Corona Virus and Stress on the “Front Lines:” Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee Discuss the Ongoing Crisis
Dr. Mistry:
Hello and welcome to the Armor Men’s Health Hour. I’m Dr. Mistry, your host here with my cohost Donna Lee.
Donna Lee:
Hello. Happy Saturday.
Dr. Mistry:
Happy Saturday, everyone.
Donna Lee:
Happy day.
Dr. Mistry:
Yeah, happy days. This is a men’s health show. I’m a board certified urologist. We have a practice and this show was brought to you by NAU Urology Specialists, which is our medical practice started in 2007.
Donna Lee:
Previously North Austin Urology.
Dr. Mistry:
That’s right. We had to change the name. You know, funny names are probably a hallmark of this practice. People have now misspelled my name. I’ve been called Dr. Mystic on some of the, some of the emails.
Donna Lee:
You’ve been called gimmicky because your name is not real. Dr. Mistry can’t be a real name.
Dr. Mistry:
Well, it’s a real name. I’m a real person. I’ve been practicing urology since 2007 here in Austin. And the purpose of this show is to really share our philosophy on urologic practice, men’s health. We like to share a lot of different topics even if they’re not directly related to the urinary or urologic system. And really revel in answering your questions.
Donna Lee:
That’s right. We have a lot of questions every week. So send your questions to armormenshealth@gmail.com.
Dr. Mistry:
Oh my goodness.
Donna Lee:
I wouldn’t change my name. Donna, fabulous.
Dr. Mistry:
Donna Lee: she’s a singer, she’s a comedian, she’s an office manager, HR expert, keeping us all on line.
Donna Lee:
You’re keeping me on my toes with that HR stuff. Remember the patient who said that I keep you on your toes because of the slight comments…
Dr. Mistry:
That’s because of your terrible, terrible, lewd sense of humor.
Donna Lee:
I guess. I didn’t realize I was so lewd on the radio.
Dr. Mistry:
You know, people often ask me why I became a urologist and I always tell them it’s because of the jokes. We are probably the funniest of all the professions.
Donna Lee:
That is absolutely true. And the least boring. So when you come to our office, be prepared for it.
Dr. Mistry:
Be prepared. [inaudible] Well, speaking of that, why don’t you tell people how to get ahold of us.
Donna Lee:
Youc an call us during the week at (512) 238-0762. Our website is armormenshealth.com. And you can also send questions through the website or you can directly send me a question to armormenshealth@gmail.com. We have four locations: Round Rock, North Austin just by Lakeline mall, South Austin at the corner of William Cannon and South Congress, and Dripping Springs, Texas.
Dr. Mistry:
Dripping Springs.
Donna Lee:
The fastest growing County in the country, is Haze County. That’s right.
Dr. Mistry:
It’s incredible out there.
Donna Lee:
It’s amazing. It’s beautiful.
Dr. Mistry:
Well, for those of you listening live, of course, you know about the current coronavirus things going on. And for those of you listening via podcast, maybe…
Donna Lee:
…20 years from now?
Dr. Mistry:
Yeah, maybe 20 years from now. Maybe this is just, your kids wouldn’t even know what happened.
Donna Lee:
Can we put this in a capsule time capsule over recording of the podcast and the people will be like, “What was the Corona virus?” I’m done. I want to go to a restaurant and I want to go shop for something.
Dr. Mistry:
I’m happy to do what I’m doing.
Donna Lee:
Really?
Dr. Mistry:
That’s right. Which is working and hanging out with my family.
Donna Lee:
Oh, that’s sweet.
Dr. Mistry:
But…
Donna Lee:
You do have six children.
Dr. Mistry:
That’s right. It’s a big family, a lot of things going on. You know, the Corona virus has affected the medical community and all of us in some different ways. I thought I’d talk about 2 unique ways today that it affects us. One is directly related to urology and the other one’s related to how it’s been affecting doctors and health professionals. I think we had a question.
Donna Lee:
Well, we do have questions. Which one did you want to talk about? I have Daniel got this spread out…
Dr. Mistry:
The Corona virus and suicides.
