So I think that's like really, that's something that I continue to think about. And I think we should have more discussions in healthcare care about my my last thought is, you know, hospitals, one one big point of hospitals or one big initiative, right? Is, is diversity, um, in within hospitals among patients, among professionals. So,
00:29:49
Speaker
Do you think we should have hospitals with healthcare professionals that have diverse political opinions or diverse values? or Because that can that can create you know a lot of new perspectives, but it can also create friction when you have people who are who want to fuck you know want to support and want to value different things.
00:30:09
Speaker
Um, or should we kind of like, should, should hospitals kind of have, uh, you know, kind of pick a direction and, and acquire healthcare care professionals, doctors that have like that values associated with their mission? That's an excellent question. That's an excellent question. Um,
00:30:26
Speaker
I think a hospital body, like any other different governing body um and the staff members, they should represent the people they're serving. So for example, it wouldn't make a lot of sense if I went to, I got, you hundred Persian doctors and I went to a very Spanish-speaking region in Miami and opened up a clinic. Yeah, they're the physicians. They know they pass all the tests and everything. and But it's like you would and it's good to have you know some Persian physicians. but I don't think they should all be Persian there. I think you need Hispanic physicians, people from their own community. I think you need a good pool. um I think if you're in a larger black community in the United States, I think you should definitely have
00:31:09
Speaker
black physicians to understand what people are going through better translated to your non black physician counterparts. Right. So I think like these are bridges to door. So I always advocate for, you know, it your makeup of your board.
00:31:25
Speaker
should be you know representative of the people
Healthcare Challenges
00:31:28
Speaker
you're serving. You should be com composed of the people. um and i And I always tread on the side of diversity, even if it's things we don't want to hear. But where i the direction that I'm going with with people getting involved in these issues is that there are a lot of external factors that really hinder that sacred space we just talked about. So I wish it was a perfect world. ah you know go not you take a patient we bring it in let's talk about it let's see what's going on but we're on crunch time it is a pay per fee system right and if you have a patient you only have 15 minutes you have to chart their thing and you have to make sure the hospital is getting all their money for this patient and have to see the next patient and then there's like 30 patients to see everyone with just
00:32:12
Speaker
as a valid of a reason for being there. And you know then your patient comes, oh, my my insurance needs a prior auth, oh, this, that, oh, and then those external factors is what I'm saying why physicians should be advocating to like, hey, i we need like, this is unrealistic, like borderline stupid, only having 15 minutes with patients. Like I don't know any physician who wants that, right? Like it should be to the point where we can build a medical system where we're having nice, you know, 2025, whatever time it needs for a patient that still, you know, flows well, we'll make a good profit here. But we have that space. And you know, the note taking and the product off these things are
00:32:55
Speaker
more or less, you know, either their staff or their staff members are are hired to take care of those things that are different, different mechanisms, like I don't know what they are, where they look like, but we can definitely reduce those burdens to make it easier for physicians to have that space to be better able to emphasize empathize with a patient who doesn't have the same core values. If I'm under stress already,
00:33:19
Speaker
and I'm in like a hundred thousands of dollars in debt. I just finished residency. Finally, I'm about to pay off these loans, but now I'm expected to see 30, 40 patients a day. I go into a room. I haven't slept in a while. Patient comes in and he has different views than mine. It's not going to go too well. The empathy isn't going to be there, right? We're human too. So that's what I'm saying is when people should get involved to reduce those external things, right? And and really get to live up to the standards that we set for ourselves.
Advocacy for Universal Healthcare
00:33:49
Speaker
What you mentioned kind of sounded like the the boiling pot you were talking about before in Iran, like, you know, things can really get to you. And and it's it's a bunch of things that can really cause ah things to go haywire. Time for a lightning round series of fast-paced questions to tell us more about you. What's your vice or guilty pleasure? Oh, I have a sweet tooth, big sweet tooth. Oh, ice cream. What was your favorite video game growing up? Oh, that's a good one. I have a lot of them. I still have to stick with FIFA. I think FIFA is one of my favorite video games. I've been playing since I was very young.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think I had still have FIFA 07 somewhere. That's a good one. Thank God. Ronaldinho was on the cover. Oh, yes, yes. Ideal Saturday afternoon. Oh man. See you asked me today. I think my ideal Saturday afternoon would be just to chill with some watermelon and I'll tell you, I'll tell you more. I have a perfect picture of watermelon, uh, goat cheese on the beach. And that is what my uncle would always serve me. We went to beach the beach together and you're on and phenomenal. If you haven't tried, you should definitely try it.
00:34:48
Speaker
um You went to to college at the University of Miami, so where's your favorite place to hang out in Miami? Go, Canes. My favorite place to hang out, there was this one. There's a lot of different things, but one of my favorite ones was this wine bar. It was called, it's in Wynwood area. I forgot the name of it, but ah yeah, wine bars, I would say. my Wine bars. There's one specific one, but if I remember by the end, I'll let you guys know.
00:35:15
Speaker
Okay, last question that always kind of stumps everybody. What is one change you'd like to see in healthcare? care There's a lot of them, but I think the one is ah we should have a universal healthcare system plan. I think that's everyone.
Closing Remarks
00:35:31
Speaker
Now, whether you want to make it mixed and have it um part, you pay part of it and the government part is just, but I think every United States citizens in this country should have healthcare built in from the day they're born or the day they immigrate here and have their papers and everything.
00:35:49
Speaker
To date, that's definitely the most popular answer. So we might have to do an episode on universal health care alone. Alright, Amir Davouti, thanks so much for joining the show. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.
00:36:10
Speaker
Thanks for listening to The Wound Dresser. Until next time, I'm your host, John Neery. Be well.