73 Questions with an Orthopedic Surgeon | ND MD

[Music] hello andy savnick how are you i'm wow wow how are you i'm doing pretty good for a saturday morning i hear that oh are you ready for your 73 questions i am all right let's get started so what is your name my name is uzandu akachuku and your specialty orthopedic spine surgery and how many years have you been practicing ah man so i finished residency in 2012 so i've been practicing ever since then okay but where did you go to undergrad i went to undergrad at lsu and medical school i went to medical school at indiana university man did you take any gap years before going to medical school i did and i did and i went straight through okay now what was your favorite part of medical school if you can remember i'd have to say it's the it's the relationships it's the people i met okay i think that's a pretty common theme amongst all physicians yeah um what specialty did you think you were gonna go into on your first day of medical school so first step medical school i thought i would go into hematology oncology the reason being is i had an older brother who died of brain cancer and so my my whole goal with going to medical school was really to help people in a way that i wasn't able to help him now what changed your mind about that specialty doing a rotation in hemok for me personally um it was it was just challenging um watching patients die um and so it just wasn't something that i think i thought i could do with the rest of my life now were there any specialties you said out the gate not for me absolutely absolutely so medicine just wasn't for me i knew i liked working with my hands i loved the or i was i had the opportunity to shadow some physicians when i was in uh back at lsu and so i knew for me i needed to be an or for sure okay the speaking of the or what first made you fall in love with orthopedic surgery orthopedics so that's kind of a long story i had some friends when i was in undergrad whose parents had orthopedic related conditions so one of them had a had hip arthritis another one had spinal stenosis both of them had surgery and did phenomenal with it i think the combination of anatomy which i loved in medical school and the ability to restore people to function was what made me fall in love with it for sure okay so for people who want to be in your shoes one day which i can imagine there are a lot how long does your training take after medical school so after medical school it's five years of orthopedic residency some residencies have another year tied in for research and then it's a year's fellowship okay so are there any sub-specialties that you can do within orthopedics to further specialize yeah absolutely so within orthopedics you can do spine as i do you can do sports medicine you could do total joints you could do trauma you could do tumor you could do foot and ankle you can specialize in shoulder surgery there are tons of options tons of options have you ever thought about getting other degrees like an mba or an mph i thought of it thought of it i thought of getting an mba i do have an interest in finance to some degree but but truthfully this job is so rewarding i can't imagine myself doing anything else but taking care of patients wow all right so let's hear more about how amazing this is what would you say is the most unique part of your specialty most unique part of my specialty that's a two-fold question uh let me actually let me show you okay secret or tour so i would say the first part of that answer to answer that question would be just the ability to restore patients back to their function that they had prior to the injury what's up brother um you know patients come in and they are traumatized they can't get around they have a hard time moving and so you have the opportunity whether or not it's trauma or joints or even spine to restore them to that quality of life i had a patient who had yesterday who i did a two-level acdf on and i mean post-operatively she was she was just so happy and and tears were in her eyes just because she that relief of pain that she had prior to surgery coming down her arm and her ability to kind of restore um just just going back to do with things that she that she was doing before it's just amazing man it's amazing it's amazing to see and so selfishly i will tell you that it just gives me so much joy to be able to affect people in that way no doubt the other part of it i would say is the ability to train residents right like watching watching a resident come in as an intern and then graduate as a chief just watching them grow in terms of the way they take care of patients their ability to do procedures it's just an amazing part of my job and it's challenging as well right because i have to still take care of the patient while while training someone to do the same it's always challenging because you want to give them autonomy and allow them to take care of patients and make decisions but you also have to guide them why they do while they do that so i think that's probably the most interesting part of my job for sure that's a great answer and i think you mentioned showing us what makes your specialty so cool oh yeah so right now my residents we we started a procedure earlier that we're in the middle of doing we're treating a patient who um was in a car accident so we just want to get her fixed up as