Episode 48: Tonni Bacoat-Jones D.O. Pain Management and Obstetrical Anesthesiologist

In this episode of D.O. Or Do Not, Dr. Tonni Bacoat-Jones shares her story with us. Dr. Bacoat graduated with a degree in mathematics from Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. She attended medical school at Des Moines University and completed a traditional osteopathic rotating internship in Brooklyn New York. Dr. Bacoat completed a residency in anesthesiology and a pain management fellowship at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Ultimately, she went on to work and teach at Nova-Southeastern University on the Clearwater campus, where she is currently the post-baccalaureate gross anatomy course director and assistant course director for first-year medical students. Dr. Bacoat holds a Master of Public Health that she obtained through George Washington University.

In this interview, Dr. Bacoat will tell us about her journey as a non-traditional medical student who raised her five-year-old daughter during her studies at Des Moines. She describes how an early family mentor led her to choose osteopathic medicine and will give students her study strategies to be successful in medical school. We hope you enjoy listening to Dr. Bacoat’s journey.

Hosted by Tiffany Carlson
Edited by Nicholas Buskill

Transcript

My name is Dr. Ian Storch. I'm a board certified gastroenterologist and osteopathic physician,

and you are listening to DO or do not. If you're interested in joining our team or

have suggestions or comments, please contact us at DoOrDoNotPodcast.com. Share our link with

your friends and like us on Apple Podcasts, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We hope you

enjoy this episode. Hi, I'm Tiffany Carlson, a second year osteopathic medical student hailing

from the Midwest, and you're listening to DO or Do Not. On this episode of DO or Do Not, Dr. Toni

Bacow-Jones shares her story with us. Dr. Bacow-Jones graduated with a degree in mathematics

from Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. She attended medical school at Des Moines University

and completed a traditional osteopathic rotating internship in Brooklyn, New York. Dr. Jones

completed a residency in anesthesiology and subsequently a pain management fellowship at

the University of Maryland at Baltimore. Ultimately, she went on to work and teach

at Nova Southeastern University on the Clearwater campus, where she is currently the post-baccalaureate

gross anatomy course director and assistant course director for first-year medical students.

Dr. Bacow-Jones holds a master of public health, which she obtained through the George Washington

University recently. In this interview, Dr. Bacow-Jones will tell us about her journey as

a non-traditional medical student who raised her five-year-old daughter during her studies at Des

Moines. She describes how an early family mentor led her to choosing osteopathic medicine,

and she will give students her study strategies to be successful in medical school.

We hope you enjoy listening to Dr. Bacow-Jones' journey. Welcome, Dr. Bacow-Jones, to the show.

How are you today? I am doing wonderful. Very, very nice introduction. Thank you.

You are quite impressive, so we appreciate the time that you're taking out of your busy day.

Can you just tell us, the audience, what does your normal day look like? Especially,

I know that you were in the classroom today. Yeah, I am strictly academic medicine now,

so I'm not in the hospital. I do teach some clinical classes, but for the most part,

a lot has changed since COVID. They say this is our new norm, so our new norm is that we have to

be very flexible. That being said, I usually wake up about 6.45 in the morning. I have my boys,

I call them, but they're my dogs, so I let them out, go for a walk, and of course, I feed them.

Then I try to feed myself, of course. Usually, now we are doing classes on Zoom, so I usually

have lectures or I'll have labs. Then it's really great because of the technology that we use,

especially at NOVA, KPCOM. We have a lot of new technology, including virtual reality as well as

complete anatomy and other things that allowed us to actually move into this new arena smoothly.

It's usually lectures, and they lead to labs, of course. Then we also have

meetings, quite a few meetings on what's going on, basic science faculty, as well as

principles of clinical medicine, presentations, professional development training, and other

things too. The great thing is because of my MPH degree, I also attend a lot of the American

Public Health Association seminars and seminars from AARP about COVID and our geriatric population.

Then there are also a lot of seminars from the National Institutes of Health and Care Management.

