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A movement founded by doctors, for doctors, dedicated to empowering medical professionals to reclaim control over healthcare decisions and advocating for their fair share of the industry's resources.
00:00:04:00 - 00:00:27:04
Justin Nabity
This is the Doc Nation podcast. We are a movement founded by doctors for doctors dedicated to empowering medical professional to reclaim control over health care decisions and advocating for their fair share of the industry's resources. Please note the views expressed are those of Doc Nation and not necessarily those of our Guest or Reference Health centers.
00:00:27:06 - 00:00:54:04
Neil Dougherty
So Doctor Barkoh, thank you for coming on here. This is a real podcast. We love to get bringing in a diverse, a wide spectrum of perspectives, real people. We are very real here, attacking real issues. And when I say attacking real issues, it is in attacking them in defense and in support of physicians. That's what Doc Nation does.
00:00:54:06 - 00:01:12:20
Neil Dougherty
And so we, we do a lot of things in support of physicians. And you'll learn more about the organization as well. But today is going to be about you, your perspective and your book. Right.
00:01:12:22 - 00:01:34:12
Neil Dougherty
That is. So “Become a doctor, a lawyer or engineer, misguided advice, immigrant and middle class parents give to their children”. Justin, that is that, that really kind of connects to us. Was that a post that you put on social media, right, or Betsy did.
00:01:34:14 - 00:01:35:11
Justin Nabity
Yeah.
00:01:35:13 - 00:01:42:14
Neil Dougherty
About doctors maybe not advising their children going into the medical field right now.
00:01:42:16 - 00:02:01:24
Justin Nabity
Yeah. Most doctors or most parents are telling their kids if they're a physician themself, they're telling their kids not to go into health care, not to go into medicine. And it used to be 40 years ago. It used to be back in the day that you grew up and you did what your parents did. And that's, you know, generationally, you kind of built off of their legacy.
00:02:01:24 - 00:02:10:24
Justin Nabity
Well, parents are telling their parents not to do it anymore. And I think maybe what you have to share with us can unpack some of what's going on or what you think about that.
00:02:11:00 - 00:02:29:20
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Yeah, for sure. First of all, thank you guys for having me. I'm really honored to be on. I think, you know, as, as you mentioned, Neil, the advocacy that you guys are doing for, for doctors is really, resounds with me. And I really appreciate, those efforts. I will answer your question. And it's going to be not to be long winded, but a little bit of background about myself.
00:02:29:20 - 00:02:48:16
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
So I'm an orthopedic spine surgeon. I practice in Houston, Texas. I am the son of immigrants. My parents are from Ghana, West Africa. And so, in a lot of ways I lived up to kind of the quintessential calling, right. Like, I, I, you know, we we made it to the US. We we chased that American dream.
00:02:48:16 - 00:03:20:05
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
I followed, you know, kind of the advice to become a doctor. Not only did I do that, I was able to to go into a highly competitive field of orthopedics and even subspecialize amongst that and spine surgery. And so, for a lot of people, I'm quote unquote, living the dream. And in a lot of ways, I am, what really inspired me to write this book is because I felt there was a disconnect between what I was hearing in the doctor's lounges, what I was hearing, talking to colleagues, and the advice that would then be given to to young people who were thinking about what they wanted to do coming up.
00:03:20:05 - 00:03:33:00
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Right. And to your point. A lot of people behind closed doors or to their own children were saying, hey, maybe you don't want to go into healthcare, maybe you don’t want to go into medicine. But then we'd go speak on a panel at a college and say, hey, yeah, everybody, join premed. And I was like, wait a minute.
00:03:33:00 - 00:03:49:21
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Like, you're not giving them the full spectrum of the full story. So the the really the goal, the mission of the book is to provide informed consent for career decision making. And what I mean by that is that as a as a spine surgeon, before I do procedure, before I do a surgery, I have to give the patient informed consent.
00:03:49:21 - 00:04:10:07
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And so that means that I have to explain to them the procedure what I'm going to do in words or in a way that they would be able to understand and internalize that I have to explain to them the risks, the benefits, and the alternatives, including not having the procedure right. And so then after I do all those things, if they still want to proceed, they've been informed, they can then give me their consent to proceed with with the with the surgery.