best we can and again restore her back to her quality of life that she had previously so can you tell me a little bit more about what's going on here so again this patient was involved in a motor vehicle collision and she has injuries to both of her knees so what we're doing is she had open wounds of her patella so we're cleaning them all out um getting all the gross debris out she has some fractures as well so she's open fractures so let me get those stabilized okay so we got a lot of we got a lot of people in here and i'm curious to hear i always give physicians a chance to sell their specialty kind of like a car salesman so why should someone choose orthopedic surgery exactly hurts worm what do you think why should why should someone choose orthopedic surgery you don't feel like you're working i don't feel like i'm working i hear that i hear that okay jonathan what about you why was my son when she was orthopedic surgery you're always working on fine what do you think yeah so we said we get good results we're able to help people able to use our hands and again people people are just so happy with their restoration of life for sure okay so flip it around why should someone not choose your specialty um so i would say someone should not choose orthopedic surgery if they don't like long hours i will tell you that as a resident um hours are long and the work is hard there's some work restrictions now so you can't really work more than 80 hours but i will tell you 80 hours is a long time and that's when i was a resident that wasn't the case we worked hundred plus hours all the time um and so if you you know if you if if that's not for you if you have a hard time standing for long periods of time uh if you don't like the sight of blood you probably shouldn't choose orthopedics are there any stereotypes about your specialty oh absolutely absolutely so we narcissistic are the stereotypes of your specialty true at all uh it's a very heterogeneous group of four defending surgeons i would say to some degree yes but for me no okay so we got a lot of residences here what is your go-to question to ask your residents anatomy anatomy questions i think that orthopedic surgeons are really anatomists to operate and so it's really important that you understand anatomy close and have any questions okay so we see some stuff going on here but can you elaborate what does an average day for you look like so an average day for me it depends on whether or not i'm operating or in clinic so on an operative day i typically get up around 4 30 go to the gym in the morning and then i come in and get my day started with cases um on a day of clinic um kind of get around the same time 4 35 again i get to work out in the morning and then we come in we have a morning report where we go over all the cases that came in at night and then i go to clinic take care of patients so how many patients do you see on an average day uh it varies i see clinic on mondays and uh and wednesdays i would say on a wednesday i could see anywhere from 18 to 25 patients on average what's the most amount of patients you've ever seen in a day most amount in the day so i would say the most amount i've seen in a day probably 60. when i was in private practice i would see quite a few patients and so i would say 60 is the most okay what is the hardest procedure you've had to do hardest procedure so specializing in spine surgery i do a lot of deformity surgery deformity corrections there's one particular procedure that i do where patients have had prior surgery and their spine essentially is fused altogether but they have sagittal they're imbalanced what that means is that they can't walk upright they're they're walk they're walking forward in this position so in order to realign them i have to do an osteotomy of their spine it's called a pedicle subtraction osteotomy uh i would say that's probably the hardest procedure i do okay so what is the most common procedure you have to do most common procedure would be a toss-up between an anti-cervical dysgectomy infusion or an arthroplasty procedure and a discectomy it's probably the most common what's the most memorable case you've ever performed most memorable case so when i was a fellow there was an 18 year old kid who was involved in a dirt bite accident accident he had a dislocation of his spine between the fifth and sixth vertebrae and he had complete neurologic loss so he had an incomplete spinal cord injury in that he still had some sensation preserved but he had no motor function in his upper low extremities and so we rushed into the operating room we got him reduced we took the disc fragment out that was causing compression on the spinal cord and then stabilized them with an anterior platen screws and post-operatively and post-op day one so i did that middle of night probably 11 11 to 1 1 30. when we went to see him in the morning around 9 30 10 o'clock he was moving his arms and legs i would say that's probably the most memorable wow so what is the toughest part of your job toughest part of my job is i do i'm at a level one trauma center and i do a fair amount of trauma as well as uh tumors and so dealing with spinal cord injuries a prob is probably the toughest part of my job because a lot of those patients don't really recover um and so just seeing them and following up follow up and watching how much of an impact