Along with all this, we have to formulate test questions for students, and there's so many per

lecture that we have to prepare. I also teach in the post-baccalaureate program, and these are

students that are hopeful of getting into the next year's class, but teaching anatomy in that class

and getting those lectures prepared. We're kept pretty busy.

Yes. It seems like you're always working, and you even had time to do an MPH. Can you just tell our

audience what exactly is an MPH and what you can do with that population medicine perspective for

students thinking about going into medical school? The great thing is now even in medical school,

they have where you can get a dual degree. You can get a master's in public health along with

your medical degree. They didn't have that when I was coming through, but that's okay. My interests

in medicine or my whole reason for wanting to go into medicine, and you've heard this before,

I'm a nurturer and I wanted to help people. As I was practicing, I saw a lot of things that patients

weren't doing or weren't able to do or their access to care or other things that kept them

from being the healthy people that they can be. I started looking into public health, which

it actually works very well with medicine in that you not only learn about your patients

and how to gain their trust, but you also start looking at why patients aren't able to access

medicine or access just getting to the doctor or in fact that there may be no place in their

community for them to get healthy food. There's a lot of different things that actually add to

a patient being healthy or being able to be healthy because of various circumstances and in

most cases, things that they can't help, things that they can't change. Having a master's in public

health allowed me to take care of the total patients as osteopathic physicians do anyway,

but now it just adds another parameter or another area to actually prepare and treat those patients

even better. Awesome. Thank you for describing that for our audience. Now, you said that you're

a nurturer, which I think a lot of students come into thinking that they want to study medicine

because they want to help people, they want to make a difference. What made you decide that you

were interested in medicine and wanting to become a doctor? When in that time period,

was it before your undergraduate? When was it like, yes, I'm going to take the plunge and become an

osteopathic physician? I have to tell you this story. My journey started probably when I was

about five years old. My father was a dog breeder and he would come out to feed the dogs. He had

this large kennel in the back of the house and he would come out to feed the dogs and I would have

them bandaged up. From that point, I knew that that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to help.

I love science. I love math. Some would call me a nerd or geek as my kids do now, but that's okay

because it worked for me. I was very inquisitive. I wanted to know how the body worked and there

was nothing else for me other than being a doctor. That's when I started. I know that you went to

Bennett College, which is one of the two all-women's historically black college and

university in this country. It's in North Carolina. How come you didn't go to North

Carolina State and become a veterinarian? How did you transition from bandaging puppies to

dealing in human medicine? Another funny story, because I loved animals, it was a toss-up between

medicine and being a vet. Then one summer, I guess during high school, I decided to work with a

couple of vets to figure out exactly what I wanted to do. I didn't like the way, to be honest,

the way I smelled. I guess I'm kind of prissy. I like to smell good and all that stuff. That

kind of led me away from animals, even though I still love animals. I have quite a few of them

myself, but that kind of led me along the path of just medicine. Yeah, Greensboro, North Carolina,

the reason I chose that school is actually a tradition, the school that my mom went to.

They have so many traditions as far as culture and diversity, acceptance. All of these things

were very important to me. I needed to prepare for medical school. Bennett also had a wonderful

science department with instructors that were the best in their fields. There was no other choice.

I decided to go to Bennett. While you were at Bennett,

what were some kind of crystallizing experiences that led you to consider osteopathic school as

opposed to allopathic? One thing, I actually had a first cousin who was an osteopath physician.

We would have family reunions or she would come to visit my mom or my grandmom all the time.

She just started talking to me because I didn't really know what an osteopathic

physician was. I just know I wanted to do medicine. It's really nice because the things that I was

learning, the philosophy actually blended in with my own beliefs, my beliefs in holistic medicine

and treating the whole body, mind, body, and soul. Then of course, the fact that prevention is the

key. There was no other choice. I did at one point consider allopathic medicine, but then I

got smart. Then I chose osteopathic medicine over allopathic. You went from North Carolina

to the cornfields of Iowa. How was that transition? I am pretty flexible. I always have been.

I think before I went to, well, yeah, when I went to medical school, I was a little older.

I'll say I was 29. I had just divorced. I wanted to see a different part of the country.