00:04:10:08 - 00:04:30:15
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
So my goal for the book was to provide the same thing. Hey, I know you've heard that you should you should grow up and you should want to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer. And for a lot of people, doctor, is kind of that the pinnacle or the or the highest of that ranking? But before you do so, let me tell you the ends, the outs, the good, the bad, and provide some tools for maybe you to have a little bit of introspection.
00:04:30:18 - 00:04:45:06
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
What are your goals? What are your passions or purpose? And then if you still decide to do it, great, I support you 100%. If not, then okay, well, hey, here's some tools to maybe, evaluate yourself and evaluate what your interests are and maybe find out where your passion truly lies.
00:04:45:08 - 00:04:48:24
Neil Dougherty
Can I flip into this book a little bit without giving up too much?
00:04:49:01 - 00:04:51:21
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
What’s that? Yeah, yeah. Please. Please do.
00:04:51:21 - 00:05:01:05
Neil Dougherty
What are the big watch outs or what, what are the downsides of not reading the book and not getting this informed consent?
00:05:01:07 - 00:05:20:10
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Yeah, I mean, I think that the downsides are, like anything, if you don't know what you're getting into, there's a higher chance that there could be some disappointments or frustrations. Right? Or even regrets. Right. And so, you see that in the, in the, in the surgery world. And so I talked about that a little bit in the book.
00:05:20:10 - 00:05:36:20
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
I give an example. You know, you have a patient who comes in and, they have a history of having some intermittent low back pain, but all of a sudden, one day they they're they're, you know, pulling weeds in the, in the yard and they immediately get some burning pain shooting down their leg or have some sciatica that develops.
00:05:36:20 - 00:05:56:22
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Right. They come into the office, you get an MRI, you see they have a herniated disc and L5S1. And you tell them, hey, you got a herniated disc. If we shaved down that herniated disc, that'll fix the problem. They say great, they sign up for it, you do the surgery, you see the patient back maybe two weeks or six weeks after the surgery, and you could tell that they're not completely happy, right?
00:05:56:22 - 00:06:12:23
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
So you ask them, hey, what's going on? You know, we we cured your leg pain, and sometimes you'll hear back from the patient. Yeah, you heard my leg pain, but my back still hurts. Or what happened there? That happened. What happened there was there was a disconnect right between the patient's expectations and the surgeon's expectations. They weren't on the same page before they went into it.
00:06:12:23 - 00:06:32:08
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And so that same thing can happen from a career perspective if you don't know what you're getting into, you don't know the pros, the cons risk the benefits is a lot higher. It's chance that you might be frustrated on the back end. And I think you see that that if you look at the statistics for physician burnout, if you look at the statistics for even physician suicide, right.
00:06:32:10 - 00:06:42:10
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
There's a lot of people who are dissatisfied. And I think, you know, that's multifactorial. But one of those components is that that disconnect or that dissatisfaction between expectations and reality.
00:06:42:12 - 00:06:45:21
Justin Nabity
Tell us about why you chose your path. Why did you become a surgeon?
00:06:45:23 - 00:07:05:13
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Yeah. So, a lot of the, influences that I talk about. So, you know, my parents were more indirect and direct with their advice on becoming a doctor, but but you knew just by the way they spoke about, other doctors or family members who were doctors. You knew that they valued that career path. And so, you know, you want to please your parents.
00:07:05:13 - 00:07:24:16
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
You want to honor them for all the sacrifice that they've done, even to get us to this country. Right. And so, early on, that was kind of the push. I also, you know, I did well in the sciences. So, you know, I enjoyed doing the science classes. So I was like, okay, that's a good fit. And then, you know, as, as an orthopod kind of typical orthopedic jock story.
00:07:24:16 - 00:07:41:21
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Right? I was an athlete. And so it was like, okay, well, I could stick around sports with orthopedics. And so it's kind of the the merger of all those three things that pushed me to go into medicine and then also into orthopedics. And then, I eventually I gave up, sports and ended up doing spine. But, but that was kind of the genesis of it all.
00:07:41:23 - 00:07:42:18
Justin Nabity
Awesome.
00:07:42:20 - 00:07:49:18
Neil Dougherty
You have a really awesome story. I think you're going to help a lot of people with the book, as well. When is it available?
00:07:49:20 - 00:08:04:12
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
So it is available October 1st, and it's going to be exclusively through through Amazon. And that's the that's the paperback version. You can start to preorder the, the Kindle version now, but everything will be live. October 1st.
00:08:04:14 - 00:08:05:20
Neil Dougherty
Is it...