it's had on their lives in terms of their inability to walk now so they lose bottom bladder control they don't feel comfortable going out in the community and then patients die um especially patients who who are who have significant trauma or tumor they they pass and so that's probably the hardest part is dealing with that for sure so let's flip it back around to a positive note what is the most rewarding part of your job uh we change lives i think the beautiful thing about spine surgery is that there's in my opinion no pain like nerve pain and so to be able to treat those patients and remove that nerve pain and allow them to restore function you see them come back to clinic and they couldn't be more ecstatic they're just so happy with what you're able to do for them and so that's that's definitely the most important part of my job that's amazing uh we got some quick fire lifestyle questions that are very important okay so how many hours do you work in an average week so an average week i'm somewhere between 40 and 50 hours sometimes 60. what time do you normally wake up so 4 30 5 o'clock what time do you normally leave the hospital somewhere between five and six o'clock how many hours of sleep are you typically working on six i love seven but typically six how many hours of sleep are you working on right now seven it's a good day great day great day do you have to take call uh i do so i take uh probably two weeks of call um a month i typically do one week intervals at a time so monday morning to monday morning for spine call trauma call i typically take call during those weeks uh two or three days so on average i take about five to seven spine calls sorry trauma calls uh a month and two weeks of spine call a month are you a night or day person damn day um i think becoming an orthopedic resident changes that you know you have to you have to work early hours you have to round early in the morning um and so that that definitely changed for me so i'm up early and i'm in bed by 8 30 9 o'clock so next question i'm curious because a lot of different physicians have different answers how long does it take you to chart at the end of your day so we actually have a program in our system called iscribe which allows me to chart as i go and so for the most part at the end of the day i'm just signing notes that have been transcribed um and so it probably takes an hour at the end of the day not too long who are you most thankful for on your care team on my care team it has to be my pa nate boykin he is a lifesaver i think in terms of the way he manages patients um as well as assists me in the or we we typically have residents who are on our service for three months at a time and so they'll kind of come and go but he's that consistent force that just let's let's continue to allow the ship to just run smoothly he's awesome what is the funniest thing you've seen in a patient chart the funniest thing i've seen in the patient chart hmm that's a hard one that's a hard one i see a lot of strange things um in patient's charts i think a lot of times it has to do with like the mechanism of of injury you know the way they kind of you know um whatnot has fallen out of falling out of you know different things that you know deer stands that they've kind of have rigged up to these to these um trees or um some of the ways some of these motor vehicle crashes happen you can't um imagine that that many things could happen in succession that caused them and so they're just really weird i'd say they're all sad so it's not really funny but definitely strange definitely strange what's the most common medical advice you give your patients you are your you are your best advocate you know your body the best and so if something doesn't feel right or when you come in for an appointment you should you should make sure that every question is answered and that you ask everything that's probably the most important phase advice i think head back upstairs sure so one last question before we can transition to lifestyle stuff okay you specialize in spinal orthopedics i do so i'm curious to know where does the scope of your procedural skills intersect with neurosurgery and when is that line where you have to go consult neurosurgery that's actually a great question and i think one that our patients ask patients ask a lot so in general in regards to spine surgery as an orthopedic spine surgeon i operate from the occiput to the sacrum um that's that's dealing with trauma tumor infection uh and all of the sort the difference with a neurosurgeon is that neurosurgeons again number one they operate in the brain uh the other thing that is different is that intraspinal pathology and so some patients will develop intraspinal tumors and so we we don't typically manage intraspinal tumors so meaning inside the dura within the spinal cord itself neurosurgeons typically do that and based on surgeons typically don't some do but i i personally don't so that's in those situations where there's an intraspinal tumor those are situations where i've consulted neurosurgery but that's really the only scenario i can think of okay well we've talked a lot about your life inside the hospital so how was your life when you clock out what is your favorite thing to do when you're not working so favorite thing to do when i'm not working is to spend time with my family okay speaking of