I applied to the Des Moines Medical School and then the one in Miami. The Des Moines Medical

School was the first one to say, hey, come on. I packed up. You really have to look at faith.

I packed up. I drove across the country. Luckily, my mom was just retired because I had a five-year

old. I headed to Iowa. There was no question about whether I was going or not. There was no question

about, okay, now that you're here, where are you going to stay? It was amazing. I have to tell you,

sometimes when doors open up for you, everything will fall into place because Des Moines, Iowa,

my daughter was five. The school that she went to was the best in the nation, not just in Iowa,

but the nation on exams. I found a place right across from the school to live with my daughter.

Then a couple of blocks down, one of the upperclassmen, his wife, was babysat. She was

able to take care of my daughter when we weren't in school. Then we adjusted to everything else we

needed to do, or I did, in order to take care of her and then accomplish my goal.

Wow. That's amazing because I know a lot of parents today are stressing because of COVID

and balancing careers and school and homeschooling. That's wonderful that you

had a community that could step up and help you be successful. What are some things that you did

at Des Moines, besides being a full-time student and parent, that led you to the next step in your

journey? To me, the Des Moines school was great. The instructors really cared about you. They took

care of you. If you had questions, their doors were always open. We had tutors and everything

else to help us out. The only thing that kind of bothered me when I first got there in the class

of, I think we had about 400 plus, there were only two Black females. To me, we need representation

of all cultures and all diversities in order to treat patients more effectively.

But because I was on a mission and because I was older, that didn't really bother me to the point

where I couldn't function and do what I needed to do. So I was able to do that. In school,

I did a whole lot other than taking care of my daughter and school. I got on that regular

routine of what we needed to do. We would get up in the morning. I'd get her ready for school.

She'd go to school. I'd go to class. She stayed in the afterschool program. I would go to get her.

We'd come home. I'd feed her. She would go to bed. I would go to sleep with her for maybe two or three

hours. Then I'd get up at 12 at night and started the routine over, started studying. Then when I

had to stay late for a study session or something, she would go to the babysitter. But you have to

work out your routine, and that's what we did. But other activities, I want to always want to be

involved. Because initially when I went to medical school, I wanted to be a pediatrician. Those are

the kind of things that I took part in. So I was on the yearbook staff because I did that in high

school. Then I was the pediatric club treasurer. Then we worked with this program called PALS.

That was where we actually had activities and stuff for terminally ill children. I was the vice

president of the African American Medical Student Association. I was a TA for physical diagnosis.

I stayed involved because I know being involved is important. Being involved is a precursor for

you working as a physician and becoming involved in your community. So that was not a question

whether or not I should do this. It was just something that I knew I needed to.

So you're talking about being one of two Black women in your class. Now I know that you're on,

you're a chair for the Health Initiative Committee for the National Coalition of Black Women.

You do a lot of mentoring. How did that experience influence you to become a mentor and

guide other people along? It's really important to understand that you're going to be in situations

where you may be the only one, whether it's the only female, whether it's the only Hispanic person,

whatever the case may be. But you still need to gather whatever it is you've gone there to get

and be successful. So going to Iowa, Iowa itself, you don't see a whole lot of minorities

in Des Moines when I was there anyway. But I wanted, not just wanted, but I also want students

to know, especially minority students, especially females, Black females or any minority group,

I want them to know that they can accomplish this, that the doors will be open for them.

Sometimes we have to see people in the positions that we aspire to be in. And so we have to be

there for them to be able to touch base and maybe even give recommendations or mentor or whatever it

is, whatever thing process that we've learned throughout our lives and share that with someone

else. Because I never think we go through things in our lives just haphazardly. We go through things

in our lives because we are there to mentor or to share our experience or to help someone else along.

So my working with teenagers or different organizations, I want to pull in students

or people who are interested in medicine and let them know that they can do it. I get questions

all the time, especially even in the medical school class now, because they say they're too

old to be learning this stuff. And I share my story with them and they sit back and they listen.