00:08:05:22 - 00:08:10:18
Justin Nabity
Yeah. What what are you hoping to achieve with the book? What's what's the outcome you're wanting?
00:08:10:20 - 00:08:32:02
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Yeah, it's a great question. So so step one, as I said, is, is just that informed consent process. So, helping people see both sides of the argument. There's some concepts that I, kind of explore, in, in the book, I present, my theory of wealth relativity. In the book, we talk a little bit about wealth and talk a little bit about passion, purpose, goal setting.
00:08:32:04 - 00:08:51:23
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And then there's also a chapter in there where you just don't have to take my word for it. It's a it's a chapter. It's a series of interviews with other people, in health care and engineering and law. And you can get other perspectives on it. So step one is just to give people, the space to be curious, to be curious about whether or not this is the right advice for them.
00:08:51:23 - 00:09:11:05
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Right. That's step one. And then step two is an ongoing project that I'm hoping to develop. So my wife, her background is in student affairs and higher education and assessment. So step two is our goal is to to put together, a platform for people to kind of learn more about themselves, learn more about their emotional intelligence, see what kind of, career paths fit for them.
00:09:11:05 - 00:09:23:16
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
So that's that's phase two. That's the ongoing part of the project. But really the goal just trying to help connecting people with their passion and purpose and, if we can, you know, even help one person do that. And I think the book was a success.
00:09:23:18 - 00:09:24:22
Justin Nabity
Awesome.
00:09:26:08 - 00:09:36:09
Neil Dougherty
I like that. I think not being a physician, one of the biggest fears I have when I hear some of these topics is like that. We're going to have a big physician shortage, right?
00:09:36:11 - 00:09:57:15
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Yeah, I, I don't think so. I mean, I think I think, I don't think they'll be well, I mean, you know, statistically the projections, there's already projections of physician shortages. Right. So that's that's a whole problem in and of itself that needs to be combated. What I'm trying to prevent is, adding to that shortage by people leaving the fields.
00:09:57:15 - 00:10:15:19
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Right, right. And there's different ways people exit, people exit to go do other things. People exit, you know, during training, unfortunately, some people are exiting from suicide, as we talked about, or substance abuse. So what I'm trying to, to prevent is people exiting and contributing to that shortage, mainly because that's not they weren't compatible with it in the first place.
00:10:15:19 - 00:10:38:02
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Right. You know, if if your main motivation for becoming a doctor is trying to please your parents, I, I think that you're going to end up disappointed and then you're gonna end up frustrated. I think you're going to end up burnt out because there's a lot of, burdens that come with the job that if you don't truly have a passion for it, it's going to be hard to to deal with those those challenges.
00:10:38:04 - 00:10:39:14
Justin Nabity
Yeah.
00:10:39:16 - 00:10:41:17
Neil Dougherty
The burdens of the job.
00:10:41:19 - 00:10:42:07
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Yes.
00:10:42:12 - 00:10:44:24
Neil Dougherty
What's the number one burden right now for you?
00:10:45:01 - 00:10:45:22
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
00:10:45:24 - 00:10:47:20
Neil Dougherty
You can even generalize that one. Yeah.
00:10:47:20 - 00:11:09:03
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
I mean, I would, I, I don't know if I'd give you rank order, but I'll give you a couple. I think, one is the, financial structure of it. And for that, I mean, you know, dealing with insurance companies, if you're in the private world or dealing with, with hospitals or private equity, if you're in an employed model, that always leads to clashes and frustrations because it's a barrier to what you came here for, right?
00:11:09:03 - 00:11:25:07
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
You came here to take care of patients. That's a huge barrier in between you getting to do what you want to do. You know, there's not a not a week that goes by that I'm not having a conversation with a patient that's that's miserable. They come to my office, they're in agony. Right. And they've got a clear problem that we see on their MRI.
00:11:25:09 - 00:11:38:16
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Say, hey, I want to fix this for you, but first you have to do X, Y, and Z because the insurance company requires you to have at least six weeks of supervised physical therapy. And we have to try one injection and they're like, doc, that's expensive. Every time I show up to the physical therapist, I have to pay a copay.
00:11:38:16 - 00:11:59:15
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Why can't we just fix it? Like, yeah, I want to fix it for you. But this is what's stipulated by the insurance companies. That's frustrating. Right? So that's that's one major frustration. The other, burden, I would say, is kind of the malpractice environment. That that's a black cloud. I mean, even even if you win the lawsuit.
