Unscripted | Episode 1

Medicine, Mentorship, and Aviation with Dr. Garred

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John Garred: John Garred I’m a junior and live in whiting, Iowa. It’s a little rural area out in western Iowa. And I’m a surgeon and also do a number of other crazy jobs in the area. I was boarded in surgery and critical care. And besides doing a general practice and surgical disciplines, I’m sort of in the area. I’m a little bit of a jack of all trades. over the years I’ve done all types of general surgery, taking care of all kinds of very sick people on ventilators and such. and in addition to everything else have seen some general practice patients, done some ob. Obstetrical stuff as needed. done a certain amount of orthopedics because of injuries. I came back and started practice with my dad. And over the years he had sort of cultivated a practice, of some specific injuries in the farming community. A lot of times people would get appendages like arms, hands, legs, et cetera into machinery. And so he did some hand surgery and some orthopedic stuff. Ah, back when he went to school, there weren’t as many super specialized disciplines, as there are now. And so a lot of times out in the rural areas, you just had to take care of what came in. So I learned a little bit of that from his tutelage. And on top of all that, I’m also the county medical examiner. So came into that over a few years. I’m also an ame, an air medical examiner for the FAA. Do fly physicals for pilots. Ah, and what you call a senior ame. So that means I do fly, physicals for air carrier captains. And so there’s a lot to keep me busy. I’m now entering into a phase of retirement, so to speak, 70, years old. And had a good run, enjoyed life, came back here to practice with my dad. It was sort of a love hate relationship. at times we would sometimes get under each other’s nerves. But overall I think it was a blessing to be able to work with him and have the family relationship that we did. So that’s sort of who I am and what I’ve done and where I’m at now.

You came from a medical family. Your dad was a doctor. Your mom was a nurse

Bryce Curry: so our audience, consists of residents, maybe some that are coming out of medical school, going into a residency, also residents that might be considering a fellowship to become more specialized. and so some of the things I’d like to talk to you about here. Knowing, that you’ve had this depth of a career, and that you’ve experienced not just surgery, but general care and, some of the stuff that you talked about. I’d like to start, off by just kind of, have our audience get to know you just a little bit better about what inspired you to become a doctor. You mentioned a little bit about your dad was a doctor, and I think your mom was a nurse.

John Garred: Yes. That was sort of a circuitous, route. again, I was blessed. I came from a medical family. my granddad was a dentist. He had a number of, brothers who were doctors. and, I have an uncle who was a doctor. My dad was a doctor. My mom’s a nurse. I’m actually married to a nurse. so healthcare has sort of been what our family has all been about and what we’ve done. I really didn’t know anything too much different. However, when I finished college, I guess I really hadn’t applied, myself all that well. And it seems like every stage in my life, I’ve always had to up the anne. And I’ve always been able to do enough to get by. And, as far as studying was concerned, I’d cram the night before and get through a test. And, that worked pretty good up till medical, school. And once you hit medical school, because there’s a lot of other people that are smart in your class, and I’m just speaking in my experience, I can’t speak, to what people do today. But 40, 50 years ago, I would always study hard enough just to get by.

Bryce Curry: Okay.