And then they say, Hey, if she did this, I can do this too. So that's my whole goal is to make sure

people know that they can do this too. Wow, that's awesome. So you're finishing, you know,

Des Moines, you're looking at like the different opportunities. What was your process like,

you know, getting that residency? So I took a year off between medical school and my internship.

I had a beautiful little boy, still my baby, but don't tell them it's recorded.

That's okay. I took a year off. So when I went to my residency, my son was probably about six months

old or so. I mean, my internship, excuse me. He was about six months old. But at the time I

didn't go through the match. But again, I wanted to see another part of the country. So I just

looked at places that had openings. And it just so happens that the Wycoff Hospital in New York

had an opening. So I applied. I went for an interview and they said, Hey, come on. And then

after my internship or during my internship, I always wanted to be a pediatrician. They knew

this. So they put me in the pediatric ER and the pediatric ICU and everything peds. But then during

my internship, I actually met someone who was an anesthesiologist and she was awesome. I mean,

she was smart. She was personable. She cared about her patients. And not only that, she thought

enough of me to mentor me and, you know, let me do lines, let me, you know, take part in asking

patients questions before preop. All these things that really impressed me. And one day she said to

me, Hey, Tony, do you know that you could be a pediatric anesthesiologist? And I'm like, whoa,

stop the boat. Here we go. That's what I'm doing. Yeah. So for our audience, a lot of like

pediatric surgeries, like without anesthesiology in the room, like they just can't be done like

cleft palate surgeries. What are some other surgeries? And also like the airways just

different, right? Yeah, the airways quite different, but I do have another story to

go along with that. You know, most cases are just ear tubes or sometimes circumcision. Sometimes

there's intestinal blockages, things like that. But there was one case that I had as a resident

at the university in anesthesiology. It was a baby and the baby, you know, was having surgery

newborn because it had heart defects. And so, you know, the pediatric anesthesiologist at the

university of Maryland, also awesome, were actually, you know, taking care of this baby.

So they knew what I wanted to do, pediatric anesthesiology. So they actually allowed me

to be in all the pediatric cases as much as possible. So this one case started about five

in the morning and, you know, about 10 o'clock at night, it was still going. And so the pediatric

anesthesiologist, by the way, I was pregnant again at this point, and she told me to go home.

And I'm like, no, I want to see the end of this case. You know, I don't want to go. I want to

stay. And she was like, no, Tony, go ahead and go home and, you know, we'll talk later. So I went

home. I came back the next morning. You know, we get there about five or six. The case was just

ending. They were cleaning the room. And I talked to the pediatric anesthesiologist that was taking

her place for today. And I asked about the baby, you know, how did the baby do? And she told me

that the baby died. And from that point on, I, you know, I went home. I had, you know, two kids at

home at that point. And I went home and I started kissing the kids and crying. And they didn't know

my husband didn't know what was going on. And my kids thought I was just crazy. But at that point,

I knew I couldn't do peace. So I ended up, you know, just focusing on anesthesia. I decided to

do pain management because I like taking care of patients, the more challenging patients,

when it comes to pain, as well as doing procedures. I also, you know, I still got to see babies

because I did obstetric anesthesiology. So, you know, I got to see all that joy and happiness and

moms and dads and parents, grandparents and all that faces when the babies are born. So either way,

I still got to experience some of the things I would have as a pediatric anesthesiologist.

And by the way, you know, I'm kind of silly. So I used to blow up balloons and put faces on them.

And I had kids so I could sing to them, you know, the kids song and make them more comfortable too.

But, you know, you never know what path your life will lead you to. You just have to be flexible

and be willing to change, you know, and have faith that this is the right choice.

Your mentor just kind of must have had that sixth sense to send you home. So, you know,

medicine is that life and death kind of medium. And so what do you do for self-care and how do you

give your self-care to others? So as far as self-care and myself, I love family. And I

still spend as much time as possible with my kids. And, you know, we have movie nights. We go out to

dinner or not so much now, but we used to go out to dinner and movie nights. But now we have dinner

at home and still have movie nights and things like that. So family is very important to me.