00:11:59:19 - 00:12:20:07
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Right? That's that's years of time that goes into defending that deal with lawyers and just worry causes you to second guess your decision making going forward. So that's a that's another huge burden. And so, so all those things, can, can kind of, add additional stresses on top of just trying to do right by people. Right.
00:12:20:09 - 00:12:47:01
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Like that's a stress in of itself. You know, as a surgeon, I had a mentor tell me once, if you don't have any complications, you're not operating enough. Right. And so initially, when you hear that, you're kind of taken aback. What do you mean? But the statistics, you know, if, if, if just for, hypothetically speaking, if the, if the risk of infection for a procedure is 1%, if you do 300 surgeries, you know, that's three infection.
00:12:47:01 - 00:13:05:22
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And there's and that's what doing everything right. Right. That's you. You sterilize instruments, you sterilize the patient. They get antibiotics beforehand afterwards. Everybody uses sterile techniques. You know somebody is going to get an infection. And that's a burden to somebody who came to you for relief. You're trying to help now has a complication now has other challenges that you're dealing with.
00:13:05:22 - 00:13:24:16
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
So there's all sorts of things that that, we take with us as physicians, as providers that you have to deal with. And again, if you're if you're not in it for the love of doing it, if you don't have a passion for doing it, if you're doing it because you're trying to please other people, I think that can sometimes be too heavy a burden to bear.
00:13:24:18 - 00:13:46:13
Justin Nabity
The theme of what you just shared, I heard, and maybe this is unintentional, I don't know, but the problems that you face or the burdens that exist have nothing to do with the actual providing care to the patient, right? It's everything else around it. It's it's the insurance company. It's the business. It's the private equity, it's the employer.
00:13:46:13 - 00:14:13:21
Justin Nabity
It's all these other things. I think that's what's frust... That's what's frustrating. Unfortunate about this is that you want to change lives. You want to help people get out of pain, get back to mobility. And the number one problem is everything else that's trying to interfere with what you're doing to do your best, to take care of people and to get them back as close to 100% as possible.
00:14:13:23 - 00:14:33:19
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
That's that's a that's very accurate, assessment for sure. And, and I think, you know, in, in, in today's environment, there's no way of getting around it, you know, I mean, there's, there's a small subset of doctors who have like a direct care or a cash pay model. But for the majority of people out there, that's not really, a tenable model, right?
00:14:33:19 - 00:14:51:03
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Most people expect to use their health insurance to, to pay for most of their medical expenses. They've already paid for it. Right? I've already paid into this. I want to use this. And so, and then certain things, you know, like in my subspecialty, for instance, certain things are cost prohibitive, you know, to have a spine surgery is really expensive.
00:14:51:03 - 00:15:18:05
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And most people, you know, if the average American struggles to to cover a $500 or $1,000 emergency expense, to say, hey, 25, 30, $50,000 expense for a surgery that's going to be unattainable. So, so, so I wish you could get rid of some of these factors completely. I don't think, in the current environment, you can. And so again, to your point, you one of the three things and one reason I think the book is important is because we need to have conversations about this, right.
00:15:18:05 - 00:15:30:12
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
You need to know that it's not just you and the patient through these other parties that are going to be in the room, and you have to be willing to deal with that, right. You're going to be willing to navigate that to get to your ultimate goal, taking care of patients. You've got to be willing to navigate that.
00:15:30:14 - 00:15:34:07
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And so that's what you know, we touch on that a little bit in the book as well.
00:15:34:09 - 00:15:44:16
Neil Dougherty
And so the goal is to make it better for physicians and improve medicine and health care. But doctors need to know what what the reality is right now. And what they're signing up for.
00:15:44:16 - 00:15:46:22
Justin Nabity
Yeah. What are the obstacles, right. Yeah, right.
00:15:46:24 - 00:15:51:13
Neil Dougherty
I knew that you and Justin were going to be friends, by the way, because yeah.
00:15:51:15 - 00:16:08:11
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
For sure, for sure. Now, I mean, I think one of the, one of the, anecdotes that I put in the book, when I was in undergrad, I went to Texas A&M for undergrad, and I was in the honors program. And so there were different tracks or options that you could take. And one track was like, you took a bunch of honors courses and one discipline in the sciences.