John Garred: when I finished college and I took the Mcats and applied to medical school and didn’t get in, I sort of decided, well, okay, now that’s going to be my goal. No matter what, I’m going to do that. But, as you know, our family has got, a belief in a God that runs the universe. And I sort of put a fleece out before him. There’s a famous biblical quote. When Gideon was going to go to do battle, with the midianites, and he put a fleece out before God to make sure that what was going on was what was. So I sort of put a fleece out there. And God, you know, if you want me in a medical school, m you make it happen, if that’s what you want me to do. When I finished, college, I’d tried a number of different things. I was already a pilot by then. I considered going into the airline, air carrier business. And, we were from a farming community. I had a good friend that was a farmer. And, he took me under his wing. And for the last semester in college, I was basically, doing farming work. And, again, I was very blessed that I got to be able to do that. I’ve learned a lot about, biological stuff from him. And actually seeing things that you learned in school, applied. That was, another opportunity. So I’m sitting there trying to make decisions on what the heck do I do? So that’s why I put the fleece out there. And there’s been a couple of times in my life that I’ve had to do that. And the other one was, when you, get around to, thinking about who you’re going to have for a life partner for the rest of your life. that was another one. There comes a time in your career when you’re really looking for somebody. And that was me, at the end of my residency. And I put another fleece out before God on that one and said, if you want me to get married to somebody, you’re going to have to find the right gal. And so, that’s what happened with my wife Katie. she was a nurse. Maybe I’d ask her out for a cup of coffee. And, sure enough, in about three or four dates, I knew she was the one. So that’s sort of how I got in or got channeled into the career, path, I guess that you would say I was in. Needless, to say. There was a number of times, though, that you get overloaded with stuff and you sort of wonder, is this really what I was supposed to do? And that happened a number of times in medical school. back when I went to medical school. The first two years were horrendous. I mean, you spent your entire time, twenty four seven with your nose in a book. You didn’t date. At least for me. I mean, there’s all kinds of people in medical school. I had a cadaver partner who had a photographic memory. I mean, in the anatomy book, not only did he know all the anatomy, he knew what page it was on. I was not that way. I had to study hard. Things did not come easy. Repetition, I didn’t have a photographic memory like he did. but, if you work hard at something, it’s sort of like athletics. If you’re lucky enough to be blessed with the right kind of physical structure if you work hard at it. Anything in life you can accomplish if you work hard at it. and I even think that working hard on things sometimes will make up for some of the other, physical attributes that we have that maybe are not as conducive to getting whatever the job is done that you want to do well.

You talk about finding ways to carry you through when life gets tough

Bryce Curry: And I think that’s really important advice for our audience to hear because there might be a resident out there, or, anyone in their medical journey, educational journey, that is feeling burned out. And what you’re really speaking into is endurance, in your instance, having faith, and meaning behind what you’re doing, a purpose that is driving you. and I think those are very important things when we’re going through life in general, but also going through something that’s really tough. We’re talking to individuals. As you know, I’ve looked up to you my whole life because you, like many doctors, especially in your case where you’re doing general practice and also, trauma care type surgery, I remember where your beeper would go off. So this is going back when Beepers were around and your beeper would go off and you’d have to get in your truck and immediately go down to the hospital. You’re on call. Right. And so you’re speaking about finding ways that carry you through, and give you purpose and drive. And I think that’s important for our listeners to hear you talk.

One of the things that I really liked about medicine was there was always a challenge

John Garred: Well, okay. I think in medicine there’s a certain, from the trauma standpoint, there’s a certain adrenaline rush. Okay, hey, here’s a new challenge then. That’s one of the things that I think that I really liked about medicine and more so general kind of surgery, general kind of practice, because there was always a challenge. I mean, every day was different. I mean, it’s one thing to be in a factory stamping out cans and you do the same repetitious procedure all the time. I mean, that would drive me nuts in a very short order. The thing with the medical kind of practice that I was in or have had is that, every day is a new day. There’s a new challenge, ah, every time the beeper goes off, you don’t know if it’s, ah, some kind of a horrible injury or, what the problem was. This was back in the days when I was in residency, if we were out somewhere, we didn’t even have cell phones. Nowadays, you can’t comprehend that. But, yeah, we had beepers. You get beeped and you’d have to go find a pay phone or a phone call in to find out what needed to be done or what you had to do. it’s a little bit different nowadays. I’m a little bit envious of the kids coming out now, because they have an 80 hours work week in my training. Had every third night call and sometimes every other night call, all the time, through residency, you didn’t get a whole lot of free time, but you always look forward to, hey, there is going to be a time when this all ends and I get to be my own boss and go do my own thing, which can sometimes be pretty scary if you’re the, one and only. Now, again, it’s real easy. It’s not real easy. Let me take it back on that. It would be easier to sort of sidle into a residency, ah, from a residency to a fellowship than go into a, teaching position, ah, or staff position in a tertiary care place because you’re going to be working for a salary, whereas if you’re going to be your own boss, you’re going to have to go out and set up your own clinic. You’re going to have to comply with all the rules and regulations there are now.