I love movies. Of course, Black Panther was one of my favorites along with any action or love movies,

you know. All of those are very, I like to escape. So I don't want to watch anything about medicine

or doctors or anything like that. Movies are my escape. And I love my dogs. I love walking.

I love beaches because, you know, I could just sit on the beach for hours and watch the sunset

or come up or whatever the case may be. When being in Florida, I get the chance to do that.

Yeah, it's nice down there. You're in Clearwater, right? Yeah, the school is in Clearwater,

but I don't live in Clearwater. I live probably about 45 minutes away. But that's okay because

the drive, I get to drive across the water and see dolphins and manatees and all those and birds of

all kinds going to work and coming home and even from my office. So that's not bad.

No, seeing dolphins every day is not bad, not bad at all. So you did two fellowships,

one in pain management and then obstetrics. And then you were, you did some kind of clinical

teaching at Maryland as well? Yeah, it was a lot of clinical teaching because it was a teaching

hospital. So as a fellow, we, you know, we taught medical students, we taught junior residents,

or even when I was a senior residence, we taught the junior resident. So there was a lot of teaching

going on during that period of time. And I enjoy teaching, I've always enjoyed teaching. And maybe

it's because, you know, my parents were educators and things like that too. So we have a long line

of that. But there was one question you asked me about nurturing my patients. And nurturing my

patients, to me, they have to feel comfortable. They have to trust you, especially if you're the

one that's going to be putting them to sleep. And you know, I use one lady, I wear a cross with my

kids around my neck and she looked at my cross and she told me she felt better. So sometimes you

don't have to say a word, it's just what you do. The fact that you're willing to listen to them

and that you're also willing to try to find those resources that they need in order to provide that,

you know, optimum health that we always talk about. And that's a part of that public health

that we talked about also. Right. And so with that osteopathic medicine, you've got the mind,

you've got the body and the spirit. And you've mentioned that kind of faith before, but like,

how does a student go about learning how to treat the soul and the spirit?

So, you know, there is a lot of controversy, a lot of things that they're trying to do differently

in teaching patients. And I think most of it is coming from or allowing now for integration into

the curriculum about ethics, about public health issues and things like that too. Most people now

that go into medicine, it used to be they went into medicine because of the money. The money isn't

the same as it used to be. So mostly people that go into medicine, go into medicine because they

care about people. The only thing that they may need, you know, some eye-opening experience about,

you know, is some things that they talk about, the social determinants of health, you know,

that they don't have the resources, they don't have transportation, they've lost their job,

they lost their home. And a lot of that stuff that's going on, especially now during COVID.

But all of that is important as a medical professional or future medical doctor to

have that heart. You have to have a heart for the patients that you treat or the people that you

meet. Regardless, in this world, you have to have that. Yes. Thank you for that. Yeah,

the relationship and the building, the rapport and trust. So you finished up your postgraduate

education at Baltimore. What was your next step? So I stayed there for a while. I love Maryland,

Virginia area, and I think it's beautiful. My reasons for leaving that area and coming

to Florida were personal. My mom got sick, my dad got sick. So I became my mom, especially her

primary caretaker. So, you know, I had to step away from medicine for a bit. And then my kids,

you know, were adjusting. So, you know, I had to make some choices. And one of those choices

had to do with the fact that I needed a more flexible lifestyle to take care of my kids and

to take care of my mom. So I changed from being in the hospital, being a clinician, to academic

medicine. And, you know, like I said, I don't think anything happens in your life that isn't

supposed to happen. I think that the experience and things that I've learned allow me to help

to teach medical students what they need in order to be successful, not just as a physician,

but also as a person in treating and taking care of patients. So you've worked in the whole like

slew of higher education from the community college now, now at the medical college. Like,

what are some things that you see that students really need to be successful in order to achieve

their goals of, you know, such as becoming an osteopathic physician? You know, I just finished

some interviews yesterday and they were great, absolutely amazing students. I understand that

you're going to be against some really outstanding students like yourself when you apply for these

programs. One thing that I would tell students to do, undergrad especially, for some reason,

a lot of colleges cut out anatomy as a prerequisite. They tell them they don't need to take it.