00:16:08:14 - 00:16:23:04
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
The other was you took a bunch of honors classes in different specialties. So I wanted to do that, and I was like, let me try to broaden my horizons. And so my worst subject by far is math. Like, I'm not a math guy. You know, I'm the guy who's pulling out the iPhone to to plug in stuff to do. Okay, I that's me.
00:16:23:04 - 00:16:41:06
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
I'm not a math guy. So, what I had a took came to taking an honors math course. I was a little bit afraid because I, I tested out of, like, freshman calculus. I was like, well, I can either take an upper level calculus or physics or find something else. So I found that I could, get that honors credit for math by taking a logic course.
00:16:41:08 - 00:16:57:19
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And so my professor in logic was super passionate about logic. Like he was amazing. He made learning amazing. And so I got to know him and I found out, like, he was actually pre-med in undergrad. And he got into it for the wrong reasons. He was trying to please other people. People told me that's what he should do.
00:16:57:21 - 00:17:16:20
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And he got to his fourth year of medical school. He was like, this is not for me. And so that's a huge dilemma. What do you do? You've already invested all this time. You’ve invested all this money. But you know, in your heart that you're not happy. For him, he had the courage to walk away. And so he left, and ended up going back to grad school, got a PhD in logic.
00:17:16:20 - 00:17:34:22
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And you could the the passion just exuded for him from him when you when you were in his class, you knew that he cared about what he was doing. And that's beautiful. Right? And that's and that's what I'm hoping the book can help people do. Just have that stop for a moment to have that conversation with yourself. Is this truly what I, what I want to do, where I want to be?
00:17:34:24 - 00:17:51:00
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Or is there something else out there for me? And and and for him. He's still helping people. I feel like he really helped me, not only specifically in that class, but just the conversations that we had, in his office when I was going for office hours, things like that. He really helped me. So there's other ways to help people.
00:17:51:00 - 00:17:59:11
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
There's other ways to be useful to society other than what people kind of peg as what's important or only the things that are important.
00:17:59:13 - 00:18:10:02
Justin Nabity
I would love to seque into the math and how that your lack of desire or interest, or what you talk about wealth in your book. Yeah, that's not necessarily the focus of our conversation here.
00:18:10:02 - 00:18:10:15
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Correct.
00:18:10:15 - 00:18:21:02
Justin Nabity
But maybe at another time we could talk about trading time for money, passive income, building wealth, and doctors are in a struggle where that's the reality.
00:18:21:04 - 00:18:51:01
Justin Nabity
So maybe that could be another topic for another day. But what would you say? What would you say for your viewpoint? You have a perspective. You've been in this arena for long enough now. What would you like to see change? Where are some of the some of the low hanging fruit or things that surround your practice that by tweaking this or that could bring impactful change to the burden that's around, you trying to take care of patients?
00:18:51:01 - 00:18:53:00
Justin Nabity
Do you have any thoughts on that you can share with us?
00:18:53:02 - 00:19:21:13
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Yeah, absolutely. There's there's been some, thoughts about this or some in roads to this. There's, there's a programs like a gold card program, essentially. So if you are provider that, are practicing evidence based medicine, you're conservative and a certain percentage of your procedures that you submit for, or tests that you would permit for a get, get approved, then you can kind of bypass some of this, prior authorization process for some things.
00:19:21:15 - 00:19:38:07
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
I think the more things like that would be great. You know, you know, if you're somebody who's reasonable and conservative and you say, hey, this patient needs an MRI, it shouldn't take three weeks and two, peer-to-peers in order for me to get this MRI for the patient. Right. So, so more barriers to access like that I think would be great.
00:19:38:09 - 00:19:45:00
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
I think more, business education and training. I think it'd be important, we get none of it
00:19:45:02 - 00:19:46:01
Justin Nabity
For who? For doctors?
00:19:46:01 - 00:19:47:01
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
For doctors. Yeah.
00:19:47:02 - 00:19:47:06
Justin Nabity
Okay.
00:19:47:10 - 00:20:03:03
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
We get, we get almost nothing. I think towards the end of med school, we had one like, brief lecture on, like, hey, this is how you manage debt. But but at that point, everybody was like hundreds of thousand dollars and they're like, hey, there's a little late, you know?
00:20:03:04 - 00:20:29:20
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
So yeah. So I think, I think, you know, education around how to run a practice, how to run a business, finances and debt is super important. Because I think the more, and I'm biased in a sense, let me just tell you to tell your audience out there. I'm in private practice. So I think the more people who can stay independent and be private, the better health care will be.