You could either go into a private practice or yourself

And this might be going into some of the question you had about, how do I make a decision about what I want to do?

Bryce Curry: So I’ve completed my residency.

John Garred: Yeah, see, I was lucky because my dad had a practice back here and so I just sidled over. Okay, hey, I’m going to go home and practice with my dad. And so that was sort of an easy out for me, compared to somebody who, nowadays would finish. You could either go into a private practice either with a group or yourself. but if you’re doing it yourself right now, the way, the insurance companies are and the way reimbursement goes, you really definitely need somebody that knows how to set, up a practice and help you get going. It would be very daunting, I would think. And I’ve worked both sides. I’ve done the, private practice route and I’ve also a, few years ago, back in 2015, we sold our practice to, at the hospital. And just mainly because, we were having, ah, compliance, you always worry about compliance issues and as such, I mean, in the old days, there wasn’t all these rules. Now you have Hipaa, you got stark, you got all these different compliance things. God forbid you do something wrong and then you end up in an orange jumpsuit, because you missed some federal regulation for whatever. so, there’s a big difference in doing it on your own versus hooking up with a group that’s already operational.

Bryce Curry: Those are important decisions to consider at a time where you’re still learning, right? You’re still going through. Yeah.

John Garred: I think as you’re learning, you sort of got to decide, hey, what really trips my trigger? What do I enjoy doing? Because you’re never going to be a success at anything if you don’t enjoy what you do. even though there’s the challenges that I talked about earlier, every day when you get up, hey, there’s a new challenge, for me, I’d have a surgery schedule and, hey, you got a different case to do. And, you never knew on a cancer patient whether it was going to be something, that was treatable or something that, you were going to have to do a palliative thing for or whatever. So there’s all these challenges that, make the job very interesting. At least it was from my standpoint, looking back on it. But, again, people nowadays, you have to be so super. Even in surgery, I mean, surgery, there’s. General surgeons don’t probably exist too much anymore. You’re either going to be a trauma acute care surgeon and hired by the hospital to work a schedule, or go into some super specialty type of field, colorectal, hepatobiliary, thoracic. I mean, even surgery is divided into all these subspecialties. So you, sort of have to decide what trips your trigger and, and then make the decision from there. hopefully it’s the right choice. The neat thing about medicine, though, is, as time goes on, things change. I mean, when I finished residency, we did all kinds of gastric surgery for ulcers and such. And, since then, we have discovered that a lot of ulcers are caused by an organism. helicobacter pylori is now the causative agent, and you can treat stuff with antibiotics. Where we were doing vagotomies and pyloroplasties and, antrectomies and all kinds of procedures which now are done very rarely. things change, even in the field of medicine. And so, it’s always a challenge to change, with it. Technology has been a big thing, really big.

Bryce Curry: I can’t even imagine. I mean, I just talked about the beeper versus cell phone, but in the or, imagine the advancement.

John Garred: Well, when I finished residency, we were doing everything open and then a, couple of years later, laparoscopic surgery was the big thing. So had to go back and ah, learn, things. The neat thing about surgery is if you have a good grounding in the basics, you can learn a lot of the techniques, you need to know the major disciplines, how to really take care of patients, how to take care of wounds, how to get blood supply to things, how to oxygenate the organism and all that. And once you sort of know all that stuff, learning the other technical things are not all that hard. so if people are getting discouraged, about all that is, that eventually comes, it can eventually be learned.

It’s what you call delayed gratification. And not only do you have to delay your gratification

So you had some questions about how to choose what you wanted to do and what was the other one that you were?

Bryce Curry: Well, one of my questions was, through your education journey. I’ll say, just because it takes a long time, right? I mean, like for me.

John Garred: Yeah.

Bryce Curry: Well, six years because you go to get your MBA or something.