family have any kids i do i have a little daughter she's two and i have a wife okay does your family ever ask you for random medical advice all the time what is the weirdest question a family or friend has ever asked you the weirdest question was i had a family member who was having some issues with their eyes and they were asking me all these questions about um you know vision issues and and they they saw some circles in their eyes and things like that which i have no idea of but ultimately in their mind if you're a doctor you know everything about everything yep no favorite animal not a dog or cat a lion good choice lion if you could have dinner with anyone in history who would it be this is going to seem a little um obvious but it'd be my older brother i had an older brother who died when he was 18 and just to have that conversation with him now and sit down and to allow him to see um where what what what i've been able to accomplish um and be able to see kind of how as a family we stay together and how i've taken care of my parents i'd love to have dinner with him what would you guys be eating at that dinner steak medium rare with asparagus that's oddly specific oh what is your favorite dish to eat the same same thing absolutely absolutely i love red meat i love fish as well but definitely red meat and vegetables that's kind of my go-to coffee tea or soda coffee love coffee every day all day how much water should you be drinking every day so it depends on what you do um i drink i try to drink about a gallon of water a day i in the past i did some competitive bodybuilding and i think when you're very active and you're trying to focus on weight loss and and how the body works you know we're mostly made of water so uh you know i drink about a gallon it's it's really based on your weight gotcha a favorite meal from the hospital cafeteria if you have one i don't baked potatoes and the tacos no i do not i try to not eat in the hospital cafeteria as much as possible all right that was real pineapple on pizza yes or no controversial question if it's delicious depends on how it depends on what what it's mixed with but i'll try anything any artistic hobbies you keep up with so when i was a kid i had a lot of friends who were into rap i never was able to do that but poetry was something i was into so i did a little spoken word back in the day and so occasionally i'll still write poems most of them are to my wife oh that's awesome oh favorite kind of music to listen to in the or you know my favorite music new album released yesterday i know which is amazing but definitely so 21 19 and 21 was definitely my favorite but 21 i would just put it on repeat and listen to it all day all day i remember as a res as a as a chief and then kind of beginning of my practice when i was 12 13 2014 is all i listen to she's just it's just something about her voice that puts you in a good place as an attending does your music choice trump all absolutely absolutely no doubt no doubt the the great thing again about my pa is that he always knows my mood and he saw some my music is pretty eclectic i listen to pretty much everything and so yeah what what i usually listen to whatever i like top three music artists for you so definitely adele um drake and then um there was a hard one there was a hardwood it had to be whiz kid whiz kid my my roots and nigerians i love a lot of nigerian music and so be whiz kid that's awesome one song you think everyone should listen to before they die whoa that's deep these are the challenging questions asleep um just one song man that's so hard oh actually actually i can't i can't think of the artist but the song is called joy um and it has a it has a lot to do with like you know the the joy that that you know that god brings and kind of you know it's it's just a different perspective on life i can't think of the name of the artist but it's it's the name of the same song it's called joy all right one random task that you're oddly good at folding laundry folding laundry my wife gives me so much flack about it but i don't like anyone to do my laundry because i i like to see in my drawers my my clothes item by item and color by color and i fold them in a way that fits really really well uh so folding laundry great at it what is one random task you wish you could be better at [Music] golf golf i know it doesn't seem like a task but it it it causes me the most heartache in terms of how bad i am at it so if i could be better at golf i would like you better at golf spoken like a true augusta augusta resident oh what's the best way that you relax after a long day it's playing with my daughter she to her i'm i'm superman i walk in the house and she yells she comes running screaming and just wants to play upstairs wants to jump on the trampoline go up and down the slide and so for me that just provides me with the most relaxation at the end of the day night in or go out on the town kind of person night in night in my wife and i are in the bed by 8 30 at the latest night in right healthy habit absolutely nowadays things change as you get a little older definitely not in indoors or outdoors outdoors love being outside beach or mountains beach would you consider yourself more of an introvert or an extrovert that's actually interesting question i was talking about this my wife the other day i i would consider myself an