00:20:29:22 - 00:20:31:09
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
I think it's some.
00:20:31:11 - 00:20:34:01
Justin Nabity
Why is that? Help, help them know why I tell them. Tell me more about that.
00:20:34:04 - 00:20:55:06
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Yeah. I think as healthcare becomes consolidated and it's more business people who have no health care, background, or training or education that are running things they don't they miss out on that. The human factor and the art side. So, you know, people always say, health care medicine, it's not just science. There's art to it. There's nuance there.
00:20:55:06 - 00:21:15:00
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And so if you're just a, you know, Excel spreadsheet number person, you missed out on that. I worked for HCA hospital system for a couple of years. And I would tell you, you know, that's what you see when you run it. It's it's not hey, you know, what's going to make the patient's experience better. So, so to speak, it's say, hey, how do we increase revenue sometimes.
00:21:15:00 - 00:21:30:23
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Right. And so, you know, if, if you know when you're trying to say, well, hey, let's, let's get one more person to answer phones because people are having to call back multiple times or are missing things are taking too long to get their prescriptions refilled because we don't have enough people on the phones. That's not always their priority.
00:21:31:00 - 00:21:42:19
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
If you're just looking at it from a pure business standpoint. Right. And so a lot of times those things can provide frustrations and barriers to quality care. Right. It's not always about, you know, profits at the end of the day.
00:21:42:21 - 00:21:45:10
Justin Nabity
Yeah, I love that.
00:21:45:12 - 00:21:51:22
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And if I could briefly touch on I know we we have a hard stop coming up. If I could briefly touch on the wealth thing.
00:21:52:02 - 00:21:52:11
Justin Nabity
Yeah. Please.
00:21:52:11 - 00:22:01:11
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Yes. So I'm not a numbers person, but, I talk a lot about wealth in the book. So there's a there's a chap, two chapters, one that's called the theory of wealth relativity.
00:22:01:11 - 00:22:20:06
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
The second one is, on wealth and so briefly, the theory of wealth relativity. Again, not a math guy. I had to consult physics for dummies dummies to write that chapter, but, you know, it talks about, the theory of relativity. And so there's, Galileo, you know, famous philosopher, physicist. He has the Galilean principle of relativity.
00:22:20:06 - 00:22:37:20
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
So was talking about, the laws of mechanics. And if you're looking at a uniform motion so that speed, motion along a certain plane, you can only understand it based on a frame of reference. And so that's the the whole analogy. You know, when I was on the plane flying up here, I'm in Chicago right now when I was fine up to Chicago.
00:22:37:22 - 00:22:53:13
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
If you ask me how fast I was moving while I was on the plane, well, relative to the ground. Right. We're cruising at 300mph relative to the person sitting next to me. I wasn't moving at all. Right. And so wealth a lot of times is the same way, you can't really understand it unless you have a frame of reference.
00:22:53:19 - 00:23:11:18
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And so a lot of times when people are advising their children, hey, become a doctor, lawyer, engineer because you're going to be wealthy, you got to understand the frame of reference that they're looking at these careers from. Right. And so in the book, I talk about, you know, the reality is, if you're making 100, 200, $300,000 a year, while that might sound like a lot of money, in some ways it is.
00:23:11:20 - 00:23:31:00
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
That doesn't make you automatically wealthy to the point that you made in the next chapter. As we talk about, well, I define wealth as being able to do what you want, when you want, where you want, with who you want, while you still have your health. And so that's a different definition to your point. That's, that's that's no longer the trading time for money definition.
00:23:31:00 - 00:23:31:05
Justin Nabity
Right. Exactly.
00:23:31:05 - 00:23:50:07
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Right. It's being in control of your time because that's the most limited asset that you have. Right. And not only is it the most limited asset that you have, you don't know how much of it you have when you're on the day that you're born, you know? And so because of that thing, because of that scarcity, because of that unknown, time then moves into this time slot, into the side of the most, cherished commodity that you have.
00:23:50:07 - 00:24:09:19
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
So being able to control that is really, really what it's about. So no, I agree with you understanding these concepts are really important. And that's why I touch on I touch on that early in the book. To your point, not because wealth is what it's all about, but you have to kind of unpack the misinformation that's around there about these careers and why it is what it is, and then you can move into understanding, okay, what am I about?