John Garred: Yeah.

Bryce Curry: I always look up to physicians and especially surgeons because it’s ten.

John Garred: Well, again, it’s a time commitment thing. Yeah. It’s what you call delayed gratification.

Bryce Curry: Okay.

John Garred: it’s delayed in monetary issues, it’s delayed in relational issues or things. It’s delayed in a lot of different, ways. And that’s something that you have to sort of deal with.

Bryce Curry: Yeah. When I’ve talked to different medical students, I’ve asked them, do you feel like you’re putting your life on hold?

John Garred: Yeah.

Bryce Curry: And there is an aspect that they say, yes, you are spending so much time to learn a specialty and to take care of people, but you’re not really putting your life on hold. You’re focused on, medicine learning practice, that quite frankly separates you from a lot of people.

John Garred: Well, it’s sort of like being a navy seal. In my estimation, those are the toughest guys in the world.

Bryce Curry: Yes.

John Garred: And they’re that way because again, they have gone through the gauntlet of all the training that they do. And being a, surgeon, sort of the same thing. I mean, you’re going to be up at night, you’re going to be doing, especially in the training aspect of things. That’s when you learn a lot of your stuff on weekends and nights and holidays and what have you. And it’s much the same kind of training. and you just have to get that mindset. If there’s one thing I would encourage your viewing audience too, is not only is it delayed gratification. While you’re in your medical, school, you got to realize that a lot of these kids are coming out with a heck of a lot of debt. And, in our family, we’ve always played forward. My dad was helped by his dad, and my dad helped me, and I’ve helped my kids. And, so it’s not been a huge debt load for me personally, but some, kids have a big debt load after you get done with school. And not only do you have to delay your gratification, you get done with your training and your residency, and you’re out on your job. Now, all of a sudden, you. You know, I want to go spend a lot of money and get a fancy car, know, a nice house and everything, but if you’re wise or if a person is, my. Again, my advice would be, follow Dave Ramsey and who’s a very smart individual, and you can go into debt maybe on your house, but do not go into debt on anything else. And again, it’s delayed gratification. You’re going to have to say, yeah, I’m going to put off all that stuff, and eventually you will get there. But I think if you’re going into medicine just to make money, I think you’re sort of motivated on the wrong issues. does that all come? Yeah, it might come for you. but, you can get a lot more money or a lot richer, if you, want to say it that way, doing, other things, that’s a lot easier, let’s put it that way.

Should a resident seek out a mentor to help guide them through medical education

Bryce Curry: One question I had specific through the, medical kind, of education journey, and then we’ll get into some fun questions. Fun, but some stuff that talk, about work life balance and then hobies, obviously, our backdrop here today, which we got to talk about because, it’s really cool. should an individual, you think about a resident, should they seek out a mentor? I know there’s chief residents and stuff like that. What advice would you give to that individual about somebody, that can kind of coach you?

John Garred: a lot of it depends on what your values are in life. I was very blessed that I had a gentleman by the name of Dr. Tom Demester, who in about six months on his surgical service, taught me more than I think I ever learned in my entire life because he was just an excellent teacher, and he allowed me, I don’t know why, I don’t know. But, to pretty much have, full rein on running his service. And I learned, just a ton of stuff on how to take care of really super sick patients. he was an esophageal surgeon, and when you do an esophagectomy for a big cancer operation and you swing up a section of colon to interpose, the gap that’s left, there is a great physiologic insult, to the organism. And, we took care of some really sick patients over time. I was very blessed in the fact that he taught me how to take care of really sick patients. And had I not had that opportunity, I don’t think that I would have learned, as much. And on top of that, he was a gentleman and just a very, good, ah, gentleman. And those were the kinds of things that, you see everything in medicine. There’s a certain amount of arrogance, there’s a certain amount of, And you sort of have to be a little bit that way to get through it all. there is humility.

Bryce Curry: There’S all.