And as a course director and assistant course director for anatomy, I am seeing so many students

struggling with anatomy. Look at the school that you're thinking about applying to, look at maybe

the first year classes, what kind of classes you take during your first year, and take those classes

as an undergrad. Take anatomy, take biochemistry, take immunology, all those things. Because,

you know, when you get into medical school, it's not going to be on the same level,

but at least you've been exposed. And some of those terms and everything that you're going to

hear are actually going to be helpful for you because you're not hearing them for the first

time. It's not like it's a foreign language. So you mentioned that you're the post-bac course

director for anatomy at NOVA, and then you're also one of the clinical assistant course directors

for anatomy. What are some, what's some advice like, yes, like take it in undergraduate,

learn some of the terms, because a lot of it's, you know, comes from Latin and Greek.

So what are some success tips, like the tips and tricks that you tell your students so that they

could be successful and know the body? So as far as the anatomy, anatomy is strictly memorization.

There's no way around it. I talk about finding out what kind of learning you are. You know,

some people say that they're kinesthetic. Some people say that they're visual. Some people say

they're auditory. I am a kinesthetic and a visual learner. So when I was in medical school, I used

the tools that I learned to actually be able to utilize what I had as a person to be able to

take in all that material that's going to be given to me. So learning what type of learner you are,

being organized, staying on top of things, asking questions if you have questions, going to

30 sessions that they offer for you, being in touch with your instructor, talking to them.

Some people I used to tease when I was teaching at the community college because nobody liked

to come see me. I said, if you don't come see me, I just get to make up more quizzes and tests and

stuff. They started coming to see me, but you need to be in touch. You need to make sure that

instructor knows who you are. The great thing about being at Bennett, it was a small campus.

I think maybe we had a hundred people, if that many, in my class, and the instructors knew us.

So, you know, when you come to class, I mean, it was not for you to get a phone call that night,

why weren't you in class today? You know, so you just have to stay on top of everything. I know

when I was going to medical school, someone talked about intestinal fortitude and I had no idea what

he was talking about. But then I understood you have to have determination. You have to be focused.

You have to be organized and you have to take care of yourself. So, you know, all that studying and

everything else that you have to do, you also have to eat. You also have to exercise. You also have

to do all those things that allow you to be a healthy person so that you can help others to be

healthy also. I think you just touched on the proverbial third rail of work-life balance. How

have you achieved it? Obviously, you went to school with a kid. You had a couple more wonderful

children and then now you're balancing online learning. You know, you're still keeping with the

family life. How do you do it all? You know, it's funny. It's funny. My friend told me one time that

she doesn't know what I would do if I didn't have something to do. It's true. It's really true. It's

like I have to keep busy and I think that comes with medical school and having to study all the

time and everything else. Part of it may just be culture because my mom was a workaholic and

family was important, but I know the importance of taking care of self and taking care of self to me

is also taking care of family. So, I had to figure out a way to do that. You know, in medical school,

I'll tell you a short story that I would even, like if I had to go to the library and study,

I would take my daughter. I would have a blanket. I would have her crawling book. I'd have toys.

We would go into a study room. I spread it out on the floor. She would sit over there,

maybe even fall asleep while I was studying, and then I would pick her up and walk across the street

to go home. So, you have to be able to balance, and that's the important word, to balance your life

because, you know, if you don't take care of yourself, if you don't take care of your family

before you know it, the kids will be grown and out of the house and you never had that quality,

that quality, you know, connection with your own family. But again, the balance is important for

you to have a positive mind, for you to think clearly when you're taking care of your patients,

and all of those things are important in making sure your patients are well taken care of.