Donna Lee:
Gotcha. Okay. I got an email from an anonymous person. She was just forwarding this email to us because you’re a physician, obviously. The title though is alarming: “Physician burnout and suicide exacerbated by Corona virus outbreak.” And I know some of us have seen that very sad story on the news of the doctor in New York, Dr Breen. She had Corona virus, she recovered and then sadly she took her own life. So what are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Mistry:
Well, I think that that question and that listener’s concern really hit home. When I heard of this story this week, it really upset me because although mental illness and suicide and the pressures of life exist always, the specific circumstances of being socially distanced or going into a job in which you’re putting your life at risk when that’s not really what you went into that job for. I mean, it’s, it was a hope to become life saving, not necessarily putting your, your life on the risk, or your life on the line. But I also think that the hospitals and the medical system and society have taken a lot of healthcare workers for granted, really as a sense of a source of cost for so many hospital systems. And I don’t mean patients. I think, I think patients have always been very appreciative and gracious of the service they get. But when you work within a large system, a big hospital system, a big county, you know, public health system, it’s taken for granted that you’re going to be there every day and you’re going to show up to work. And for years I’ve said that the reason that insurers and hospital systems have power over doctors is because they know that ultimately we’re likely to do the right thing. We’re going to take care of the patient no matter what. We’re going to fight for them to get their medicine. We’re going to fight for them to get their surgery. And it’s not because we’re getting paid, it’s because that’s kind of what we feel our duty is to our patients and to society. But there are lots of doctors and nurses who’ve been called off their hospital jobs because, you know, patients are down in the hospitals. The Mayo clinic is for allowing 30,000 people. But then there’s an expectation that, you know, we’re just going to come right back to work. And then that compounded with the terrible tragedies that these doctors are seeing kind of in the front lines in New York. Thank goodness the numbers are going down and things are becoming more manageable, but almost the trauma of a wartime, you know, medical facility for. People that were, that were not trained to deal with that kind of onslaught and then, necessarily, because of how acute the situation is not being able to access mental health facilities and the other support system. So I’m hoping that the health systems, the large hospitals will, you know, remember that the doctors and the nursing staff and the janitorial staff that work there, that is really what your hospital is. It’s not necessarily just the patients that are walking through. It’s the doctors and the medical staff and all the support personnel that make that health system work. And if somebody needed to take a really big financial hit, it shouldn’t have been the doctors and nurses and the, and the poor aides on the floor first that should have been kept on that, you know, as long as possible. Even at the detriment of the health system at the large or the, or the insurance company of whomever. That’s more of a, you know, just my 2 cents on why I think that the physician stress and the stress on the medical system I don’t think is gonna go away soon. Now that Texas is opening up elective surgeries are coming back and the hospitals are opening up a little bit more, there’s incredible pressure to immediately get back to work. You know, this week alone, I probably operated for 12 hours a day every day and that’s going to keep up just to keep up with the backlog for months. And so it’s going to be you know, for our staff here, for our staff at the hospitals. I mean, I’m tireless, so don’t worry about me, but…
Donna Lee:
Superman over here.
Dr. Mistry:
So we’re going to be just fine. But for the staff and all the support personnel, really, thank everyone out there for working so hard on keeping things going. And you know, what really helps people keep things going?
Donna Lee:
Alcohol?
Dr. Mistry:
Testosterone. We’re not a bar, we’re a testosterone [inaudible]. And I just thought I would share another interesting correlate of coronavirus and urology, which is that there is evidence that people who have had a coronavirus infection can have a massive drop in their testosterone level. So although in Travis County and in Williamson County, there’s been less than, you know, 2,000 or 3,000 confirmed cases, there’s likely a lot of cases out there that weren’t tested for. So if you are a man and you suspect that you were, that you suffer from Corona virus, and you think that you may be having persistent fatigue, persistent low libido, or if you think that it may have affected your fertility in some way, it’s certainly, that’s certainly a reason to come by and get a quick evaluation. So the lab test for testosterone is just a quick blood test and a semen analysis can identify your sperm count. And, the testicles of men who’ve had coronavirus showed a very rapid decline in the number of sperm they were having.
Donna Lee:
Oh boy.
Dr. Mistry:
So early on in this crisis, we got a call from a patient who wanted to have their sperm frozen because they had heard this before. And so we arranged for them to get an at home sperm freezing kit. So he was just worried that if he got the Corona that he would become infertile. What an insightful, an insightful move, really.
Donna Lee:
He must be a good husband.
Dr. Mistry:
Yeah. It cost him, I think that home semen, sperm preservation kit, was like $200 bucks and they delivered it to his house.
Donna Lee:
Where do they keep it?
Dr. Mistry:
They keep it in their…it gets sent on, like on dry ice and sent it back to their facilities so they can put it in liquid nitrogen. And it’s a really interesting kind of business model. I had never used the at home because, you know, we have the cryo facilities here in town that we send patients to usually. But it really gave us the option of exploring an interesting and new way to deal with a novel phenomenon of this disease, which is the potential of testis failure.
Donna Lee:
A whole new world.
Dr. Mistry:
A whole new world.
Donna Lee:
Wow, that’s amazing.
Dr. Mistry:
Well, why don’t you remind people how to get ahold of us or send us a question?
Donna Lee:
Call us if you have questions about anything related to urology or even Corona virus. We’ll answer what we can. Our number is (512) 238-0762 during the week. You can also Google us Urology Specialists. You can find our super cute pictures at armormenshealth.com. You can also send an email through that website or to armormenshealth@gmail.com don’t forget our podcasts. They’re amazing and they’re free. Just like every other podcast in the world, you have to pay for a podcast ever?
Dr. Mistry:
I think there are some.
Donna Lee:
Really? Like Joe Rogan. I don’t know Alex Jones, maybe? Ours are free. You can find is where you listen to podcasts, search the Armor Men’s Health Hour anywhere you listen to podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. We’ll be right back.