John Garred: Kinds of, different personalities that you will meet, and I think the ones that, you sort of have to ferret out, which ones do I want to emulate and who do I want to be like? And those are the, people that you would want, to hang out with and be, your mentor as you, ask about. that’s sort of a tough question. there’s a few other gentlemen that I, that I, followed and hung out with, and they took me under their wing at different times in my education and, they’re basically, my staff surgeons. And, that was very helpful. Again, I was quite fortunate in the fact that I had a dad that I looked up to immensely, and he was, a great, one, to emulate. I had that where a lot of other people may not have that, I guess my advice would be to try to look around and see who you see. And it would be an honor if some young person came up and said, hey, can you be my mentor, and coach, me along through the process? And I think most people that are in the medical profession would look to that as an honor. So if there’s somebody that, the younger kids wanted to follow, you sort of have to, let them know. I don’t know too many people that wouldn’t say they wouldn’t do it.

Bryce Curry: It’s one of the, interesting things about the medical community. I would even include dentistry, which I’m a little more familiar with just because of my family background in that when you ask that question, there generally is somebody that has been in that individual’s life that whether they knew it or not, were an inspiration to them. They guided them. and they reflect on that. I think it’s important aspect, especially when you’re doing something really hard. Ah, like the educational training that you’re doing.

One question on work life balance is important for our audience

So the next thing I kind of want to talk about was like, work life balance. So, obviously, with what you and your dad, your practice here in the hospital that’s just south of here, where we’re at, you guys were on call pretty much all the time, right? Given that your geolocation and stuff like that. so I think it’s important for our audience to kind of. You were in high demand, you were always on the go. were you able to create margins? Any advice on how did you spend time with. You have two great sons, you have a beautiful wife. How did you kind of create those margins to spend time with them and also be.

John Garred: Well, I have to give my wife a lot of credit, I think. if there’s advice to young folks, whoever you’re looking for, if you’re looking for a husband or looking for a wife, you need to look for people that are going to try to understand what your situation is. And usually that’s somebody that’s associated with the field. Okay. I mean, they always joke about doctors marrying nurses. nursing personnel understand somewhat what you’re going through versus, an accountant who has. No, just like I don’t understand what accountants do. It’s sort of the same type of situation. It’s a lot easier to relate to somebody, if they’re somewhat in the field. Also, it’s a good way to decompress. Sometimes you can come home and say, yeah, man, I had a roach of a day today. This and that went well, this and that, didn’t, so your helpmate is the one that can, sort of help you decompress a little bit. as far as work life balance is concerned, that’s a difficult one. as I’m retiring, if I had anything that I was going to go back and change, I think I would spend a little bit more time having fun. Ah, like that. For me, that’s flying airplanes and going places and seeing things and doing things. don’t get me wrong, I think the best advice for people is, don’t wait till you retire to go do some of the things that you want to do. I mean, if you want to travel the world, take the time to go do it when you’re young, when you feel good, you got the health to do it. Been reading some books about retirement, and stuff. And basically our family has always done that. And so I think we’ve been blessed in that regard. I mean, I’m not looking back and saying, oh, yeah, I wish I would have done, but, we tried to have fun along the way. And so, my advice is nobody knows if you even have tomorrow, so if you want to do something today, go do it. even though you have that delayed gratification thing, you still need to enjoy life while you’re in good enough shape to do it. And so I guess as the means become available as you’re going through life, you get in the, do have some comfort, from the monetary aspect of things and the work aspect of things, then, enjoy, the fruits of those labors. As far as the call thing, we had a different kind of situation back when I first came here. We did not have ER doctors. And so now, the younger folks that are coming out, everybody’s got an emergency room. Back in the day when I was doing stuff, the ER was where really bad things, people that were injured badly would be. That’s where you go. and we were sort of on call twenty four seven for a lot of that kind of stuff. Whereas nowadays with the ER docs and such, they’re going to take care of some of it and then what? They can either call us in and we’ll take care of it. That’s what we used to do. But now a lot of the way health care is being provided, there’s been a big paradigm shift in, how patients are managed. And so in our particular situation, a lot of those patients are transferred out to tertiary care centers. And I’m in a part of my life now where I don’t get the big thrill out of going down and taking care of stuff in the middle of the night. And I’m trying to gradually back off from that kind of a workload. So I don’t know if that answers your question or not, but it does.