00:24:09:19 - 00:24:15:16
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
What are my goals? What is my passion? What's my purpose? And then defining that for myself.
00:24:15:18 - 00:24:16:24
Neil Dougherty
So say,
00:24:17:01 - 00:24:17:14
Justin Nabity
yeah,
00:24:17:14 - 00:24:22:00
Neil Dougherty
I think I feel like that's a podcast part two that we didn’t get, right?
00:24:22:02 - 00:24:22:19
Justin Nabity
So accurate
00:24:22:19 - 00:24:26:02
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
For sure. For sure for sure. For how much. Thank you. I mean.
00:24:26:04 - 00:24:38:10
Justin Nabity
Yeah. How much of that is being shared in the school systems at home with, you know, parents to kids? It's a very rare thing to hear what you just said. It's it's not.
00:24:38:10 - 00:24:53:23
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And a lot of times, you know, sorry to cut you off. I mean, a lot of times people's fear is that, you know, when you start talking about money is talking about numbers like that. The fear is that you're going to get crucified, right? In this social media era that we're in, you know, you get a doctor, some, you know, I as soon as this book drops, I know people are going to be coming for me.
00:24:53:23 - 00:25:15:04
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Oh, you're a spine surgeon. What are you complaining about? Like, you ‘re doing fine. And and it's not it's not a complaint. It's not, you know, I am blessed in my life. My family's good. I'm good. That's not what I'm saying is. I'm saying that you got to understand where these concepts come from, right? Because that context provides the clarity for you to then make the right decision for yourself.
00:25:15:09 - 00:25:19:24
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
So that's all I'm really trying to do. I just want to provide that context for people so they can make the right decision for themselves.
00:25:20:01 - 00:25:30:04
Neil Dougherty
So I have no doubt that if if fame comes with this book and it probably will, it'll be the right kind of fame-ness because you're trying to help people. And I really, really like love that about you.
00:25:30:06 - 00:25:31:03
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Thank you very much.
00:25:31:08 - 00:25:46:00
Neil Dougherty
I also want to say this, like your logics professor, you can see and hear your passion for medicine and and for helping your your colleagues, your peers. So I think your parents did get it right, though.
00:25:46:02 - 00:26:01:08
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
No, for sure. I mean, I, you know, like I said, we don't we can't reveal too much. They want people to get out there and October 1st on Amazon. But but that's the last chapter. So the question that I get a lot, when I have these conversations with people, it always ends on, well, would you do it again?
00:26:01:08 - 00:26:14:11
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Right. How would you do it different? What would you do? And so the last chapter of the book is called The Decision. And so that's where I kind of unpack some of those, those, those things. So, a little foreshadowing, a little cliffhanger there. You guys pick it up just.
00:26:14:13 - 00:26:17:04
Neil Dougherty
A little bit like LeBron James there I love it.
00:26:17:06 - 00:26:31:20
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
It is like LeBron. So so there's a lot of cultural cultural references in the book because I want it to be approachable for a wide range of people. I want young people to to gravitate to older people. So yeah. So I in that chapter, I do talk about the LeBron's decision as a segue into my decision.
00:26:31:20 - 00:26:38:12
Neil Dougherty
That’s awesome. I look forward to getting my hands on the book.
00:26:38:14 - 00:26:39:13
Justin Nabity
Me, too.
00:26:39:17 - 00:26:56:12
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Thank you, thank you. I should show the cover again for all the people out there. Yeah. Check it out October 1st. It's on Amazon. “Become a doctor, lawyer or engineer. Misguided advice of an immigrant middle class parents”. I really hope it helps people. I thank you guys for the opportunity for the platform to kind of share a little bit about it.
00:26:56:14 - 00:27:01:22
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
And hopefully like you said, yeah, let's do a part two. Let's, let's, we'll come back and we'll talk about more stuff for sure.
00:27:01:24 - 00:27:04:12
Neil Dougherty
I'm super excited for you. Thank you for your time today.
00:27:04:16 - 00:27:05:10
Justin Nabity
Thank you.
00:27:05:12 - 00:27:08:11
Dr. Kaku Barkoh
Absolutely, absolutely. Thanks, guys.
00:27:08:13 - 00:27:09:16
Neil Dougherty
Thank you.
00:27:09:18 - 00:27:26:14
Justin Nabity
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00:27:26:20 - 00:27:34:04
Justin Nabity
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