extroverted introvert you know um i don't i don't i don't think i necessarily fall on either side of the spectrum somewhere in the middle i can definitely relate to that now would you say that personality trait was a factor in you choosing your specialty no i think that what i've identified early and and remains to be true is that orthopedics is a very heterogeneous group of people there are a lot of introverts i know there are a lot of extreme extroverts i know and so no i don't think it's factored in all right so we're getting close to the end okay these last few questions are going to be very reflective okay so first one what did you think you were going to be when you grew up as a kid wow so as a kid when i was two i wanted to be a fireman um but my mom said no she said i would be a doctor and so as far as i know i was always going to be a doctor didn't know what type but a doctor mom rules no doubt especially in nigerian household i understand is there a different specialty you think you could have done um i could have done neurosurgery or or plastic surgery i was i was in between those three um i found them both interesting i knew what really kicked me into orthopedics was the fact that i can still do spine within it i love the technical aspects of plastic surgery but i just loved neuroanatomy it was my favorite class in medical school so i knew i wanted to do something in and around the spine so that i would say plastics or neurosurgery could have done either one of those right now if you didn't do medicine at all what do you think you'd be doing right now so based on my current interest i would say i would i would um i'd be probably a personal trainer of sort i love i love working out i'm very into fitness and and staying healthy so some sort of personal trainer online coach i think okay now you're in a very very competitive specialty and i think anyone who's involved in a healthcare career period knows that it's not easy to get here so were there any times that you doubted that you would make it as an orthopedic surgeon or even a doctor absolutely absolutely i would say second year residency was the hardest year of my life um i would you know it starts in july and by the middle of august i wanted to quit i i would i had a lot of anxiety you're essentially you know you're expected to know everything about something you know nothing about um you're drinking from a fire hydrant there's so much information it's more so than even medical school so i would say that period of you know about four to six weeks i thought i thought i thought i would quit but fortunately you know god gave me strength and i persevered and we we're here today now if you could change one thing about the medical field what would it be it would be the way things have changed in regards to insurance you know i think nowadays it's it's less so taking about taking care of the patient and more so about you know trying to get the appropriate tests or do the appropriate things that the insurance companies think i should do prior to um you know managing patients and so it's it's a very strange thing to have patient care dictated by someone who is not involved with the patient um so i would definitely say it'd be it'd be the way you know insurance and all these rules have affected the doctor-patient relationship what can a medical student do right now after prepared to go into your specialty get a mentor get a mentor i think that it's the road is the road is is challenging um you know there are certain things that we that i think help you know research getting involved with your community in some way but really getting the mentor who is there and it can can help guide you i think that's probably the biggest thing you could do well said now if you were to go back would you change any of your experiences that got you to where you are right now no no no i i i love my life i i never i never imagined um becoming an orthopedic surgeon would would be like this um and so i will take whatever came with that if i if that allows me to be where i am today so that i won't change anything that's a very common theme amongst every single physician i've interviewed for sure now we're at the end question 73 finally what would you say to the aspiring orthopedic surgeon right now um you know it's a hard road i'd be dishonest if i told you that if i said anything different about that but i think my favorite analogy i guess is when i think about where i am now versus you know and think about thinking about the path is really like a diamond and what diamonds are formed from right like it's it takes a lot of um a lot of hard work to get here um but and you will you will meet a lot of detractors along the way who tell you that you're not good enough there may be times where you feel um that you don't belong but if you if you maintain that passion for orthopedics and it is what you want to do don't let anything deter you and continue along that path it's a hard road but it's worth it all right and that is a fitting conclusion to the interview cool thank you dr my pleasure my pleasure that is all i have for you and i know there's some orthopedic surgeons in the future um really loving this advice happy to help man

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Id: E1Ts5tAvW8Q

Length: 31min 41sec (1901 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 05 2021