Bryce Curry: it gives good perspective, to our audience of kind of that balance and the importance of.

John Garred: I think you have to work at it a little bit. But again, if you’ve got a good wife and you got a good family situation, there’s a lot of times when, and the wives need to understand this. A lot of times they’ll cook a meal or whatever. And you don’t get home at 06:00 it might be seven, eight or nine. And then having to rewarm things two or three times sometimes can grate on their nerves. So it’s nice to have somebody from the healthcare environment to know that, yeah, they might not always make it home on time, but again, that’s the way it used to be. With this new paradigm shift in the way health care is going. I think it’s for the millennial type people. I think things are going to be better from that aspect of things.

Bryce Curry: So we got a great backdrop here. How important?

I want to talk a little bit about a passion of yours, aviation

I want to talk a little bit about a passion of yours, aviation.

John Garred: Yeah, what do you want to talk about?

Bryce Curry: Well, I mean, we could talk for a long time about aviation, but, specifically, when did you get your pilot’s license? Did you do that during your okay as well?

John Garred: All right, this is what happened. because my dad was a pilot at probably age 13, he had me out taxi in the airplane up and down the Runway, tried to learn how to make the thing go straight. Sure. When I was 13 or 14. so, yeah, at age 16, soloed, and, I was in college, got my instrument and my multi engine, and, I never did do my commercial rating, but, I’m sort of starting to work on that now since life has slowed down a little bit. And, I’ve got the hours and I’ve got everything, ready to go. It’s just a matter of, taking the exam and then going up and doing the check ride. so my son’s also working on his. So we’re not working together on it, but we’re sort of comparing notes and having some fun with it.

You and your dad built two airplanes and care for them now

Bryce Curry: Did you find times in your career where, getting in one of these planes and flying around was a release destressor, a way to just maybe take your mind off of work? Is it an outlet for that or.

John Garred: Is it just a little bit of that? Yeah, I don’t know that flying in and of itself is. It can be stressful, too. Sure. especially if you’re in bad weather or trying to m meet, schedules or deadlines. so you have to be a little bit careful, in that regard. the airplane behind us, my dad and I built, it took us eight years to do it. We started out from scratch. part of it is a, kit. there’s another airplane here in the hangar that, dad built himself, and first flew it back in 71. it was a plans built by plane called a pit special. And, we have three of them now. The s one and the s two. Ah, is a production airplane. and the one behind us, the paradox airplane. we just decided, hey, we got to do something in the evenings to keep us busy, keep us out of trouble. So, we decided to build this one.

Bryce Curry: it’s won, awarded.

John Garred: Yeah. in 2016, we took it over and, we never intended to have it be an award winning airplane, but, we took, it over there and some of our friends said, well, why don’t you enter it in the competition? Okay, fine. So little belongs to us. Did we think we were going to ever win anything? We didn’t build the airplane with that intent, but, we did, win, reserve grand champion in 16. And then 2019, we went, back and we put it back in the competition again. And we, did win grand champion that year, of the home built airplane.

Bryce Curry: That’s an amazing accomplishment. I mean, I don’t know how much, the individuals in our audience necessarily, follow EAA and venture and stuff, but, that’s a big accomplishment to not only be doing practice, your medicine, your medical practice and surgery, and knowing that you might get that call, at any moment, but the fact that you and your dad actually built two of these planes and care for them. And, when we walked in here today, you’re working on the engine of one. And so I know it’s a big part of who you are and your family. And so I think it’s important for our audience to hear that not only about mentorship and endurance and inspiration, like we’ve talked about, but also something like a hobby, something that is maybe an outlet, I think could be important once it’s an, appropriate time in your life.

John Garred: Yeah, we’ve always been involved in aviation, and so that’s sort of one of our outlets and something to think of other than just health, care.