So, you had to have a plan with your daughter. You're bringing the toys. You're bringing the

Cheerios. You're bringing her favorite animal, you know, and her blanket. So, how does time

management play in allowing people to have that work-life balance? Time management is very

important, and that goes with organization. You know, you have to be organized, and you have to

allow time for everything. Like I said, with my daughter, I would pick her up from school,

and if we went home and I just needed to study, I would, you know, we'd eat, we might watch. I only

could afford two movies, so it was either Fern Gully or 101 Dalmatian cartoons. So, we watched

that, and then we would, you know, we would go to sleep. And then I knew that I had to study,

so after she fell asleep, I would get back up and I would study. So, I knew that I had to work out

times to spend time with her and time to study for myself. And then after exams, we would, you know,

for a night, we would just watch movies all night and eat junk all night. So, you know, you have to

be able to balance everything in your life, and that goes from, you know, not just your medical

school, but also when you get to residence seeds and internships, and even when you start practicing,

especially if you're in a teaching hospital. At University of Maryland, we used to teach each

other because we were either pre-call, on-call, or post-call, and so we were always at the hospital,

right? So, you know, you have to be able to balance and use time management to your advantage

to take care of yourself, your family, and take care of your patients.

I just, I had flashbacks from Blockbuster and having like the big expensive VHS tapes that

I don't think anyone has to experience anymore.

Yes, the struggles and then the rewinding back and all the terribleness that, but it was like

such an exciting day to, like, get to, like, check out your Blockbuster movie on that special,

special family night of movies.

And for me, every experience was a wonderful experience, especially, you know, when I got to

finish with an exam, you know, even if it was short, you know, it was like, you know, it was

like, I finished with an exam, you know, even if it was just getting ice cream, something to celebrate.

Yeah, and I think, I think celebration is, is important and like learning to celebrate when

someone gets better or, or is just the life, different life stages, just having that constant

celebratory attitude. So now, you know, you're now you're teaching, you've have grown kids,

and now you're kind of reflecting about your specialty, you're no longer, you know, in the

hospital, but would you go back and change your specialty if you could?

I would not. I would not. I love the connection that I had with my patients and the fact that,

you know, as an anesthesiologist, we're considered to be the patient advocate. I enjoyed that. I

enjoyed just that connection that we have, even though it was, you know, usually a short period

of time, but, you know, and then the medications are really good too, because, you know, I've gotten

proposals and everything else with all the great stuff that we use for patients. So that connection

is there. And, you know, being personable and sharing and just all of that is very important in

the patient being able to trust you and being comfortable with what's going on. And, you know,

a lot of times there's a lot going on. So they may be having surgery for cancer or, or other

things that may be going on in their lives. So you have to, you know, be able to be flexible,

be willing to talk to them, let them talk and just listen sometimes. So all that's important.

So, I mean, so you're touching on both the science with the, you know, different pharmacology that

you need to know in order to give those drugs. And then you're talking about the art of medicine,

the listening. How does one learn and can it be taught to be a patient advocate?

I think, I think it can. And as I mentioned earlier, you know, the curriculum for a lot of

the medical school now has changed quite a bit. And that's because, you know, initially, you know,

of course you want smart people, you do, you want some people who can take care of patients, you

know, but you also want people who are compassionate or passionate both about the care of their

patient. And so a lot of medical schools have realized, or, you know, just from most of what

you have, also residency programs and things like that too, that sometime there was a disconnect.

The smartest person was not always, did not always have the best bedside manner. So we're working

hard. And that's another great thing I was telling you about, you know, you're not put in a place

for no reason. My experience and my passion and compassion for patients, I can give that to or

teach or work with medical students now so that they can also learn or be able to be passionate

and compassionate and have a heart that we talked about for their patients. So I think, yeah, I

think it can be taught. And I think a lot of schools now are realizing that it needs to be taught.

But I think this is a wonderful, humbling experience for me to be able to do that also,

to play a role in them learning about taking care of patients that aren't and everything else that

goes along with it. Now, so you're in the midst of, you know, as the course director in anatomy,

and then doing it online. And I think you also mentioned that you work with the anesthesiology

interest club at your school, you're kind of in an exciting time at Nova. So you went you came from

Des Moines, you know, the I think it's the second oldest osteopathic school in the country, and then

you're going to this new school that is in its second year, I think.