Bryce Curry: You got to have something to kind of think about, other than your job. in our, show, ah, description or in this episode description, we’ll put a link if you’re okay with it. You have a YouTube channel, paradox, and it’s a great, channel to follow.

John Garred: well, that’s my son’s, that’s, more of his interest. We do have some interesting, videos going to oshkosh and want a trip. And, he has more fun with, yeah, it’s a fun thing. It’s paradox aviation as the. What do you call it?

Bryce Curry: The channel name?

John Garred: Channel name. There you go.

Bryce Curry: We’ll link to it. just, so people can kind.

John Garred: Of see some other crazy stuff that we do. My dad was like, he liked aerobatics quite a bit. We go up and do loops and rolls, and this particular airplane is built for that. but we’re not into the big competition aerobatic stuff like some people are sort of do the gentleman kind of stuff. A few rolls and loop sec type of stuff, and not so much into the big heavy duty.

Bryce Curry: I’ve had the pleasure growing up with you, and it’s always fun. and I remember, growing up, one thing that we didn’t get a chance to necessarily talk too much about is, your dad. And you are very much leaders of your community, through your church, but also through just different kind of things. Community events and stuff like that. And growing up, we used to come up, and I remember your dad always putting on a phenomenal air show with his pits. And then you would do the same and you take us out for rides and stuff like that.

Your father served on the Iowa school board for 25 years

But, maybe just in this last few minutes that we have here, touch, on kind of like the importance of community or being a part of the community.

John Garred: Okay. Well, especially being here in this rural area, people do somewhat look up to you as a leader or someone, that, they would like to have, advice from. dad served on the school board for 25 years, I believe, and I, took his spot after that and did another 25 years. there’s all kinds of things that the community would like to have, physicians or surgeons involved in. And, whether that’s politics or on a local level, there’s all kinds of things like school boards and city, councils and, what have you. a lot of people, in the surgical realm will become, members of the American College of surgeons. And there’s all kinds of committees and, what have you to serve on, as far as those organizations are concerned, the medical societies of the states. my dad, I never was, but, as far as the board of medicine was concerned, in the state of Iowa, he was the chairman of the board for a few years down there. I don’t exactly remember which years it was. But, there’s, all types of different ways that people can get involved in the community, the state and service. as mentioned, we try to help out in our church quite a bit, and that’s always been a very the faith aspect of things has been very important to us, you know. So and our family and so that’s, we’ve put a fair amount of time on that. So there’s always ways that people can give back to the community, not just necessarily taking care of people. Nursing home boards, all kinds of ways that missionary stuff, if you’re so inclined to do that. that’s always been a little bit of a thing with me and try to help people. There’s just going to be people that as a physician you’re fortunate to be able to help. Maybe it’s some family that’s having hard ah, times, making ends meet. Sometimes you just volunteer or you don’t charge people for some of the things you do just because it’s what we do. I know your dad does a lot of that kind of stuff in the dental practice. He’s amazing in that regard. So volunteers a lot of time and a lot of monetary support again in his church.

Bryce Curry: Well, I really appreciate this time and you’re welcome. It’s a lot of wisdom that has for our audience, the young med pros that are working their way through that educational journey that we’ve talked about. And it’s a real pleasure to have you on and to talk about your experience and give them some tips on some stuff that you learned along the way.

On our network it’s important that we feature doctors like Dr. Garred

And one of the things that I want to say from my end is that on our network it’s important that we feature doctors like Dr. Garred, who are very intentional, relational. They have a depth that goes beyond the MD about them. And that’s why I wanted to bring his story to you is because it’s not just about the titles and stuff like that. And I want you to hear from individuals such as himself, that is a very important part of the community. But also bringing a level of m service, medical service to his community. that has been amazing and has influenced thousands of lives, directly and indirectly. And then we had some fun talking about airplanes. I know we could probably have a whole nother time talking about airplanes, but anyway, thank you for your time, Dr. Garred, and for sharing your story and your wisdom.

John Garred: You’re welcome.