Yeah, it is. And it's funny, because, you know, the first year students, the whole time we kept

telling them you're pioneers, you know, you're, you're kind of paving the way for the future and

stuff. And, and, you know, as as faculty, we felt that way, too, because, you know, we were going

to our office when we first got there, first, we had to find an office and be assigned an office.

And then we had to have computers delivered to us. And we were doing things, you know, sort of like

almost like cavemen to take care of things that we needed to do for that first year class. We

started July 1, and the first year class started on the 29th. So we didn't have much time to prepare

lectures and exams and all those other things. But luckily, you know, we're a satellite campus. So a

lot of the help that we got from the main campus, and some of the instructors from the main campus,

and even some of the people from the main campus were able to come over and help us. But yeah, we

were pioneers. And I like that. I really do. I just I think that's, that's pretty neat to be in

this like new adventure and like seeing a new, a new culture emerge and, you know, really helping,

you know, as osteopathic medicine, a lot of the programs focus on that primary care, that

whole person getting care to the most people. So if you could, I know it's slightly silly,

but I think it's kind of fun because you did mention that you like Black Panther and those

adventure movies. So what is your superpower? My superpower is, you know, I think I, I'm humble.

Humility is very important in being open and open minded, open to your patients, open to the

patients, open to situations and flexible. And just from your own experience, you get to see

or feel what other patients, what your patient may be feeling. You know, you, you know what it

means when they don't have money to get food or they just lost their house or they don't have

insurance. And so that my humility is very important because that allowed me to look at this

patient and, and it goes along with the public health, the whole theory or idea of getting that

public health degree in treating patients and not just treating the patient, but their families and

their situation and everything else, that holistic view that goes so well with osteopathic medicine.

So my superpower, humility. And I think if you can keep that, you will always look out for your

patients, look out for the, your, your coworkers and everything else. And, you know, that nurturing

humility, all of that allows me to be a stronger person.

Can you, I always have a hard time with humility. Do you have a, do you have your own personal

definition of what humility is?

I think it's, it encompasses a lot of different things. It's the way you talk to people, the way

you even look at people that are different from you. I think it allows you to accept, be more

accepting of cultures, of differences of opinions, of differences of how, you know, you might even

treat a patient and be open to, you know, new avenues. Of course, the new students, when they

finish, they're going to have all these new techniques and things like that. And we have to

be open to some of these things that we, you know, may have learned way back when this may be

another, another way or a better way to treat our patients. So humility involves a whole lot of

different things for me. I, I, you know, I speak to everybody. I help everyone I can. I reach out to

students. If I see them struggling, or even if I think they need a hug, I'll give them a hug. You

know, it's important that you show yourself as being a person that the students can come to.

And I've had a lot of students come to me, the private stuff, and, you know, and then I have the

resources, or I know the resources, okay, I can only take you this far, but I know someone who can

take you the rest of the way, you know, and it's a lot involved in humility.

Yeah, using that warm handoff can be really essential in a student's success. So thank you

so much, like sharing your journey. I mean, we've gone through, you know, that, that, that

they saw like developmental psychology, like the whole, the whole gamut, the whole lifespan

of, of a doctor's career. Is there any advice that you would, that you wish you had gotten and

would like to share with students thinking about medicine or are, you know, just beginning their

medical education journey?

Again, going back to that intestinal fortitude, just stay in focus, being determined, know what

your goal is, and going for it, not letting obstacles stop you, because you're always going

to have obstacles or issues in your life, but staying focused on where you're trying to reach,

what you're trying to reach and what you're trying to accomplish in your life. And then of course,

always take time for yourself. That life balance is very important. Have some Harveys, go for walks,

eat right, all those things that you need to do, as I mentioned, to take care of yourself so that

you can take care of your patients.

Thank you so much. So we were just speaking with Dr. Tony Bacode-Jones, a anesthesiologist and a

professor at Nova Southeastern, and you're listening to Dr. Tony Bacode-Jones, who is

a DO or DO NOT. Thank you so much.

This concludes our episode of DO or DO NOT. Send all inquiries, comments, suggestions,

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This is Tianyu Shea. Thank you guys so much for listening to DO or DO NOT.